My Best Scanner Setup So Far [No Clickbait]

[goatt]

As title. I played with scanners and stared at logic gates for probably an hour cuz I'm not so good at them and came up with this.

When meteor warnings starts

• 150s later, doors will start to close
• 200s later, 5 scanners out of 6 will be shut down (by shutting down that transformer)

When meteors stop

1. bunker doors will open first
2. 50s later, first row of mec door will close 3 times to clean regolith
3. 85s later, all doors will be open and standby for next shower

Automation details starts at 1:43 of the video (the filter gate i missed has an 85s timer)

Sorry about video quality, my machine wasn't really capable, but i did it anyway.

I wanted to add some bg music, but I was worried about copyright infringement.

(One thing I discovered, when regolith piles up on the side, it can block some scanner's signal)

[Enno]

3 hours ago, goatt said:

 

• 200s later, 5 scanners out of 6 will be shut down (by shutting down that transformer)

 

I can't watch the video right now, but as far as I can remember, you should not turn off transformers directly. They have a tiny battery in them and if you turn it off you'll delete the charge. Turn your machines (or transformer) off by using the shutoff in the electric section. 

 

[PhailRaptor]

6 hours ago, Enno said:

I can't watch the video right now, but as far as I can remember, you should not turn off transformers directly. They have a tiny battery in them and if you turn it off you'll delete the charge

You could argue that this is true for the Large Transformer due to it's 4 kW capacity, but the 1 kW capacity of the small Transformer is extremely trivial.  By the time you have access to the Surface, you should be capable of generating such ridiculous quantities of power that frankly both numbers are insignificant.

[goatt]

@Enno @PhailRaptor You might be interested to hear this, meteor period is like 100s or more, shutting 5 scanners down can potentially save at least 5x100x120 =60,000J, 60kJ.

[PhailRaptor]

25 minutes ago, goatt said:

@Enno @PhailRaptor You might be interested to hear this, meteor period is like 100s or more, shutting 5 scanners down can potentially save at least 5x100x120 =60,000J, 60kJ.

Not sure why you tagged me, I was agreeing with you...

[Enno]

2 hours ago, PhailRaptor said:

You could argue that this is true for the Large Transformer due to it's 4 kW capacity, but the 1 kW capacity of the small Transformer is extremely trivial.  By the time you have access to the Surface, you should be capable of generating such ridiculous quantities of power that frankly both numbers are insignificant.

I agree, but I wanted to mention it since it can be am issue earlier in the game. When you turn off the transformer and don't know this, it could waste power. 

21 minutes ago, goatt said:

@Enno @PhailRaptor You might be interested to hear this, meteor period is like 100s or more, shutting 5 scanners down can potentially save at least 5x100x120 =60,000J, 60kJ.

I also agree here. You should definitely turn them off, I just wanted to point out that this way (especially applied to other machines) has the potential of deleting power and shouldn't be used for every system. 

[goatt]

@PhailRaptor I know, I just feel I should say this to you, I mean I thought you might wanted to know too. Sorry if I confused you.

@Enno I thought I mentioned it in my last reply, but i didn't. I actually hadn't known about the transformer wasting power thingy. That's why I always had a buffer battery in each branch of my power grid. But after reading yours, i tested, and it did waste 4kJ, every time it was turned off. And then I did my calculation.

[Mr.Trueba]

That's a real no clickbait!

I´m working in my first space base and this is very helpful. I´ll send you a screenshot when I finish it. Thank you.  

 

[ToiDiaeRaRIsuOy]

You might want to replace the window tiles with mesh/airflow tiles. Windows tiles reduce the incoming light a bit, while the airflow/mesh tiles do not. It will allow more energy to be recuperated between meteor showers.

Props for using the 40kJ battery though. The smart battery is in my eyes an inferior choice in the case of solar panels because you have to emphasize mass storage of energy. Yes, energy run off is 2.5x higher per stored joule, with 25% more heat produced per stored joule, but ultimately you save out on set up as smart battery require you to double the dedicated space for them and everything associated with that.

[goatt]

@ToiDiaeRaRIsuOy Good comments. Another new thing I didn't know about.

[ruhrohraggy]

I was planning to one-up the rest of these scanner builds so far with something special, something that I've been working on for a few days now, after doing alot of math on how much better it might be (and it's a lot better)...An idea sparked from another thread I read...a 100% scan-quality, pulse scan network. Unfortunately I could only come close...I managed to pulse 5 out of the 6, with 1 acting as the reset. But still...5 out of 6 ain't bad.

What would this mean for us? Pulsing scanners only use power for 1 second per pulse and with some clever timing, you can get away with not pulsing them very often. The power savings is huge.

This also means you get 100% scanner quality, so you will always know meteors are going to be [200 seconds] - [pulse time] away once they get a signal. This is veeeerrrrry useful for waiting until the very last second to close the doors.

I was prepping some screenshots and videos for a guide on how to build it, and how it worked...and then upon re-loading to get more footage, I realized that this system, and probably any system that buffers an active Scanner's output signal, will have 1 major flaw...A system breaking, table-flipping, typical ONI flaw.

Automation Gate status is not stored when you save and exit your game. I did not know this, I never payed attention to it...I wish I had known though...

Anyway, what this means is that...when you load up again, your automation circuits are completely reset. : If a pulse-scanner or buffered scanning system is mid-pulse during a save or auto-save, or if it is mid-buffer for an incoming meteor storm, your solar system is dead-meat. If your original signal was mid-buffer during an auto-save, and you reload your game, it will have been reset... so a new buffered signal won't make it in time to shut the doors.

*table flip* ....so much for that idea.

When your game is running however, and the system is in the swing of things, it's marvelous, truly a power-saving sight to behold.... But nobody is going to want to pay attention to when they have to save, and then babysit the network every time they load up again to make sure it gets running without getting blown up....I don't...

Here's some screens of my futile efforts at least...It really was neat, and working out the automation idea was fun...It's quite an elegant and novel solution if you ask me.

Test circuit

Spoiler

Wired up

Spoiler

6th dish that always runs, used to reset network. Only 120 watts though, no biggie.

Spoiler

Scanner spacing and Solar Layout chosen carefully to boost power efficiency. Scanners shadow falls between optimal solar spacing...like this build was meant to be...except it really wasn't...

Spoiler

Bottom left pannel power during midday

Spoiler

Bottom right power during midday.

Spoiler

 

[goatt]

@ruhrohraggy your pulsing network idea is super good. It’s perfect match with scanners. I had never thought of it. And you didn’t fail xD

[ruhrohraggy]

8 minutes ago, goatt said:

@ruhrohraggy your pulsing network idea is super good. It’s perfect match with scanners. I had never thought of it.

Thank you.

And me either...wasn't my original idea. Some guy in another thread suggested it and I knew it had to be at least attempted...

But again, this idea won't work. Well, I mean...It could work...but you will always have to save your game to exit right after a meteor storm...which is a pain, and surely almost every-one would forget to do this, and then lose their entire solar array.

[goatt]

@ruhrohraggy that is quite painful. Can you tell me what was the pulse frequency that you used? I’m on my phone, not easy to read photos. Thank you

[ruhrohraggy]

17 minutes ago, goatt said:

@ruhrohraggy that is quite painful. Can you tell me what was the pulse frequency that you used? I’m on my phone, not easy to read photos. Thank you

The pulser is set to 37 seconds total. Could maybe do 38 and get away with it...

33 Seconds from buffer, ~ 4 seconds for airlock door to close and scanner to pick up signal.

But your question actually made me realize something...I have my bunker door trigger set for 200 seconds. I've gone through about 4 iterations of this build, and for some reason, I used a number for my signal buffer from an older / different build...

This is probably wrong, and adjusting this might solve the problem...

Technically, if the pulser is off for 37 seconds, I have to assume an incoming meteor signal can occur anywhere during those 37 seconds...and I can't rely on that 1 active dish to pick it up with a scan quality of ~13%.

If we assume the first potentially detectable signal occurs on the 36th second while the pulse is off, which is the worst possible scenario...it would mean the meteors are 164 seconds out, and a 200 second is too much time.

So I'll need to adjust my filter and buffer gate to 164 seconds, and watch again for awhile...I'll also have to try saving mid-buffer signal and re-loading in a few times to see if it still matters...

Thanks!

[goatt]

@ruhrohraggy great you have new ideas. I’m thinking maybe you should sacrifice last pulse just to be safe? Tbh, I might be content with 1/2 or something lmao. 

[ruhrohraggy]

2 hours ago, goatt said:

@ruhrohraggy great you have new ideas. I’m thinking maybe you should sacrifice last pulse just to be safe?

 

Yeah, well it's not that that I wasn't at least trying to be safe, it's that I had the totally wrong number in there.

And you bring up another very valid point whether you meant to or not....

The faster you cycle the scanners, the less margin of error you have.

So at what point does the power lost from faster scanner cycling (giving a smaller margin for error, allowing you to close the doors later) outweigh the light lost from closing the doors too early.

Very interesting. I'll look into this and if all goes well, I'll post up a full blown guide with video.

So far, with the re-adjusted buffer...They have closed on time, every time for the last 8 cycles of meteor showers.

-Edit- So after some thorough testing, I'm fairly satisfied so far. I haven't been able to catch a buffered signal in-between saves yet, but It will happen sooner or later...

Also, with some xcel wizardry I solved the problem of how often to pulse to maximize both accuracy and power efficiency at the same time...

The Blue line is Power Lost vs. Time Between Pulses. I calculated power lost as #pulses per cycle * energy consumed per pulse * 5.

The Red line is Power Lost due to doors closing too early in peak light for 18 solar panels. (3 panels per scanner for my setup)

And the result : Pulse once every 28 seconds.

Spoiler

 

[mathmanican]

I gotta love any post that uses this much math to work on a problem.  Great work.

On the other thread, I added a comment about getting automation to work with a small liquid pump.  The forums have several examples, but this will let you automate things between any save/load. Have fun tinkering, and keep up the great math work. 

[ruhrohraggy]

1 hour ago, mathmanican said:

I gotta love any post that uses this much math to work on a problem.  Great work.

On the other thread, I added a comment about getting automation to work with a small liquid pump.  The forums have several examples, but this will let you automate things between any save/load. Have fun tinkering, and keep up the great math work. 

 

Suppose you would with a name like mathmanican.

Cheers, and thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I was pretty mad when I noticed all of my hard work was completely undermined by something as stupid / simple as the game not saving the progress bar of a filter gate.

 

And sorry for sorta hijacking this thread...I'll give it back now. I really do enjoy seeing how other people setup their systems. It's a good way to gain new ideas, or maybe see / learn something you didn't think of. Already, I've picked up 2-3 new ideas from posting in here...so, thanks!

[Icywolf]

@ruhrohraggy

You can try with a couple of conveyor loaders and smart storage compactors. The compactors store the signal and activating a specific conveyor loader to load the container for 0 or 1 will allow you to buffer the signal

Edit: Tried that, it is not more energy efficient than drops of water Small pump that moves liquid for 200s (or 37s, whichever gate you want to record), hydrosensor and a door to drop the liquid back when it is matched seems like the best choice. 

You can also do with a termal or germ sensor, but that will get a lot of tinkering to get right - you need to have it perfectly balanced, as all things should be.