That displays thousands, mills.

Yeah, when you put displays next to each other, they automatically sync up. Connect the wire to the right-most display.

Yes, I understand it. But if I have 1 piece of 3 displays together I can put 999 or 999.999 in one or two triple displays

I'm not entirely sure what you are asking. The game's circuit network does not allow for decimals, so 999.999 is just not a thing (Unless they changed that very recently).
If you put 3 of the big displays together, you can display 0 to 999. The small displays are two decimals each, so 3 of those together would be able to display 0 to 999999.

Thank you

He is talking about a visual appearence of a large number aka thousand separator.
if we want to use small nixie tube, we get numbers with a "hundreds separator", and not thousand.

for example, it take more time to read |4|02|18|00|, than |4|021|800|,
or how much is that: |50|00|00|00|00|? 500 mil? 50 mil?
I need to count zeros, that takes idk, 4 seconds, but the same number with the thousand separators |5|000|000|000|, it tooks milliseconds to read 5 billion.

therefore, small nixie tube (1 tile height) with 3 numbers in a row, maybe 2 tile wide would be helpful.

Yeah, I've actually wanted this as well for a while. It's in my todo queue to automatically merge them into a single larger nixie display, with an extra digit in between.

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/NixieTubesThreeDigits

He is talking about a visual appearence of a large number aka thousand separator.
if we want to use small nixie tube, we get numbers with a "hundreds separator", and not thousand.

for example, it take more time to read |4|02|18|00|, than |4|021|800|,
or how much is that: |50|00|00|00|00|? 500 mil? 50 mil?
I need to count zeros, that takes idk, 4 seconds, but the same number with the thousand separators |5|000|000|000|, it tooks milliseconds to read 5 billion.

therefore, small nixie tube (1 tile height) with 3 numbers in a row, maybe 2 tile wide would be helpful.

I would also really like a UPS-friendly display with 3 digits, because having a separation at thousands place is so much less jarring. I wouldn't even mind if it's 2 tiles wide, it would still be better than using 3 of the large digits to avoid the odd spacing. 2x1 is way better than 3x2. Or a 3x1 6-digit display would work too, just anything to have the digits grouped in multiples of 3.

I would love to have updated art for this mod. If we can find someone to do that and have them make a 2x1 version capable of displaying three digits, I’ll add it.

the art already existed in the mod
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/NixieTubesThreeDigits
but the mod is not updated for the 2.0

I would love to have updated art for this mod. If we can find someone to do that and have them make a 2x1 version capable of displaying three digits, I’ll add it.

I took a stab at this and wasn't happy with the spacing with a 2x1 version without squishing the numbers, so I instead saw how much I could fit into 3x1 and it fits 7 digits with what I think is reasonably aesthetic spacing. This does not chain together prettily, though I suspect that a number limit of 9,999,999 mostly makes up for this.

Created PR at https://github.com/pindab0ter/UPSFriendlyNixieTubeDisplay/pull/4
sample image of it working: https://i.imgur.com/3XwwF6Y.png

@RnDMonkey
2x1, 4 or 5 digits maybe ?

@RnDMonkey
2x1, 4 or 5 digits maybe ?

4, I would say, but IMHO that has the same problem of gaps as the 2-digit version does when chaining, so there isn't much point in spending the effort (not spending my effort, anyway :D).

I'm quite happy with the 7-digit version and it's fit my needs everywhere I used it. I doubt I'll often have to display numbers outside -999,999 to 9,999,999.

I took a stab at this and wasn't happy with the spacing with a 2x1 version without squishing the numbers, so I instead saw how much I could fit into 3x1 and it fits 7 digits with what I think is reasonably aesthetic spacing. This does not chain together prettily, though I suspect that a number limit of 9,999,999 mostly makes up for this.

Created PR at https://github.com/pindab0ter/UPSFriendlyNixieTubeDisplay/pull/4
sample image of it working: https://i.imgur.com/3XwwF6Y.png

First of all, thank you for taking the time and effort to make such a good quality PR.

I have thought a bout it for a while and I think I'm going to hold off of merging the PR for now. Let me explain why.

The core of the problem we're trying to solve is nicely displaying large values.

Personally I use the classic Nixie tube for everything and you can just put as many of them in a row as you want. The same goes for the reinforced Nixie tubes. However, they do take up a lot of space that way. This is where the small reinforced Nixie tube display comes in, being able to display twice the amount of digits in only half of the space.

The problem with the small reinforced Nixie tube display is that we don't generally group digits in sets of two but three (sorry to any Indians reading this), and it seems hard to make a display with three digits look good with the current assets.

It looks like you ended up at a seven digit display because it combines the ability to show large (enough) numbers with the fact that the digits are nicely spaced inside of the display, even mimicking a thousands separator with how you distributed the spacing between numbers.

Here's the thing: I just don't think any of the reinforced Nixie tube displays look very good.

So rather than settling for the seven digit display (which, honestly, is pretty decent for what it aims to do), I would rather renew my efforts to find a game graphics artist to create new assets for this mod; improved visuals, but also a way to chain displays in a way that looks pleasing. Maybe even a 2x1 display with three digits that does look nice because of custom assets.

The reason I don't want to merge this PR in the meantime is that if people start using it and I do find someone to create new assets, I will have to continue supporting the seven digit variant even if it becomes superseded by a possibly better alternative.

I have already tried asking around on the forums but have not had a reply yet. I have begun looking around on platforms like Fiverr and Upwork. Unfortunately I don't have much money I can spend on this. I will also try to directly contact modders who I think made good assets.

Please let me know what you think and if you know anyone that can create better assets than these and help think on how to make larger numbers look good, either spread over multiple displays or by offering more display sizes.

Thank you for the compliment. I understand your reasoning, and am okay with it. As it meets my current needs, I'll keep using my bespoke 7-digit version in the meantime.

I'm no graphics artist, just a bit of a hack with GIMP, so I can't help there. :D