, computers.I've been playing factorio for some time now, but I'm new to the combinators.
So tonight I decided to carefully play around with them and design a tile-able early game red science module that loads through the top and has lights that flash when in operation, turn off when the resource belts are empty, and stays green when the resource belts are full. It also has a low power/no power sound alert with flashing map symbol and message if the power is interrupted all in a fairly compact design (well as comfortably compact as I wanted to go).
I don't have a lot of experience with these things and it took me forever to get this working without help and so was wondering if someone could tell me what they think and perhaps give me suggestions on how to improve it?
Any feedback at all would be awesome, Thanks.
DedicatedBear.
Here's the blueprint string for it:
Red Science Module
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DedicatedBear
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Re: Red Science Module
The circuit network is not easy, if you're not used to it. There is much to learn. Don't give up! In the right place a small condition, a single combinator, a single wire can improve the working condition of the factory tremendously, if you just need a little control.
3 remarks:
- You have 4 constant combinators all providing the green color to the lamps next to them. You use the red wire for this, and the red wire is used for nothing else than the color signal. So you can just connect all lamps with red wire and provide the signal by just 1 combinator, saving 3 of the 4 combinators.
- the combinators you use for checking the materials (plates, gears) are just passing through their corresponding signals, if their signal is > 0. Then you check again for > 0 in the corresponding lamps. The same condition. You can just omit these 3 combinators and connect the lamps directly to the input where the combinators get their signals. The lamps get the original signals, turn on or off according to their condition (corresponding material > 0), and that's it. They will ignore any other signal additionally on the wire. You don't need to filter out any other signals. And if the filter within the lamps is sufficient to implement the desired activation condition directly, do it directly, no combinator required.
- the same with the speaker as alarm for low power. You slightly misconfigured the speaker. You feed the speaker a signal of <check> = 1, if there is low power. However, you configured the speaker to use the signal value as pitch, but that's probably not what you want. You just want to play an alarm, if <check> > 0. So uncheck the "signal is pitch" and you get a condition. A condition similar to the lamp activation condition. Enter <check> > 0. The actual pitch can be selected further down in the GUI, if you don't like the predefined one (the musical note F2). And now you probably guessed it: you also don't actually need the combinator and the intermediate <check> signal. Connect the speaker directly to the accumulator and check for power < 20 directly in the speaker.
3 remarks:
- You have 4 constant combinators all providing the green color to the lamps next to them. You use the red wire for this, and the red wire is used for nothing else than the color signal. So you can just connect all lamps with red wire and provide the signal by just 1 combinator, saving 3 of the 4 combinators.
- the combinators you use for checking the materials (plates, gears) are just passing through their corresponding signals, if their signal is > 0. Then you check again for > 0 in the corresponding lamps. The same condition. You can just omit these 3 combinators and connect the lamps directly to the input where the combinators get their signals. The lamps get the original signals, turn on or off according to their condition (corresponding material > 0), and that's it. They will ignore any other signal additionally on the wire. You don't need to filter out any other signals. And if the filter within the lamps is sufficient to implement the desired activation condition directly, do it directly, no combinator required.
- the same with the speaker as alarm for low power. You slightly misconfigured the speaker. You feed the speaker a signal of <check> = 1, if there is low power. However, you configured the speaker to use the signal value as pitch, but that's probably not what you want. You just want to play an alarm, if <check> > 0. So uncheck the "signal is pitch" and you get a condition. A condition similar to the lamp activation condition. Enter <check> > 0. The actual pitch can be selected further down in the GUI, if you don't like the predefined one (the musical note F2). And now you probably guessed it: you also don't actually need the combinator and the intermediate <check> signal. Connect the speaker directly to the accumulator and check for power < 20 directly in the speaker.