How to use the Critter Sensor for collecting eggs

[llunak]

Does somebody have a working automated system for collecting surplus eggs from the stable?

Attached is my attempt at this in QoL1. With critter sensor set to 8 and the loader set to accept eggs, it should just work. Except that it quite doesn't, because the way critter sensor and autosweeper work makes it really difficult. With there being 7 hatches and 2 eggs, one egg should be loaded and transported away, but it will actually load both of the eggs.This is because both the sensor still counts eggs held by the loader or the sweeper as "in the room", and also because the sweeper first collects both eggs from the group and only then it loads them. Which means that it's unlikely that any egg would ever hatch, since in the time needed for it another egg will get laid and then they both will get swept. (Note that the save is created using sandbox, so there are e.g. not enough sweepers to cover the entire stables, but it shows the situation well enough).

I already mentioned this in the announcement thread, and some people said that it of course will work somehow. But nobody posted an actual working solution, only ideas or mockups, and they just will not work because of the above-mentioned problems (people for some reason especially seem to miss the fact that the sweeper will first load both eggs, even though I stressed that fact; you can test it in the save).

So, does somebody have a working solution and could you please post it? Preferably if it's a reasonably simple solution. I know people have already automated this in the past even without the sensor, but those were complex setups that presumably took hours to invent. I think if a task as reasonable as this cannot be done without extensive research then it is broken.

PS: Note that the save also shows two bugs, the critter sensor not remembering its setting after save/load, and the loader getting loaded even when disabled by automation. But regardless of those I still can't see a reasonable solution for the problem.

 

Test.sav

[Yoma_Nosme]

Disable the sweeper until the first egg is gone? Not plus buffer gate? Just my 2cents

[Saturnus]

Autoloaders aren't "disabled" by automation the same way other buildings are. It will still accept items to be placed in it... unless you use the automation to cut off power to it completely.

This set up has the incubator set to continuous on the specific egg type you want to continue breeding. All other egg types are picked up by the right loader, and surplus hatchling eggs are pick up by the left loader when critter sensor says the critter limit is reached. The incubator needs to have higher priority setting than the loaders obviously.

It's just a mock up but it works fine. It can obviously be refined a lot.

[Neotuck]

1 hour ago, Saturnus said:

Autoloaders aren't "disabled" by automation the same way other buildings are. It will still accept items to be placed in it... unless you use the automation to cut off power to it completely.

This set up has the incubator set to continuous on the specific egg type you want to continue breeding. All other egg types are picked up by the right loader, and surplus hatchling eggs are pick up by the left loader when critter sensor says the critter limit is reached. The incubator needs to have higher priority setting than the loaders obviously.

It's just a mock up but it works fine. It can obviously be refined a lot.

Wait, incubators don't need to be manual qued for each egg now? 

[Saturnus]

Just now, Neotuck said:

Wait, incubators don't need to be manual qued for each egg now? 

Nope. It's one of the changes in the update.

[Neotuck]

Just now, Saturnus said:

Nope. It's one of the changes in the update.

nice, I didn't notice that 

[Neotuck]

I have upgraded my 16x6 room designs I use for early hatch farming

Both sweepers can reach the storage above them for storing eggs and the sweeper on the right can reach the incubator, the incubator is automated by the critter sensor and not gate 

however a disabled incubator will still incubate any eggs left inside so it's best to set the critter sensor to 6 to get the full 8 critters

[Rotintin]

I've been tinkering with my hatch farm to get it as simple as possible while still having control. I typically build two stables of 8 hatches on a 16 width (18 with outside walls) room. This is as simple as I could get it with dimensions 18x17 outer walls. The critter filter is set to 8, the smart storage is set to 1kg of eggs.

You can do a few things after you drop the eggs: you can let them just sit there and let the population grow. With no tiles for them to navigate you mitigate some lag caused my large amounts of critters. You could also empty some bottles and drown them when they hatch, or you could boil them into omelettes.

If you don't want to you use 60w on the smart container you can just use the buffer-filter-not drop loop for a sweeper. These tend to have hiccups for me in late game, so I'm switching to the storage container.

It's nice to put this setup above storage / rock crusher for easy shipment of shells, meat(or other food byproduct), and minerals for the hatches to eat.

[ShadowOfALegend]

this could up the efficiency of maximizing meat production on top of keeping your critter count stable

[Angpaur]

On 11/23/2018 at 3:41 PM, llunak said:

Attached is my attempt at this in QoL1. With critter sensor set to 8 and the loader set to accept eggs, it should just work. Except that it quite doesn't, because the way critter sensor and autosweeper work makes it really difficult. With there being 7 hatches and 2 eggs, one egg should be loaded and transported away, but it will actually load both of the eggs.This is because both the sensor still counts eggs held by the loader or the sweeper as "in the room", and also because the sweeper first collects both eggs from the group and only then it loads them.

To solve this specific problem you can keep the loader behind pneumatic doors in a sperate room - when egg is moved there I guess the sensor will sense only 8 criters and will disable loader so next egg is not moved. Trick is that pnemumatic doors doesn't block autosweepers range. However if loader is still loaded, even if disabled then instead of pnemuatic doors you can use mechanic doors and just close it and this way blocking autosweeper range.

[Iriswaters]

Wait, I thought the reason for the buffer-filter-not loop was that putting eggs in a container caused them to break?  Is that not a thing?  

[llunak]

10 minutes ago, Angpaur said:

when egg is moved there I guess the sensor will sense only 8 criters and will disable loader so next egg is not moved.

I expect this will again run into the problem that the sweeper first picks up all eggs and only afterwards delivers.

But I've meanwhile solved this by using an incubator. I originally didn't want to, but I'm rather convinced this simply cannot work without an incubator.

So the solution for this problem is simply adding an incubator with a higher priority than the loader. It will protect one egg from the sweeper and breed new hatches fast enough to keep the population alive. Then the sweeper and loader can do whatever they want, they do not even need any automation. The only automation needed is the critter sensor controlling the incubator (limit set to max-1 and a NOT gate between it and the incubator).

So I find the critter sensor still bad for controlling collection of eggs, but at least this somewhat clumsy workaround works.

 

[NonFat]

On 11/26/2018 at 2:27 AM, Iriswaters said:

Wait, I thought the reason for the buffer-filter-not loop was that putting eggs in a container caused them to break?  Is that not a thing?  

They do, but it is not instantaneous, an egg can survive a few cycles in the container before they break, a few moments doesn't affect it at all

I have been messing with the egg sensor, and i ended up building this: 

It has been functional for about 700 cycles, and just kinda works, however if i was to build it again i would change it so that the container at the top for sweeping eggs into immediately had the rail leave the room and go into a wall instead of going straight down, since i have occasionally had the sweeper get a little over excited and sweep up far too many eggs and drain the room down to 3 hatches.

 

below it not quite seen is a fish farm that... well i am working on it, i think they changed fish from eggs to not live forever anymore, and a drowning room for the excess hatch eggs

 

[Lawnmower Man]

On 11/29/2018 at 2:43 PM, NonFat said:

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Why the art spam?  Paintings only have a radius of 6, so the top row (and probably the second top) have no effect, do they?  Or do auto-sweepers benefit from decor?