I don't get the point of traffic monitors

[Kauldric]

I get I can set to monitor a given flow, but esp. during early game, your factory will back up because some particular line is full (ex: full container) and so throughput will slow but it's fine.

What we need is to monitor "are there empty spaces in the belt". Slow throughput == fine. Empty spaces == not fine.

Is that even possible or what do people actually use traffic monitors for?

[Dashiell]

Traffic monitors allow you to monitor belt flow on any planet so you can put them before exporting ILS and setup to alarm you when there's no material on belt which will spare you from figuring out where your sudden bottleneck comes from, or even you will solve problem before lack of materials stops your production.

[Kauldric]

How do I prevent the alarm going off when the ILS is full?

[Omniconda]

you can set for belt empty., so it will not alarm if the flow rate isnt met but the belt is full.

they are good for power monitoring on distant planets. if your shipping in fuel cells you get a warning the power gets cut.

tho the main use in game is in sandbox when you want to test builds you can make them generate or destroy items at the set rate to test build effciency

[pemmons1]

Installing a traffic monitor. I first change the < to >, which seems more intuitive. That is, success = flow > 0 (or whatever number you set with the slider). Then failure can be either no flow unconditionally, no flow with traffic on the belt, or no flow without traffic. I usually use them for situations where a product and a by-product (typically hydrogen) are both produced. I've never tried using traffic monitors for the kind of fine-tuning you describe. If I did, i'd probably be besieged by constant notifications, and determining the location of a failure warning is difficult enough as it is . This aspect of the game needs a little more work, at least enlarging the selection of icons accompanying a warning. But if you wish to try it, Factoriolab or a little math should show you what a row of machines should consume and produce, and you can set the sliders accordingly.

There is usually nothing wrong with empty spaces on an output belt. You want to be sure that every machine has space to output its product. If the final result is a completely full belt, you are liable to incur eventual "product overflow" in at least one machine. I can see the utility of checking for empty spaces in an input belt-- but again, you're really interested in a certain adequate flow rate, which is knowable and you can set the slider in the traffic monitor accordingly with fail-no traffic as the warning trigger.

[Slartibartfast]

I thought it was just a creative musical instrument since you can adjust the tone. When I'm a planet or star system away I don't need em. Maybe that 57hz tone can be set to relax you.

If there was some actual logic circuits they could be potentially useful. I think there is some remote balancing available which makes them redundant.

[josmith7]

"Fail and no cargo" alarm setting is good for alerting you that supplies of something has run out.

If the factory backs up then there will be cargo on the belt; and so it won't set the alarm. Only if the condition fails (and > 0 is a common one for me) AND there are empty spots on the belt will it announce an issue.


I'll use that on miners, to let me know when all their veins are exhausted; or on fuel belts to warn me before the power plant actually runs out of fuel that there's a fuel supply problem.

[Kauldric]

Sorry I'm feeling very dumb. I don't quite understand how to configure it so it will alarm only when there's empty spaces in the belt. When belt is packed, I'm good.

[Savahnya]

If I understand you correct you want to get an alarm when the production stops due to failure in the production chain, but not when it's because the storage is filled. I use that for all my matrices since I want to be alerted when the production fails but not because the ILS is filled.

My settings are as follows.

Monitor settings
Cycle = 60 seconds
Target flow = 0
Condition = "not equal to" (don't know how to write that on the keyboard, just google the sign)
Item filter = the item you want to monitor

Alarm setting
Global alarm = Fail and no cargo
Speaker alarm = None (optional of course)

If I knew how to paste a picture it would be easier to show but I don't know how to do it.
Hope it's what you're looking for.

[Kauldric]

Originally posted by Savahnya:

If I understand you correct you want to get an alarm when the production stops due to failure in the production chain, but not when it's because the storage is filled. I use that for all my matrices since I want to be alerted when the production fails but not because the ILS is filled.

My settings are as follows.

Monitor settings
Cycle = 60 seconds
Target flow = 0
Condition = "not equal to" (don't know how to write that on the keyboard, just google the sign)
Item filter = the item you want to monitor

Alarm setting
Global alarm = Fail and no cargo
Speaker alarm = None (optional of course)

If I knew how to paste a picture it would be easier to show but I don't know how to do it.
Hope it's what you're looking for.

Thank you! Let me try this

[josmith7]

Originally posted by Kauldric:

Sorry I'm feeling very dumb. I don't quite understand how to configure it so it will alarm only when there's empty spaces in the belt. When belt is packed, I'm good.

To clarify, the monitor will go always red if the belt traffic fails to meet the set condition. (So if you have it set to traffic > 0 and the full belt stalls for the entire duration of a monitor period then the monitor will go red)

But the actual global alarm (or audio alarm; though I never use those) which appears at the top of your screen has additional options. It doesn't have to go off just because the test condition failed (and the monitor went red).

Here's what the wiki says about the alarm settings:
A Traffic Monitor's alarm has a setting to determine when the alert will go off. The options for when to trigger the alert are:

None - No alert can trigger.
Fail - The alert triggers when the Traffic Monitor's status is Fail.
Pass - The alert triggers when the Traffic Monitor's status is Pass.
Pass cargo - The alert triggers when the Traffic Monitor's status is Pass, and at least 1 item passed through the Traffic Monitor within the last cycle.
No cargo - The alert triggers if no items passed through the Traffic Monitor within the last cycle.
Fail and pass cargo - The alert triggers when the Traffic Monitor's status is Fail, and at least 1 item passed through the Traffic Monitor within the last cycle.
Fail and no cargo - The alert triggers when the Traffic Monitor's status is Fail, and no items passed through the Traffic Monitor within the last cycle.

[Kauldric]

Originally posted by josmith7:

Originally posted by Kauldric:

Sorry I'm feeling very dumb. I don't quite understand how to configure it so it will alarm only when there's empty spaces in the belt. When belt is packed, I'm good.

To clarify, the monitor will go always red if the belt traffic fails to meet the set condition. (So if you have it set to traffic > 0 and the full belt stalls for the entire duration of a monitor period then the monitor will go red)

But the actual global alarm (or audio alarm; though I never use those) which appears at the top of your screen has additional options. It doesn't have to go off just because the test condition failed (and the monitor went red).

Here's what the wiki says about the alarm settings:
A Traffic Monitor's alarm has a setting to determine when the alert will go off. The options for when to trigger the alert are:

None - No alert can trigger.
Fail - The alert triggers when the Traffic Monitor's status is Fail.
Pass - The alert triggers when the Traffic Monitor's status is Pass.
Pass cargo - The alert triggers when the Traffic Monitor's status is Pass, and at least 1 item passed through the Traffic Monitor within the last cycle.
No cargo - The alert triggers if no items passed through the Traffic Monitor within the last cycle.
Fail and pass cargo - The alert triggers when the Traffic Monitor's status is Fail, and at least 1 item passed through the Traffic Monitor within the last cycle.
Fail and no cargo - The alert triggers when the Traffic Monitor's status is Fail, and no items passed through the Traffic Monitor within the last cycle.

Oh I see! This makes way more sense, thank you