Signal control/monitor for improved control of platform speed

[Khazul]

TL;DR

1. Add signal support to thrusters to read:
Fuel amount and Oxidizer amount

3. Add a signal to the platform hub to enable specific determination of thrust paused/automatic state.

2. Add signal support to thrusters to control:
A mean to precisely and immediately control the thrust amount or fuel consumption rate - one of, no need for both. Dont mind the units - but in either case, a percentage (0-100 with 0 being off) is probably easiest. Otherwise could be actual fuel consumption rate which may be more in keeping with the underlying design of thrust vs efficiency.

4. Add a signal to platform hub to set the paused/automatic state.

What?

The use case for this is controlling the speed in a much more responsive manner than is currently practical (or even possible). For example, I have a ship that monitors its different ammo consumptions to get an idea of what sizes of asteroids it is facing and uses this information (as well as ammo consumption vs production rate) to slow the ship down from its default speed to a slower speed to give it time to destroy asteroids. I also precisely control (via a PWM controller circuit) the fuel delivery, however this is imprecise and requires assuming the internal invisible state of the thrusters with respect to fuel. Additionally there can be considerable lag between cutting fuel delivery rate and the unknown amount of fuel the thruster falling to a low enough level for the speed to sufficiently reduce so ideally a more direct method of control and more complete monitoring is desired.
Additionally while attempting to control fuel delivery it is also useful to know if thrust is active avoid excessively filling the thrusters, therefore it is desirable to be able to know the travel state of the platform, specifically a means to read the pause/automatic state.

Why?

From the discord, I get the impression there are many people trying a variety of method to control the speed and/or fuel efficiency of their platforms via circuits. A considerable part of the design challenge in factorio is circuits and adding full signal monitoring and control to thrusters and more complete monitoring adds to the mechanisms available for more advanced players to engage with as well as the possibility of more satisfying results of one's platform designs.

[bullipatty]

+1. had the same idea. alternatively, if the thrusters would be part of the pipe segment and had the same fill, we could read from a connected tank and use a pump to separate segments, similarly to how it works with accumulators and power switches.

[credomane]

You can already mosly do this. Circuit wire up some pumps to the platform hub. Set the hub to "read current speed as V" then set pumps to enable when "V < 100". It will launch with max thrust (because thrusters are full) then slow down and maintain roughly 100 km/s speed. That is the most basic method. You can wire up combinators for more complex control. My platforms take slightly longer while traveling but they are ready to launch again soooo much quicker.

I saw one platform designed for the shattered planet trip that would entirely cut off fuel to the thrusters if the supplies got too low.

[Tinyboss]

Have you tried using a fluid tank between the pump and thrusters, and using circuits to maintain a desired level in the tank? The higher the tank level, the faster the fluid will flow into the thrusters, and vice-versa. It may even flow out of thrusters into the tank if the tank level is lower. I haven't tested that, though.

With a pump in and a pump out, it should be pretty responsive, *much* more so than direct pump-to-thrusters which in my experience always overfills by a lot before your speed changes enough to trigger the pump to turn off.

[bullipatty]

You can already mosly do this. Circuit wire up some pumps to the platform hub. Set the hub to "read current speed as V" then set pumps to enable when "V < 100". It will launch with max thrust (because thrusters are full) then slow down and maintain roughly 100 km/s speed. That is the most basic method. You can wire up combinators for more complex control. My platforms take slightly longer while traveling but they are ready to launch again soooo much quicker.

I saw one platform designed for the shattered planet trip that would entirely cut off fuel to the thrusters if the supplies got too low.

that is what i'm already doing, that makes the thrusters fill entirely while waiting at the planet and then dash right into large asteroids.

[bullipatty]

Have you tried using a fluid tank between the pump and thrusters, and using circuits to maintain a desired level in the tank? The higher the tank level, the faster the fluid will flow into the thrusters, and vice-versa. It may even flow out of thrusters into the tank if the tank level is lower. I haven't tested that, though.

With a pump in and a pump out, it should be pretty responsive, *much* more so than direct pump-to-thrusters which in my experience always overfills by a lot before your speed changes enough to trigger the pump to turn off.

it doesn't flow back into the tank... if the thruster volume was part of the pipe segment it would work yes...

[thoorium]

Adding a way to read the automatic/paused thrust state of the platform would complete any setup where speed is automatically configured via reading the speed of the platform and pumps to control thrust fuel. Without this, when a platform is paused, pumps just fill the thrusters without control.

[credomane]

that is what i'm already doing, that makes the thrusters fill entirely while waiting at the planet and then dash right into large asteroids.

You might need more defense then. You can still try this thread out. Basically solved the efficiency problem on thrusters. Which also makes your platform move a little slower. And it doesn't fill up the thrusters when the platform is idle either.

118009

[Tinyboss]

You might need more defense then. You can still try this thread out. Basically solved the efficiency problem on thrusters. Which also makes your platform move a little slower. And it doesn't fill up the thrusters when the platform is idle either.

Depending on the number of thrusters and the desired fuel level, their initial burst of engines-full speed could be very large. So their defenses now could be perfectly adequate if the engines are prevented from filling while idle.

I really need to set that up on my ships, too.

[bullipatty]

You might need more defense then. You can still try this thread out. Basically, solved the efficiency problem on thrusters. Which also makes your platform move a little slower. And it doesn't fill up the thrusters when the platform is idle either.

118009

thanks, but I'm pretty good circuits myself. the problem with that build is written below in that post. "Read Moving From" and "Read Moving To" read wich route the ship is already on including orbits, not on wich it is supposed to be, so it's rather useless.

i could also make another layout with more combinators that fills the thrusters a little at the end of each trip to ensure it can hop from the planet, but i feel like it's not worth it. it feels like working on implementation instead of specification and from experience that's 99% time waste, cause i'll have to or i'll want to fix it as soon as the underlying implementation is changed...


and about the current implementation, there is literally symbols for routes in the game already...
but start and target for whatever reason effectively read the location instead of... well target and start... and then outputs it as different planets instead of a just a signal for the route...

sending a location as a single signal that represents the route and sending the actual start and target planet the ship started from and wants to go to at the end, would make much more sense.


if i hadn't been about 100% sure there is no stable and nice solution I wouldn't have come here.