#What are combinators
open walrus
This what we would call circuit wires and combinators, if you want to look it up. It can be seen as a simple way to program behavior that you cannot obtain otherwise.
This blueprint build on two iteration. I'll take you throught it.
+faq srlatch
chrome ventureBOT
open walrus
First ietration : I want to turn the steam engines when my batteries are low
So first, you isolate the steam engine from the rest of the electrical network, then link them back through a power switch, the blue box with electrical arcs you see on the right of the blueprint (use raw copper wire to link the two sides).
The power switch is used to control the flow of electricity between two wires (pass or doesn't pass).
Then use a circuit wire (either red or green), to link a nearby battery to the power switch.
The circuit wires let you carry signals between all connected items. there are fixed amount of possible signals : one signal for each item, and a bunch of special signal like the color signals, letter signals and digit signals.
Every signal can carry an integer (so no decimals).
If you open the accumulator after connecting it to a circuit wire, you should see a small window next to the main window, indicating what the item is capable of doing with signal.
Here, the accumulator can only output a signal, indicating its level of charge. By default, the level of charge is written to the signal 🇦.
Then, open the power switch, and you should see the same kind of small window on the side. The power switch is capable of reacting to a signal, so it look a bit different.
On the left slot, select the signal 🇦 , on the right slot select a number like 5, and on the middle dropdown menu select the <. You've just configure the on/off condition of the power switch to "turn on when 🇦 is strictly below 5", and because here 🇦 carries the level of charge of an accumulator, you could also say that the condition is "turn on when the level of accumulator charge is strictly below 5 %".
That's it for the first iteration.
Watching it work, you will notice that it rapidly turn on and off during the night, and this will make your electrical graph looks ugly.
So we have a new problem, leading us to the second iteration