Silo Crafting Resource Bug {Refinery allocation alternation causes silo dither}

[IBallistic Cheese]

Please don't get mixed up with my previous post on silos. This time the focus is on resource delivery not signal transition to the silos.

So this problem is... when I try to craft a block (e.g. Compressed resource blocks) the fabricator will call for multiple resources. The first few blocks crafts pretty smoothly, but after a few repeats the system starts to get a bit crazy.
As blocks are being called by the fabricator and leaving the silos they come out and goes back again. My base has a layout where multiple silos hold resources of the same type.
As I was able to catch the fabricator resource demand interface flickering red and back to blue when this was happening (showing resource on the conveyer and back into the silos) I made a theory as to why this was happening.
The fabricator (of any kind) will call for the resource from all the silos connected to the conveyer chain, all of the silos that are holding the needed resource will respond. Therefore try to send the resource out on the conveyer. However, when the resource is indicated by the system to be on the conveyer, the silos will call back the resource, as it is no longer needed by the fabricator. With all of the silos acting based on the system, there will be a corrupted infinite loop of the silos trying to send resources out and calling it back. resulting in no to very little of the needed resource to be sent to the fabricator.
The video below may allow for better understanding:

The first part shows the resources being crafted just fine. But after a bit of crafting the system goes "jabroni" and even continues to do so after I call off the crafting and restart it again.

 

[NoSvOrAx]

The video is unavailable, but do you have 2 or more refineries in your system? It's what was causing my problems. Think I saw a post about it.

 

[IBallistic Cheese]

The video is unavailable, but do you have 2 or more refineries in your system? It's what was causing my problems. Think I saw a post about it.

my design has got 1 refinery at the beginning of the base where the resources come in to the silo. Its not connected to the crafting chain directly and (thankfully) does not respond when the crafting starts.

 

[IBallistic Cheese]

The video is unavailable, but do you have 2 or more refineries in your system? It's what was causing my problems. Think I saw a post about it.

my new experimental base with one silo of one type of resource each works without any problem as far as I know.
http://prntscr.com/fyt0a2
this is the screenshot of the base

 

[IBallistic Cheese]

The video is unavailable, but do you have 2 or more refineries in your system? It's what was causing my problems. Think I saw a post about it.

I changed the video setting so I think you can watch it now.

 

[DerNiepe]

Can you upload your base here? I just want to test around what is happening with it. Sometimes better than a video

 

[IBallistic Cheese]

Can you upload your base here? I just want to test around what is happening with it. Sometimes better than a video

which one do you want? and how do i find the files? im a newbie at that

 

[DerNiepe]

you find you techs as .png files in your TerraTech\Snapshots folder. as i see you using a mac i cannot say where your folder is axactly

EDIT: you can save our .png files there too and load up our techs in your game

 

[IBallistic Cheese]

you find you techs as .png files in your TerraTech\Snapshots folder. as i see you using a mac i cannot say where your folder is axactly

EDIT: you can save our .png files there too and load up our techs in your game

I did a screencast to explain the problem so I hope you will understand what i am trying to get across.

 

[DerNiepe]

I know about the problem and i wanted you to upload THIS base so i can try to work around it and give it you best fixed back as i can. there is a little trick to make it working to fabricate even exotics without any issues.
Here is an micro base i built up. its a kind of "Base-to-go" (its based on how i use this in campaign )
You will be able to craft any block without getting stuck.

 

[IBallistic Cheese]

I know about the problem and i wanted you to upload THIS base so i can try to work around it and give it you best fixed back as i can. there is a little trick to make it working to fabricate even exotics without any issues.
Here is an micro base i built up. its a kind of "Base-to-go" (its based on how i use this in campaign )
You will be able to craft any block without getting stuck.
View attachment 15207

I get what you are trying to do here. I understand your component production system you have set up there. However, I dont think it is relevant to my problem. Your micro-base consists of only one silo while mine consists of over 10. I have built a base that works without problems by sorting each resources into one maxi silo categorized to store that kind. Its just I want the devs to see the problem with "resource calling" when there are two or more silos that are holding the same resources.
This is the mega base (with defensive system of course)
http://prntscr.com/fz6roe

 

[DerNiepe]

i built up a base that is calling from 35 silos the same time and i have no trouble there. if you want i can send it to you. just try it out in RnD. anyway
one hint to your conveyor system:
put the silos directly to the main line and not spaced with one conveyor each (your picture the left lane)
I guess if you feed the silos you will have noticed that every 3rd or 4th chunck will pass the filter (its a known issue). to fix it, you need to place the filter directly to the silo and no chunk will pass anymore instead the silo is full.

 

[IBallistic Cheese]

i built up a base that is calling from 35 silos the same time and i have no trouble there. if you want i can send it to you. just try it out in RnD. anyway
one hint to your conveyor system:
put the silos directly to the main line and not spaced with one conveyor each (your picture the left lane)
I guess if you feed the silos you will have noticed that every 3rd or 4th chunck will pass the filter (its a known issue). to fix it, you need to place the filter directly to the silo and no chunk will pass anymore instead the silo is full.

I think we are not on the same page right now. I have fixed the problem for myself on the base that I posted on the previous screenshot. It works fine. I just posted this thread to see/confirm if the problem with the simpler build that I had on my first one was a bug or not.

 

[Adriano]

@IBallistic Cheese Hey buddy, thanks for reporting this. Am in the process of checking some of the crafting issues reported recently, if possible can you please upload a snapshot or save game of the original problem base please? This video will show you where to find the snapshot or save file. Thanks!

 

[Adriano]

@IBallistic Cheese Looking at your video, I believe the issue you're having is a variation of this one, where the base is calling for resources it doesn't need. In your video they look like they are being called from the silos before being put back, which is something I've seen whilst testing the other bug. If you upload the snapshot or save game, I can take a closer look and be sure

 

[IBallistic Cheese]

@IBallistic Cheese Looking at your video, I believe the issue you're having is a variation of this one, where the base is calling for resources it doesn't need. In your video they look like they are being called from the silos before being put back, which is something I've seen whilst testing the other bug. If you upload the snapshot or save game, I can take a closer look and be sure

@Adriano I have uploaded my save file and also a snapshot of a redesigned fully working base. However, the current save no longer have the same base problem as I have "fixed" it according to my theory above. So i have also uploaded the base in the video that I recreated it to the best of my ability with my pre recorded youtube content resources titled "Bug Experiment Tech".
Thank you.

 

[Torvawk]

I have experienced two similar but related bugs. My base has both raw and refined components. I have just started working on using the component factory and I am having problems getting the resources onto the conveyor. It is like the silo pulls in the resource before it can move away. I can watch it call the refined resource and then the raw resource back and forth. They are directly across from each other on the conveyor so I don't know if that is part of the problem.

It is very weird that it alternates calling the raw vs refined resource. It is almost like there is no priority in calling raw vs. refined resources. As such, each check for resources seems to come up with a different solution. I personally would like to see it pull the most highly refined resource/component first and then build what is missing than for it to try to build from the bottom up.

On the possibly related problem.
I have had to add a silo next to my last refinery as I do get extra resources when crafting items that only need raw or refined resources. Refine resources are able to pass out the back side of the silo but the crafting system could not handle that. I had to add a refined filter to by pass the refineries and the silo.

Being a programmer it seems clear that the extra resources are call right when the one of the current resources enters the refinery. It is like some event is firing off to remove the item from the list of required resources before the refined resource is registered as available and added to the list. (Raw resource is removed and events fire then the new refined resource is added and events fire). I am guessing one of the events that fires asks for the extra resource.

 

[Torvawk]

Well, it seems my different solutions theory was wrong. I got further along the crafting by manually dragging resources to the conveyor. Now it is stuck on a resource that all I have are refined resources. There are no raw resources. But the refine resource gets added to the conveyor and then pulled back into the same silo. Updated save attached.

I do agree with some of the other posts. You built this game around blocks and the building of blocks. You have even gone so far to make buying blocks you can build difficult. This is now core functionality that is not working correctly. Please don't go down the road some other software I supported went. You cannot focus on new features at the cost of your core functionality. I don't care what the new feature is, you will lose your user base if the core functionality does not work and they will not really care about the new features, they want a usable product.

BTW, I have noticed silo buffers cause a large amount of crafting issues. For instance, I once tried to get three tracks working simultaneously by using the large mix silos as distribution hubs. Needless to say, at the time it was a colossal failure. If you want, I can get into the creative mode and try it again. The key with silo buffers is that the filter blocks can pull items out of silos. I think it is a really cool feature that I have been trying to take advantage of. It has the chance of increasing the through put. You can see an example of what I mean in my base where I am receiving resources. I can suck up resources really fast as I have about 10 different simultaneous feeds into the main silo. I want to take that idea and expand it to three tracks. In theory, it should be possible. In practise, there are/were issues.

 

[ZeroGravitas]

Looking at your video, I believe the issue you're having is a variation of this one, where the base is calling for resources it doesn't need.

Thought that too, at first. But watching closely I don't think so (although @IBallistic Cheese tried to throw us off in the first video by moving a chunk of oliete around by hand )... It's just the raw and refined plumbite being called and returning from/to the same silo, on the far left that is that actual issue above.

It's appears to be caused by the two alternative pathways for refined and unrefined resources, separated (unnecessarily) by filter conveyors, while the (one) silo has some of each (refined and unrefined). The system dithers between requesting one, then the other. As demonstrated here:

So not an issue with (too) many silos. Snapshot and save of this setup attached (in mid dither).

Same issue described here too, by @Potato.

I've also just re-created this dithering behaviour using a filter conveyor to split routes. This wasn't down to refined/unrefined switching, but it was less reliable to reproduce.

And there's a similar/related issue where assigned refinery alternates between 2 possibles, thus allowing raw resources to slip past them. As talked about in this Steam thread. (Possibly on forum too, couldn't find it.)

Edit 2017-10-16: added info to title in { }.

 

[peterb39]