Special signal: deconstruction

[Green Cat]

As i was picking up some miners (quality drain = i want to use them somewhere else) for a small ore pach, there i needed to pick up the chest as well while at it or just ignore them i realised, why can't we automate this?

So the ideea is simple but still complicated and involved the decision combinator.

The simple set up is 1 combinetor that is connected to all miners, chest, and so on (no, won't do train station, just add a programable speaker to let you know when a train station does NOT get any more ores and just use the deconstruction planer), so the advantage is that only one combinator and no hassle. The disadvantage is that this means nothing will happen until everything IS empty.

The other version, is, to conect a few to one, if not one by one (no clue where the combinator will fit but this is not an issue with the big miner's large range), but each time the miner is empty, as well as the chest, both will be marked for deconstruction automatically, INCLUDING the combinator itself. Since the whole point is to automaise deconstruciton.

The "how to tell" is very simple and aready exist in game. You connect a wire to a miner that has to read it's own patch (not the whole, but yeah, that is also possible) and the chest that also has "read content". Once both are 0, aka the anything signal = 0, then the combinator will send this special signal that is not even a signal, it will just mark itself, as well as any miner and chests it has as an output, as "deconstruction".

So again, the output, is not a real signal, but who this will affectec. As an exemple, a wired connecting the output of the combinator to the imput of the combinator, might be how "it's marking itself for deconstruction" will work.

And of course, this include anything the combinator is linked to. Like i have uranium ore. It runned out, and then the combinator will send the "deconstruction" for any it is linked, like: Liquid tank (since i don't care if it's empty or not), train stations (so no more fluid trains and uranium pick up), all the miners, the pumps (extra steps to ensure no liquid unload), inserters and, if it's possible (via the read whole belt), the whole belt. Issue is that this might require a 3rd circuit wire just to ensure no overlaps, no issues, no nothing. Aka this 3rd circuit wire will NOT send any circuit signals in any way or form, it's there just to "connect" what will be marked as deconstruciton, IF the conditions set in the combinator are met. Like this, we can also connect the combinator to itself (please make this automatically if this "special signal" is selected) so that it will automatically mark for deconstruciton. Also another reason why a 3rd wire, is to make things easy. like a new button to make this wire invisible (similar to how the train blocks and underground pipe color line works), will be very important since we don't want to see wieres and cables everywhere.

And of course, this ideea can be used in so many more ways. You have an outpost where you are just doing quality farming from the very start (aka the miners), well like this, the outpost will be deconstructed once everything is done, and you can just focuse on redirecting the items. Just to make it clear, i assume you used a blueprint that has everything set up, so the outpost will be "cleared" except for rails, walls, and such, so once you need to manually clear the area, mining and belt releted stuff are aready ready to be picked up by a train or whatever.

Plus this would work very well with the recycle

Let's say you hoarded tons of items for whatever reason no one know. So you want to recycle them but don't wish to create a permanent place OR monitore it.

Well, once agian, same ideea, and just 1 single combinator needed. The imput the combinator recieves is that of anything or everything. Once that is 0 (aka everything got recycled.... Do NOT forget to use Read whole belt, and maybe even inserter hand, since otherwise you'll deconstruct something with items on belt), everything, including the belt and recycle and i guess train station, and of course, itself, will be marked for deconstruction. Meaning you set it up once, and, aside from the train track, you don't need to monitore anymore, you don't need to check when it finished, you actually can forget about it because, except for the train track, everything will be deconstructed on it's own once it's finished with whatever you made it do.