#Nonstandard Beacons - Factorio Mods
fossil mural
Also, I'm guessing the beacons can use any fluid, not just steam?
cold igloo
steam is the example, it's just an energy_source prototype
you can technically run it on plasma if your heart desires
fossil mural
Speaking of which, could you also make it allow fluid beacons to output fluids too?
Like inputting plasma and outputting hot fluoroketone?
cold igloo
¯_(ツ)_/¯
probably
the 'energy source' is actually just a crafting machine
so probably
actually yea, i can just have it override the internal empty recipe with a custom fluid swapping recipe
i think i can just have an optional 'recipe_definitions' value that, if set, overrides the hidden one and can also define fluidboxes and the like
@weary mortar i dont have a puppy so have a box qat
jagged pulsar
awwwww
worn pasture
wait, why did the devs say they wouldn't implement this?
jagged pulsar
optimisation reasons
cold igloo
i mean yeah sure theyre gonna be intense but... it makes more sense to let modders decide if they use the UPS intensive stuff or just go with basic beacons
cause if they really want burner beacons they'll do burner beacons. see exhibit A above
wide scaffold
something tells me you could do it without any scripting
is there any way to turn heat directly into electricity
cold igloo
you need scripting
there's no way to make sure that an entity only connects to a specific power network
UPDATE got the update time down to ~1.6ms with 400 beacons
wide scaffold
hm
irritating
you could turn down the check frequency a lot though
dont know how you've done it internally but you could set it up in such a way that you only check once every few seconds
cold igloo
probably but id rather focus on trying to get the update time down instead of just 'have it do things less often'
weary mortar
what exactly does it currently do when it checks a beacon?
cold igloo
er wait not that one
iterates over every entity. if the beacon is on and the assembler is off, then change the beacon to off. if the beacon is off and the assembler is on, switch it to on
wide scaffold
i would do it where you have an assembling machine producing some hidden fluid
cold igloo
you can't have the beacon run on fluid. hence this mod.
jagged pulsar
they are locked to electricity and void
wide scaffold
you know how much fluid it should be producing per time period
jagged pulsar
same with roboports
weary mortar
try saving which status you've last set on the entity object, writing 2 things to the factorio api has overheid
wide scaffold
if the output fluidbox has enough fluid for a time period, remove that much fluid and turn the beacon on
if it doesn't, don't remove any fluid and turn the beacon off
cold igloo
try saving which status you've last set on the entity object, writing 2 things t...
how so? like comparing current to previous status?
jagged pulsar
check frequency is a setting, right?
cold igloo
if the output fluidbox has enough fluid for a time period, remove that much flui...
it's not accurate enough, and that has way more math and API calls than this current solution
weary mortar
how so? like comparing current to previous status?
yeah, on your table just store what status you last wrote
wide scaffold
if it doesn't, don't remove any fluid and turn the beacon off
because that way you can turn down check frequency as much as you like and it's still perfectly accurate
cold igloo
check frequency is a setting, right?
not really in the current implementation but it can be
wide scaffold
because that way you can turn down check frequency as much as you like and it's ...
it has some latency
cold igloo
math is not accurate at those scales
jagged pulsar
not really in the current implementation but it can be
i'd defintely recommend it, but it doesnt have to be "NOW" thing
cold igloo
and that doesn't work for heat or burner powered items
wide scaffold
but if you want your beacon to consume (say) 1MW of heat, then it will consume 1MJ of heat for every second it operates
wide scaffold
and that doesn't work for heat or burner powered items
yes it does
you can have heat and burner powered assemblers
cold igloo
no? you can't do burner that way
jagged pulsar
burner would still just have to check if the assembler is on or off
cold igloo
yup
my original solution was to have an infinity pipe/heat interface but the 'power draw' simulation was too innacurate to be reliable
wide scaffold
burner would still just have to check if the assembler is on or off
no it wouldnt
you have a beacon
which draws 0W of electrical energy
you have an assembling machine
which draws 1MW of [whatever] energy and is set to produce 1 beacon juice per second
cold igloo
yeah, on your table just store what status you last wrote
tried that in a previous implementation, i forget why i went away from it but i'll see if that works. are 'storage' calls cheaper than API calls?
weary mortar
they are
wide scaffold
which draws 1MW of [whatever] energy and is set to produce 1 beacon juice per se...
every second, check how much beacon juice is in the assembler's output fluidbox
if there's more than 1, remove 1 and turn the beacon on
if there isn't, don't remove anything and turn the beacon off
jagged pulsar
that seems like way more then just doing "is this thing on? sure, turn x on"
wide scaffold
you can change the power draw of the beacon using consumption_modifier
cold igloo
edge case, the beacon 'lost power' partway through and only produced half a juice. but it was on for half the time
wide scaffold
that seems like way more then just doing "is this thing on? sure, turn x on"
but it's perfectly accurate
there's no edge cases where the beacon runs when it shouldnt or doesnt run when it should
cold igloo
okay then when you underclock the beaocn it'll flicker on for one whole second every 20 or something
wide scaffold
or rather, there's no edge cases where you get more or less beacon uptime than you paid for
cold igloo
instead of flicking on and off more rapidly like it should especially considering it's power draw is doing that
jagged pulsar
i just dont see how that'd be simpler then whats currently been implemented
cold igloo
how is it more correct?
wide scaffold
this would also (theoretically) be faster
cold igloo
its even less accurate
wide scaffold
because you can turn the check frequency down arbitrarily low
wide scaffold
its even less accurate
ive explained like three times how it's more accurate
in the 1MW case, each second of beacon uptime costs 1MJ of energy
cold igloo
maybe 'accurate' but there's a clock_length delay between what it 'detects' and the actual result
fossil mural
I'm just wondering, how do the beacons work at different temperatures?
wide scaffold
same way any other heat energy source works i expect
jagged pulsar
unless its a multi-second delay in turning on/off, i dont think people would care
cold igloo
yup. nothing fancy
jagged pulsar
yeah, i imagine it doesnt take temp into account apart from a base requirement
wide scaffold
changing power draw with temperature would be. uh.
jagged pulsar
hell
wide scaffold
detrimental to performance, let's say
jagged pulsar
slightly not opotmised, to put it lightly
cold igloo
ive explained like three times how it's more accurate
if you can come up with an implementation then i'd be happy to look into it, but right now i don't see how its any better so i'm not going to pursue it
cold igloo
tried that in a previous implementation, i forget why i went away from it but i'...
i still have to poll the API to check if the assembler is working or not... i wonder if any other API calls that are 'good enough' are cheaper
quezler do you know of any? or is it more that API calls have some generic latency from being API calls and not about what they do
weary mortar
i still have to poll the API to check if the assembler is working or not... i wo...
with working, do you mean at all, or only 100%?
depending on your answer i have tricks
cold igloo
it's always 100% or 0%, there's no 'low power' state since there's no buffer for any of the energy sources i use
so just 100%
weary mortar
allright that makes it super easy then
cold igloo
figured out how to save the current state in storage, i'll see how performant that change is
weary mortar
connect a wire by script, set the working signal to W, have a hidden surface with an inserter that checks for W = 0, have an item on the ground and register that with script.register_on_object_destroyed, and when it triggers you'll know the assembling machine had an interuption
I've been pioneering this kind of circuit lua event tech
cold igloo
ohhhh 40% improvement in UPS
wide scaffold
this would all be so much simpler if we could connect electric networks with scripts
jagged pulsar
cold igloo
is the inserter jankery the best option for API calls based on signals?
weary mortar
ohhhh 40% improvement in UPS
from merely not setting status & custom status each time? nice
weary mortar
is the inserter jankery the best option for API calls based on signals?
well at least it means you won't have to check entities constantly
cold igloo
from merely not setting status & custom status each time? nice
no just from the API call of 'is this beacon on or off'
i still set status and custom status every time
er well every 'change' from on to off or off to on
weary mortar
hmm
cold igloo
weary mortar
might i suggest instead of numbers to just
local BEACON = 1
local ASSEMBLER = 2
local LAST_STATUS = 3
cold igloo
that works too
weary mortar
makes it was easier to read along
worn pasture
connect a wire by script, set the working signal to W, have a hidden surface wit...
how do you even discover things like this
cold igloo
wait... when i do that... i can have an update time of 0
i can just add them to a queue to enable/disable and just iterate over those queues
cold igloo
from merely not setting status & custom status each time? nice
what did you mean by this?
weary mortar
might have misunderstood
weary mortar
which one of your mods did the inserter tricks?
one? 
no i use that tech excessively, though the one closest to your usecase would be the apprentice assembler
fossil mural
well I don't think that should be there
weary mortar
ah yes the classic hide_from_player_crafting
i forget that one a lot myself as well
especially when using custom crafting categories the character doesn't jave
weary mortar
well it doesn't have an icon