Transport belt lane balancing

[cube]

I've been "testing" a little this weekend and a few times I needed to balance traffic on both lanes of transport belt. So far I came up with something like this:

balancing.png (166.58 KiB) Viewed 4710 times

This works fine when the output is going freely, but when the output is mostly blocked, this contraption only switches belt sides.

Is there any solution that works every time?

[DaveMcW]

This will balance a 2-lane coal belt.

balancer.jpg (102.49 KiB) Viewed 4652 times

[ssilk]

Do you needed to balance the lanes for the incoming or outgoing items?

See also this https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =18&t=1808

[Rahjital]

There really needs to be a half size belt so that we don't need to abuse the tunnel entrances like this...

[ssilk]

@DaveMcW:
I never tried that, but I think this balances the left input-lane over the right, cause the outgoing splitter will prefer the left belt-entry.

[DaveMcW]

@DaveMcW:
I never tried that, but I think this balances the left input-lane over the right, cause the outgoing splitter will prefer the left belt-entry.

Putting a straight belt before the last splitter fixes this.

[ssilk]

I meant this https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... s/Priority

[BurnHard]

I meant this https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... s/Priority

I have noticed that this rule does not always apply but the prioritized input lane is afflicted by the rotation of the splitter AND if the last belt before the splitter is straight or bent. HAve the devs themselves EVER said, how the splitter works regarding this? As i see that rules now are just incomplete and not 100% correct assumptions.

[ssilk]

I have noticed that this rule does not always apply but the prioritized input lane is afflicted by the rotation of the splitter AND if the last belt before the splitter is straight or bent.

Hm. That explains much things. I some month ago found also a case, where the splitter weighted equally. Maybe I found that case, but didn't understood the difference.

HAve the devs themselves EVER said, how the splitter works regarding this? As i see that rules now are just incomplete and not 100% correct assumptions.

No, I found that rule by trying it out. I reported also a bug, that this behavior seems not to be 100% consistent.

But before I wait to find the complete rule, I thought it is much more worth to bring that in the wiki and if it isn't correct some one will fix it.

Welcome to the wiki.

[DaveMcW]

If you use a vertical splitter, there is no left or right.

[ssilk]

I mean it has a direction and so it has of course left and right.

[Zourin]

When it comes to lane balancing a double-lane belt that's transporting a single item type, the simplest solution is best. Resource back-up will inevitably throttle production to meet demand anyway, so it doesn't particularly matter what goes on what side of the belt, as long as you're utilizing as much throughput as possible.

The first image is the best solution to redirecting resources from both input lanes into either output lane that is seeing a demand for resources. It's usually not a good thing to do this often, since everything in the 'off' lane of the output won't be consumed until demand exceeds production or you run your materials dry.