Use display module to change factory production

[Jaaskinal]

I think it would be an interesting avenue for automated factory production. Currently, automatic factories must have a buttload of separate factories because they can only store one item to produce.

I don't know, what do other people think?

 

[Lone_Puppy]

That's an awesome idea!

It would be awesome if you could enter an item and the total you require. Something like...

[factoryitem]Grey Hull,50

 

[nightrune]

This is very inspired. I'd like to see this as well, but possibly just changing factory production like rails might work better?

 

[Spoolooni]

Well, the less logic blocks, the better.

 

[Jaaskinal]

This is very inspired. I'd like to see this as well, but possibly just changing factory production like rails might work better?

I figured displays would be better, for the ability to add things to them. That way you can have different displays to do interesting things, for example, having many displays to put together hull. You could set it up for a variable controlling the color, the type of hull, and whether it's armor or not, or if it's a wedge/hepta/tetra. IDK, might be more difficult than the alternative.

 

[Thalanor]

I want this since factories end up being such a mess of C-V without being able to encapsulate it. I kinda like that a sophisticated factory requires thought to build, but since you cannot "hide" the implementation behind a clean interface, it becomes a mess, so this suggestion is preferable.

 

[lupoCani]

Very much yes.

Considering the display module system is already turing-complete, the addition of this would allow the construction of fully automated factories. If I may elaborate a bit on a potential system-

The new tag would be [item]. Specifically,

[item] <item name>; <quantity>;

Examples would include:

[item]cannon; 10;
[item]salvage computer; 2;

On their own, these would be used to set an item to a factory. Writing

[item]grey hull; 0;

in a display and applying it to a factory would set it to producing grey hull.

Furthermore, this tag could be used with storage block filters. Writing and applying

[item]missile tube; 15; [item]plex door; 5;

to a storage block would make it pull 15 missile tubes and 5 plex doors every tick. To avoid erasing whatever is already written in the filter, the [add] tag could be used:

[add][item]gravity module; 2;

This would add two gravity modules to the storage block's existing pull filter. Negative numbers would be valid for removing filters:

[add][item]gravity module; -5;

would make the storage block pull five less gravity modules every tick. If it's already pulling less than that, the filter goes away entirely.

Finally, this could be used for fast item measuring. Consider a display block containing the text:

[item]cannon; 100;
[item]salvage computer; 20;

You could link this to a sensor block, along with any number of inventory blocks. The sensor block would give a positive output only if the inventory blocks, combined, contain at least a hundred cannons and twenty salvage computers.

Like this, we could set factories arbitrarily, configure storage block filters with logic, and quickly detect when enough items are produced, as to avoid any over-production.

 

[Aesthetics]

Interesting concept, though I'm not too sure how it would work.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

Sounds complicated. I'd rather see some kind of abstract "Factory Controller Block" that links to other factories and storage, and has a production queue you can configure, e.g. "1000x White Hull, 400 Power Reactors, 250 Jump Drive Modules" which it then does its best to handle automatically.

 

[lupoCani]

It's not really complicated, not more so than any other display block feature. Set factory production, set/add/remove storage block filter, compare block quantities. Of course, some logic engineering would be required to make it useful, but controlling factories with logic was never going to be easy.

On the other hand, if you do want full automation- I'm all for it.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

There's also the obvious of adding these functions to the factory themselves, but I like the modular concept of being able to switch things around with logic. So Jaaskinal's use if multiple displays for the variations on hull production would be cool.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

Bumpidee bump bump. I so want this. Especially after recently experimenting with automated factory building.