Allowing reading machine input, output, & trash slots separately, or read fuel without rest of contents

[macdjord]

That is, in fact, exactly what I wanted and suggested with respect to fuel! Now we just need separate checkboxes for reading inputs, outputs, and trash.

It's actually not needed for any of the use case you mentionned though and there would be no way to read 3 distinct value from only from 2 wires colors , how do you expect a kovarex enrichment to be different if the suggestion is implemented ? Or if one measure the "input" and the "fuel" on 2 different wire, how are you going to read the trash slot on top of that ?

The point isn't to read them separately on different wires - that would be very useful, but making the per-wire ticks apply separately to each input and output rather than to all inputs and all outputs is a separate suggestion. The point is to be able to read one category while not reading the others. For example, smart Kovarex loading would be a lot simpler if I could read how much U235 was in the input slots without also reading how much is in the output slots.

[mmmPI]

It's actually not needed for any of the use case you mentionned though and there would be no way to read 3 distinct value from only from 2 wires colors , how do you expect a kovarex enrichment to be different if the suggestion is implemented ? Or if one measure the "input" and the "fuel" on 2 different wire, how are you going to read the trash slot on top of that ?

For example, smart Kovarex loading would be a lot simpler

By "not needed" i meant exactly that. It's possible at the moment to realize (all) the use-case you mentionned even without the suggestion.

You say "it will be simpler", but i meant "in practice", how are you going to make use to the "output slot" and the "trash slot" , is there even any difference ?

It appears to me that when you do a kovarex enrichment, you want the centrifuge to run 100 % of time, and for this you just need to have them with a buffer of 80 "good uranium". When crafting that will represent 40 already loaded for next craft to make sure no delay, and 40 being used as ingredient for the current craft. As soon as the craft finishes, the 40 "in crafting" gets moved to the output slot, and the 40 pre-loaded "disappear", but there's still roughly 80 in the machine. Then when the output slot is getting emptied, the input slot is refilled, to keep 80 at all time in the centrifuge. It's basically only 1 wire preventing the input of "good uranium" on one inserter when the centrifuge has more than 80 uranium.

Even if you could read the output slot, and the trash slot or whatever the difference, there would just be no reason to do so that i can tell for the purpose of a kovarex enrichment, it would make things "more complicated" not "more simple" to try and use them it seems to me. This is why i asked the question, how would you use it ? what would be the difference ? , or if you prefer , "how is it going to make it ""simpler"" ?

[Alfonse215]

It appears to me that when you do a kovarex enrichment, you want the centrifuge to run 100 % of time, and for this you just need to have them with a buffer of 80 "good uranium". When crafting that will represent 40 already loaded for next craft to make sure no delay, and 40 being used as ingredient for the current craft. As soon as the craft finishes, the 40 "in crafting" gets moved to the output slot, and the 40 pre-loaded "disappear", but there's still roughly 80 in the machine. Then when the output slot is getting emptied, the input slot is refilled, to keep 80 at all time in the centrifuge. It's basically only 1 wire preventing the input of "good uranium" on one inserter when the centrifuge has more than 80 uranium.

As an addendum, if "smart kovarex" means having no buffer and accepting some downtime (in exchange for more quickly getting output U-235), just reading the machine + current crafting and not inserting U-235 if the storage is >= 40 is enough to achieve that. In this scenario, you don't have a buffer of 40 U-235 waiting (if you did, then putting that buffer in the machine would always be better), so you need to wait for the output inserters to swing to bring the outputs to the inputs. And that's plenty of time to see that there's less than 40 U-235 in the machine and thus to get started inputting.

[mmmPI]

As an addendum, if "smart kovarex" means having no buffer and accepting some downtime (in exchange for more quickly getting output U-235), just reading the machine + current crafting and not inserting U-235 if the storage is >= 40 is enough to achieve that. In this scenario, you don't have a buffer of 40 U-235 waiting (if you did, then putting that buffer in the machine would always be better), so you need to wait for the output inserters to swing to bring the outputs to the inputs. And that's plenty of time to see that there's less than 40 U-235 in the machine and thus to get started inputting.

Agreed, in a situation ealier game, where you want to make the most of your "only" 80 U-235, you'd rather have them inside 2 different machines than used to make sure the one machine has no downtime. In this case, barring some stacksize shenanigans, you only keep "40" in each centrifuge, you can read the ingredient "in crafting" too and feed them only if U-235 < 40.

The "no-down time" approach on the machine would be more importnt when you have your first few legendary modules centrifuge or beacons, but also in general, if you have an array of machines with downtime, it's inefficent, the array could have been smaller, or produce more. Anyway In both case i feel the logic is just a wire on the input inserter , it's less complicated than the biochamber feedback loop which needs nutrient. That would be objectively "worse" also for the consequences to have a disfunctionnal design. Overall i don't think the solution would make things "easier", rather it would allow "different things" , to solve "different" problems than those from the game, ( self-imposed challenges / mods / ... ).

[macdjord]

It appears to me that when you do a kovarex enrichment, you want the centrifuge to run 100 % of time, and for this you just need to have them with a buffer of 80 "good uranium". When crafting that will represent 40 already loaded for next craft to make sure no delay, and 40 being used as ingredient for the current craft. As soon as the craft finishes, the 40 "in crafting" gets moved to the output slot, and the 40 pre-loaded "disappear", but there's still roughly 80 in the machine. Then when the output slot is getting emptied, the input slot is refilled, to keep 80 at all time in the centrifuge. It's basically only 1 wire preventing the input of "good uranium" on one inserter when the centrifuge has more than 80 uranium.

As an addendum, if "smart kovarex" means having no buffer and accepting some downtime (in exchange for more quickly getting output U-235), just reading the machine + current crafting and not inserting U-235 if the storage is >= 40 is enough to achieve that. In this scenario, you don't have a buffer of 40 U-235 waiting (if you did, then putting that buffer in the machine would always be better), so you need to wait for the output inserters to swing to bring the outputs to the inputs. And that's plenty of time to see that there's less than 40 U-235 in the machine and thus to get started inputting.

In my case, "smart kovarex" means both: when I'm getting started, I want each centrifuge to only buffer 40 U235, including the active crafting; everything beyond that should go off down the belt, so that the centrifuges down the line can build up their own required 40-unit buffers in order to start working. Then, once everybody is up to 40, I want to switch each one to buffer 80 total, so that they can run continuously; once they fill that buffer, future production goes down the belt to actually be used for fuel cells or what-have-you.

I'll admit, in retrospect, part of the issue for me is that I use Bob's Inserters, so I can have an inserter transfer U235 from the centrifuge's output to its input directly; I'm sure you can see the utility in this case in being able to read the contents of the input slot while excluding the output. If I were using a more conventional setup, with separate output and input inserters, then being able to distinguish them would be less important.


Also: reading the trash slots has nothing to do with Kovarex; that is more relevant for things like auto-malls which need to switch recipes a lot, since full trash slots can block circuit-controlled recipe changes.

[Alfonse215]

It appears to me that when you do a kovarex enrichment, you want the centrifuge to run 100 % of time, and for this you just need to have them with a buffer of 80 "good uranium". When crafting that will represent 40 already loaded for next craft to make sure no delay, and 40 being used as ingredient for the current craft. As soon as the craft finishes, the 40 "in crafting" gets moved to the output slot, and the 40 pre-loaded "disappear", but there's still roughly 80 in the machine. Then when the output slot is getting emptied, the input slot is refilled, to keep 80 at all time in the centrifuge. It's basically only 1 wire preventing the input of "good uranium" on one inserter when the centrifuge has more than 80 uranium.

As an addendum, if "smart kovarex" means having no buffer and accepting some downtime (in exchange for more quickly getting output U-235), just reading the machine + current crafting and not inserting U-235 if the storage is >= 40 is enough to achieve that. In this scenario, you don't have a buffer of 40 U-235 waiting (if you did, then putting that buffer in the machine would always be better), so you need to wait for the output inserters to swing to bring the outputs to the inputs. And that's plenty of time to see that there's less than 40 U-235 in the machine and thus to get started inputting.

In my case, "smart kovarex" means both: when I'm getting started, I want each centrifuge to only buffer 40 U235, including the active crafting; everything beyond that should go off down the belt, so that the centrifuges down the line can build up their own required 40-unit buffers in order to start working. Then, once everybody is up to 40, I want to switch each one to buffer 80 total, so that they can run continuously; once they fill that buffer, future production goes down the belt to actually be used for fuel cells or what-have-you.

Couldn't you just have all of the centrifuges listen to a single communal value? And then, when the final centrifuge first begins a cycle, that value gets switched from 40 to 80? The core logic is the same either way: insert no more than 40|80 items in the machine, whether inputs, outputs, or in-crafting.

I'll admit, in retrospect, part of the issue for me is that I use Bob's Inserters, so I can have an inserter transfer U235 from the centrifuge's output to its input directly; I'm sure you can see the utility in this case in being able to read the contents of the input slot while excluding the output. If I were using a more conventional setup, with separate output and input inserters, then being able to distinguish them would be less important.

But you don't have to do it that way. You don't have to have one inserter that's both input and output. You can just have more than one, and the build is completely functional.

[macdjord]

It appears to me that when you do a kovarex enrichment, you want the centrifuge to run 100 % of time, and for this you just need to have them with a buffer of 80 "good uranium". When crafting that will represent 40 already loaded for next craft to make sure no delay, and 40 being used as ingredient for the current craft. As soon as the craft finishes, the 40 "in crafting" gets moved to the output slot, and the 40 pre-loaded "disappear", but there's still roughly 80 in the machine. Then when the output slot is getting emptied, the input slot is refilled, to keep 80 at all time in the centrifuge. It's basically only 1 wire preventing the input of "good uranium" on one inserter when the centrifuge has more than 80 uranium.

As an addendum, if "smart kovarex" means having no buffer and accepting some downtime (in exchange for more quickly getting output U-235), just reading the machine + current crafting and not inserting U-235 if the storage is >= 40 is enough to achieve that. In this scenario, you don't have a buffer of 40 U-235 waiting (if you did, then putting that buffer in the machine would always be better), so you need to wait for the output inserters to swing to bring the outputs to the inputs. And that's plenty of time to see that there's less than 40 U-235 in the machine and thus to get started inputting.

In my case, "smart kovarex" means both: when I'm getting started, I want each centrifuge to only buffer 40 U235, including the active crafting; everything beyond that should go off down the belt, so that the centrifuges down the line can build up their own required 40-unit buffers in order to start working. Then, once everybody is up to 40, I want to switch each one to buffer 80 total, so that they can run continuously; once they fill that buffer, future production goes down the belt to actually be used for fuel cells or what-have-you.

Couldn't you just have all of the centrifuges listen to a single communal value? And then, when the final centrifuge first begins a cycle, that value gets switched from 40 to 80? The core logic is the same either way: insert no more than 40|80 items in the machine, whether inputs, outputs, or in-crafting.

It's not the switching of the target value that's the hard part of the setup. Usually I do it manually by adjusting the parameters on one centrifuge-and-inserters setup, then copy-pasting it to all the others. The changeover only ever happens once in the lifetime of the Koavarex setup, and by the time I'm ready to expand to a substantially bigger one, I've got enough U238 stockpiled to populate all the centrifuges with 80 right out of the gate.

I'll admit, in retrospect, part of the issue for me is that I use Bob's Inserters, so I can have an inserter transfer U235 from the centrifuge's output to its input directly; I'm sure you can see the utility in this case in being able to read the contents of the input slot while excluding the output. If I were using a more conventional setup, with separate output and input inserters, then being able to distinguish them would be less important.

But you don't have to do it that way. You don't have to have one inserter that's both input and output. You can just have more than one, and the build is completely functional.

No, I don't have to do it that way. So what? The point of this isn't how to solve this particular problem; it's giving an example of a use-case where being able to read a machine's inputs without also getting its outputs would be helpful.

[mmmPI]

I'll admit, in retrospect, part of the issue for me is that I use Bob's Inserters, so I can have an inserter transfer U235 from the centrifuge's output to its input directly; I'm sure you can see the utility in this case in being able to read the contents of the input slot while excluding the output. If I were using a more conventional setup, with separate output and input inserters, then being able to distinguish them would be less important.

No, not even then can i see the utility. You necessarily have another inserter that will be used to extract the refined uranium, and this inserter can be wired to the centrifuge to only be active when the total amount of uranium exceed 40 at first, so that the excess uranium is fed to the next centrifuge in the lane but not starve the first one. And once all your centrifuge have uranium, you can bump this number to 80 so that you don't have any down-time on the centrifuge. You can do that by reading a belt at the end of the array for uranium and connecting it to a decider that adds another 40 to the threshold for extracting uranium from the centrifuge in the condition of all the inserters.

The bob mod inserter that self-feed the centrifuge is made to be active only when uranium is inferior to 40 at first, and 80 later, the opposite as the inserter that take the uranium out.

You necessarily have yet an additionnal inserter to add the initial uranium in the setup ( and the 238), which can also stop being active, or use filter to avoid overfilling the centrifuge.

It appears to me quite well documented throughout the internet that you can do those "smart kovarex" setups in game with current tools, there are plenty blueprints around, and they were made without Bob's inserter mods, which if anything to me, just adds a lot of options and flexibility, it confirm to me that it is part of a self imposed challenge and/ or related to a mod. But here the mod is NOT offering a difficult recipe that forces you into some weird setup, the mod offers optionnal tools which you appears to have made your challenge to use in a certain way for the "smart kovarex". It appears possible, but even if it wasn't the case, it would just mean that you made a mistake trying to use inappropriate tools for a challenge that can be solved with those that are in the game already.

But you don't have to do it that way. You don't have to have one inserter that's both input and output. You can just have more than one, and the build is completely functional.

It's even worse i feel, you CAN'T do it without additionnal inserter for input at least for the U-238 and if you want an auto-start and not init each machine in the array it will load some U-235 too, and you CAN'T do it without additionnal inserter for output, otherwise the U-235 will stockpile in the centrifuge. You NEED at least 3 inserter total if you use a bob's inserter to transfer from output to input none of them needing to make a difference between "content of a machine in the input or output or trashslot" for the setup to function.

[mmmPI]

No, I don't have to do it that way. So what? The point of this isn't how to solve this particular problem; it's giving an example of a use-case where being able to read a machine's inputs without also getting its outputs would be helpful.

Again , how would that be helpful "in practice" ? How do you plan to use it ? which inserter you connect ? which conditions ?

You can already do the task "smart kovarex" the way you describe without the suggestion in vanilla and with bob's inserter. How is that a use case for the suggestion ? it's more a counter-productive argument imo

[macdjord]

*sigh* Yes, you can do it with the current circuit options. I did eventually get it working (modulo it sometimes buffering a couple more U235 than strictly needed) myself. I'm sure all you Very Smart People would have instantly seen this correct setup, and not gone through a couple iterations that didn't work like I did.

You know what? Never mind. "There are some recipes which both input and output the same item. It would be nice if the circuit network had some way to actually tell the difference." That is the only thing that matters to my actual proposal.