Cycle Buffers

<h2>Cycle Buffers</h2>

<p><strong>Cycle Buffers</strong> changes how much material production machines and fuel generators are allowed to buffer.</p>

<p>Instead of allowing machines to fill their inventories based on normal item stack sizes, Cycle Buffers limits them based on a configurable number of production cycles.</p>

<p>This is especially useful in manifold-style factories, where large internal buffers can cause the first machines in a line to absorb huge quantities of material before later machines receive enough to start.</p>

<p>I was inspired by the Machine Buffer Resizer mod by Acxd and Joanna, particularly the dynamic buffer size option.</p>

<h3>Features</h3>

<ul>
<li>Limits manufacturer input buffers by recipe cycles</li>
<li>Limits manufacturer output buffers by recipe cycles</li>
<li>Supports solid and fluid recipe inputs</li>
<li>Supports solid and fluid generator fuels</li>
<li>Supports supplemental generator water</li>
<li>Separate configurable input, output, and generator cycle counts</li>
<li>Generator limiting can be enabled or disabled independently</li>
<li>Settings are stored per save</li>
<li>Live setting changes are applied without restarting</li>
<li>Recipe quantities respect session/world recipe-cost modifiers</li>
<li>Compatible with increased item stack sizes</li>
<li>Existing excess inventory is not deleted; machines simply consume or drain down to the new limit</li>
<li>Output buffers are never increased beyond the item's effective stack size</li>
<li>Generator water buffers are never increased beyond their native capacity</li>
<li>No changes are made to nuclear waste handling</li>
<li>Very low runtime overhead</li>
</ul>

<h3>How it works</h3>

<p>The mod uses each machine's actual recipe quantities, so a setting of <strong>3 input cycles</strong> means the machine can buffer roughly enough material for 3 recipe executions.</p>

<p>For example, if a recipe consumes:</p>

<pre>
2 Iron Plates
3 Screws
</pre>

<p>then an input buffer setting of 3 cycles gives:</p>

<pre>
6 Iron Plates
9 Screws
</pre>

<p>Generator buffers work the same way. Solid and fluid fuels are supported, and supplemental generator water is also limited according to the configured number of fuel cycles.</p>

<p>Water buffers are additionally capped at the generator's original native supplemental-fluid capacity, so Cycle Buffers will never enlarge a generator's normal water tank beyond its vanilla maximum.</p>

<h3>Why use it?</h3>

<p>Cycle Buffers is mainly aimed at large manifold factories.</p>

<p>With vanilla buffer behaviour, early machines can fill large internal inventories before material reaches machines farther down the line. This becomes even more noticeable when using mods that increase stack sizes.</p>

<p>Cycle Buffers keeps those internal buffers small and predictable, allowing resources to move farther down the manifold much sooner.</p>

<h3>Configuration</h3>

<p>All settings are stored per save and can be changed live from:</p>

<pre>
Pause Menu
→ Mod Savegame Settings
→ Cycle Buffers
</pre>

<p>Default values:</p>

<pre>
Input Buffer Cycles: 3
Output Buffer Cycles: 10

Enable Generator Buffers: On
Generator Buffer Cycles: 3
</pre>

<p>These are intended as sensible starting values rather than mandatory settings.</p>

<h3>Compatibility</h3>

<p>Cycle Buffers has been tested with:</p>

<ul>
<li>Standard production machines</li>
<li>Solid recipe inputs</li>
<li>Fluid recipe inputs</li>
<li>Solid-fuel generators</li>
<li>Fluid-fuel generators</li>
<li>Coal Generators and supplemental water</li>
<li>Live setting changes</li>
<li>Existing saves containing already-filled buffers</li>
<li>Increased stack-size mods</li>
</ul>

<p><strong>Stack Resizer compatibility has been tested successfully.</strong></p>

<p>Nuclear generators are supported through the same fuel and supplemental-water systems used by other fuel generators, but nuclear-specific behaviour has not yet been tested in-game.</p>

<h3>Existing saves</h3>

<p>Cycle Buffers can be safely enabled on an existing save.</p>

<p>If a machine already contains more material than its new buffer limit, Cycle Buffers does <strong>not</strong> delete the excess.</p>

<p>The machine will simply stop accepting more material until its inventory falls below the configured limit.</p>

<p>Because of this, enabling Cycle Buffers on an established manifold may temporarily change where backpressure occurs while existing oversized buffers drain down.</p>

<h3>Contact</h3>

<p>You can contact me via Github or as Susband on the Discord</p>

<h3>Summary</h3>

<p><strong>Smaller machine buffers. Faster manifolds.</strong></p>