[0.16.51] splitters not giving full throughput when connected to loops

Things that we don't consider worth fixing at this moment.
Post Reply
Trifonius
Burner Inserter
Burner Inserter
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon May 01, 2017 5:56 pm
Contact:

[0.16.51] splitters not giving full throughput when connected to loops

Post by Trifonius »

I'll let the pictures speak for this one:
Image
The circuit magic in the upper right counts the flow across the belts over 7.5 seconds (450 ticks). It should be 200 per red belt, 400 total, but sits at 380 instead. And it gets weirder:
Image
We doubled some splitters, which, by any common sense, shouldn't make a difference. But it does! Suddenly the throughput is where it should be. Don't know how, don't know why, but for some reason a double splitter... does the job a splitter is supposed to do in the first place.
And it gets worse:
Image
Image
Again, doubling the middle splitters solved the issue. But these splitters weren't part of a loop to begin with, they were merely connected to some.

This may not be the biggest issue in the world, but the splitter, for all its merits, is flawed. Not game-breakingly flawed, rather "I accidentally busted every throughput-unlimited balancer out there" flawed. These screenshots were created in an unmodded version of Factorio 0.16.51. I made sure none of the chests got backed up during testing.
Blueprint of my setup:

quyxkh
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 1028
Joined: Sun May 08, 2016 9:01 am
Contact:

Re: [0.16.51] splitters not giving full throughput when connected to loops

Post by quyxkh »

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=60561&p=365042#p365042

tl;dr: Don't apply backpressure to splitters unless you're willing to create input stalls or have somehow arrived at a tick-perfect schedule. You've blocked the right output splitter's right output (not a typo). So it cyclically and momentarily stalls its inputs. That backpressure can eventually reach the input splitters, which then suffer momentary stalls themselves. But any stall on a compressed belt will necessarily introduce a gap.

Trebor
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 288
Joined: Sun Apr 30, 2017 1:39 pm
Contact:

Re: [0.16.51] splitters not giving full throughput when connected to loops

Post by Trebor »

This may be a problem with looping belts. When a belt forms a loop the game engine doesn’t know which segment is the first to update. Your balancers have loops.

Post Reply

Return to “Won't fix.”