Basic wires guide - WORK IN PROGRESS

I've seen many requests from new players on how to use wires and decided I would try and help, I'll start by saying I am not an expert on wires but I have a good basic understanding of them after spending around 30 hours studying the blueprints made by others.

I will try and keep updating this with useful information, the image I used for this post is from a MaM (Make anything Machine) blueprint I used from the Shapez 2 discord.
If you want some blueprints of the wires I demonstrate on this guide let me know, otherwise it's usually best to experiment and see how things work and use failure as your journey to success in Shapez 2 :)

This is a work in progress and will keep updating it as I learn more and will post some of the circuits and loops I make that may be useful.
I'm deliberately not posting blueprints at the moment, once I start making some I'll upload them to the official Shapez Blueprint repository and post links to that where you can download them for free.

Wires basics

Basic Explanation

It's best to start with an explanation of what each thing does so it's easier to get down to showing what can be done.
Again I'm not an expert by any means but I'll do my best :)

I've taken information, screenshots, etc from the Shapez 2 wiki to help, if you want to have a look at the wiki please feel free:
https://shapez2.wiki.gg/wiki/Shapez_2_Wiki

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Wire - Slot Number 1

These are the basic workhorse and will carry the signal from whatever is sending it to the connected destination(s).
Unlike the belts the direction you place them does not matter, if there is an obstacle you have an equivalent of the belt launcher to send the signal a small distance and continue routing your wires or use more avoid belts, tubes or whatever else.
The bigger global senders and receivers can send a logical signal (A logical signal can be a number, null, colour, conflict or shape) from the sender to the receiver anywhere on the map, many use these to send a signal shape to the MaM to process so they have a central location to manage which MaM is processing which shape.
The status of the wire can sometimes be shown by the colour of the wires:

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Display - Slot Number 2

This is nice and simple, connect it to a wire and it will display the logical signal the wire is carrying. these are great for troubleshooting and testing how the output is affected by inputting different logical signals.
During some demonstrations later on you will see a lot of these :)

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Signal Producer - Slot Number 3

Again fairly simple, this will output the chosen signal to any connected wire, in some circumstances you can test for a certain shape or signal, then if that test is positive you can change the signal using one of these.

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Flow Control - Slot Number 4

These are how you can control the flow of shapes and paint.

Belt reader

This will give an output of how many shapes pass through it per 30secs/minute (Can't remember) this can help get an idea of the efficiency of your factory, I personally don't use these, but they can be used as an overflow if set up well so if the belt stops it can (With the aid of wires and a belt filter) push shapes into another lane for processing among other things.

Belt filter

This is simple, it has a green tick which is where your 'positive' outcome will go (I added single quotes as you can also test for the opposite to make your negative a positive, but more on truthy and not truthy later) and the red x for your 'negative' outcome, if used well you can use these to sort your shapes, trash them or bypass painting or stacking where needed.

Pipe gate

Is much the same as the belt filter, except it's just on or off, no filtering, you can test for a colour and then the relevant pipe gate will allow that colour to fill your painters up ready for painting.

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Button - Slot Number 5

Button is simple, an easy way to turn a signal on or off, I don't use these at the moment, but I have seen blueprints that have every operator shape in a wire loop connected with buttons and logic gates (Logic gates is in the next bit) to send the shape signal to the global signal sender for the MaM to construct.
They are good for some manual tasks and some testing of your wire loops.

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Logic Gates - Slot Number 6

This is where things can get complicated as these combined with the next part (Simulated Buildings) are where you can test for anything, in theory you could simulate the whole process of a MaM using just the wires section... Anyway...
To make the truthy thing make more sense before I explain the gates here is a visual demonstration:

This can be influenced in MANY ways using logic gates so here we go...

AND Gate

Both inputs are Truthy at the same time it will output by default a result of 1 (Regardless of the inputs value, colour or shape) and will output 0 otherwise.

OR Gate

Either input is on, this could be both at the same time or just one, again outputs 1 if either/both inputs are on and 0 if none are on.

NOT Gate

This reverses the input, if the input is 1 NOT will make it 0. this is how we can make something that isn't truthy to go through the green tick lane of a belt filter where needed, or vice versa.

XOR Gate

- This will only output 1 when 1 input in on, if both are on it will output 0.

Equals (Comparison)

This one is interesting as it allows you to test for specific things, shapes, numbers, null, conflict and colours. By default it will be equals, but you can change it to a few different comparison methods like greater than, less than and more. This allows you to test for a great deal of things and in combination with the other gates you can input/output any signal you want.

Logic Gates

These are equally dangerous and powerful... It has an input where you can choose which signal to output which can be anything you input into a signal producer and plug into it, or a signal from something else, these can carry ANY signal through and will do so it the top signal is truthy, using these I have made a method to allow the circuit to detect which layer is being processed by my MaM outputting the layer number (1/2/3/4) to the next part of the MaM producing the next layer so it knows which layer it is making.

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Wires Basics PT2

Simulated Buildings - Slot Number 8

This is where it gets complicated, as between the logic gates and how they output signals it can get really crazy!

Rotator

This simulates 1 clockwise rotation of the input shape, if the shape is a square in the top right corner, once it's popped through this it will now be in the bottom right, so if you need to simulate particular shapes in certain corners then you need more rotators...
Half Destroyer - This simulates destroying the western half of the shape (Left hand side) simples :)

Simulated stacker

This simulates stacking the 2 shapes input into it, so could be used to simulate stacking a west half of a shape with an east side making a complete shape in 1 layer, or stacking one layer with another, or if you have multiple layer output to a wire simulate stacking that with another layer, endless stacking until you reach the stacking limit and it starts destroying layers...

Simulated unstacker

There is no counterpart to this, you cannot unstack a shape, but this helps you be able to output the layers of a shape to your wires for processing and testing, you will need multiple unstackers to check each layer of a total shape, keep in mind it removes a layer and outputs that to one side, then outputs the rest of the shape minus the layer it took to the other side, be careful and test which side is which (You can flip this using F before placing them down) by using the displays before starting to lay your wiring and realising after 10mins of hard wiring in a small area that they are wrong way round... (I totally did not do this multiple times...)

Simulated Painter

Yep, input the shape on one side and the colour on the other, again please do check which input is which before continuing and later wondering why the output isn't working... (Yes I've done this many times) one side accepts ONLY shape and the other ONLY colour.

Simulated Crystal Generator

I've not used this yet as I've not unlocked it, I've been spent many painstaking hours building a MaM and not got round to it yet. So for now WIP (Work In Progress)

Simulated Swapper

The swapper in the cutting tools section is amazing, if done right it can do a similar job to a stacker, anyway this is wires... Simulates swapping the west half of each shape over, as I've mentioned before for the most part you can simulate an entire journey of a shape without building a single belt...

Simulated Pin Pusher

I don't really use this as I have an extractor setup to output pins and treat it like a shape in itself, but you can use this to simulate pushing pins into your shape if needed.

Shape Analyzer

Both an integral tool and most frustrating thing to use at the same time... It only analyzes the TOP RIGHT (North East) of the shape, so to analyze a whole shape you need 4 of these with simulated rotators between the last 3 of them Analyse>Rotate>Analyse>Rotate>Analyse>Rotate>Analyse - This gives the whole shape, but of you wanted to add a check along the line to check that the piece is rotated into the correct position you need to use simulated rotators after certain parts to make sure it's correctly rotated.
Add on top of this it also outputs the colour of the analysed shape and outputs both to separate outputs, very useful but equally frustrating until you get used to them.

This covers all the wires section, let me know if you want more details on any of them, but that's the basics covered for now.

This is a work in progress (WIP) bear with me while I add to it and improve it.

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Basic filtering, analyzing and processing

Basic Filtering

Here I will cover some basics in filtering like how to filter and how it looks with a little screengrab.

Start easy, signal producer with the signal RbRbRbRb (Blue square) each pair of letters represents the shape and colour, the capital letter is the shape, the lower case letter is the colour.
The below example is a belt filter that is looking for the shape the signal producer is sending, anything matches goes through the green tick lane, anything else is going down the red x lane.
On the right of it is the opposite, using a NOT gate we will make the blue squares go into the red x lane.
This can be useful if you need to reverse which lanes are used.


You can similarly filter with colours also:

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With a comparison gate we can test for anything, in this example I have used logic gates to forward the colour signal if the buttons are turned on to make it easy to test, in the first example on the left I am testing to see if the colours match which they do not and on the right they match:

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This is a quick example of shape/layer analysis
Using the simulated unstackers to grab the layers and output that to a set of shape analyzers that grab the top right of the shape (as the shape stands at that point) and then the shape is rotated and the next one grabs the shape.
One one side I got it to output as it stands, you can see each of the left is top right as the analyser scans it, on the right I used simulated rotators to rotate is to the correct section:
Then it stacks them to show it's the correct rotation.
Here is the same circuit without the simulated rotators showing why you need them when simulating the process:

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These are some basics of filtering the shapes without getting too complicated.

This is a work in progress (WIP)

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Advanced Filtering

Advanced Filtering

I say advanced only because it can be fiddly to set up how you want it and it requires more than 1 logic gate to get the desired result, I know there are plenty way more advanced filtering options out there :)

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Painting filter

I've made a simple paint filter below as an example, there is no paint but just imagine there is :)

The above is an example of making a bypass if the shape does not need painting, on the right the bypass, the comparison gates are looking for null (Comparison gate with no signal processor will test for null) null is shown when the input is a pin so will need to bypass painting as well as uncoloured shapes.
A quick breakdown of the comparison gates, both are connected to the output of the colour, then connected to an OR gate as if one or both are active we want it to bypass onto the x lane of the belt filter, then the OR gate outputs to a NOT gate as we want the positive output of finding a null or uncoloured output to a negative outcome (Of course this can be reversed by adding another NOT gate or removing all not gates)

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Paint Supply Filter

Fortunately once you have all the wires options unlocked it's really easy (initially) to filter which paint is filled into your painters, which makes it easier to squeeze a painting section into a MaM, as the paint gate can discern which colour paint is flowing through it.

As you can see above when uncoloured is sent through no paint comes through the tubes, when green is picked, green flows through. (Yeah I know why is it in the advanced section! Well mainly because I didn't think it worked this way and tried some complicated stuff before realising it's actually easy...)

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Advanced Analysing

Advanced Analysing Section

This is a bit of a difficult one, as I like to have just the top right corner of each shape go into my MaM and they are filtered into 4 lanes to represent each corner of the shape so my extractors mine the shape and process the shapes into just the top right corner before being delivered to my MaM.
There is no right answer, I just prefer doing it this way but you can set up a part of a factory to scan and find the piece you need, cut/swap/stack/pin/paint as needed to get to the desired shape.

So going forward always assume the shapes are being input are the top right portion at the start, you may see it with some of the signal producers I place, I'll try and keep them in the images where possible.

But again there is no one right answer, experiment and find ways that suit you.

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Layer circuit - Analysing layers

Ok this one is advanced, I half pinched the idea from a blueprint of a total MaM setup, its clever as you'd have multiple of these that you connect to each other and depending on where they are in the sequence they know which layer they need to be.
As you can see I linked 2 of them and it outputs the layer and layer number, 1 being the top.
It has simulated unstackers which tell me what each layer looks like, that;s output to the bottom line where the screen is, and up the top it outputs which layer it is, again shown by the little screen with the number in.
This makes it possible to use 1 global sender colour for a shape, a lot of people have 1 MaM using multiple global sender colours, this way I can have multiple MaM's feeding off different inputs.
This uses multiple logic gates, comparison gates, simulated unstackers and signal producers to help decide based on the information put into it from the circuit before it.

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Stacker routing (maybe - still need to test it)

I made this as an example of a potential way to route the parts of a layer into stackers, I've not decided on how best to use it yet, but it's a good example of using the logic gates to forward the shape signal into simulated stackers and testing to see if a lane has no shape, this can help account for shapes that are on different sides

For now I use AND gates to test if both lanes have an output, if not then route to the next stacker to be stacked with whichever shape comes from the other side, it's less wiring and suits me at the moment (Shown below), but I'd love to use this method at some point.

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Easier Stacker routing

This is my current method, two and gates covering 2 lanes which represent 2 corners of the shape layer, using an AND gate means it only outputs 1 when BOTH inputs are on meaning the 2 lanes need to be stacked together, otherwise if 1 lane is null it outputs 0 and bypasses that stacker and onto the next, where I myself tend to get it to check the shape against the complete layer shape to see if it needs to go into the next stacker or bypass it onto the next stage.

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Misc

Misc section

I thought I'd make a misc section as I have come across a few things that are useful but don't really fall into analysing, processing or filtering.
Also if I get requests for something that don't fall into any other category I'll drop them in here with what I've come up with.

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Paint Drain

While I was playing with options to mix paint on demand rather than having a HUGE painting section with each colour mixed individually, I noticed that when you change colour the pipes won't drain off automatically and there are no options to dispose of the unneeded paint.
So I came started experimenting with fluid storage units and noticed that they can drain themselves to fill with a different colour, so started by adding 3/4 of them off of a tube, but they all had the same colour in and wouldn't drain when the colour changed unless 1 had a different colour in or was empty.
So I used 2 fluid storage units and some basic wiring to only use them when the set colours were in the tube, this worked a treat meaning the paint could be drained away into the storage unit when changed over and then filled with the current colour, then when switched to another colour they would drain.
Anyway here is a link to the blueprint and an image of it if you want to just replicate it yourself:
Link:
https://community-vortex.shapez2.com/blueprint/mwmup4wtjb59zl2

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Useful Blueprints

Blueprints

As I mentioned I will post blueprints I make and upload and will share any others I find useful.
The website you can get blueprints from is:
https://community-vortex.shapez2.com

Otherwise join the Shapez 2 Discord they have a lot of incredible folks who share blueprints:
https://discord.gg/shapez-2-1000343719314198548

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My MaM - Easy to understand and follow

I decided I'd make a MaM that just needs all unlocks before paint mixing, I wanted to make it simple to follow and get an idea of how it works and reverse engineer, I've looked at some FANTASTIC MaM blueprints with spaghetti belts and wiring that are immensely difficult to read while you are learning

As you look at it the top right of the platform is where my shapes come in, I extract only the top right part of the shapes and deliver them to the MaM, they can go in any order but make sure each level is 4 lanes of the one corner of the shape otherwise it won't work, but they can be in any order, same with the paint from the top left, any order it will filter correctly.

I'm fairly sure I didn't forget anything but knowing me I could have easily not finished a belt somewhere let me know and I'll update the blueprint.

https://community-vortex.shapez2.com/blueprint/mnijxd4cdxugfaf

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Layer Circuit

This is in the blueprint above, but if you just want this part here is a link to the blueprint.
https://community-vortex.shapez2.com/blueprint/6hyxt62np5m05sx

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