Red wires

[Tungsten Whitmarsh Cadow]

I successfully used the red wires for something useful today for the first time since April.

Then I ran into a more complicated problem. I have a chest that needs four different items. The red wire only lets you set limits on one item as far as I can see. I want the inserter to grab something out of another chest if any of the four items is running low. Is there a way to do that?

I tried hooking up the same chest and inserter to green wires but I didn't get another item to set limits to. Is this where I'd use a constant combinator?

I put up an image
https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/5dvnqn/i_wanted_to_keep_a_minimum_number_of_each/

[KatherineOfSky]

Wire transmits information between two points. It doesn't control the number of items.

If you want an inserter to operate on certain conditions, you can set those via the inserter... or if in the case that you want a filter inserter to transfer multiple items, use Decider combinators. Set the condition, then send the signal of the item you want the inserter to pick up. On the inserter, choose to "set filter to signal" (or similar text -- not in game atm to check).

Set up as many deciders as you have items.

[Tungsten Whitmarsh Cadow]

How do I run the wires? Is it from decider to pole and inserter to pole and chest to pole? Or is it some other way?

How do I take the wires off the pole?

[KatherineOfSky]

Originally posted by SugarySnax:

How do I run the wires? Is it from decider to pole and inserter to pole and chest to pole? Or is it some other way?

How do I take the wires off the pole?

Poles are merely used to extend the distance of the wire -- you can direct connect anything together if you want. (And make sure you see the in/out arrows for the deciders (input vs ouput signals).

Removing wires is somethng funky like Alt-Click or Alt-RtClick.

[Tungsten Whitmarsh Cadow]

I found it. If you want to take down red wires you hold red wire in your hand and you click on the thing you want to disconnect and then you click on the other thing that wire is connected to.

The tutorial I was watching showed him using smart chests and smart inserters. I don't have any of those. This is very complicated stuff for a game. I'm surprised they don't have an extensive tutorial for this stuff. Do most people just skip it and wait for roboports? Seems like a lot less mess headaches but at the same time it looks like you can do some very creative and interesting things with this stuff.

I guess what I'm asking is does your average player bother with any of the wires and combinators?

[KatherineOfSky]

Basically, all chests are now "smart chests" and all inserters are "smart inserters". (Meaning that they can be wired). Filter and stack filter inserters can filter items.

I think it depends on what you are trying to do. I find that I rarely need anything as complicated as you are describing -- building a main bus and organizing everything with belts suits me admirably -- I rarely even use requester chests. I tend to have high-throughput factories, so waiting for isnerters to take 4 different items from one chest strikes me as incredibly inefficient :-)

I do use circuits for auto-balancing oil production, as well as limiting items in the logistics network.

I would guess that your average player doesn't use them much at all -- they aren't strictly needed - and your extraordinary user, who loves stringing things together, will make things like light shows and smart furnace setups, and other very complicated things :-)

[Acarin]

Simple stuff is just that - fairly simple. Complicated things I am still working on, lol. However, the basics run something like this:

Green wires and red wires form separate networks.
Connect a wire to a storage item (eg a chest) and it transmits its contents to the circuit.
Yo can then us that signal either directly for an inserter to make it work, or you can build a more complex circuit by using Decider and/or Arithmetic Combinators.

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197965435788/screenshot/136627097531531662

Here is an example of an inserter circuit - the filter inserter is connected directly to the chest, and set to "Fast Belt < 500". When the chest contains 500 or more belts, the inserter stops working, thus stopping the production chain.

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197965435788/screenshot/136627097531532822

In this case, I have placed a Decider Combinator, and hooked it up to a serries of chests at the bottom end of my furnace array. If the TOTAL of the chests (each individual chest signal adds into the total circuit signal) drops below 800, the combinator sends out a signal of "Iron Ore = 1" (which 'replaces' the inventory count) and this signal is sent to the top of the furnace array:

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197965435788/screenshot/136627097531533979

Connercting a belt tile with a wire allows you to set a condition on the belt (or read the contents). In this case, the belt will only run (ie pass the iron ore) if there is a signal of "Iron Ore = 1". So the feeder belt only passes iron ore to the furnaces when the chests at the bottom end have less than 800 plates.

Hope this helps you to understrand some of the uses of the circuit networks :-)

[Tungsten Whitmarsh Cadow]

Static pictures are nice. I'll look at them, but a save that I can load of your fabulous creation would be much better because then I could click on things and examine setting and then make those settings go away so I can see what's going on and I can zoom in on this or that. Either that or a really good circuit network tutorial.

I went looking for the save files and I can't find them. I hope this isn't some kind of taboo subject. Can anyone give me a save file of your working cicuit network creations and also tell me where the saves are kept?

[AlexMBrennan]

Can anyone [...] tell me where the saves are kept?

C:\Users\$user\AppData\Roaming\Factorio\saves
To get to the appdata folder just type %APPDATA% into explorer.

[Acarin]

I don't think you can attach a file to Steam forum posts. You can do it on the Factorio forums, however...

[Tungsten Whitmarsh Cadow]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

Can anyone [...] tell me where the saves are kept?

C:\Users\$user\AppData\Roaming\Factorio\saves
To get to the appdata folder just type %APPDATA% into explorer.

That worked. I found my saves. Now I need some genius's save so that I can load it and check out all the wonders of his or her arithmetic combinators, deciders and so on. I looked on the web. Didn't see anyone offering their saves. Is this a dumb idea?

I managed to make a device using four deciders on one chest and one inserter. The inserter loads one chest with each of the four types of contents of the other chest when they any one of the contents is below 100 in count. Its a pretty big contraption for one chest. Impractical unless its miniaturized. I'm surprised they don't offer miniaturization once you've got things wired up right. No reason while all the deciders couldn't attach to one pole or one chest.

Next I tried to turn on a pink light. I managed to turn on a white light but never got the pink to work and I had trouble with getting it to light when any of the contents was below 100 in count.

[daemonworks]

By default, space is infinite in factorio - it takes a while before you get used to the idea that there's really only a few specific areas where 'space efficiency' matters, and most of those relate to late-game beacon setups. Miniturization just isn't really a thing (except in the sense that faster inserters and assembers can be considered to be miniturization by virtue of getting more done in the same space)

[Acarin]

Agreed. Optimisation is cool to design but, ultimately, pointless on an infinite map other than as a self-imposed restriction :-) Which is why one of my Factorio rules is "Leave More Space". I don't always manage it, but it's a good rrule-of-thumb.

[Harry]

Well that is not quite true. Just because the RAM is your limit doesn't mean that size optimisations are not worth it. Two of my friends and I are currently working on a megabase for launching rockets as fast and as many as we possibly can. The sheer number of entities will slowly kill your performance so at this stage size optimizations actually start to matter. But we are talking multiple ten-thousands belts, inserters, assemblers, etc. here, which is really amazing.

Most likely our smart forge is also to blame for the performance drop^^. But this complicated stuff is just too awesome.

[Acarin]

Oh, I'm a fan of optimisation personally. I _love_ my smart furnace arrays :-) All that I was pointing out is that you don't have to worry about it, at least for your first few games. As you say, however, once you are into Megabase territory then it can make a difference. Mind you, I have a fairly cutting-edge PC...

[Harry]

Well words like "ultimately", "pointless" and "infinte" are like trigger warnings for me^^. My sole intention was to add to your comment by pointing out this special case of megabases. I mean, we play Factorio because we like complex stuff.