Factorio Forums

TL;DR
Your idea in one sentence. Pictures are more worth than words.

Allow a 4th option when wiring a belt to count the number of belts being read in this hold-all-belts section.

What?
I would like it to be possible to output the number of currently read belt pieces as a signal for use in combinators.

It may be possible to incorporate this into the hold-all-belts option itself, so that it outputs both all the items AND say, Signal with the number of belts connected.

Why?
This would be handy for controlling sushi belts for example on space platforms, where you often make a sushi belt of asteroid chunks. While I can read the belts to find how many of each chunk I have, I don't want to put any back on until I have less than NUMBELTS * 4 total on there already, as that is one half of the belt filled up.

This would make expanding circuit controlled builds easier, as then recounting the belts to hard code a value is no longer necessary.

Or output "Items per segment (all belts)"

I want this feature. So found this thread. Would love Wube to add it to their interface.

However I did find a plugin: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/read-belt ... belt-count It works well enough for me to use it for now.

I must admit I probably would never use this even if it were in the game. The reasons are that once built, a belt doesnt change size unless you change it and secondary converting that number into a number of slot would need some more calculation (more combinators) to convert to slots and then allow an anticlog allowance.

I would however find a the information you ask for very useful if it where displayed in the inspectors window at the left for a belt when you hover the mouse pointer over a hold-all belt segment. That at least would save the fill it until it clogs step to find out much much it can hold.

In the end all I want is some numbers I can type into a constant combinator. For me this isnt one number but 3 or 4 numbers depending on how many asteroid types I am collecting and what ratio I roughly want them in. If I know I will be needing vastly more carbon than anything else, well I may have corresponding higher ratio of carbon on the sushi belts. My promethium collector keeps alot of sushi belt space free for promethium collection to speed that up as much as reasonable. With all that I wonder about the run-time usefulness of such a feature and cannot imagine ever using it.

Still, adding it wont harm anyone's build if they don't want to use it.

There's one chore I keep running in to, often when it comes to setting up "sushi belts": Counting (or roughly estimating) total belt capacity.

It would be great if there was an option to "Read total belt stack capacity" (for the hold all belts area).
This would return how many stacks would fit within the "hold" belt area, if it was completely at maximum capacity.

Subtracting items already on the belt (and optionally multiplying for stacks) to calculate "leftover empty spots" would be trivial from that point, and it would also not be too difficult to allocate capacity to items at specific ratios by adding a few arithmetic combinators.

Of course, you can do this manually by stuffing belts until they jam or multiplying straight belt locations by 8 or 32 -- but when dealing with lots of corners and underground belts, it becomes a very annoying chore, so it would be amazing if we could read the capacity value with a wire.

Duplicate of Allow belts to output the count of the belts attached that are in read-hold-all-belts.