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How to automate Rock Crusher?


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Hey all, I've been trying to automate a Rock Crusher (and several other duplicant operated machines) with the auto sweeper and running into problems.

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I would like the auto sweeper to automatically supply the crushers with igneous rock whenever I order some rock to be crushed, but duplicants insist on bringing it there themselves! The best I've been able to do so far is to set the receptacle at priority 9 and enable manual use so they'll at least get it from a nearby source.

I could use access restrictions and priorities to only allow dupes in there that have supply jobs disabled, but that frankly doesn't feel like a good solution because occasionally I need everyone to help sweep stuff elsewhere. Are there any better ways to deal with this?

At the moment it sure would be nice to have a door/passageway that prevents duplicants from taking items with them...

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They're duplicant operated, so you can't automate them completely. It still takes a duplicant to actually "operate" the machine and refine input -> output.

The best you can do is fill them up for dupes so they don't have to move stuff there manually. If dupes have a "higher" priority at filling them up whenever there is a job (which is actually pretty interesting), can't you just run an automation wire to that door of yours, hook it up to some kind of manual sensor like an atmosensor set to above > 20000 or a clock that you manually set to on/off, then use that sensor to lock the door, add the jobs to the queue, wait for the sweeper to put the materials in there and then unlock the door again?

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I know they can never be fully automated, I would just like to optimize them by having sweepers take care of all input/output.

I could lock the door with an automation switch yes, but I want to set the machines to continuous operation so I don't have to babysit them. So that means there will constantly be new jobs for rock delivery and sand to be swept up. The sand does tend to get swept up by auto sweepers if duplicants have stuff to do elsewhere but they will always try to deliver first as soon as they decide to go crush some rocks.

I will have a go at the idea of using automation and doors though...

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Set receptacle priority to 1 and disallow manual operation. It would surprise me If your dupes are quicker than sweepers to pick on The task unless If you have 20+ Idle.

With receptacle at 9 prio, your sweeper will never pick stuff out from it, bcs nothing has a higher priority, so from sweeper point of view the igneous is supposed to stay in the receptacle.

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I would suggest something similar as the op.

Use the door. Set it to only your operators to be able to go in and out. And disable delivery on the two of them.

Another suggestion. Probably the more sophisticated would be to store all your igneous rock inside a room not accessible or rather semi accessible by dupes. Would require more sweepers. 

The idea is that. Only dupe a and b are allowed inside the rock crusher room but not inside the igneous rock storage so they can't supply though they are able to supply other buildings.

Dupes c to z are allowed inside the igneous rock storage but not inside rock crusher room so they can fill the storage but not supply. E voila sweeper can only supply

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@Carnis I've tried setting the receptacle priority to 1 and unfortunately dupes still deliver before the sweepers do. I've had some "success" with adding a dedicated entrance and exit, and an automation system that detects whenever sand is produced and locks the entrance for 5 seconds.

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The problem there is that usually two dupes will come and crush some rock, when they're done they leave since they have nothing left to do and the sweepers do resupply the crushers, but now I'm just wasting a lot of dupe time forcing them to run between crushing and other jobs.

@Yoma_Nosme: Separating igneous rock storage into a special room and dedicating 2 rock crushers who are not allowed in there seems like the best method I've heard of so far so I will try that next, thank you :)

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12 hours ago, Sevio said:

I've tried setting the receptacle priority to 1 and unfortunately dupes still deliver before the sweepers do.

This should not be possible. The sweeper delivers stuff instantly while dupes need to walk there. For some reason your sweeper refuses to deliver the ore. What about priority, does the sweeper wait with delivery for a dupe that decided to do the same first? Does it deliver when dupes have a break? Or is it the crusher only requesting resources when a dupe is operating it. I don`t get what`s wrong there.

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7 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

This should not be possible. The sweeper delivers stuff instantly while dupes need to walk there. 

Right, but it's all about which entity gets the task. The task gets assigned to either a dupe or sweeper that'll take it regardless of proximity or ETA. We've seen similar troubles in other contexts: a sweeper sits idle for minutes while a dupe runs clear across the map both directions to make the delivery.

To the OP: there's really no great way to deal with it at this point. At the moment, operate and operate-deliver fall under the same priority. So, any way you could prevent dupes from delivering to the rock crusher would also keep them from wanting to operate it. If you manage to get the sweeper doing all the delivering, it's a fair bet your dupes ignore the rock crusher all together.

You *could* make sure that your dupes just don't have access to any igneous rock. It's actually not as ridiculous a task as it sounds.

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10 minutes ago, avc15 said:

The task gets assigned to either a dupe or sweeper that'll take it regardless of proximity or ETA. We've seen similar troubles in other contexts: a sweeper sits idle for minutes while a dupe runs clear across the map both directions to make the delivery.

This is exactly what's happening, a dupe from across the map overenthusiastically takes the task "I'll deliver that 100 kg of igneous rock to the crusher despite there being an auto sweeper right next to it that can do it faster than me!" and the auto sweeper magically knows that someone else has already taken its task so it sits idle.

11 minutes ago, avc15 said:

You *could* make sure that your dupes just don't have access to any igneous rock. It's actually not as ridiculous a task as it sounds.

That's what I'm planning to try out, give 2 dupes access to the rock crusher area and lock them out of a dedicated igneous rock storage room. I think I will need excess rock crushers present so there is always another one ready and waiting for them when they finish with one.

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I've managed to solve it like this:

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Two dupes are allowed in here, and those dupes do not have access to the igneous rock storage. They'll keep crushing rocks as long as there isn't any igneous rock to sweep from construction. The heat from the igneous rock (and sand) from the regolith melter has necessitated a cooling loop going through the walls of the hatch ranch. I'm also trying to make the conveyors go through as much abyssalite as possible to reduce the amount of heat they can give off.

The automation under the weight plates detects if sand is left there for more than 20 seconds and shuts down the rock crushers so I don't overproduce. To make that work I also had to lock my crusher dupes out of the sand storage.

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8 hours ago, Sevio said:

That's what I'm planning to try out, give 2 dupes access to the rock crusher area and lock them out of a dedicated igneous rock storage room. I think I will need excess rock crushers present so there is always another one ready and waiting for them when they finish with one.

What I was thinking was similar but along different lines. You could make an automated storage locker that your dupes want to send all the igneous rock on your map to, at a higher priority than operating the crushers. Then anytime a dupe was carrying igneous rock it'd go into storage, and there'd never even be any rock they could grab to put into the rock crusher. Tricky. It'd all be in an inaccessible room or conveyor receptacles.

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