while waiting for some more mods to be updated to 0.18, i took a closer look again at the last version of this mod for 0.17 and its documentation and found the following (small and/or old) questions, wishes and suggestions :
1a - there are two signals to make carts go left and right. those two signals are relative to the arrow and there are no signals to go back and straight (relative to the arrow)
1b - there IS one signal to go straight. but that signal is relative to the cart! and not relative to the arrow.
combining the above two observations, you have three different signals LRS, but most often two of them have identical results (eg when the arrow points right, both of the signals L and S let it go straight). it would be nice to have all four directions available as signals relative to the arrow and also another four relative to the cart, maybe something like LRFB (left, right, forward, back) relative to the arrow and WASD (the usual keyboard shotcuts) relative to the cart itself.
1c - https://gitlab.com/aerosuidae/logicarts/-/wikis/circuit-network says for all three signals LRS "regardless of path arrow" which is only correct for S, but for LR the directions are dependent on (relative to) the path arrow !
1d - an additional information that is missing in the documentation: L has priority over R (i guess that this depends on alphabetical order, also when S/T/G and other signals are combined with L and R), thus carts will go left when both signals L and R are sent (and also ignoring the values of those signals, thus 1L and 1000R still let the cart go left). this allows for tricks like constantly sending R and only having one decider for an additional L, instead of having to do the calculations twice (for L and for R) or doing them once and having an inverted signal one tick later.
1e - and yet another detail in the documentation: i like that in contrast to what the above wiki page says ("When a cart detects a constant combinator next to and facing a stop") many things can be done (detected by combinators and then acted on) also when the cart is driving on any arrows and not only on stops. this is most important eg for sending LRS signals depending on the cargo (rerouting depending on real contents instead of real contents OR filtered slots, which is what stickers do). just as 1d, i find this great, but it should also be documented ...
2 - the new D-stop (at least new since i did my last map with this mod many months ago) is very nice and helpful, but i have a little problem with how the delay works and what is deployed: "Periodically auto-deploy a cart from an adjacent chest, plus fuel and battery/generator equipment if it exists. Frequency controlled from mod settings."
2a - when lots of fuel (eg 100 wood, or 200 modded wood) is loaded before getting stack inserter bonus it easily takes more than 10 or 20 seconds so that mod settings below 30 seconds effectively mean "immediately deploy the next one when loading is finished". could this be changed or could we get an additional option/toggle to have a delay after the cart leaves the deploy stop, and/or maybe best and easiest: could we get an option to only load a specific minimal amount of fuel so that the cart can leave and go to the next fuelstop nearby? this would also be helpful when using lategame fuels or modded fuels that are better handled by a fuel stop instead of eg loading carts with tons of nuclear fuel for the entire next year that then even isn't removed at the R-stop :-)
2b - it would also be nice if other items that are suitable for the grid could be automatically deployed, either immediately on deploying the vehicle or later by inserting them at another dedicated stop, eg for belt immunity, a roboport or a personal laser.
3a - similar to the D-stop, also the R-stop is nice and would be useful, but it's too bad that it has to be unloaded first. how do i do that fast and easily? i have several ideas for this, but none is quick and easy: a) putting an "unload filtered" as well as an "unload unfiltered" stop in front of the D-stop, or b) putting down a requester-stop (the one with a "?") and wire it to a combinator and an inverter so that it pulls everything from the cart, or c) putting down a combinator to remove all filters (signal "T") and then unload all unfiltered items. it would be quite helpful if everything would be unloaded automatically at a R-stop.
3b - unloading also applies to unloading the fuel: how do i remove the fuel from the cart before it is deconstructed ? when i deconstruct/mine it manually, i get all its contents including(!) its fuel, but when the R-stop does it, the fuel vanishes :-(
4a - similar to 3b, how do i replace one type of fuel by another type? how can i remove all fuel to refuel it with a different type of fuel, and even if there would be a stop that allows removing fuel, how would the cart be guaranteed to have enough fuel to reach a fuel station even if that is only one tile away and i have bad luck ? tough decision, probably difficult to find a solution, and not that important either after the problem 3b is fixed :-)
4b - and yet another question about fuel: how can i reliably detect whether a cart is using fuel or power ? by checking whether F or E is greater than 0, this can be detected most of the time, but there is a "degenerate case" where the cart is fuel powered (thus E=0) and almost out of fuel (burning through the last unit of fuel, thus also F=0). would it be possible to set either variable to -1 if that type of fuel is not used? the alternative that i see now is to only check for E=0 and act on that, since an electric cart with E=0 won't move and can't be told to go someplace anyway, and thus assume that whenever E is 0, the value of F really is trunc(fuel) ? but this is not reliable since eg in the case of using solar panels, a cart can temporarily be out of power (E=0 and F=0) and will "wake up" in the morning ...
5 - another effect with "vanishing" items: when i drop items onto a cart by ctrl-clicking it with some item or fuel on the cursor, the items/fuel are put into the cart. but when i just ctrl-clicked on a cargo slot in a cart, the items were dropped on the floor at a "random" location (not sure whether it was next to me or where i was some moments earlier, anyway it was neither put into the cart nor dropped next to it on the ground).
6a - i currently play with fantario, thus have lots of wood and even logistic wires, but no electricity yet until i launch a rocket. it would be helpful to have burner versions of combinators for at least the most primitive operations like negation and to create LRS and red/green signals depending on conditions, to pause/continue carts at stops and redirect them. but that probably should be done by another new mod and not mess around directly with the inner workings of this mod.
6b - until then, it would be helpful to have a mod option for the default "inactivity wait time". such an option also would be useful during normal gameplay to make lots of circuitry easier (currently needing a red signal to stop carts until something is finished, and then needing a green signal to let them continue immediately. it would be nice if (depending on the user's playstyle) this default delay could be set to 0 and only need creating red signals, or having a delay of "forever" and only needing green signals (this also depends on whether red or green signals have priority, see also 1d), or any other value in between, eg to accomodate for different crafting times of many or the most important machines when a craft takes much less or much longer than 3 seconds.
overall, a really nice mod, giving a real alternative to belts, trains and bots, and also another challenge in factorio !
