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BeltSorter Description

Adds 3 sorting entities which allows to sort items from belts to belts - recommended for the hardCrafting mod.
(For Bobs logistics or UltimateBelts it adds anther 2 beltSorters which are even faster (60 & 75 Items/s)

• Features:
• 3 Technologies to unlock the different beltSorters
• GUI which let's you select 2-4 items to sort onto each direction (item count depends on level of beltSorter)
• entity can be controlled by circuit condition
• Default filter can route all other items to a specified direction
• Average BeltSorter has filters to output onto left/right lane of a transport belt
• Advanced BeltSorter has priority list to select which belt should be used first for input&output

Links

• Newest Downloads - also recommended: HardCrafting mod
• Check all Releases
• Languages: English, French, Chinese, Hungarian (Thanks to Kosto_Pravby, zeas2, Laevras, Sastas)
• Contact: Send me a pm!
• Changelog overview
• Having problems or feature requests? Open a ticket -
• License: GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE - v3

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Hi Judos
This mod is very useful, just start to use it
Very very cool idea - its like smart evolution of splitters - i can call it adjustble splitter, its very similar to one-block splitter with adjustble input/outputs

Some little suggestions -
1) I'm using many mods with very big counts of different entities - bob mods, angel mods, Youki industries, all this mods have tabs, now your mod allows to choose item via list of itemsm thanks for searching bar and recent item bar, but can add UI scroll bar?
2) Can u add more slots for port of sorter - not 4 but 10 - this will be enough, its allow to create big sorting facilities using this sorter with belts

Forgot to ask - the sorter, which is too closely to another sorter can't transfer items in his input, is it normal?

I just saw the issue on Github and fixed the code and also implemented one new feature requested on the mod portal:

News and fix for 0.2.2
- fixed bug when belt sorter is used on multiple surfaces at the very same position (using Factorissimo_0.1.6 that was very easily possible)
This was kind of a new feature that introduced with factorio 0.13 but it did bring some issues into the code. Now the belt-sorters will work on any amount of surfaces
- Added new special filter "Everything else"
This filter will pass through all items that are not otherwise filtered for output.

Keep in mind: On the mod portal I don't get an email when anyone writes. If you open a issue on github or post a reply here I will see it immediately and be able to react faster. Besides that I was another weekend away and moved to a new flat, sorry for delayed updates ^^
Have fun!

/edit: almost forgot to answer:
@aklesey1
1) A scrollbar is currently not possible to implement in factorio, that is one thing which is actually missing.
2) The new filter should help you out with this problem. I don't want the belt-sorter to be too powerful, so 4 items per direction have to do. But you can easily combine it now with the filter. And many sorters will do the trick then.
3) Yes that's normal. The belt sorter interacts only with inventories around itself. However it's not an inventory itself, so you do have to place 1 belt inbetween. Also it stays more obvious from to where items are going. To implement this would be a lot of effort therefore I think I won't change this for now

judos wrote:1) A scrollbar is currently not possible to implement in factorio, that is one thing which is actually missing.

Scroll bars are implemented

gui type scroll-pane, needs width and height set up. I can shoot you an example in a little bit.

Oh nice. I didn't know about that. I guess they are not so well documented in the manual yet
So in that case I will release a new version with scroll panes soon. Have to do some testing to see what is the easiest way to use them.

Didi you get the animation to work, or just using the single frame?

Waiting for 0.14 update

aklesey1 wrote:Waiting for 0.14 update

I second this, fabulous mod!

Took me a while but now I found the time again:

Updated to 0.3.0
- support factorio 0.14
- hide filter item from default factorio item selection gui
- hide other hidden items from the beltSorter item selection gui
- item Selection list in beltSorter is now scrollable

Have fun

How fast is the sorter? Is it capable of sorting a fully-compressed green belt from Bob's mods?

No it's currently designed to work for a normal belt. But since it was requested already I will implement an advanced sorter which does the trick but also comes with some other limitations, e.g. Only 1 Slot per side. Because I still want you to come with tricky setups, the beltSorter should not solve everything at once...
What do you think?

judos wrote:No it's currently designed to work for a normal belt. But since it was requested already I will implement an advanced sorter which does the trick but also comes with some other limitations, e.g. Only 1 Slot per side. Because I still want you to come with tricky setups, the beltSorter should not solve everything at once...
What do you think?

That definitely would be cool, having trees of belt sorters to filter ores.

But the limitations should be switched. The regular belt sorter should have the one slot per side; the Advanced Sorter should have no limitations other than the number of filters in it.

judos wrote:

bigyihsuan wrote:How fast is the sorter? Is it capable of sorting a fully-compressed green belt from Bob's mods?

No it's currently designed to work for a normal belt.

what do you consider to be a "normal" belt ?
I just used my pulse counter setup to measure throughput and the belt sorter can't even keep up with yellow belts :-(
(using factorio 0.14.5 and belt sorter 0.3.0)

vanilla yellow belts ("MK1") have a throughput of 800 items per minute (400 per yellow lane)
vanilla red ("MK2") belts have 1600 per belt (800 per lane)
vanilla blue ("MK3") belts have 2400 per belt (1200 per lane)

my test setup consisted of one blue input belt to a belt sorter, which was fed by some item source that can output fast enough for at least a fully compressed MK5 belt (4000+ items per minute, 2000+ for half a belt), and here are the test results what the belt sorter can input and output:
- when i connect one, two or three yellow output belts, each of them gets only 450 items per minute. that is only a little more than half a yellow belt (see above: yellow belt = 800, yellow lane = 400). i would have expected to keep compression when connecting one yellow belt and doing no sorting, and also max compression or maybe a little penalty when sorting. the input had no problems getting 450/900/1350 items per minute.
- when i connect red belts to the outputs, the first one or two have a throughput of 900 each (which is exactly twice the throughput of yellow belts as it should be, but since yellow belts are too slow, the red belts are too slow too). a third red belt gets only 600 throughput, for a total of 2400 throughput, but that is OK, since i had a blue belt as input and that has a limit of 2400.
- doing this second test again with a fast MK5 input belt gave the expected result of 3x900 throughput: 900 on each red belt as before, with no problems on the fast input.
- using blue belts everywhere resulted in a copy of the test with blue (or MK5) as input and red belts as output: only 900 throughput per output. thus outputs seem to be capped at the (too low) red belt throughput.
- more tests with other input and output combinations confirmed these results: no limit (limit above the speed of blue belts) for all input belts, and limit of 450 for yellow and 900 for red and blue output belts.

judos wrote:But since it was requested already I will implement an advanced sorter which does the trick but also comes with some other limitations, ...
What do you think?

limitations like fewer sorting slots etc are ok, BUT before you try to do MK4 and MK5 belts, the sorter should keep full compression on yellow belts, and on red belts, and when using blue belts it shouldn't cap the outputs to redbelt speed.
if you implemented the reduction from 800 to 450 throughput for yellow and from 1600 and 2400 to 900 for red and blue belts on purpose (eg as penalty for easier setup of a sorting mechanism), please indicate that clearly.

programming the filter slots is also a bit strange and should be explained in more detail, or be fixed if this behavior wasn't intended in the first place: when i set only one filter slot for a direction, most of the time i get only half the throughput i measured above (using only one output lane). to reliably get the max throughput and use both lanes (which is still around half a compressed belt only) i need to set two filter slots for the same direction to the same item type ...

and finally, including the belt sorter in blueprints requires some work after placing the blueprint. several other mods also have similar problems with blueprints: special "private" data like the text on signs, or the settings of the beltsorter's filter slots are not stored in the blueprint and thus are missing after placing the blueprint.

Thanks guys for all the replies. Now I added an advanced belt-sorter which has only 2 filter slots per side, keeps up with express belts, can define output lanes (left,right side of belt only if wanted) and also copies it's settings on blueprints.

@Anson: That settings can be copied is not supported by factorio, however after thinking a few days about it and spending this sunday afternoon I got it to work (with some hacking)

In details:
News for 0.3.1
- added advanced belt-sorter
- new tech unlocks advanced-belt-sorter
- advanced sorter can set left/right-belt output line only (or both of course)
- advanced sorter keeps up with express belt throughputs
- advanced sorter copies settings in blueprints automatically
- rebalanced recipes (belt sorters are now generally cheaper)
- added small description to belt-sorter guis

Tiny update but quite important since the mod caused a crash when used together with some other mods.

Fix 0.3.2
- Fix name collision problem with caused crash with other mods. (Thanks to Lappro)

I'm using beltSorter_0.2.0 with factorio 13.1
How do I specify a default direction for things that should not be sorted? I set up a big ore sorting system, but this makes it impossible to work atm.
I also can't upgrade to beltSorter_0.2.1, my game stops when I try to load it. Do I need to remove all belt sort entities to upgrade???

Hi Sitethief,
I would recommend generally to update to factorio 0.14. But I saw that I never uploaded beltSorter_0.2.2 on the github:
https://github.com/judos/beltSorter/releases
That version contains a few fixes and also includes the filter item (before it was not available). So you can try to upgrade to this version.
If the migration doesn't work it would be a possibility to remove the mod. Load and save your game, then add the new version and load your game again.
Hope that helps!

I've been trying to use this with HardCrafting and Angel's Ores, but the ingredients required to craft the basic sorter means it is not usable before oil production, which makes the transition from green science to blue science all the more challenging since you typically get your ore smelting/processing set up before tackling the intricacies of oil. Having to handle smelting at the same time as figuring out oil is quite difficult and makes the game's pacing in that timeframe even worse.

Would it be possible to have a low level sorter that uses green circuits to craft instead of red? If you make it so that one can only handle a single incoming yellow belt, then make the tier 2 able to handle a red belt, and finally make the tier 3 able to handle blue belt, it would align better with the game's intended pacing.

Love this mod. It would be great to be able to change the priorities (or rotate it).