Factorio Forums

I love factorio, and I think I've mastered all the gameplay concepts except circuits. I'm 500+ hours in and currently doing a SE run. I've spent a few /hours/ today trying to do this semi-basic task using circuits and I can't figure it out. I really really struggle with circuit logic and I think there are some game improvements that could be made to make this much easier. I'm a programmer by trade so - maybe I'm over complicating things or... I've read faqs and posts and I just keep getting more confused. I still don't understand how to use combinators or even really how they are *supposed* to work, other than some bizarre manifestation of basic boolean logic. Factorio seems to be missing some troubleshooting tools for circuits. Anyway, rant over. Here's my stumper:

I have 2 liquid containers - I'll call them A & B, and I have 2 pumps, I'll call them X & y. I want to enable both pumps if the contents of either containers are less than a certain level. In pseudo code I would do:

if ( a < 100 || b < 100 ) then enable X and enable Y.

Suggestions apprecited!

Two deciders combinators, one with A as input one with B, each gets its relevant condition, both output S=1, both output wires combined and connected to both pumps. Pump condition is S>0.

If a and b are different liquids then it's very easy:
Connect all of them with red wire and set the pumps to start if "anything<100" no combinators needed.

Debugging: connect your output to a power pole then you can see the signal

ambbma wrote: Mon Aug 28, 2023 3:11 pm I'm a programmer by trade

factorio circuits are closer to... well... circuits than programming, even though they operate on 32 bit ints.

if ( a < 100 || b < 100 ) then enable X and enable Y.

you need to rewrite that in a way combinations can handle; each decider and device can only test one condition/comparison.

ambbma wrote: Mon Aug 28, 2023 3:11 pmFactorio seems to be missing some troubleshooting tools for circuits.

Since the most simple solution has already been proposed by Nosferatu, I will only answer to this. There are multiple debugging helpers for circuits.

• You can connect any circuit to a power pole. Move the mouse over that pole and you see the signals.
• In the details of an entity connected to a circuit network, you see to what networks this entity is connected to. Move the mouse over the red or green network number: you see the signals on that network.
• To see the signals going in and out of a combinator, hold the mouse over the combinator; you see it in the info tab on the right of the screen.
• to single step each tick, switch the map to editor mode by using /editor in the console. In the map editor menu that appears, switch to the time tab where you find start/stop/single step/accelerate/decelerate functions; there are also hotkeys for this.

Nosferatu wrote: Mon Aug 28, 2023 3:51 pm If a and b are different liquids then it's very easy:
Connect all of them with red wire and set the pumps to start if "anything<100" no combinators needed.

Debugging: connect your output to a power pole then you can see the signal

i think it's cool but if one of the liquid run dry, it may happens that it get stuck because one is 0 and one is full the "anything <100" would not trigger, so i would add 1 constant combinator with signal of both liquid and value 1 to that red wire, to make sure the signals are always present to be under 100 and not 0.

ambbma wrote: Mon Aug 28, 2023 3:11 pm Suggestions apprecited!

the power pole to read value + /editor, to enter the editor mode and slow time to tick by tick are good tools. using lamps too, to control simple things, having a lamp flash, potentially with a color to avoid looking at dozens of power poles to find the values.

also sometimes the "simpler" things you can think of are complex using the circuits , while when experimenting with the combinators without real purpose, you only have to find game situation to utilize the behavior you discovered, which is easier such as the fact that things connected with the same color of wires shares the same values, which are summed up. ( this is why the liquid needs to be different ).