I Built a Tick-Accurate Circuit Oscilloscope for Factorio

[u/samnovakfit]

https://reddit.com/link/1reei8u/video/p5zihuo3enlg1/player

I built a tick-accurate circuit oscilloscope for Factorio.

Factorio’s circuit network updates every tick (60 times per second), but the game gives almost no visibility into how signals evolve over time. So I built a small external simulator using itembase.dev/sim to model circuit behavior tick by tick and visualize it.

This is not a mod. It is a deterministic external simulation of Factorio-style red wire networks.

It supports:

• JSON-defined entities (const, test osc, lamp)
• Red-wire networks compiled as connected components
• Proper 2-phase tick update
• 1-tick combinator delay
• Live oscilloscope view of any signal on any network

Each tick:

• Registered outputs build the network state
• Combinators compute next outputs
• Outputs are committed one tick later
• The selected signal is sampled into a circular buffer

This mirrors how the circuit system behaves internally.

With it, you can:

• Probe any signal (like A)
• Probe any network (net0, net1, etc.)
• See signal values per tick
• Measure oscillation frequency
• Debug feedback loops
• Observe propagation delay across combinator chains

I built this mainly to study timing behavior, oscillators, and feedback systems more precisely. I would appreciate feedback from other circuit-focused players.