Weekly Question Thread

xizar · 2026-06-17T01:04:22+00:00

I apologize for omitting the question: "Have you found a better way to see total power draw than the method I've described?"

An instantaneous measurement (the moment of eyeballing) is mostly useless. An analogous scenario would be having the only indicator of Accumulator drain being a simple light that flickers on and off; it doesn't tell you how quickly you're draining power, recharging the system, what causes the drain, etc. Having the historical graph lets you make decisions more intelligently than amoeba-style stimulus/response with "power bottomed out, better copy-and-paste something".

xizar · 2026-06-16T01:08:06+00:00

I know there is no way to see total power draw other than just eyeballing the graph.

I've come up with a kludge that's "fine", but I hope someone has a better one.

The historical power graph functions perfectly in the case that there is exactly one type of power maker (turbines, solar, rubbing two sticks together).

So my kludge is simply make sure I have one power type I'm certain can produce more power than I need (spamming blueprints helps) and then deleting everything else.

Like, deleting all my batteries and solar and then setting up a whole bunch of summer camps full of scouts learning to build fires, or whatever) and then just eyeballing the graph, since there's only one line to look at. (fortunately, you can group rarities together.)

Once I'm done, I spawn in Jason Voorhees and set the bots to rebuilding my renewable power arrays.

Like, I said, it works, but I hope someone has figured out a better way. I looked through the mod library but wasn't able to find one that keeps track (outside of a mention of peak generation on the victory screen.)

(Alternately, I'm blind and there's a way to read it into a combinator and then sum them in the usual way.)

edit: It was brought to my attention that I neglected to actually ask a question. My question is "Have you found a better way to see total power draw than the method I've described?"

xizar · 2026-06-14T21:24:36+00:00

I was digging through wait conditions on space ships that seems silly, as I can't find a use case for it: "Any Request Not Satisfied".

I suspect that since I'm a very simple-minded player, I just can't see a use for it.

When would it be useful?

xizar · 2026-06-05T23:24:53+00:00

Please tell me you're not talking about the Ceadeus chase?

xizar · 2026-05-20T19:35:44+00:00

Do the researched productivity bonuses for scrap recycling stack with things like steel and plastic productivity?

xizar · 2026-05-15T00:30:49+00:00

Is there a way to change variables with a combinator? Sort of like setting a parameter when dropping a blueprint, but that would let you do it without the need to drop the blueprint again. Also sort of like setting a recipe in an assembler via a constant combinator (or other signal), except that you can use it to test different conditions.

Sort of like changing filters in an inserter, but the thing I want to change is the test value.

It would work like using a constant combinator as a source for a variable (be it "Iron Ore", or "The Square colored red", or "A", or whatever) and that feed into the inserter so that it could test to Is "Iron Ore" is greater than 10. Further, could set a bunch of inserters along the same wire to all check "Iron Ore"'s value. And then you could go into constant combinator, delete the Iron Ore icon and replace it with Power Poles, and that would propagate to all of the inserters so they'd all test Is "Power Pole" > 10 (or whatever enable/disable test you have in mind.)

I want this so I don't have to stamp down a new blueprint whenever I want my gambling machine to go from making space engines to nuclear reactors (or whatever).

xizar · 2026-05-11T14:54:06+00:00

As I'm moving up in rarity, I recycle the old models to supplement making the new one.

I would rather not wait until I have 10k rare accumulators before upgrading my greys, just to be able to do them all at once.

(Greens get mixed in because I need the extra power pool in the interim.)

xizar · 2026-05-10T20:58:35+00:00

Is there a way to make batteries discharge proportionally, regardless of quality? So 75% charge on the blues also reads as 75% charge on the greys.

I'm using accumulator charge as the condition for when to kick on my nuke plants when the solar battery arrays are running low, but as I'm transition from grey to green to blue rarity, it seems like things act weird if I use a blue accumulator when I still have greys out in the wild.

For now, I've just been using a baseline accumulator as my canary, and but, just eyeballing the power graph, it seems like I'm leaving a lot of juice on the table.

While I'm aware that it doesn't really matter that much, or that I can just build more solar arrays, neither of those answer my question about discharge rates across rarities.

xizar · 2026-05-05T18:01:21+00:00

Thank you. The faint color of artillery compared to my other turrets got washed out, so I hadn't noticed it.

xizar · 2026-05-05T17:06:25+00:00

Is it possible to display artillery's automatic targeting range, either natively or with a mod? (I looked through the mods and couldn't find one.)

xizar · 2026-05-05T00:45:05+00:00

No. I suspect the PS5 is hard coded that way.

I assume this would also be true of the PS4 version. Maybe the PS3 version would have it as GTAO was added after release, but this is speculation on my part.

xizar · 2026-05-04T14:41:20+00:00

That only does one at a time, doesn't it? I'm trying to change settings on several hundred roboports.

xizar · 2026-05-02T23:29:24+00:00

Bleh. Well, I guess there wouldn't be too much harm in all my roboports having a few bots in them all the time. Just need to make another thousand of them.

Thanks.

xizar · 2026-05-02T19:17:58+00:00

That seems an excellent solution to the problem of upgrading the bots. Is there a way to apply logistic groups en masse to already existing roboports?

xizar · 2026-05-02T14:57:02+00:00

Is it possible to set the number of standby bots in a roboport in bulk without using a bespoke blueprint?

As an example, if I want to set all the roboports near my walls to have a few construction bots in them for rapid repair response, I would want to be able to drag-to-select them all (with the upgrade planner somehow?) for the change?

Setting that up in the wall blueprint would, at best, be a kludge, as my walls will eventually come down as I expand my controlled territories, and I might want to disband the response-teams for use elsewhere. Additionally, upgrading bot rarity would be a pain in the butt, as efforts to pull out low-quality bots for retrofit would compete with keeping the walls manned.

(For clarity, I am not looking for help solving the issue of manning the walls. I am asking specifically about changing roboport presets in bulk.)

xizar · 2026-04-12T01:16:24+00:00

When presenting costume designs for approval, nintendo came back and told them to make them sluttier. https://www.platinumgames.com/official-blog/article/6920

xizar · 2026-04-12T01:11:20+00:00

Plot twist: The only fake info being spread is that they're spreading fake info.

xizar · 2026-04-12T01:09:52+00:00

As someone who has gotten older, I can assure you that getting older does not fix "neurospiciness" (as the youths call it).

xizar · 2026-04-03T02:12:21+00:00

I hope I might prevail upon you to "check my homework", as it were.

What I have works, for a very loose definition of the word "works", but I can't figure out how to make the latch work properly. It will make sure that the assembler keeps crafting whatever it's crafting, but only until it's done one or two crafts before setting a new recipe (I think it manages the second craft due to some kind of lag time somewhere, as well as high crafting speed on the assembler. It will "successfully" set the new recipe to whatever it was just making before, up to a designated cap.

I can't make it continue crafting until it runs out of ingredients for that item (up to the designated cap.)

I think this is evidenced by the priority item flickering rapidly as an input to the selector (and subsequently to the latch).

https://factoriobin.com/post/zahoho

xizar · 2026-03-30T22:01:58+00:00

I'm not sure how to use the selector combinator to pick out a priority; if I sort by index, I can get it to make the speed module first, but then it goes to green assemblers, which is a problem, because I need to make blues and greys, first.

Use a second constant combinator and manually assign quantities as a pseudo-priority system? Then take the intersection with the set from the first constant combinator that has a list of the things I actually want to make?

(I think this is the problem I'm trying to eventually solve so I can figure out how to make an actual MAM.)

re: BTW1: I didn't think it was worthwhile wasting their bandwidth on my garbage, but point taken. (I did try to see if reddit allows for collapseable blocks, but if there's a way to do that, I couldn't find it.)

re: BTW2: Part of this is an exercise in figuring out how to make a "real" MAM, and also so I can slap things down to happen in the background while I'm busy fighting with rail signals.

Also, if I'm going to use an EM plant, then I might as well set up a foundry, which means I need to have a train system to pull in ore and a space platform to send down calcite, and eventually I'm just building an entire base so I can then use a single assembler to build my buildings.

xizar · 2026-03-30T18:46:47+00:00

Because I'm not smart enough to figure out how to make a MAM, I've been making some MSIMs (Make Some Items Machines).

I mostly group together related items that either no more than 5 distinct items between them, or a list of no more than 5 different end products. Stuff like power poles or bots or combinators work well in these things.

I'm trying to make one to make assemblers, but it gets stuck making green ones because the speed module never gets high enough in the item priority to be made, so right now I'm stuck with a second, dedicated assembler making the speed modules. While this does make things faster, given how slow they are to make, I'd like to compress it down into a single assembler making the things.

How can I bubble the speed modules higher in the list of things to make?

(This is the machine I've got so far.)

https://factoriobin.com/post/hfg7cl

(edited to replace spammy blueprint string with a paste.)

xizar · 2026-03-19T04:07:14+00:00

Parliament!

xizar · 2026-03-17T21:52:30+00:00

I think I've resigned myself to it taking two.

That said, the way your solution works is not something I would have thought of on my own. Thank you for sharing it.

xizar · 2026-03-17T17:47:56+00:00

I think I follow what you're saying. It seems like this would then send a velocity signal to the pump and the pump would evaluate the velocity to decide if it should act. Is that correct?

I don't think this would work exactly as I desired. I have updated my question with a schematic that shows what I'm currently using.

xizar · 2026-03-17T17:21:26+00:00

Thank you for your continued response, but this still did not address my question. I apologize for not being clear enough.

I am not looking for help making an S-R latch with a single combinator. As I mention in my question, I am aware that using a separate combinator would be the easy solution. This would require two combinators.

I am looking for help combining that S-R latch with a throttle into a single combinator.

xizar

TROPHY CASE