MicroController

by ljdp

Program circuit network logic using FAL, a Factorio Assembly Language.

Content
5 years ago
0.16
7
Circuit network

g Awesome mod! A couple of questions and usability comments.

5 years ago
(updated 5 years ago)

Firstly, thanks so much for this amazing mod. You've done a really professional job. Immediately before I started playing Factorio I bought and played most of the Zachtronics bundle, so I feel right at home in this. I love how you've even done the "photocopied + scribbled-on" manual :) It's a great homage to TIS-100 and Shenzen IO. And a perfect fit for Factorio - in fact I'd already thought while playing that I wished circuits had more sophistication, like the Zachtronics games.

I was hoping to check a couple of things:

Am I right in thinking that a MicroController does not automatically update for changed input, like vanilla combinators do? I have to have a program looping forever if I want it to reflect changes in input?

I was wondering if there was any way to have the MC run a program 'on input change', like vanilla combinators do. EDIT: having played with it more, I'm pretty sure there is not. Which is fine, they just need to loop when they need to constantly check for changed input and reflect that in their output.

Secondly, is there any way to output multiple signals from a MicroController?
EDIT: yes of course there is, that's what FRAMM is for of course. FRAMMs are basically Constant Combinators, but controlled and manipulated by an MC. I somehow failed to noticed that the FRAMMs were setting output signals - sorry!

Finally, a couple of minor usability comments:

  1. It seems like FAL is case-sensitive, in that it only accepts lower-case opcodes. This was a bit confusing at first as the manual gives all examples in upper-case. It took me a few moments to work out why nothing I was copying from the manual was working :) It'd be nice if opcodes were case insensitive, though I did realise later that the in-game help does give them all in lower case, so it's not a huge deal.

  2. Would it be possible to make the cursor more visible? It's very hard to see on my 4K monitor, and when it's between two characters it's practically invisible. When trying to edit quickly I basically have to guess where it should be, and often get it wrong. Making it chunkier and white would be really helpful - if that's something you have control over? If you can control it, maybe a setting for this could go in Mod options? I find the text perfectly readable, it's just the cursor. (If you can't change this now it might be possible in 0.17, which I believe has better Rich Text support.)

Thanks again for all your work on this. I think it's criminal it's had so few downloads, it's a really fine piece of work. I was wondering why you don't have a forum thread for it? That would advertise it more, as well as being another place for discussion. People should know about the work you've done! :)

Thanks again.

5 years ago

I was wondering why you don't have a forum thread for it? That would advertise it more, as well as being another place for discussion. People should know about the work you've done! :)

maybe the forum also would be a good place to publish and exchange programs written for the MC ...

btw: i still dream of someone writing a 6502 mod :-)
(i used to be able to program that beast not only in assembler but in hex, LOL :-)

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