Factorio Forums

IMO you can't use the splitters for anything else than splitting. The sorters were a good thing, and I suggest either making a new splitter type or reverting the change.

Edit: Idc about reputation or score or whatever is here. Feel free to -rep.

I do not like this new "poll" tendency. However I will express my opinion.

The change is for good. The initial splitter logic while being definite IMO was too complex and unintuitive. Also splitting full 2 lanes into 2 belts with 1 lane full each was always really ugly.

So both removing individual item counter and separating lane counters were really nice changes.
Sorting items can be done by dedicated tools.

IMO the poll is useless, because the Devs have been wanting to do something to stop you from being able to do this kind of splitter magic for some time.

However, adding a configurable sorting splitter would be the most likely solution.

Basically, how I envision it, is that a tier 1, each side would basically have a filter list (Like on filter inserter), and a tier 2 version would be able to sort into specific lanes.

Kind of like a splitter and filter inserter built into the same unit, a rail goes across the entire pair of belts, and anything that enters would need to get picked up, and dropped off on the corresponding output. it's just inline with a belt rather than one of those complex machines of belts and inserters.

I dislike these polls as well. They are not constructive, it gives no insight into why a change would be good or bad it just measures emotion.

For those unaware of how the new splitter splits... it's literally just a "Left, then right, then left again" type splitting

As demonstrated here:

bobingabout wrote:For those unaware of how the new splitter splits... it's literally just a "Left, then right, then left again" type splitting

As demonstrated here:

How does it behave when the input is irregular.
Your illustration could be confusing since it doesn't sort things anymore.

I'll auto-quote myself in the 0.16.16 topic :

Koub wrote:I think the current new behaviour is more logical, and more easily understood than the "splitters have indefinite inner memory that will remember where went the last item os one sort to ensure the next one that will come, be it in 100 years, will go on the other lane".
Now it's : whatever arrives in a splitter goes one right, one left, one right, one left. That's so much more logical for a mechanical splitter.

And I really mean it. The old behaviour made no sense, and people just got used of a nice black magic trick they could exploit to do automatic sorting (with internet imported blueprints for 99% of them, let's be honest, figuring an automated input differentiator via old splitter trick is way above the average level of the Factorio player).
I'd rather see splitters be influencable by circuit network the way belts are, to help achieve the players needs without it being dirty tricks.

bobingabout wrote:For those unaware of how the new splitter splits... it's literally just a "Left, then right, then left again" type splitting

As demonstrated here:

I really like ratio of red to yellow conveyors, 1 to 2 seems perfect. But the same block with blue and red conveyors doesn't seems so perfect, it will be 2 to 3 and two red belts will be not full when you feed them with only one blue belt.

If you're going to post a poll please at least describe wth you're talking about. I wasn't even aware that the magic sorting was removed. Personally i like that sort of "hidden magic" functionality in factorio (underground-lane-splitting, splitter-sorting, etc), even though i've never used splitter-sorting myself. And i never saw anything break in my factories due to that behavior (let's be honest, most people don't use rainbow belts). But if they removed it they probably had good reasons (performance :P?).

darkfrei wrote:really like ratio of red to yellow conveyors, 1 to 2 seems perfect. But the same block with blue and red conveyors doesn't seems so perfect, it will be 2 to 3 and two red belts will be not full when you feed them with only one blue belt.

Indeed. The throughput ratios are 13.33 for yellow, 26.67 for red and 40 for blue (thus a 1:2:3) ratio. Sometimes I wonder if this shouldn't just be 15,30,60 or something, a (1:2:4) ratio.

JimBarracus wrote:

bobingabout wrote:For those unaware of how the new splitter splits... it's literally just a "Left, then right, then left again" type splitting

As demonstrated here:

How does it behave when the input is irregular.
Your illustration could be confusing since it doesn't sort things anymore.

It's cryptic on purpose.
if you have an irregular input, then the output is also irregular

Splitters are far better now than before.

You already can! The original splitter in Factorio works like this: