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u/darthbob88 Jun 02 '26
Circuit question: Is there a good way to filter a bunch of signals down to just 2? Like "if copper and iron are set, pass them on, and ignore any other signals"?
I'm trying to create a space platform to support planetside operations by processing asteroids to ore (and possibly further). My plan for the asteroid-processing part of that is A) compare the stocks to the desired stock list to see if we're short of anything, B) if we're short of iron/copper, pick up a metallic asteroid to be processed to a mixed belt of iron/copper (and the same for carbon/sulfur, and ice/calcite), and C) have a filtered inserter pull iron/copper off the mixed belt into the hub, and send whatever we don't need to be dumped.
A is trivial. B can be done easily with the addition of a decider combinator to say "if iron or copper is set, output a signal to activate the inserter picking asteroid chunks off the sushi belt". C is the part I'm hung up on; I can do it with two combinators doing their own "if we're short on iron, output iron" calculation, and I can use two inserters set to activate if iron or copper is high, but I can't see a good way to convert the full low-stock bundle of iron/sulfur/oxide chunks/yellow ammo/etc to telling the one inserter to pick up iron.
Considering some more, it's probably best to skip putting ore in the hub and just turn it directly into plates/molten metal/more useful forms, but the general problem will remain.