Give combinators the highest priority energy consumption

[XKnight]

In the future combinators will be an important part of the game, and one of major unsolved issue with them will be more and more visible.
I am talking about energy consumption, everything which is build using at least one combinator is potentially unstable when factory runs out of energy.

Simple example: read belt contents in pulse mode and accumulate this value in arithmetic combinator.
This simple build will be reliable only if combinator is full powered, otherwise result is unpredictable.

Any build may be reliable if it consists only from combinators, but this is pointless because combinators are designed to control factory.
So, my proposal is to give combinators the highest priority over all energy network (even highest than defense structures), so energy may be consumed by other entities only if all combinators are already fully powered.

Another possible solution is to change energy consumption to zero, a bit cheaty
And the last possible solution, is to slowdown all entities by the same percentage when they don't have enough energy (this means all internal energy buffers also should be removed).

[Colossus]

In my opinion, failure states are something that occur in real life, and as an engineer, I have to design solutions around.

If a module fails in a system, you don't want it to fail in a way that the computer interprets it as still working, you want it to fail so that the computer is aware that the system is offline.

I would prefer that if combinators lose power all outputs drop to 0, and conditions can be built around that. As is, they retain their last output.

[golfmiketango]

In my opinion, failure states are something that occur in real life, and as an engineer, I have to design solutions around.

That's a perfectly legitimate perspective, except that factorio has already crossed that rubicon; lasers are powered ahead of mines, for example, and accumulators do not discharge in order to charge other accumulators. Furthermore prioritization between solar and coal power providers looks to me like it was tuned a certain way in 0.12 and re-tuned a different (more dwim) way for 0.13. If we are having suspension of disbelief problems, we can imagine that these relationships were built into the hardware designs hero constructed (although, in that case, we could further wonder why he didn't make them easier to control).

If a module fails in a system, you don't want it to fail in a way that the computer interprets it as still working, you want it to fail so that the computer is aware that the system is offline.

I would prefer that if combinators lose power all outputs drop to 0, and conditions can be built around that. As is, they retain their last output.

That would be a reasonable failsafe. It really depends on the purpose of the combinator build whether or not it's preferable to fail catastrophically or slow down.

[siggboy]

Another possible solution is to change energy consumption to zero, a bit cheaty

I would strongly prefer this solution. Combinators do not need to consume energy for the game to be balanced.

Complex contraptions can break spectalularly for lack of energy, and there are no tools available to isolate and solve such problems.

Better avoid it entirely by not having the combinators consume any power.

It's also very annoying to find a way to power the larger circuits without the power poles being in the way. That problem would also go away then.

Constant combinators already consume no power (why?), so let's extend this to all three of them.

[golfmiketango]

How about burner combinators that require a coal signal?

[skyman]

Just make better production UI and let us select priority for specific type of devices that use energy to operate.

[BlakeMW]

Another solution would be to give combinators a built in battery to tide them over power cuts and low power. Say a combinator has a 60kJ buffer, which charges at 5kJ, and the combinator draws 1kJ from the battery. Basically a UPS. This is a RL pattern you'll often find, for example in fire suppression systems.

Anyway I suggest this firstly because it's realistic and secondly because energy buffers are already a thing.

With that said: I kind of agree with just having them use no power. There are already no-power circuit setups, for example belts and offshore pumps are active entities that can be controlled by a powerless circuit network, and belts, chests, storage tanks and constant combinators can send a signal without being powered.

[siggboy]

It's simply that the energy usage of combinators is so low, it doesn't even make a dent. Combinators don't ever force the player to do anything about their energy production.

So they might as well use no power at all.

They're also cumbersome enough to handle as it is, so it would be a welcome relief if you won't have to worry about where to place power poles. I like to have free view over my entire circuit, if you have to partially cover it with power poles that's always a little ugly. It would also make it easier to freely arrage the circuit into groups without having to consider energy coverage.

[ssilk]

Hm. Having them use no power is such a valid game-play improvement, that it makes difficult to have objections.

[golfmiketango]

I thought I should mention that I've found an amazing use for combinator's power requirement given the current behavior.

If you make a timer that emits a one-tick pulse every N ticks, and plug this into a power switch, and then isolate a network of combinators on the network powered by the switch, you can observe their behavior tick-by-tick. That is, the current system provides a way to debug combinator builds by slowing them down to arbitrary speed. I should probably make a "show your creations" post about it -- this was one of those "this changes everything!" discoveries that seem to abound in advanced factorio gameplay.

[Deadly-Bagel]

Combinators are pretty basic things, easy enough to say they work mechanically rather than electronically. It would certainly make them a lot more reliable, only other way of doing so is having an isolated network for them but the way power is designed this isn't necessarily simple to plan or maintain (as it's easy to accidentally link it to your main power grid). Something like every memory and high-impact circuit would need to have a separate power network and you'll then want to surround it with striped concrete so you know not to place power poles there.

This isn't so much creating interesting gameplay as it is making the player jump through hoops for reliability.

For true reliability we still need to ensure that signals passed to inserters and the like need to be fulfilled properly if they aren't powered so it's not like it still wouldn't have puzzles to solve.

[OdinYggd]

I like the idea of the combinators having an internal UPS provision sufficient to run them for a day or two in-game time. That would make them immune to brief blips in power caused by lasers firing for instance, and by the time their internal power actually does run out you would probably have long since noticed that your factory is starved for energy and needs more power to continue.

Of course simply removing the power requirement entirely is also a valid option, and one that would open up new possibilities by way of simplifying the requirements for using them. They probably are an electromechanical entity instead of a purely electronic one, based on the switching speed. I actually can't rationalize why the output stays on when not powered- even in an electromechanical solution that holds the contacts down mechanically you still need power coming from somewhere for it to send a meaningful signal.

[Deadly-Bagel]

For constant combinators yes but otherwise they are only passing on the signals they received, just in different forms. Kind of like how you don't need to power a headphone splitter or something.

[golfmiketango]

For constant combinators yes but otherwise they are only passing on the signals they received, just in different forms. Kind of like how you don't need to power a headphone splitter or something.

There is already precedent in the game for ignoring power requirements in order to facilitate gameplay. We have conveyor belts capable of moving train cars and intelligent resource routers (splitters) that keep track of the items they are allocating in order to ensure fairness, and I could go on, none of which require power or even the occasional cleaning.

I think the real distinction at work is that combinators are a late-game item and late-game items generally require power unless they are "fusion" devices made from cotton candy.