Factorio Forums

hey,

just a minor trick I wanted so show you. this is a design I shall use on my ore/oil outposts.



origin: I do not want to use electric network of my base for outposts and I shall not deliver steam to outposts with trains either, instead my outposts shall have this single NuclearReactor. in the screen you see a black train station (military support) which shall be activated only when outposts requires sth or has sth to send (for example used fuel cells) except ore/oil. I do not want to put a timer on trains like 5min but instead my military trains shall rush to the outpost station if enabled (something is needed). one example is delivering back the fuel cell. the circuit shall be simple, if there is anything to deliver back or sth needed then the station will be active and trains shall be deployed.

problem: used fuel cell. it shall be created once every 200sec. I do not want my train to rush to outpost for a single fuel cell. instead I want it like if it is over N then activate it. although it can be solved by check UFC > 50 it shall be a problem when loading to train (it can drop to 49 and station shall be disabled which I want to avoid for other reasons). above design is just an alternate solution to the problem.

anyway, basically what I need is a SR latch. if used fuel cell hits the magical limit then empty the bucket (make a train call). but SR latch is complex for this simple problem.

solution: above yellow belt loop. NR shall put an item every 200 sec and it shall be put on belt but blue belt splitter shall always prioritize on right input & left output. the belt in front on left shall check the chest (logistic network, could be circuit network). it shall stop if there is "any" in chest/logistic network. at this point all of the used fuel cells shall be sent to right since left is stopped. it shall fill the chest until the chest is emptied. in my design they shall be put into another chest to fill the train wagon which shall keep the train station active anyway. yellow belt loop shall continue as it is once the chest is empty.

the bucket size is the belt count in circle x4, around this value (can be made double by putting another splitter to use both lanes). it can be activated earlier of course but the blue belts spread the density and make space for the new comer item to prevent that. rarely it happens on a lower number but I have seen it happens on bucket at least half empty (bucket I call is the buffer in yellow belts). once belt lane is full then it shall empty the bucket for sure and until the train comes, all of the new items shall be put on chest.

other beneficial places: kovarex (u-235) or items you want to limit count to prevent a production line stop without a SR latch. (in my example it is equivalent to a SR latch of max 60, min3, there shall always 3 remaining on left belt which is fine)

Deliver hot steam from the main nuclear plant is most efficient way how to deliver energy to a distant outpost.
Dont understand why you can not.


Anyway, there is far simple solution to the probelm you created for yourself. Enable station only when needed.
Set enable Station signal when Used fuell cell in a box>50
Set enable Station signal when Rail signal for a station is red. (e.g. when a train is in, station is enabled )

It is done by two wires and one rail signal which you use anyway.

That is beautiful use of the given tools. There's a lot of ways to make logic operations without using combinators. Its is a very visual artistic way of programming.

A simple belt latch wouldn't be much more complex imo (and even perform with 4 yellow belts in this situation), and further simplify the entire chain as you could store cells directly in a chest along the rails. Note that it requires manual priming (inserting the "bit").

gGeorg wrote: Sun Nov 22, 2020 9:08 am Deliver hot steam from the main nuclear plant is most efficient way how to deliver energy to a distant outpost.

Worth a quote for any who reads along unaware of steam trains; The actual application of it (on custom maps) always exceeded my expectations. With the current game performance steam trains are a very viable way of outpost energy distribution imo (only requiring turbines on outposts has its benefits).
But for OP it is clearly defined beyond the scope. Fact is that nuclear fuel cells are the most dense way of transporting energy. And steam trains require a "somewhat" solid rail network and "a bit" of capacity from it.

T-A-R wrote: Tue Nov 24, 2020 10:56 pm But for OP it is clearly defined beyond the scope. Fact is that nuclear fuel cells are the most dense way of transporting energy. And steam trains require a "somewhat" solid rail network and "a bit" of capacity from it.

You need water. As long as 1 unit of water transform into 1 unit of steam, is better to deliver steam. Assume your mining outpost is surrounded by bug nests so some distant water pipe is not a solution.

However, in our world, water expands like 20 times (correct me) to create a turbine-ready steam. On top, steam is not consumed but turned back to water ( plus some waste) so lets imagine new rule, Boiler turn 1 water into 20 steam, then Turbine convert 22 steam into 1 water and energy. Then I would rather move water plus fuel.

I assumed water availability since a nuclear reactor is used. Efficiency and reliability are different factors.
For example one could also measure how long a outpost can stay online independent, in case of a jammed/wrecked rail network.

Belt readers dont care bout power failure so they are a reliable choice in controlling power related logistics compared to combinators. The botnet on the other hand:/ Theoretically (beyond practical) combined with circuit wire connected burner inserters to handle automatic rebooting In case of blackout due to a deadlock of used fuel cells inside the reactor.
Steam unloading stations require backup power for the fluid pumps when rebooting is considered.

Its all about the goals and boundaries you set for yourself.

gGeorg wrote: Sun Nov 22, 2020 9:08 am Deliver hot steam from the main nuclear plant is most efficient way how to deliver energy to a distant outpost.
Dont understand why you can not.

I did this for my 2.4k 0.16 base. the train traffic was stupidly high. I changed to centralized power but bugs ate my poles, also rails, many things crumbled. only solution left was to eradicate all bugs. game became quite bland then. neither I knew combinators good enough, nor we had the train station limit feature back then. all my five steam train would rush to same outpost and that game had around 40 outposts / 260ish trains. now you say deliver steam? bah, never again.

that station you see not only delivers nuclear fuel, but also a ton of other things: military stuff, repair, artillery turret ingredients and other things. it is not visible but there is a complex section on train station in image where all of the needed parts are calculated and a demand is created. if demand becomes "true" then station is activated. train is sent back immediately when that demand is "false". simple X>Y would not work in my case. I needed a SR latch and I did not want to put three combinators just for that.

I know I made the rules complex but that is the fun for me.

T-A-R wrote: Wed Nov 25, 2020 3:17 am For example one could also measure how long a outpost can stay online independent, in case of a jammed/wrecked rail network.

that is the very critical part and also disadvantage of steam powered outposts. it was my major problem in my initial base. if you did not build such a base you would not know the train traffic. bugs would eat rails, attack trains, creating jams. trains got stuck, bad signalling or even eaten signals and outposts died due to low power. with water and uranium fuel outpost can stay for a very long time. a single stack of uranium fuel cell and water source can give you a very long time of energy and even further you can store it in tanks.

water is not a problem, I use mods.

there are many other aspects why I choose this method over simple solutions like eff-1 modules, clearing bugs entirely and many other things. now I use mods and they change game a lot.

it all depends how you want to play the game I guess. use what you want if you think steam powered outposts is better.

rhynex wrote: Tue Dec 08, 2020 7:20 pm all my five steam train would rush to same outpost and that game had around 40 outposts / 260ish trains. now you say deliver steam?

You see problem one : many . Well, it is possible to transform to one to one. Make a buffer on outpost, like 8 steam tanks. Then set one train per outpost to wait until empty on outpost. Then come back to pwr plant to reffill and immediate leave. That way, most trains spend their time waiting on outpost. Waiting train consume very few UPS. With latest train limit feature, there are even more options.
Also help use free space in outpost for solar panels with no battery. That way you get max power income per area. I also use dual head train, two loco - one way. Such train has enough pull power to push behemot away and continue.

rhynex wrote: Tue Dec 08, 2020 7:20 pm it all depends how you want to play the game I guess. use what you want if you think steam powered outposts is better.

It is fun to design them. For a reason you said. Once you eradicate bugs, it is boring. Check upcoming game Riftbraker. Action oriented like factorio in the superb graphics.