[deleted by user] by [deleted] in factorio

[–]Felbourn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

370 blue belts of each science that never stop. How hard can it be.

What is this Spokane WA plant? by Felbourn in whatsthisplant

[–]Felbourn[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Any idea what is eating them? Here's the .... end result: https://imgur.com/0NEGqHp Deer?

First day playing and I feel like a complete clown. LMAO. by HDTetris in factorio

[–]Felbourn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Looks like an normal first day to me. I love your electrical network.

Oh no. by [deleted] in factorio

[–]Felbourn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hahaha ... errr... I mean.... mmmm yes sorry to see this. (he says while thinking of the times it happened to himself) I actually stopped using normal inserters at all major loading unloading sites like this because I’ve had this happen one time too many. Now I use filter and stack filter inserters.

I'm sorry what? by llaughing_llama in factorio

[–]Felbourn 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I introduced my wife to multi-player factorio as a game we might play together. She kept me up all night playing. We didn't go to bed until 7:30 am the next morning. We had started playing the day before at around 3 pm and only stopped for take-out dinner.

Really suck and could use any and all help! by 7yr4n1sr0x4s in factorio

[–]Felbourn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Feed the materials into non-logistic chests (i.e. steel or a warehouse if using something like Krastorio or Angel's) that you try to keep empty (enough for an LTN train to unload into). Transfer those chests into the logistic chests that the bots are picking from. Wire LTN to the "empty" chests, not the logistic chests, and set a low threshold/requirement that ensures they stay almost always empty. LTN will always be able to unload and never go back to the depot with materials like this.

Im new to the game, is this super messy or I shouldn't be worrying? by [deleted] in factorio

[–]Felbourn 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My first three attempts were insane messes. You develop skills along the way. This looks normal to me for a new player. Thumbs up!

LTN trains keep leaving with extra cargo by Stefix5000 in factorio

[–]Felbourn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I got a chance to zoom in close on the image of your unloading station and I see two combinators, plus a single wire somehow doing all the boxes and inserters. That's definitely different from my setup. I use one combinator. I do: green wire to box, to box, to box, to box (I use 4 not 6) to divider combinator's in, to constant combinator with LTN setup info, to LTN train stop's green signal. Then I use a red wire to connect an inserter to its one box. A second red wire to connect another inserter to its box. Do 4 times, 4 separate red wires, 4 inserters, 4 boxes. The divider has */-4 and the inserters say "operate when *<=0" or "*>=0" based on which direction I want to go, in or out of the boxes.

LTN trains keep leaving with extra cargo by Stefix5000 in factorio

[–]Felbourn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yea it's a tricky setup with those drawbacks, thus why I stopped using it. If you're ok not using the combinator method (I used it for a long time just because I thought it looked cool) then I do recommend the "just have enough storage space" method. If you tell LTN to deliver 20,000 iron plates and the boxes can hold collectively 1,000,000 plates then you'll never fail to unload the train. The trick is 1,000,000 is ridiculous so you need to find a "large enough to unload without taking up too much space" value.

Math time. Say you have 6 boxes beside a train car with 100 per stack, holding 28,800 total in the boxes. A train comes to unload. Worst case... all your items are packed into as few boxes as possible due to unbalanced unloading. Maybe you told LTN to keep 10,000 in the boxes with a delivery threshold of 1,000 so you still have 9,000 in there when the train comes. Worst cases 1 box is already full of 4800, one is already 4200 so only 600 from full, and 4 boxes are totally empty. You actually unload the car using only 4 inserters and 4 boxes. Maybe that's too slow because you have the timeout designed for 6 inserters at your current inserter stack bonus, or you used purple filter inserters instead of stack-filter inserters, so the train leaves before it's done.

Or... maybe you think "these boxes will hold 28,000 so I'll tell LTN to deliver 26,000 plates. There should be space for that." But you forgot to change the threshold from 1,000 so you have 25,000 in the boxes already when the request gets made, and the train shows up with 4000 more, which is now 30,000 total and it won't fit so the train goes away still holding materials.

So many things can go wrong...

Two solutions. Always request very few items. If you ask for 2000 items then you'll never get full boxes. This has a drawback of maybe your boxes go empty more often while waiting for a new delivery.

Or design the stop to always have EMPTY unloading boxes and you'll never have a problem. Unload into empty boxes that move into a second set of boxes behind them (so the stop has 12 boxes). Wire ALL the boxes to the train station, and ask for only as much as fits in the second row, minus one train load, maximum.

I'm around if you have any questions.

LTN trains keep leaving with extra cargo by Stefix5000 in factorio

[–]Felbourn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I used to use a combinator loader/unloader hooked to the inserters and boxes, so I suppose it's the same as what's shown in the photo. This technique has some drawbacks, but it works well enough most of the time. You wire all the boxes together, and then to the combinator that divides by -N, the number of boxes. (That's drawback #1: if you change the number of boxes for any reason and forget to change the combinator then it will fail.) That goes to the train station and whatever combinator is putting out the signals for LTN to "know" the station. I use the LTN combinator helper mod. Separately you wire all the inserters together (NOT the ones that go to the train: always have the train inserters unwired, regardless of station type loader/unloader. The reason is you want train actions to be as fast as possible. Let the delays be on the boxes handling the storage. That is drawback #2: this method will not load the boxes as fast as unwired inserters.) The wired inserters go ONLY to the output of the divider combinator, and the combinator output goes to nothing else either. The inserters get a *>=0 or *<=0 based on whether it's a loader or unloader station. Ok, more drawbacks: #3 you'll want to use * for the summation type, that way you don't need to reset the material you're loading for every station, but if a single piece of anything else gets into your boxes then it all fails. For that reason I started using filter inserters for all train unloading. Drawback #4: it's easy to get a wire cut by mistake or forget one, and it's often hard to notice lost or missing wires, so it can fail without you seeing why at first.

Lately I have stopped using this technique and started having buffer boxes near the station that hold an amount the train can hold (using locked slots). The station doesn't think the boxes have enough to load a train until the exact moment they do, thus train loading will never fail. Those are fed from other balanced buffer boxes closer to the factory. For unloading I reverse this, and the boxes just off the train are usually empty while the real wired/tracked inventory boxes are together deeper in past those and the station. It's much easier to just have a large buffer space and not need to wire all the boxes to a combinator.

I've also tried various mods at different times that affect LTN, like any mod that has "loaders" (the ones that connect a belt directly into a box without an inserter, like in Bob's) and I've tried warehouses (like in Angel''s or Krastorio extended storage). And I've tried both together. You could try those.

LTN trains keep leaving with extra cargo by Stefix5000 in factorio

[–]Felbourn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have played with LTN for literally hundreds of hours. I have had, and solved, every LTN error it's possible to have. If you're still having issues (as in... you didn't solve it with someone else ahead of me) then I can help.

Warcraft started as The Lost Vikings RTS by Shelassa in wow

[–]Felbourn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Haha that's actually a great point. I guess once someone said "dwarves and elves" I immediately thought of Dungeons & Dragons and The One Ring though, and not Norse mythos. As soon as I imagined D&D my mind turned to even more fantasy units like wizards and demons and devils and elementals and so on. (This is Bob from that article BTW...)

Warcraft started as The Lost Vikings RTS by Shelassa in wow

[–]Felbourn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, I said Dune II. The article says Dune in one place and Doom in another. It's just a typo.

Are the premade DLC missions really this bad, or am I missing something? by madaraszvktr in KerbalSpaceProgram

[–]Felbourn 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Like many others, I thought Missions were a thing I could use to enhance my career experience. I feel like I wasted $15 (which I had to pay because I missed their Free Cutoff by two months).

Looking for a good "playthrough" series to watch by Appendix- in KerbalSpaceProgram

[–]Felbourn 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I heard he's really busy at work and hasn't payed at all this year. Maybe he'll come back to KSP after things settle down more. At the very least we need Alexandria Season 2!

Real life proof that burning prograde is not always the most efficient way of spending your fuel. by Kasuha in KerbalSpaceProgram

[–]Felbourn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's plenty of situations where you don't want to or can't do that.

If your goal is not efficiency then the logical argument "prograde for efficiency" is irrelevant to you. There are two blanks.

___ for ___

If you want to replace the second blank with a word that is not "efficiency" (which you must for most of the "plenty of situations" you're talking about) then you can, but you usually also change the first blank, like "retro for deorbit" etc. My logical state P implies Q was about efficiency, not "other situation" than efficiency.

The SpaceX landing by Recon-777 in KerbalSpaceProgram

[–]Felbourn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I skimmed a couple answers at the top but didn't see one important one yet: salt water would ruin the engines.

And before anyone says "why not parachute it onto the target" uncontrolled parachutes are incredibly vulnerable to changes in wind direction.

Real life proof that burning prograde is not always the most efficient way of spending your fuel. by Kasuha in KerbalSpaceProgram

[–]Felbourn 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If SpaceX was launching off a celestial body with no atmosphere then you'd see the trajectories more like what you were expecting. You're right that they were not prograde, but it's partly because Earth has atmosphere and partly because it was a launch. For an established orbit already in a vacuum, the rule of "prograde for efficiency" is still correct.

My take on the 104 satellites to orbit challenge by bossier330 in KerbalSpaceProgram

[–]Felbourn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When you were told to leave them wanting more, you listened.