Friday Facts #189 - Specifying the 1.0

[wwdragon]

I just discovered that in .15.9, construction drones are unable to pick up corner tracks.

They were all inside the green construction area, but only the straight and connecting bits on the curves were picked up.

[Lav]

I just discovered that in .15.9, construction drones are unable to pick up corner tracks.

They were all inside the green construction area, but only the straight and connecting bits on the curves were picked up.

If it's a bug, it's better to post a new thread in bug reports forum, devs will notice it faster that way.

[seePyou]

I like the idea of blueprint play very much! Will look forward to this scenario!!!

[Compboy]

This needs to be in the new FF

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyZ0EAemLq0

[Tricorius]

Sorry for the confusion I was trying to summarize a previous suggestion I made (viewtopic.php?f=6&t=38496). This feature is not in the game now and running cables for distant outposts is a chore and would make this more difficult. Basically what this boils down to is that train management in this game is too basic.

I was unsure whether or not to resurrect that thread or post it here, but you can already do several of the things in your suggestion without mods. I'm not trying to criticize you here, I'm just trying to help you (and others) have fun.

You have 10 iron mining outposts. You can name them all Iron Mine, and they will only show up as a single stop in the scheduler window, which reduces clutter. You can set it so that each train is only available as a stop by just wiring the chests at that stop to the stop, so trains will only bother showing up if they can be fully loaded (station is enabled if it has more than 6k iron ore, etc.). You don't need any long distance circuit connections, just the area around the stop. Each train only needs 2 stops then, Iron Mine and Iron Unloading. They will automatically only pick ones where they can fully fill themselves from. You could even have different iron unloading stations scattered around that it will only stop at if they need iron. If you had a huge train network you could subdivide and have "Iron Mine West" as a subgroup if going to any iron mine would result in a lot of excess travel.

You have a supply train that delivers supplies to various outposts. The Train has two stops, its loading station, and a Station named "Supply". All you have to do is build a new station, rename it to "Supply", set up a simple logic circuit from the chest/logistic network of the stop that flags the station as a stop if it's missing any of the supplies it needs, though you can also make that logic decision into just a blueprint, so all you'd need to do is use the blueprint, then rename the station. The Supply train just hangs out at the headquarters then unless there's any station that needs supplies, in which case it will automatically go to that station, drop off what supplies it needs and then go back home. The only disadvantage is that it would have to go home after every stop. You could make it automatically visit multiple stops before going home, but then it may be lacking supplies by the time it got to the later stops.

Interesting Idea. I will have to try that. It doesn't exactly solve the same issues I am trying to solve, but it does alleviate some. For example, if I want it to grab resources in real time, it won't unless there is enough at one outpost. Also It will favor closer outposts until they get exhausted or severely slow down in production before it goes to further outposts. I like balancing the mining from each outpost.

Having said all that though, I like your suggestion and I think it will make it easier and more enjoyable for me to play with trains. Thanks for sharing .

How can I flag a station as a supply stop if it's missing resources based on filter inserters connected to the logistics network at the outpost. I have the inserters unloading from the train to passive providers if a quantity of an item is less then a value I set on the inserter. Can I reuse this limit? I would hate to have to redefine the limits again.

Also is there a way to set a constant combinator for eg. to how many of each good I want and have the train stop enabled based on that, and also have the filter inserters respect those amounts too? Ie. right now I have 2 stack filter inserters unloading 12 unique items into 12 passive providers per wagon. Is there an easier way to do this that's less configuring and micro managing?

I handle resupplies (and "trash pickup) thusly:

Make a train as long as you need it to contain everything. Load it up with filtered cargo wagons.

At the outpost create as many provider chests as needed. Add a roboport nearby set to read network.

Create a constant combinator (or multiples). Configure it with your minimums.

Create an arithmetic combinator. Wire it's input up as the combined output of the constant combinators. Set its output to everything*-1. Wire the roboport and the output of the previous negation combinator to a power pole. You will now see negative or positive values based on what the outpost has in chests vs needs from the combinators.

Wire filter inserters (taking from the trains and placing into the chests) up to the poles. Set the to get filters from the network. The filters will now cycle through what is needed by the outpost. (Filling the chests as needed, as items are consumed, etc.)

Wire up the train station to enable the stop if anything > 0 (meaning something has been used and is now below threshold). The supply train will automatically head out. The filter inverters will properly unload the needed items. The station will disable itself when the chests are full of required materials.

If you name *all* resupply stations with the same name, you can blueprint all of that and all you need to do after stamping it is to rename the station (I agree that I'd like blueprints to retain the station name).

Sorry. It is late and that wasn't described well. Please take a look at this:

viewtopic.php?p=196162#p196162

The only difference I do in 0.15 is to enable/disable the station if goods are needed.

[Albrat]

The green tint was perfecly fine; it was easy to see everything and it was a colour based way to tell the day/night cycle.

I (and many others, hence the change) disagree with you on that one. I personally just didn't bother with night vision before, as it was so green.

Maybe a setting in options, ranging from "none green" to "munchkin land" would be nice, so we can choose for ourselves.

I actually think there is a mod out there that allows you to tweak the tint of the nightvision. So modders already tackled this issue.
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/kingarthur/nightvision

That was the mod I was thinking about. you can edit the file data.lua and increase the g=0 to something more green to make your night vision more green than it is. Since the mod has no dependencies it should work fine in 0.15 even though it was written for 0.14, it is just a data value change to adjust the nightvision tint.

[factoriouzr]

Sorry for the confusion I was trying to summarize a previous suggestion I made (viewtopic.php?f=6&t=38496). This feature is not in the game now and running cables for distant outposts is a chore and would make this more difficult. Basically what this boils down to is that train management in this game is too basic.

I was unsure whether or not to resurrect that thread or post it here, but you can already do several of the things in your suggestion without mods. I'm not trying to criticize you here, I'm just trying to help you (and others) have fun.

You have 10 iron mining outposts. You can name them all Iron Mine, and they will only show up as a single stop in the scheduler window, which reduces clutter. You can set it so that each train is only available as a stop by just wiring the chests at that stop to the stop, so trains will only bother showing up if they can be fully loaded (station is enabled if it has more than 6k iron ore, etc.). You don't need any long distance circuit connections, just the area around the stop. Each train only needs 2 stops then, Iron Mine and Iron Unloading. They will automatically only pick ones where they can fully fill themselves from. You could even have different iron unloading stations scattered around that it will only stop at if they need iron. If you had a huge train network you could subdivide and have "Iron Mine West" as a subgroup if going to any iron mine would result in a lot of excess travel.

You have a supply train that delivers supplies to various outposts. The Train has two stops, its loading station, and a Station named "Supply". All you have to do is build a new station, rename it to "Supply", set up a simple logic circuit from the chest/logistic network of the stop that flags the station as a stop if it's missing any of the supplies it needs, though you can also make that logic decision into just a blueprint, so all you'd need to do is use the blueprint, then rename the station. The Supply train just hangs out at the headquarters then unless there's any station that needs supplies, in which case it will automatically go to that station, drop off what supplies it needs and then go back home. The only disadvantage is that it would have to go home after every stop. You could make it automatically visit multiple stops before going home, but then it may be lacking supplies by the time it got to the later stops.

Interesting Idea. I will have to try that. It doesn't exactly solve the same issues I am trying to solve, but it does alleviate some. For example, if I want it to grab resources in real time, it won't unless there is enough at one outpost. Also It will favor closer outposts until they get exhausted or severely slow down in production before it goes to further outposts. I like balancing the mining from each outpost.

Having said all that though, I like your suggestion and I think it will make it easier and more enjoyable for me to play with trains. Thanks for sharing .

How can I flag a station as a supply stop if it's missing resources based on filter inserters connected to the logistics network at the outpost. I have the inserters unloading from the train to passive providers if a quantity of an item is less then a value I set on the inserter. Can I reuse this limit? I would hate to have to redefine the limits again.

Also is there a way to set a constant combinator for eg. to how many of each good I want and have the train stop enabled based on that, and also have the filter inserters respect those amounts too? Ie. right now I have 2 stack filter inserters unloading 12 unique items into 12 passive providers per wagon. Is there an easier way to do this that's less configuring and micro managing?

I handle resupplies (and "trash pickup) thusly:

Make a train as long as you need it to contain everything. Load it up with filtered cargo wagons.

At the outpost create as many provider chests as needed. Add a roboport nearby set to read network.

Create a constant combinator (or multiples). Configure it with your minimums.

Create an arithmetic combinator. Wire it's input up as the combined output of the constant combinators. Set its output to everything*-1. Wire the roboport and the output of the previous negation combinator to a power pole. You will now see negative or positive values based on what the outpost has in chests vs needs from the combinators.

Wire filter inserters (taking from the trains and placing into the chests) up to the poles. Set the to get filters from the network. The filters will now cycle through what is needed by the outpost. (Filling the chests as needed, as items are consumed, etc.)

Wire up the train station to enable the stop if anything > 0 (meaning something has been used and is now below threshold). The supply train will automatically head out. The filter inverters will properly unload the needed items. The station will disable itself when the chests are full of required materials.

If you name *all* resupply stations with the same name, you can blueprint all of that and all you need to do after stamping it is to rename the station (I agree that I'd like blueprints to retain the station name).

Sorry. It is late and that wasn't described well. Please take a look at this:

viewtopic.php?p=196162#p196162

The only difference I do in 0.15 is to enable/disable the station if goods are needed.

This is what I have already done as well. It works pretty good, but it still suffers from lack of flexibility. I have to hard code one filter inserter and one chest at the outpost for each item. Same at the base for loading. I would love if there was a way to set in a constant combinator what I want (I already did exactly what you describe with the negative numbers), but I would like to be able to unload everything I want with 1 inserter If I want or as many as I choose. Unfortunately all ideas have issues. Such as not being able to cycle through the constnat combinator item by item (it requires multiple combinators 5 at a time or so), which I don't want to maintain, I like it better in 1-3 combinator instead of 20-30. The other ideas also have other issues such as filling up the passive provider chest at the outpost and not being able to unload other goods.

[Tricorius]

Sorry for the confusion I was trying to summarize a previous suggestion I made (viewtopic.php?f=6&t=38496). This feature is not in the game now and running cables for distant outposts is a chore and would make this more difficult. Basically what this boils down to is that train management in this game is too basic.

I was unsure whether or not to resurrect that thread or post it here, but you can already do several of the things in your suggestion without mods. I'm not trying to criticize you here, I'm just trying to help you (and others) have fun.

You have 10 iron mining outposts. You can name them all Iron Mine, and they will only show up as a single stop in the scheduler window, which reduces clutter. You can set it so that each train is only available as a stop by just wiring the chests at that stop to the stop, so trains will only bother showing up if they can be fully loaded (station is enabled if it has more than 6k iron ore, etc.). You don't need any long distance circuit connections, just the area around the stop. Each train only needs 2 stops then, Iron Mine and Iron Unloading. They will automatically only pick ones where they can fully fill themselves from. You could even have different iron unloading stations scattered around that it will only stop at if they need iron. If you had a huge train network you could subdivide and have "Iron Mine West" as a subgroup if going to any iron mine would result in a lot of excess travel.

You have a supply train that delivers supplies to various outposts. The Train has two stops, its loading station, and a Station named "Supply". All you have to do is build a new station, rename it to "Supply", set up a simple logic circuit from the chest/logistic network of the stop that flags the station as a stop if it's missing any of the supplies it needs, though you can also make that logic decision into just a blueprint, so all you'd need to do is use the blueprint, then rename the station. The Supply train just hangs out at the headquarters then unless there's any station that needs supplies, in which case it will automatically go to that station, drop off what supplies it needs and then go back home. The only disadvantage is that it would have to go home after every stop. You could make it automatically visit multiple stops before going home, but then it may be lacking supplies by the time it got to the later stops.

Interesting Idea. I will have to try that. It doesn't exactly solve the same issues I am trying to solve, but it does alleviate some. For example, if I want it to grab resources in real time, it won't unless there is enough at one outpost. Also It will favor closer outposts until they get exhausted or severely slow down in production before it goes to further outposts. I like balancing the mining from each outpost.

Having said all that though, I like your suggestion and I think it will make it easier and more enjoyable for me to play with trains. Thanks for sharing .

How can I flag a station as a supply stop if it's missing resources based on filter inserters connected to the logistics network at the outpost. I have the inserters unloading from the train to passive providers if a quantity of an item is less then a value I set on the inserter. Can I reuse this limit? I would hate to have to redefine the limits again.

Also is there a way to set a constant combinator for eg. to how many of each good I want and have the train stop enabled based on that, and also have the filter inserters respect those amounts too? Ie. right now I have 2 stack filter inserters unloading 12 unique items into 12 passive providers per wagon. Is there an easier way to do this that's less configuring and micro managing?

I handle resupplies (and "trash pickup) thusly:

Make a train as long as you need it to contain everything. Load it up with filtered cargo wagons.

At the outpost create as many provider chests as needed. Add a roboport nearby set to read network.

Create a constant combinator (or multiples). Configure it with your minimums.

Create an arithmetic combinator. Wire it's input up as the combined output of the constant combinators. Set its output to everything*-1. Wire the roboport and the output of the previous negation combinator to a power pole. You will now see negative or positive values based on what the outpost has in chests vs needs from the combinators.

Wire filter inserters (taking from the trains and placing into the chests) up to the poles. Set the to get filters from the network. The filters will now cycle through what is needed by the outpost. (Filling the chests as needed, as items are consumed, etc.)

Wire up the train station to enable the stop if anything > 0 (meaning something has been used and is now below threshold). The supply train will automatically head out. The filter inverters will properly unload the needed items. The station will disable itself when the chests are full of required materials.

If you name *all* resupply stations with the same name, you can blueprint all of that and all you need to do after stamping it is to rename the station (I agree that I'd like blueprints to retain the station name).

Sorry. It is late and that wasn't described well. Please take a look at this:

viewtopic.php?p=196162#p196162

The only difference I do in 0.15 is to enable/disable the station if goods are needed.

This is what I have already done as well. It works pretty good, but it still suffers from lack of flexibility. I have to hard code one filter inserter and one chest at the outpost for each item. Same at the base for loading. I would love if there was a way to set in a constant combinator what I want (I already did exactly what you describe with the negative numbers), but I would like to be able to unload everything I want with 1 inserter If I want or as many as I choose. Unfortunately all ideas have issues. Such as not being able to cycle through the constnat combinator item by item (it requires multiple combinators 5 at a time or so), which I don't want to maintain, I like it better in 1-3 combinator instead of 20-30. The other ideas also have other issues such as filling up the passive provider chest at the outpost and not being able to unload other goods.

Hmmm. If you use "set filter" on a standard purple filter inserter, it can unload up to five types of needed goods. The filter is only set to a good if it has a positive value in the circuit network.

So as long as your chest doesn't fill up a single inserter should do it.

Loading is trickier due to jamming though. So on the load side I generally have a separate requester chest per good type to load.

In my outposts I generally 2 constant combinators in the circuit network filled with the counts of what I want. These are added to the negated contents of the roboport network. The network is then tied to a purple inserter set to "set filter" from the cable carrying the results of that calculation.

At that point any item in the system with a positive value gets the filter set. The inserter film's the chest with one of those items until it has added enough to drop that value to zero (thus deactivating the filter and allowing another good to be set) This continues until the chest is full or the train is empty.

I can unload everything I need at an outpost with as many combinations as I need for all the items and a single purple inserter and chest per train car. It doesn't work well with stack filters since they only have one available filter slot which makes it harder for the logic to cycle through all set items.

[ratchetfreak]

Hmmm. If you use "set filter" on a standard purple filter inserter, it can unload up to five types of needed goods. The filter is only set to a good if it has a positive value in the circuit network.

So as long as your chest doesn't fill up a single inserter should do it.

Loading is trickier due to jamming though. So on the load side I generally have a separate requester chest per good type to load.

In my outposts I generally 2 constant combinators in the circuit network filled with the counts of what I want. These are added to the negated contents of the roboport network. The network is then tied to a purple inserter set to "set filter" from the cable carrying the results of that calculation.

At that point any item in the system with a positive value gets the filter set. The inserter film's the chest with one of those items until it has added enough to drop that value to zero (thus deactivating the filter and allowing another good to be set) This continues until the chest is full or the train is empty.

I can unload everything I need at an outpost with as many combinations as I need for all the items and a single purple inserter and chest per train car. It doesn't work well with stack filters since they only have one available filter slot which makes it harder for the logic to cycle through all set items.

With the override stacksize option it shouldn't jam, it's slower but that's fine for items you only need a single stack for.

[Tricorius]

Hmmm. If you use "set filter" on a standard purple filter inserter, it can unload up to five types of needed goods. The filter is only set to a good if it has a positive value in the circuit network.

So as long as your chest doesn't fill up a single inserter should do it.

Loading is trickier due to jamming though. So on the load side I generally have a separate requester chest per good type to load.

In my outposts I generally 2 constant combinators in the circuit network filled with the counts of what I want. These are added to the negated contents of the roboport network. The network is then tied to a purple inserter set to "set filter" from the cable carrying the results of that calculation.

At that point any item in the system with a positive value gets the filter set. The inserter film's the chest with one of those items until it has added enough to drop that value to zero (thus deactivating the filter and allowing another good to be set) This continues until the chest is full or the train is empty.

I can unload everything I need at an outpost with as many combinations as I need for all the items and a single purple inserter and chest per train car. It doesn't work well with stack filters since they only have one available filter slot which makes it harder for the logic to cycle through all set items.

With the override stacksize option it shouldn't jam, it's slower but that's fine for items you only need a single stack for.

Hey! I didn't think about that. I'm going to try doubling up a few of the requester chests in the base loading side now. Speed doesn't really matter to me for my engineering trains as they aren't used that often anyway.