[0.7.5.7] Won't craft blocks with exotic components (e.g. Seed AI) without unnecessary refinery.

[ZeroGravitas]

With 4 component factories feeding a fabricator, block recipes requiring top tier components won't allocate factories (or call for resources) unless a refinery is placed such that it could theoretically feed all of the factory's inputs. Even though all resources are already refined (and the refinery is not then used for crafting when it does start working).

Credit to @DerNiepe for his crafty crafting base I demonstrated (most of) here, and for explaining this bug too.

This isn't limited to the latest unstable, though not sure how old this is.

[R&D save of demonstration attached, with seed AI ready to craft.]

Edit: note that only the refinery's output needs to be connected to a conveyor (on further testing). It only has to be upstream of (any) one of the component factories, and need not be down stream of any of the resource silos.

The above example is with 4 factories, but the same applies to other builds, with 6, etc. Other configurations also tend to have other problems too, like factories requesting extra copies of resources and sub-components that they already have buffered in their input. So above is a kind of best case scenario, for crafting, that let you more clearly see this particular dysfunction.

 

[DerNiepe]

I ill give the credits to findnixdasoriginal. He is too lazy to be active in forums or stuff, but i have the permission to post his stuff and ideas here

Btw: try this:
add fabricator of all companies,
make sure that you add them to the "Input" side of the component factories
set pacemaker on pause first (only if you want to)
set the complexest block to all fabricators (HE Cruise Missle, GSO Megaton etc..)
run the system
note that you NOT set them on repeat because it will craft only one of the blocks.
it will work

 

[ZeroGravitas]

Btw: try this:
add fabricator of all companies,
make sure that you add them to the "Input" side of the component factories
set pacemaker on pause first (only if you want to)
set the complexest block to all fabricators (HE Cruise Missile, GSO Megaton etc..)
run the system
note that you NOT set them on repeat because it will craft only one of the blocks.
it will work

Yeah, it impressed me that the game is coded well enough that multiple fabricators can all control the same production line at once, without totally screwing each other up. Well, it worked with @Pink Kitty's Midi-base, anyway. And I'll take your word for your build working too. But with my faster 4 factory reconfiguration of it, I get deadlocks happening with 2 fabs running at once (with all factories trying to make components requiring sub-components).

Presumably the fabricators have an order of precedence (depending how/which order you attach them?). And a single Fab on repeat will hog all the component factory scheduling then? Interesting... Seems like the on-repeat Fab gets precedence each time a Factory is freed up, rather than out-right blocking the other Fab's requests. So the other Fab can sometimes make the low tier components (with my version, anyway).

So, the crafting was working fairly well for me tonight. This faster, linear line configuration of factories worked first time, then made a bit of mess next time (as yeesterday), then settled back down to work fine. Video, again, showing needing to add a factory to get the exotic Seed-AI to craft. (Added at the beginning of one of the conveyors collecting resources from silos.)

Removing the refinery is actually a fairly handy way to reboot the allocation of factories, if the line get stuck in some way, heh.

 

[DerNiepe]

I tried to copy your factory design but i have trouble placing the dongles correct. The result is, that components goning round the whole conveyor line.

can you try to fix this? i dont get it.

 

[ZeroGravitas]

can you try to fix this? i dont get it.

In short: no, the devs need to make this work, because it should.

In long: sure, here:


Ok, so I made 3 changes:

1. Fabricator to the right - on the left, it just wouldn't run without the unnecessary re-ordering bug making a mess. I don't know if having the Fabricator directly linked to the output of a (top level) Factory is the key here, or what (I've got very mentally fatigued with all this).
2. I connected the refinery at the top end, since it wouldn't enable Seed-AIs from the bottom left.
3. I looped the conveyor back to the silo instead, as a cut-out; the scheduling algorithm prefers to send components all the way around the loop when it could take a much quicker path directly between Factories. I think maybe it is naively using physical distance between factories/refineries, instead of actual path-length along conveyors and such.

And just so that devs and other don't get the wrong impression, with me only showing videos of thinks working or failing very neatly, here's a super-tedious compilation of all the things I just tried with this little setup.

Thanks for prompting me to check this out, @DerNiepe, and presenting such neat little test builds. Couldn't have got this far without these, for sure.

 

[DerNiepe]

Alright thanks very much.
The only problem i got with it was to place the dongles in right place but nevermind. i found out thet some components going round by the recibe thats choosen.
It lookt it doesnt matter where the refinery is placed but must be on the conveyor line. you only need the output.
I think the refinery will "reset" the giving of recipes to the component factories. Notice that the refinery is asking for chunks if any ressource is missing on the silos.

I got a workover on this and finished.
How and why to use:
This compact crafting base is used to craft a few missing blocks if youre going around in the campaign and dont want to go back to your base first.

In the case that the venture resource blocks are containing only 8 resources, i decidet to transform my whole inventory of treasure blocks to venture ones. theyre better to measure out to get resources just in time.

Just load up the base, put a fabricator you need at the end, and start crafting the block you want.
Next is to feed the Scrapper with the resources missing in the reciepes and let the fabrication do his job.
If finished you can try to craft the remaining resources back to blocks or put delivery cannons to the silos to sell them.
Last step: send to SCU.



Some tips for that:
remove the pacemaker block, the lower silo, the sideway conveyors (where the reciver is placed) and the scrapper and save it again with another name. now you got the complete stock version what you can load up if you have no venture or pacemaker in campaign yet and craft with GSO or Geo.
I dont think Geo will work very fine as scrapper because it would overfill your silos immediately.

Note: The reciver is only for getting the chunks back on the conveyor lane if the upper silo is full. I think you noticed that chunks will fall off if the silo is full.

EDIT: I got an tricky issue:
I tried to craft hawkeye missle pod and at one point, i was feeding the resources in time, the whole thing get stuck. So what happened:
I dont know really which one but on the silos was one specific resource missing and as i feeded it, nothing more happened. I checked the reciepes of the component factories and every factory was set to get other components only that had do be craftet first. So i think as the resource was missing before that happened one component was crafted last and the factories got their next reciepe set wrong.

Its a very strange case that i didnt got before. I hope the coders will find out to make that whole crafting system even better.

@Adriano if you take a look at this thread, i hope it can help you all to make an workover

 

[ZeroGravitas]

The only problem i got with it was to place the dongles in right place but nevermind.

Oh, damn, sorry; I've been terribly patronising and unhelpful.

So has tweaking the dongles per factory, there, fixed the setup for you, without having to swap sides or ends? (That's interesting...) That layout just wasn't working for me, though I only really tried with the old Avalanches (sticking to one exotic block type for consistency); I probably should have tried a few other blocks, with Proxima Dark and so on.

You should totally (re)post your last reply as a new thread, in the "Techs" sub-forum, or somewhere where more players are likely to see it.

Note: The receiver is only for getting the chunks back on the conveyor lane if the upper silo is full. I think you noticed that chunks will fall off if the silo is full.

Oh right? I'd noticed a few chunks on the ground that shouldn't be, (though not really as many as got spat out of the big, overlapping storage stack on your previous build) and I thought I saw a processed wood chunk flying. Can you predict and reproduce exactly what causes this to happen with this setup (I think I'd seen a couple bug reports about silos dropping chunks, but wasn't sure it was like this).

[Edit: thread about resources flinging and falling off crafting bases.]

 

[ZeroGravitas]

OK, so here's @Tenzen gaming having trouble with this bug in his latest YouTube playthrough, at 17m04s:

Without an (unnecessary) refinery, there's a failure to assign or display components at the factories, so he can't see what resources are missing for them (when trying to craft a tier 3 dongle). Just as @Pink Kitty lamented in this thread, last month.

Or rather, my initial thread title wasn't all encompassing here, but it's a lack of an unneeded refinery that's causing component factory allocation to be borked. @Adriano - did you already log this one for later?