Factorio Forums

justarandomgeek wrote:

doxsroxs wrote:I might be blind, but are there instructions for how the alphatubes work available anywhere?
Im also wondering if I can switch to the different graphical modes shown in the thread?
Mostly since I want to improve readability.

There should be complete instructions on the mod portal page, abd probably also in the readme on github. This thread is just still hanging around from old versions, despite my repeated attempts to direct everyone to the mod portal for downloads abd github for support. I'm not aware of any alternate graphics that support all the characters required by the current versions.

Thanks for a fast reply, I fount it and tested them. But was surprised to see the alphatubes cannot accept more than one letter.
That is a bit of a showstopper for me. Was hoping they could be combined like the their numbered cousins.

doxsroxs wrote:Was hoping they could be combined like the their numbered cousins.

you mean to display a string on linked alphatubes instead of only single characters ?

there are no strings in factorio, and the problem is the same with colors for lamps (and for nixies): factorio wants to use one signal for one property, eg a red signal to turn a lamp red, and an A signal to display an A. for digits, several of them can be combined in a number which is then transmitted as one signal and "disassembled" into single digits by intelligent linked nixies. but to display a string, you would either need to have hundreds of new signals for a whole dictionary or even library (so that you can set eg a signal with the name "this is a string" to the value 1 :-) or you would need to define how a group of characters is transmitted as a string on a single signal (which is in no way supported now).

i was disappointed too, when they announced that we get programmable colored lamps, and then saw how that is done. i would have hoped for something like having one signal (named eg "color") with its value defining the color of a lamp (eg a nine-digit decimal number RRRGGGBBB with values 0-255 for each component, or a six-digit decimal number RRGGBB with percentage values 0-99 for each component, or at the very least a three digit color code (digits 0,1,2 only) to switch on/off and mix the basic colors). and similar applies for strings, eg using ascii codes to pack as many chars in an integer as can fit. but unless someone invents RGB-codes and ASCII codes in factorio and implements them, we have to live with what we have now.

My computer uses strings in a bit-packed format, and the NixieTerm print attached to splits them for display on Nixies. This is also the same format I'm using for blueprint names in recursive-blueprints, and plan to use for any future mods producing/consuming strings. But alpha nixies are doing plenty of magic already, it's no fun if it's *all* done in lua!

justarandomgeek wrote:My computer

my first reaction: umphhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh (until i was out of air completely) :-)
next i was reminded of my first computer, but yours probably is more powerful :-)

i just loaded up a save (0.13.20) that has nixie tubes (0.2.10) displaying the contents of storage tanks.
they all read 0 until i click on the nixie tube, click < > =, then it displays the amount.
i have the wire going from the tank, to a pole, then into the nixie.
should i wire it another way or is this a bug of some sort?
thanks

impetus maximus wrote:i just loaded up a save (0.13.20) that has nixie tubes (0.2.10) displaying the contents of storage tanks.
they all read 0 until i click on the nixie tube, click < > =, then it displays the amount.
i have the wire going from the tank, to a pole, then into the nixie.

nixie0s.png

should i wire it another way or is this a bug of some sort?
thanks

It generally only updates when the configured condition fails now, to speed things up. I probably missed an edge case where a condition I didn't set is satisfied and prevents it updating.

it's not a big deal, with an easy workaround for now. hope i helped improve your code.

love the mod. thanks again for your time and work into this.

[edit] i loaded that save, and changed game time to x10. while i typed this post the numbers appeared without having to open them.

when I delete this mod and load saved file, all of nixie tubes changed to player characters.
I can't mine them. how can I remove them? they scared me....

GTrak wrote:when I delete this mod and load saved file, all of nixie tubes changed to player characters.
I can't mine them. how can I remove them? they scared me....

Probably too late for you. But you can shoot them.

This mod, and the Agent Orange mod, conflict with the Research Queue mod. Moving the Research Queue to a placeholder folder fixes the problem.

I don't particularly need the Research Queue mod, but it'd odd that these two mods, and only these, conflict with it.

It was this forum post, under Nixue Tubes, that led me to try disabling Research Queue
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/justaran ... sion/10722

Peter34 wrote:This mod, and the Agent Orange mod, conflict with the Research Queue mod. Moving the Research Queue to a placeholder folder fixes the problem.

I don't particularly need the Research Queue mod, but it'd odd that these two mods, and only these, conflict with it.

It was this forum post, under Nixue Tubes, that led me to try disabling Research Queue
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/justaran ... sion/10722

I'll have a look at this this weekend - I hadn't noticed it, because mod portal has no notifications for discussion threads. All bug reports should be going to github.

Sorry, but why do I have to go to the GitHub website to see what the recent changes are? That's not a friendly website. The mobile display also doesn't work, so I have to actively switch it to desktop mode, before I can easily see anything resembling a changelog.

Please document your changes in a more accessible place.



Also, while I'm perfectly happy with normal Nixie Tubes not updating their numbers very often (once per second?), using that for Accu Charge, Fluids Stored and so forth, I think it might be cool to also have a variant set of Nixie Tubes that update very rapidly.

These can be used for certain fun/eye candy effects, such as (if possible) showing the quantity of Ammo left in various turrets (e.g. North Turrets, West Turrets...) as a sort of "Aliens"-style count down. As well as also (if possible) displaying the number of natives within Radar range. Stuff like that. Numbers that change rapidly and where seeing the rapid change (even if readability is compromised) can instill an emotional effect in the player.

Such Fast Nixies would need to update often, 5 or 10 or 20 times per second (thus every 12th or 6th or even 3rd tick), and so it'd still be necessary to have the normal slower-to-update Tubes because one would want to use those when the speedy updates (for cool nerdy drama) aren't needed.

Would I use those much? Certainly not. Might I use them for a few times, in most but not all games? Probably but no promise.

Peter34 wrote:Sorry, but why do I have to go to the GitHub website to see what the recent changes are? That's not a friendly website. The mobile display also doesn't work, so I have to actively switch it to desktop mode, before I can easily see anything resembling a changelog.

Please document your changes in a more accessible place.



Also, while I'm perfectly happy with normal Nixie Tubes not updating their numbers very often (once per second?), using that for Accu Charge, Fluids Stored and so forth, I think it might be cool to also have a variant set of Nixie Tubes that update very rapidly.

These can be used for certain fun/eye candy effects, such as (if possible) showing the quantity of Ammo left in various turrets (e.g. North Turrets, West Turrets...) as a sort of "Aliens"-style count down. As well as also (if possible) displaying the number of natives within Radar range. Stuff like that. Numbers that change rapidly and where seeing the rapid change (even if readability is compromised) can instill an emotional effect in the player.

Such Fast Nixies would need to update often, 5 or 10 or 20 times per second (thus every 12th or 6th or even 3rd tick), and so it'd still be necessary to have the normal slower-to-update Tubes because one would want to use those when the speedy updates (for cool nerdy drama) aren't needed.

Would I use those much? Certainly not. Might I use them for a few times, in most but not all games? Probably but no promise.

This thread is ancient/dead. The current development is on github, as should be discussion. Why do i have to come to the forums (eww, bbcode...) to respond to you?

Nixie tube update speeds are adjustable in mod settings in current versions, you can set them as fast/slow as you like. It isn't really worth it to have different kinds of tubes at different refresh speeds, for the confusion that would cause. (If it weren't for performance, they would all update every tick, the *correct* behavior.)

Peter34 wrote:why do I have to go to the GitHub website to see what the recent changes are? That's not a friendly website.

Because it's the most functional and widely used website for open source software development.

i thought nixie tube mod was dead.

impetus maximus wrote:i thought nixie tube mod was dead.

The mod is very much alive - it gets fairly regular updates on the modportal, which is where you should be looking for mods. The mod forum is dead though! (notice there is no longer a "current mods" section, and this thread is in the ancient 0.12 section.)

justarandomgeek wrote:

impetus maximus wrote:i thought nixie tube mod was dead.

The mod is very much alive - it gets fairly regular updates on the modportal, which is where you should be looking for mods. The mod forum is dead though! (notice there is no longer a "current mods" section, and this thread is in the ancient 0.12 section.)

It is indeed fairly bizarre to click through to a subforum, then a sub-sub-forum, named after a long outdated version of the game, in order to find current mods. People new to Factorio are unlikely to figure that out.

Peter34 wrote:It is indeed fairly bizarre to click through to a subforum, then a sub-sub-forum, named after a long outdated version of the game, in order to find current mods. People new to Factorio are unlikely to figure that out.

No one is supposed to figure it out. This is not the right place to find mods. You get mods from the mod portal.

Peter34 wrote:

justarandomgeek wrote:

impetus maximus wrote:i thought nixie tube mod was dead.

The mod is very much alive - it gets fairly regular updates on the modportal, which is where you should be looking for mods. The mod forum is dead though! (notice there is no longer a "current mods" section, and this thread is in the ancient 0.12 section.)

It is indeed fairly bizarre to click through to a subforum, then a sub-sub-forum, named after a long outdated version of the game, in order to find current mods. People new to Factorio are unlikely to figure that out.

Which is why you go to the mod portal, or the in-game mod browser to find current mods. I don't *want* new users to find this thread, it's ancient. The current Readme, such as it is, is on the mod portal and on github. Bug reports and discussion should go to github (portal works too, but I won't see them as quickly, could be several weeks!) until the new portal arrives and solves all our problems

justarandomgeek wrote:

Peter34 wrote:

justarandomgeek wrote:

impetus maximus wrote:i thought nixie tube mod was dead.

The mod is very much alive - it gets fairly regular updates on the modportal, which is where you should be looking for mods. The mod forum is dead though! (notice there is no longer a "current mods" section, and this thread is in the ancient 0.12 section.)

It is indeed fairly bizarre to click through to a subforum, then a sub-sub-forum, named after a long outdated version of the game, in order to find current mods. People new to Factorio are unlikely to figure that out.

Which is why you go to the mod portal, or the in-game mod browser to find current mods. I don't *want* new users to find this thread, it's ancient. The current Readme, such as it is, is on the mod portal and on github. Bug reports and discussion should go to github (portal works too, but I won't see them as quickly, could be several weeks!) until the new portal arrives and solves all our problems

Bullshit. Google searches find this forum or reddits first for the most part. Keywording ring a bell? The forum titles are irritating at best. Just call it by its name. You are not able to fix the situation by changing the first page, because you are not privileged, nor a decisive entity to do something about it. Instead of "can" or "cant" whats left is you saying "i dont want" lol .
I just found this mod, and it was thru this thread.