Factory Gauge
Factory gauges are used for automating logistic requests and production, for their conventional usage and foundational concepts of higher logistics, see the in-game ponder. When placed in a factory controller, they operate in recipe mode.
Factory gauges need to be tuned to a logistics network before being placed in a factory controller. To do so, either interact with a stock link in the game world with the gauge in hand, or use the network selector in dashboard UI to tune to a network that is already tuned to by another gauge in the factory controller.
Once placed, the new factory gauge need to be configured with an item to monitor. You may do so by clicking on the unconfigured gauge with the item in cursor, or use the "set item" screen. Either way, you may also drag a ghost item from JEI or EMI to the filter slot.
If you use the "set item" screen, the item’s NBT data can be chosen to be ignored. NBT is respected by default.
Once an item is set, the gauge starts monitoring the number of this item in the tuned logistic network, and displays the count on its label.
Clicking on a factory gauge with an item set opens its recipe settings screen.
- ❶ Output
-
The type and number of items this gauge is set to produce. See Basic Production.
- ❷ Ingredients
-
The types and numbers of ingredients required to produce the output.
- ❸ Add connection button
-
Click to add a connection to other factory gauges or other components.
- ❹ Relocate button
-
Click to move the location of this gauge on the virtual board.
- ❺ Destination address
-
The address the ingredients will be packaged and sent to.
- ❻ Storage amount
-
The number of the monitored item stored in the logistic network.
- ❼ Target amount
-
The amount of items in storage this factory gauge is targeted to reach.
- ❽ Item measure
-
Unit of measurement of the target amount: Items/Stacks
- ❾ Mode of operation
-
How the target amount is set or determined. See On-Demand Production.
- ❿⓫⓬ Promises
-
Requests made by factory gauges awaiting their outputs, and options for limiting them. See Promise Limits.
- ⓭ Reset button
-
Click to clear all configurations of this gauge, including the set item.
- ⓮ Confirm button
-
Click to confirm the configurations, and close this screen.
Beyond monitoring storage, the most basic usage of a factory gauge is to reperesent a recipe to produce an item, for example, smelting 1 raw iron into 1 iron ingot. The type of the output is simply the monitored item. To define the ingredient(s), connect this gauge with other factory gauges set to monitor those ingredients.
This connection can be made by clicking "add connection" (Figure 4 ❸), and then the gauge responsible for the ingredient. Such connections are shown as item icons in the ingredient list (Figure 6 ❷), and can be removed by clicking on them.
In its default mode (❾), a factory gauge monitors the amount of its item in the logistic network storage it is tuned to (❻). When this amount is below the set target (❼❽), it requests a set of ingredients to be sent to the destination address (❺), expecting the output (❶) to later arrive in storage (❻).
Both the number of each ingredient and output can be adjusted by scrolling on them, allowing an arbitrary of number of output to be produced from arbitrary numbers of ingredients. Scrolling on an ingredient allows you to configure more than 1 stack of the same item. However, there cannot be more than 9 stacks of ingredients in total, the output is also limited to 9 stacks.
Smelting raw iron to ingots in 32-item batches |
|
Mixing concrete powder in 256-item batches |
|
When a factory gauge A is used as an ingredient to another gauge B, most of the configurations of A are irrelavant to B, except the item A is set to monitor and the network A is tuned to. This means A can be producing its item by any means, or merely monitors it, all accepted by B identically.