r/factorio•
tinyogre

Someone asked, "How do I type?" I wasn't satisfied with the responses, so I made an answer.

Question Answered

Posted Feb 6, 2021, 6:08 AM UTC

2.1K33
Zaria404•

A flex like none other

161
tinyogreOP•

u/TheAnswerWithinUs posted this question a month ago, and it's been nagging at me ever since. Finally had a couple of hours free, so I made a keyboard so that dude can type.

Features:

  • 10 character display
  • Over 25 letters available, AND SPACES!
  • Reset Switch
  • Colored Lights

Mods required:

Mods used while making it, but not required:

How it works:

When you press a "key", a single tick pulse gets sent to a blueprint deployer, causing it to duplicate the blueprint for that letter. It gets picked by an inserter onto the belt system. When it reaches the next enabled display slot, that inserter puts it it into another deployer, and also sends a pulse that increments the display index. Which then disables that inserter as well, so that the next one can pick it up. Each inserter has a hard coded condition to only pick a blueprint when they are the currently selected index. The deployer deploys the blueprint in its area, then another inserter grabs the blueprint and sends it to the trash deployer in the lower left. Any blueprint that reaches that is destroyed.

When you click the clear button, a signal gets sent to the bottom row of deployers causing them to destruct their area, and also resets the display index to 0.

Future improvements?

  • Switch Button buttons require clicking twice. There's another mod out there that will send pulses instead, that would've been smarter. I already had the whole keyboard wired up when I found it.
  • If you type too fast, you can get letters out of order.
  • Better color lighting options. Like, color cycling and individually colored letters.
  • Make it faster - going all logistics would help, but the belt makes it super simple to plop the letters down in order. Logistics could be done by turning on requester chests in order.
  • Lower case, numbers, symbols
  • The font is ugly, 5x7 would've been better than 7x7 for almost every letter (W and M excepted)

​

!blueprint

https://gist.github.com/tinyogre/a833cb8cc5ad5a7c55f5d72b66e8936f

88
Mike_Kermin•

If you type too fast, you can get letters out of order.

To eb fari it's raelsitic.

65
Proxy_PlayerHDSupremus Avaritia•

Over 25 letters available

i mean, technically that's true as there are 26, but the wording seems like something from a commercial

also do you have the video uploaded somewhere else? for some reason this video specifically doesn't want to load.

27
Gaybush_Bigwood:train:•

ñ.ñ

4
missinlnk•
  • Over 25 letters available
20
tinyogreOP•

All the letters for the font in a book, have to manually insert these into the chests to make it work, sorry!

!blueprint

https://gist.github.com/tinyogre/18ceb53bbeb69f11b0e01e1bdb2cdd70

18
BlueprintBotBotto•

Blueprint Image (10 Character Display)

(Modded features are shown as question marks)
2
SimurghXTattletale•

Doesn't the blueprint mod deployer react to coordinate signals ? Could you increase the x coordinate in a memory cell after every pulse, and feed that to a deployer depending on which letter it was?

4
tinyogreOP•

Yes, you could absolutely do that! Would certainly make it faster. That’s a good idea.

3
BleiEntchen•

Expected ''Send nudes''. Massive disappointment.

38
Peakomegaflare•

Right? Would have been perfect.

2
charredutensil•

If you type too fast, you can get letters out of order.

Just put the keys in weird places so people can't type as fast. No, seriously.

34
tinyogreOP•

Some additional circuits could be used to block key signals until a blueprint has passed the last belt intersection. Thought about it, didn’t do it.

8
GoofAckYoorsElf•

Dvorak layout! Nuff said

1
Meow_Meow_man•

Wow!
i wasn't think abaut this way to make a display.
i like it!

8
tinyogreOP•

I've seen a few displays, but yeah, I haven't seen one that works this way either. I won't be at all surprised if it's been done before though!

6
[deleted]•

[deleted]

5
TheAnswerWithinUs:circuitblue::circuitgreen::circuitred:•

Gotta say, that's pretty epic

3
Darth_Nibbles•

I hear that bot noise in my dreams

3
JSX54•

Taking Vanna's job I see

2
Free_Vegas•

I find this weirdly hot

2
[deleted]•

[deleted]

2
tinyogreOP•

It's not even subliminal, is it? It's superliminal.

Didn't even think about it until you said this.

1
Floufym:train:•

Hey ! Amazing works ! Two questions:

  • how do you « press » a key
  • how do you deploy the blueprint? Thanks
2
tinyogreOP•

Those are the two things that require mods, can't do either in vanilla very nicely. The "keys" are switches from the Switch Button mod. You just click on them, and then they start sending a configurable signal. 27 buttons, one for each letter and one for space. They each send the signal for their letter. Once to turn the signal on, and again to turn it off. A pair of combinators then turns the signal into a single tick pulse.

I discovered later that there's a different mod that adds pushbuttons that just send a single tick signal when you click them. Will check that out for version 2 if I do more on this.

If you wanted to make this without that mod, you could try to do something like use gates to be keys, because gates can send a signal when they open. So you could very carefully place some gates and walls and have the player run through them to generate "key presses". That was about the best I could think of. Another idea might be an array of chests, and putting an item in one could cause an inserter to grab it and send a pulse.

However, the whole thing relies entirely on the other mod, so there's no getting away from mods, and at that point, using a button mod seemed sensible.

Speaking of the other mod, blueprints are deployed using the Recursive Blueprints mod. It adds a building that you can send signals to deploy a contained blueprint, to duplicate a blueprint, deconstruct an area, and a few other related things. You can do some really amazing things with it, this is the tip of the iceberg and you can find a bunch more cool things on this sub that have used it! This is the first time I've really played with it. I keep meaning to use it to set up some auto-deploying outposts and such for my real factories, but haven't ever done so.

3
Floufym:train:•

Ok thanks ! I thought it was without mod I see you edited your post :)

1
sparr•

Let Me Circuit Network That For You

lmcntfy.com

2
nickphunter•

OMG. Thanks for introducing me to picker dolly mod.

2
GustapheOfficial:nuke:•

I don't understand why someone would ask a question like that without just checking the settings first.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
gosu_chobo•

I once connected a green wire to the power pole

1
FactorK•

These are some next level shenanigans

1
jamalbeys•

We like this

1
Skellitor301•

Can we get an alternate source? Vid's not playing in Reddit

1