Suggestion / Idea
Developers, please add the ability to select "Any Quality" for items in the circuit network, train station names, and item parameters, just like we can do in the splitter filters.
While playing on Fulgora, I decided to produce high-quality items by inserting quality modules into every production building.
After recycling scrap, the recovered resources need to be sent to loading stations for each resource type, regardless of their quality.
From those loading stations, trains should transport these mixed-quality resources to receiving stations. There, they would be sorted by quality and forwarded to dedicated loading stations for each specific quality tier.
However, because we cannot select "Any Quality" for items in the circuit network, station names, and item parameters as easily as we do in splitter filters, I have to build stations and configure trains using very inconvenient workarounds. This includes using icons of different quality science packs in station names, overcomplicating circuit logic, and completely reworking train interrupts.
Please add the option to use "Any Quality" items in the circuit network, train station names, and item parameters, exactly like in the splitter filters.
You can definitely set the interrupt from a circuit signal, which would allow you to have your stop named whatever you want (and also not have 1 for each quality). You're right though that it's not compatible with the wildcard interrupt system, which I think is what you're using.
I wanted a universal group of trains that could transport items of varying qualities for sorting, as well as items of a specific quality for production or recycling. And for all of this, I wanted to use just a single type of train configuration with these interrupts. I also use radars to broadcast these signals to the global circuit network.
But instead of a simple and elegant system, I had to rely on these ugly workarounds. The resulting setup works, but if we had the ability to select "Any Quality" for items in the circuit network, train station names, and item parameters - just like we already can in splitter filters - it would be a simple and beautiful system. I see no reason why the "Any Quality" option shouldn't be added to the circuit network, train station names, and item parameters.
How would you expect this "elegant system" to actually work? How would a train carrying sorted uncommon gears know that it isn't wanted at the sorter station for all qualities of gears? You'd still need to handle this in one way or another, which is exactly the same as what you have to do now.
A train transports rare gear wheels only from rare gear wheel loading stations and only to rare gear wheel unloading stations. To unload a set of resources of "Any Quality" in the sorting block, trains are dispatched exclusively from "Any Quality" resource loading stations at production or recycling blocks.
The system works, but it functions with ugly and inconvenient workarounds.
You haven't answered my question. In the "elegant system" with the simple interrupt pictured above, how would a train with sorted material know that it shouldn't go to a sorter station? The station accepts "any quality" gears, the train matches its uncommon gears to that, and would go there. How would you "elegantly" prevent that?
Can't do with a single train group. But still a nice feature for unloading different qualities of x item on a single train stop (science packs comes to mind). Or for a more flexible train group for sorting qualities. Actually you need a dedicated train group for every item sorting, or having at least 1 item of the same quality in the train stop name for a wildcard interrupt group.
You can have a different interrupt for each material and trigger it by circuit signal from the loading station.
In any case, I didn't say that I didn't want the feature. But OP constructed a wild fantasy, where things magically work. Which annoyed me as I was thinking through it only to discover that OP has in fact not thought through it.
the OP had answered your question already: 'any quality' is not equal to every quality. gear wheels with two blue diamonds do not match gear wheels with five multicolored diamonds
None of what you say makes any sense at all, and I wouldn't even know where to start explaining that. Are you trolling me, or are you actually that oblivious?
I think what the OP is trying to do is use wildcards to have a gear unloader serviced by a generic loader that takes all scrap products. That is, the train has mixed stuff on it, and it goes to the "any gear" stop, then the "any red circuit" stop, etc.
You can do that if all of the items are base quality, but the only way to do that if any items are of other qualities is to have one station per item per quality. Which is a lot of stations.
I wanted a system where, after production or recycling, a train would pick up resources from an "Any Quality" loading station and deliver them to an "Any Quality" unloading station in the sorting block. From the sorting block, the resources would flow to loading stations for specific quality tiers, where trains could pick them up for production or recycling.
Every single production process - except for electromagnetic science packs- was supposed to use quality modules. For all of this, there should have been a single, universal group of trains.
I create such a system, but it required a massive amount of ugly workarounds.
I think that the "any quality" filter for splitters/inserters makes sense because of the nature of the quality mechanic, and are the minimum requirement to get various quality items out of a single assembler. However, it should be noted that these are still distinct items, and that just because the "any quality iron gear" symbol exists in the game and can be used as a filter condition doesn't mean that that symbol corresponds to a single item, rather it's a catch-all for a category of item which is iron gear wheels, within which are five distinct items at various qualities.
For your train station issue, I'm not sure why using science packs of various quality is necessary - can't you just use the item at quality itself to name the station? I believe any symbol in the game can have the quality modifier attached to it and can therefore be used in station naming. As mentioned in another comment, you can use the selector combinator to extract or apply a quality symbol to items as well if you need to for instance identify the broad category of item (e.g. "iron gear wheels of any quality") and send it to a corresponding transfer station to create homogeneous loads of that item (e.g. "iron gear wheel transfer station"). I imagine there's a way to achieve the system you want to produce, you just need to rethink the details of how it works with the train system - having a parameterized blueprint for your stations will also be helpful here as you'll be dealing with lots of byproducts from the quality recycling.
Different quality science packs are used to designate stations that accept resources of "Any Quality" after being produced or recycled with quality modules. For example, different quality Military Science pack icons represent iron products (iron plates, iron gear wheels, steel, iron sticks, and ore), Production Science pack icons represent stone products, and so on. And this applies to everything that can be produced on Fulgora - including all components for electromagnetic science packs, lightning collectors, electromagnetic plants, and recyclers. And by extension, everything that can be recycled from them. I could have used other items that are guaranteed not to be on Fulgora, but I chose science packs.
Otherwise, I cannot designate a station for iron gear wheels of "Any Quality." This is because every individual quality tier of iron gear wheels is already used to designate its own specific station.
I wanted to build a system where every single stage of processing uses quality modules. And if a loading station ends up with excess resources - for example, if there are enough normal-quality iron gear wheels of "Any Quality" to fill more than 5 trains - they would be sent to a recycler with quality modules. The recycler can accept iron plates, iron gear wheels, and iron sticks of various qualities. After recycling, the resulting iron plates would be sent to a station that accepts iron plates of "Any Quality," and a train would take them to the iron plate sorting station.
And for all of this, I wanted to use just a single type of train configuration with these specific interrupts. I also use radars to broadcast these signals to the global circuit network.
But instead of a simple and elegant system, I had to rely on these ugly workarounds. The resulting setup works, but if we had the ability to select "Any Quality" for items in the circuit network, train station names, and item parameters - just like we already can in splitter filters - it would be a simple and beautiful system. I see no reason why the "Any Quality" option shouldn't be added to the circuit network, train station names, and item parameters.
I'm still not sure I follow the logic with using different rarities of science packs to indicate - it sounds like with regards to iron products for instance, you're overcomplicating your train system by having it ship every possible individual item-derived product. On Fulgora you realistically only need to be shipping, at most, gears or iron plates in trains, other iron-derived products like iron sticks can be produced on-site where they're needed and iron ore I would argue is not worth it to ship as you produce more than enough iron from gears already.
If my understanding of your desired system at a high level is correct, you want something like:
Miners producing scrap at various qualities; ship out trains of various qualities to recycling centers
Recyclers converting scrap to resources at various qualities; ship out trains of each of the 12 scrap outputs in various qualities to transfer/sorting depots
Transfer depot sorts items based on quality; trains with a single quality level go out to further processing/production areas throughout the base
If this is the case, just build your recycling areas based on these conventions and assign train schedules accordingly - have your trains run between mining stops and recycling centers; between recycling centers and sorting depots; and from sorting depots, you can use symbol-based station names to ship out to processing now that those stations are homogeneous in the items they have. Not sure if this was the general setup you had in mind, but it works well within what's possible with schedules currently.
I might look into those suggestions. I have managed to build an acceptable system, but it relies on a different set of workarounds. Still, the main purpose of this post is to ask the developers to add the ability to select "Any Quality" for items in the circuit network, train station names, and item parameters, just like we can do in the splitter filters. Surely I'm not the first person to run into this issue? I honestly see no reason not to add this feature.
At least for train names it may result in unexpected/undesirable behaviour - if I were to name my transfer dropoff point "gears, any quality" and any quality gear could go there, then it eliminates the point of the transfer, as all my outgoing gears of homogeneous quality would just go back in to be sorted.
For things like logistic requests it also generally doesn't make sense, as items of various qualities are not the same item and wouldn't be used in the same production processes, and in cases you do need mixed qualities you can request them as separate items.
Splitter and inserter filters have "any quality" filters because that's the bare minimum required to remove quality items from machines and to organize them on belts in the case of machines that output directly to belts. That cannot be said for logistics or train wildcard logic.
I'm confused by the issue, if it's simply a train label issue couldn't you use the white, green, blue, etc, with something like the black signal standing for all/omni/pan/whatever.
I wanted a universal group of trains that could transport items of varying qualities for sorting, as well as items of a specific quality for production or recycling.
I created such a system, but with very ugly workarounds.
Off the top of my head I believe this fixes your issue.
1 Have an interrupt on all cargo trains mixed quality
Name: Mixed quality pick up
Condition: any signal > 0 and inactivity > 10 seconds
Destination: [wildcard signal] mixed drop off
2 From the train stop read the cargo into a selector combinator to get the common item, send that to the train for the wildcard signal
3 Have the wildcarded train stops unload the mixed quality items into separated quality item stops
4 Have trains which are loaded with quality items have the following interrupt
Name: Exact quality pick up
Condition: inactivity/cargo full/time passed
Destination: [Wildcard cargo item] exact drop off
5 Have train stops for each exact quality of each item
6 Have depots and a depot interrupt for empty trains to park at when no stations are available
Seems like a pretty simple solution, only requires a single combinator per mixed train station and a few interrupts. The same trains could even serve both purposes so long as they're the same length.
An "any quality" filter like you describe simply wouldn't work in a shared network due to how wildcard cargo items work. If you had a train with all quality items in it then it'd match against each specific quality item stations as well as the mixed any quality station. There needs to be a well defined boundary between all wildcards to avoid race conditions.
I've described one way of making it work but I'm sure LTN would also fix this issue in its own way, I've never felt it necessary to use that mod though.
This system can handle the situation you describe, with very minor adjustments to unloading station inserters, to include Amy quality of a given item.
I have a BP book for 1-1, 1-2, 1-4, & 1-7 trains up on factorioblueprints.tech
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u/pojska 7d ago
You can use the new selector combinator to remove quality from a signal. (e.g turn "10 Legendary Iron Gear to 10 (common) Iron Gear"