Allow entities to use conditions even when not connected to the circuit network

SuperBananaBomb · Post by **SuperBananaBomb** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 5:24 am

TL;DR

Some entities like inserters, belts, assemblers can benefit from using conditions with themselves, without any other connected entity. There are certain applications for this like in the examples below. Current workaround: add a dummy entity that does nothing just to enable the circuit network, e.g. a display panel. Connecting to an arbitrary entity nearby is not always desirable due to space restrictions or signal leaks.

What?

Unlike Logistic connection, Circuit connection can't be enabled with 0 wires.

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1) Belt stopping when specific item is on top.

- I have a belt and I want the belt to pause in front of inserters in order for items to be picked up without leaking through.
- Sometimes it is convenient to connect the belt with the inserter, but if the inserter is itself connected to the circuit network with Hold for other reasons (like knowing what items are in the system at all times), this won't work, as the belt will pause when the Inserter picks any item.
- Need a dummy display panel for each piece of belt, since using just one for all of them would cause the belts to cross-contaminate each other.

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2) Inserter self-filtering

- I want to output stacked items on a belt, but the source can contain several items.
- I don't want the stack inserter to be stuck waiting for items if there are fewer than 16 in the chest.
- A solution to this is to have the inserter use "Hold" to send a signal to itself, and then Set Filter + Blacklist. This will cause the inserter to drop items even if not reaching full capacity.

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3) I want to pause as assembler when too many of an expensive item are made

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Post by **boskid** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 6:49 am

Main reason why this is not going to happen is that right now a wire is needed because it creates a circuit network to which an entity can send signals and a tick later it can receive signals. If there is no wire, then there is no circuit network and so entity would be unable to receive its own outputs. This can be observed by having a green and red wire connected at the same time: in that case self outputs will be seen twice by input conditions, or by having a ghost entity next to it with a ghost wire connected which makes this entity to not work properly.

Second reason is that this would create some weird corner cases with backwards compatibility because some options were not disabled by default, for example a default value of "enable/disable" in 1.1 was that to be enabled, and if you happened to connect a wire and later removed to such entity back in 1.1 then it would have this option enabled but inactive due to lack of wires but with this proposal such entity would become controlled by enable/disable.

I am not seeing this feature to be interesting enough to risk breaking existing saves and breaking consistency of circuit network (having to send values from output to input without a circuit-network-less way), breaking visual feedback of having circuit connector visible when entity is controlled (currently based on presence of a wire), and it has a super simple intuitive workaround of just adding extra wire.

SuperBananaBomb · Post by **SuperBananaBomb** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 10:01 am

Instead of having no wire, how about a loopback wire that connects the entity to itself and forms a circuit network?
This would still retain the wire like currently existing >=2 entity circuit networks, and generalize them to >=1. Also, it is explicitly opt-in, so wouldn't break existing bases.

The second reason can also be addressed with a Connect checkbox like the Logistic connection.

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Post by **Koub** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 10:39 am

For completeness, a limited version of this suggestion was made previously here : viewtopic.php?t=121279

Amarula · Post by **Amarula** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 1:41 pm

SuperBananaBomb wrote: Mon Dec 08, 2025 10:01 am Instead of having no wire, how about a loopback wire that connects the entity to itself and forms a circuit network?

I like the idea of being able to connect an entity to itself, the way you can loopback a combinator. I don't think it would make sense for it to happen automatically, it would be something the player chooses to add. Trying to do it with a wire seems error prone, it is hard enough clicking on the different ends of the combinator, or forgetting I have a circuit wire in hand. Clicking on the circuit network icon and enabling it the same way you can now attach to the logistic network would be easy and consistent.

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