fractal 2048 belt balancer (and bigger?)

[olafthecat]

So when I originally commented on this post, I was able to look at your amazing creations.
Now however, since I am currently using a lesser one, it basically crashed.
A question, how did you build this?
The lag must have been insane.

[impetus maximus]

i tried updating/converting the blueprint string of the 512 with this and it says "413 Request Entity Too Large"

[Qon]

So when I originally commented on this post, I was able to look at your amazing creations.
Now however, since I am currently using a lesser one, it basically crashed.
A question, how did you build this?
The lag must have been insane.

Instant blueprints. Nowdays it's a part of "creative mode" mod. Blueprints place real entities instead of ghosts, no conbots needed. The game still froze for a quite a while when placing the parts for the larger ones so it wasn't really "instant"
And there's some plumbing that has to be done to align and resize the middle connector portion and all the extension belts which takes a bit of work.
The lag is even worse when you fill up the belts with items and all of them move at the same time...

But it's possible to build bigger, so one day it might happen?

i tried updating/converting the blueprint string of the 512 with this and it says "413 Request Entity Too Large"

Ha!

Download the save file and remaking the blueprints in game with the 0.15 client.
I suggest you at least use a mod that lets you run faster (creative mode can do this) when selecting the bigger balancers. You don't want to lose minutes of holding down m1 and running around if you accidentally drop m1 or have to leave temporarily.

[impetus maximus]

thanks Qon
i'm avoiding loading saves until the devs fix blueprints being added to 'My Blueprints" from other players saves.

[olafthecat]

Aha!
That makes sense.

[Red_Katana_001]

No one says "Thanks, just what I needed". I wonder why that is?

allow me to be the first person to say: thank you for the design, but I need bigger
the megabse I'm planning to make would consume 6522.5 belts of iron ore to make 25 belts of each science pack (even space science)
so I would need a 8192 balancer. would also consume 5135 belts of copper...
I think I have a LOT of work to do.

[Koub]

You'll also need a pair of these :

If you want to be able to run the game with sugh a base

[Red_Katana_001]

You'll also need a pair of these :

If you want to be able to run the game with sugh a base

well, who is stopping me?

[Qon]

No one says "Thanks, just what I needed". I wonder why that is?

allow me to be the first person to say: thank you for the design, but I need bigger
the megabse I'm planning to make would consume 6522.5 belts of iron ore to make 25 belts of each science pack (even space science)
so I would need a 8192 balancer. would also consume 5135 belts of copper...
I think I have a LOT of work to do.

If I made a 8192 balancer blueprint, would you actually use it? Well at least try open the bp in game, probably crashes before it's even made from the bp string...

[pieppiep]

[*] The 256 balancer requires 75k UG belt, 18k express belts and 2.4k express splitters.

I think you mean the 512 balancer needs 2.4k (2304 to be exact) or the 256 needs 1024 splitters.

2 belt balancer : 1*1 = 1 splitter
4 belt balancer : 2*2 = 4 splitters
8 belt balancer : 3*4 = 12 splitters
16 belt balancer : 4*8 = 32 splitters
32 belt balancer : 5*16 = 80 splitters

2^x belt balancer : x*2^(x-1) splitters

If I made a 8192 balancer blueprint, would you actually use it? Well at least try open the bp in game, probably crashes before it's even made from the bp string...

That's a 2^13 balancer, so 13*2^12 = 13*4096 = 53248 splitters needed.

[Jap2.0]

It could be either way. Large balancers might not be perfectly efficient in terms of splitter usage - when you have something that big, the challenge is to make it work. To make it work with the least possible amount of splitters...

[Red_Katana_001]

No one says "Thanks, just what I needed". I wonder why that is?

allow me to be the first person to say: thank you for the design, but I need bigger
the megabse I'm planning to make would consume 6522.5 belts of iron ore to make 25 belts of each science pack (even space science)
so I would need a 8192 balancer. would also consume 5135 belts of copper...
I think I have a LOT of work to do.

If I made a 8192 balancer blueprint, would you actually use it? Well at least try open the bp in game, probably crashes before it's even made from the bp string...

well, after investigating your design, I can see the pattern in it so I could just make blueprints of little parts and then use them to make the bigger one so it won't crash the game

[Qon]

thanks Qon
i'm avoiding loading saves until the devs fix blueprints being added to 'My Blueprints" from other players saves.

Here is the new Factorio v0.15 blueprints. Sizes 8 to 1024! And it includes node.js code to generate any size if you have enough RAM.
http://www43.zippyshare.com/v/0T0vvXeB/file.html

These are also better looking and more fractal all the way down to the 16-balancer which is made from 3 8-balancer. The old ones had some unaligned UG belts and didn't include 3 of the previous generation until size 64 (The smaller ones had 2 from the previous generation and custom made mixing after that). While them being more fractal makes them use slightly more space (32 balancer and up) and a bit more splitters, the new ones have much less entities total becasue of the new UG skip distance for express belts.

My computer can't generate bigger balancers than 1024 with 7GB of RAM available. And I can't really test balancers that are larger than 256 even with instant blueprints. Factorio freezes for a long while whenever the blueprint preview is rendered or the placement preview is shown. And trying to actually place one as a single blueprint requires more RAM than I have available. I could qoncievably generate the larger balancers in parts to be able to place down blueprints that are even larger. But if each part is as big as a 256 balancer then the 1024 balancer would be about 16 parts, which is a quite a lot of work. And thats basically the limit. 2048 would be about 64~ish 256-balancers in size. That could take a couple of hours to place with instant blueprint...

If anyone with a beefier PC wants to help that would be nice. If you have 16 GB RAM and a few minutes you should be able to generate the 2048 balancer. 32 GB ram is probably needed to generate a 4096 balancer. To place these blueprints in game as 1 piece requires probably about 2 or 4 times as much. The generation time is not that bad as long as you don't run out of RAM. Takes 20 seconds to create the 1024 balancer from the 512 balancer on my machine.

Code: Select all

npm i victor nomnom factorio-blueprint prettyjson
node --max_old_space_size=65536 .\balancer.js 2048

I'll update the first post later. Would be nice if I get some submissions of pics and blueprints of larger balancers and can include those at the same time.

[JohnyDL]

Download the save file and remaking the blueprints in game with the 0.15 client.
I suggest you at least use a mod that lets you run faster (creative mode can do this) when selecting the bigger balancers. You don't want to lose minutes of holding down m1 and running around if you accidentally drop m1 or have to leave temporarily.

Or you can do it with map mode zoom into one corner start the selection zoom out and zoom into the other corner blueprint selected in seconds (it's how I BP my XL balancers (and even a whole base from MP on more than occasion)

Also 24GB on my computer I'll give the bigger balancers a go ^_^

[Red_Katana_001]

thanks Qon
i'm avoiding loading saves until the devs fix blueprints being added to 'My Blueprints" from other players saves.

Here is the new Factorio v0.15 blueprints. Sizes 8 to 1024! And it includes node.js code to generate any size if you have enough RAM.
http://www43.zippyshare.com/v/0T0vvXeB/file.html

These are also better looking and more fractal all the way down to the 16-balancer which is made from 3 8-balancer. The old ones had some unaligned UG belts and didn't include 3 of the previous generation until size 64 (The smaller ones had 2 from the previous generation and custom made mixing after that). While them being more fractal makes them use slightly more space (32 balancer and up) and a bit more splitters, the new ones have much less entities total becasue of the new UG skip distance for express belts.

My computer can't generate bigger balancers than 1024 with 7GB of RAM available. And I can't really test balancers that are larger than 256 even with instant blueprints. Factorio freezes for a long while whenever the blueprint preview is rendered or the placement preview is shown. And trying to actually place one as a single blueprint requires more RAM than I have available. I could qoncievably generate the larger balancers in parts to be able to place down blueprints that are even larger. But if each part is as big as a 256 balancer then the 1024 balancer would be about 16 parts, which is a quite a lot of work. And thats basically the limit. 2048 would be about 64~ish 256-balancers in size. That could take a couple of hours to place with instant blueprint...

If anyone with a beefier PC wants to help that would be nice. If you have 16 GB RAM and a few minutes you should be able to generate the 2048 balancer. 32 GB ram is probably needed to generate a 4096 balancer. To place these blueprints in game as 1 piece requires probably about 2 or 4 times as much. The generation time is not that bad as long as you don't run out of RAM. Takes 20 seconds to create the 1024 balancer from the 512 balancer on my machine.

Code: Select all

npm i victor nomnom factorio-blueprint prettyjson
node --max_old_space_size=65536 .\balancer.js 2048

I'll update the first post later. Would be nice if I get some submissions of pics and blueprints of larger balancers and can include those at the same time.

whenever I try to open the program it says that there is an error on line 7, charachter 7 hope you can fix this

[Qon]

whenever I try to open the program it says that there is an error on line 7, charachter 7 hope you can fix this

It works on my machine. Maybe you can post the whole error message so I don't have to guess what it says

[Red_Katana_001]

whenever I try to open the program it says that there is an error on line 7, charachter 7 hope you can fix this

It works on my machine. Maybe you can post the whole error message so I don't have to guess what it says

it says that it expects an Id, row of charachters or a number, at code 800A0404, and scource compilationsmistake microsoft javascript

[Qon]

it says that it expects an Id, row of charachters or a number, at code 800A0404, and scource compilationsmistake microsoft javascript

When I said post I meant paste, as in copying the exact message and posting it here.

Are you even using node.js? Microsoft has nothing to do with node...

[Red_Katana_001]

Are you even using node.js? Microsoft has nothing to do with node...

it appearantly uses windows script host, no idea if this is the correct one or how I can change it

[Qon]

Are you even using node.js? Microsoft has nothing to do with node...

it appearantly uses windows script host, no idea if this is the correct one or how I can change it

Well you did quote me giving you the instructions...

Code: Select all

npm i victor nomnom factorio-blueprint prettyjson
node --max_old_space_size=65536 .\balancer.js 2048

I'll update the first post later. Would be nice if I get some submissions of pics and blueprints of larger balancers and can include those at the same time.

whenever I try to open the program it says that there is an error on line 7, charachter 7 hope you can fix this

I didn't know what WSH was before. The balancer.js is a node.js program, not a Microsoft WSH "Active Script". I'm guessing you double clicked the js file and windows tried to execute it with WSH.

I know how to change it. Download node.js from https://nodejs.org. After a full install you are ready to run node and npm. I'm using version 8.6 but version 6.11 LTS will probably also work.
Then <windows key> + R and type in "cmd" (no quotes) and press enter.
type

Code: Select all

cd <balancer folder>

Where <balancer folder> can be full path to the folder you unzipped the balancer.js file to like C:\Users\Qon\Dropbox\Qode. This is just the name of the folder I use, the name doesn't matter of course. Make sure you unzip the balancer.zip first and that the folder you cd to (cd = change directory) contains both the balancer.js file and the factorio-blueprint-master folder.
Then type in

Code: Select all

npm i victor nomnom prettyjson

to download the dependencies.
Typing

Code: Select all

node --max_old_space_size=65536 .\balancer.js 2048

will run the program and generate balancers of size 8, 16, 32, 64 ... up to 2048 in the same directory. Increase the number 4096 if you want a 4096 balancer, etc. Only powers of 2 though.
--max_old_space_size=65536 gives node the ability to allocate 65536 MB of RAM. Otherwise the default limit is 1.4 GB which is only enough for a 512 balancer.

node .\balancer -h will give you some extra info on commands, if anyone is curious.
The --size or -n option is the same as the undocumented anonymous size option. (node .\balancer --size=512 is the same as node .\balancer 512)
The -c flag will output the blueprint string to the console instead of files, and it will only output the one balancer you requested instead of all sizes up to that one.