Factorio Forums

Hey All

I find it difficult sometimes to prioritise certain areas of my factories.

ie: I like coal to always go to my power conveyors before going to my factories.

Rather than two separate mining lines for their separate tasks, why not some form of logic switch that is 100% 'left path' unless full, then 'right path'
Some form of smart splitter?
Or, possibly be able to attach a wire that checks capacity of a smart chest?

having separate lines, I believe, breaks the feeling of enthralment having a single factory.

Isn't it a nice feeling to have one massive factory that is efficient and simple? I get that feeling when I have a single input area for a specific resource, whether coal, ore, power, etc. Even within my factories construction area, such as having one HUGE electronic circuit maker area, the output of such area being able to be prioritised where it goes (rather than all being sucked into advanced circuit making)

A smart gate or priority gate would allow me to construct an area that always focus' on supplying an item, but if there are leftovers and spare production power to pass the extra items onto another segment, which might be in need.

3LollipopZ wrote:Rather than two separate mining lines for their separate tasks, why not some form of logic switch that is 100% 'left path' unless full, then 'right path'
Some form of smart splitter?

You can use a splitter-cascade, which splits the input into 1/4, 1/8, 1/16...

An example is here:

https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... =Splitters

Last picture.

Thanks Mr S.

I do use cascading splitters (sometimes to stupid degrees), but it doesn't always achieve my overflow goal and it takes up a hell of a lot of space in my large factories.
I think I just have to be efficient in other ways and produce enough goods to supply the 'sub-sections' of my factory.

+1

I was just thinking that smart splitters is a great idea.

To the needed space: This is realistic! In the industry the regulation and storage mechanics is that, which needs the most space. I think also this is an important point, which distincts factorio from many other games.

And this is just for now, unless we have a better thing.

I hope, that the devs implement a "smart belt", that can be controlled like the smart inserters. This belt works also like a chest and returns the number of it's items laying on it into the circuit network and you can tune the speed of it. This is also a belt, which needs energy, because it can be faster than the express belts.

There are many uses for that: One smart belt is used to measure the throughput. If the throughput is to low (too less items on - lets say - 5 pieces of belt) it turns on another smart belt after a splitter, which directs the items into this part of factory. I'm sure, with this mechanics you can can create a very nice flow, much nicer than with smart splitters, because you see, whats happening!

Another usage is to cover the entry with such a belt: We want to have a door against the natives. We have sensors like "native around" and "character around". When the "native around"-sensor turns on, the belts begins to run very fast. Faster than they can run. That would block the natives very, very effectively. Because that would block you also from entering, the "character around" sensor turns the belts off in that case, until you entered.

Makes all only sense, if you have blueprints.

yeah, that would be nice.

Maybe a mechanism to turn an object based on sensors. It would be nice to automate a gate opening / closing effect. Then again, my train / car would probably drive over it.
A train gate system. hmm... might feel a bit WW2 though

I like this idea, but we can already do this. We just need extra space


Key:
>> = belt
I = Inserter
C = crate
SI = Smart inserter
SC = Smart crate

Design: Link the SI and SC
the rule being = When SC stash >2 stock

Yes, nice idea Pandamonium, but doesnt work for a belt, where both lanes are filled/needed (not even speaking of 2 different items on the different belt sides)

Yeah, which is why I like the idea of an actual smart splitter.

My work around works, but only for single item belts.

of course it can be modified a bit to work on 2 items, but will need a LOT more space as it will require 2 belts.
(thinking about using the smart filter atm, with the 4 sides of a chest, it could be possible, just a lot of looping tracks )

EDIT: Yeah its possible, just not very... efficient on space
The vertical would be underground tracks of course.