Page 1 of 1

Transport belt lane balancing

Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2014 5:00 pm
by 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
balancing.png (166.58 KiB) Viewed 4744 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?

Re: Transport belt lane balancing

Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2014 9:55 pm
by DaveMcW
This will balance a 2-lane coal belt.
balancer.jpg
balancer.jpg (102.49 KiB) Viewed 4686 times

Re: Transport belt lane balancing

Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2014 10:43 pm
by 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

Re: Transport belt lane balancing

Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2014 6:53 am
by Rahjital
There really needs to be a half size belt so that we don't need to abuse the tunnel entrances like this...

Re: Transport belt lane balancing

Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2014 11:15 am
by 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.

Re: Transport belt lane balancing

Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2014 8:30 pm
by DaveMcW
ssilk wrote:@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.

Re: Transport belt lane balancing

Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2014 9:51 pm
by ssilk

Re: Transport belt lane balancing

Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2014 10:05 pm
by BurnHard
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.

Re: Transport belt lane balancing

Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2014 10:15 pm
by ssilk
BurnHard wrote: 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. :P

Re: Transport belt lane balancing

Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2014 12:22 am
by DaveMcW
If you use a vertical splitter, there is no left or right. ;)

Re: Transport belt lane balancing

Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2014 11:55 am
by ssilk
I mean it has a direction and so it has of course left and right.

Re: Transport belt lane balancing

Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2014 10:44 am
by 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.