12.1 Splitters

[666JTK666]

I have made several new games testing this with and with out mods and the splitters just seem to be doing well odd things.
if you place a splitter on a full belt the output belts will have only one side of the belt filled. has anyone else noticed this ?
I will post an image as soon as I figure out how to do so.

[Zhab]

I do not have that problem. Also, I think this kind of things should probably be posted in the bug report section. But maybe I'm wrong.

[ratchetfreak]

I think thats just an artifact of how a compressed belt enters a splitter

check it again with different items on each lane

[bigyihsuan]

I remember in 0.11 that a fully-compressed belt into a splitter would always split the the belt's sides first, then when the side fills up, it'll only then fill up the other side.

[vampiricdust]

The splitter put each unque item 50/50. What you are seeing is that when a belt is compressed, the code always checks one side first and thus one side of the belt goes one way and so on. This is normal and expected. It will also happen if items are alternating back and forth.

[orzelek]

Current splitters have some strange behavior - I noticed that if my consumption is preliminary focused on one lane the other lane will back up. And that backup will be preserved by splitters - they won't use incoming items from left lane to fill up right lane. This ends up with one lane standing still through most of factory till furnaces while other one is struggling to provide materials. I needed to add balancers to make sure that both lanes get adequate supply of items - I don't think it worked like that in 0.11.

[ThaPear]

Current splitters have some strange behavior - I noticed that if my consumption is preliminary focused on one lane the other lane will back up. And that backup will be preserved by splitters - they won't use incoming items from left lane to fill up right lane. This ends up with one lane standing still through most of factory till furnaces while other one is struggling to provide materials. I needed to add balancers to make sure that both lanes get adequate supply of items - I don't think it worked like that in 0.11.

This has always been the case. Splitters do not move items between the individual lanes of a single belt. Left goes left, right goes right.
Imagine having coal and iron on the lanes and using a splitter. You wouldn't want it to decide to merge the lanes when iron ore runs out.

[Gus_Smedstad]

I don't think it worked like that in 0.11.

It did. Splitters have always duplicated the existing belt mix. Merging lanes would be undesirable.

If you want to merge lanes, use a splitter, then create a T-junction where one belt dumps its stuff on the left lane of the new belt, and the other dumps it on the right. That will do what you want.

[Buggi]

@Gus

That's a very inefficient balancer. Try this:

beltbalance.png (112.27 KiB) Viewed 13717 times

[Zhab]

@Gus

That's a very inefficient balancer. Try this:

beltbalance.png

Well items transverse his model at the same speed as your model. So you could say that he is using more parts and more space for no reason. But back in version 0.11 and before you would lose compression when turning a corner with a belt. Which would lower your overall throughput of your belt. The design he posted was preserving maximum compression by using the different speed of each line. It would also keep both line equal in speed at exit. Your model would do neither of those things.

But in 0.12, belt turns no longer affect compression on belts. So his model is perhaps not as good as it use to be. But his design still have the advantage of each line being equal in speed. But you could argue that this small edge is not worth the extra parts and space.

PS: By your model I mean the one on the left.

[orzelek]

I was using slightly different one taken from wiki article on balancing.
I'm one of those who are glad that we no longer have the belt corner effect - it was more annoying then interesting to overcome for me.

Buggi's solutions are nice and compact

[Gus_Smedstad]

I don't actually use balancers that are as complicated as the image I posted - I was just feeling too lazy to actually go through the hoops of taking a shot from my own game and cropping it, so I grabbed the first web image that showed the typical belt T-junction.

The images Buggi posted are slightly more compact than the simple balancer that I do use.

[starholme]

I havn't noticed yet, but is there still a throughput loss when side filling a belt in .12? Or can you actually maintain full compression now with the simple balancers?

[ssilk]

This balancer is not needed anymore with 0.12, cause the inner curves are as fast as the outer.

[coolidge]

before 0.12, I thought 50% of the material went into one line, and 50% went into the other line, but their positions on inner or outer track of each lane was not changed. Now, it seems to be that they split 50%, but now all material goes into one track.

I thought this was new behavior. I also don't like it. I'll have multiple tracks split around my furnaces for power, and these all have one side track of fuel going down them now, when before it would have been fully laden

[ssilk]

Can you make a screenshot please?
Cause what you describe and what I know how it works is quite different.