belt control help

[inzain]

hey guys, me again, ive got most of the game under control but when it comes to the lines im at a loss..

the following pic is one part of the issue, let me explain. the issue im having is i run a line thru the entire area(line a in orange), i then split off it, to the left and right sides, to assembly machines as needed. there are 3 splits to the left, and 3 to the right on this line. as you can see, half of my furnaces on the iron side (left) are inoperable due to a line being backed up on one side only(normally its much worse) ive tried moving the feed out, (at the top right corner of red box) further left, and this fixes it for a short bit, but the problem just re-arises on the opposite side, ive moved it one furnace at a time, and cannot seem to fix it, im ALWAYS waiting for iron on the left side, to produce elec circuits. and i cant increase production of iron any further, because when i do the lines back up even worse.

more after pic



so to my question. how are you dealing with this issue? im using the fastest lines everywhere on these lines that pertain to iron, ive moved the output at the furnaces further left and right to tweak with no help other than causing other parts to backup worsening the problem. as inserters seem to be dragging from the closest side of a track if possible, ignoring the opposite side, if anything is available on the nearest side, almost always, i assume this is how they work, since they output to the farthest side of a track. so im asking how are you guys controlling this? is there a setup for the track, using inserters, or some setup of splitters that will help to keep tracks evenly full? i know the picture doesnt make it look so bad, but note that in this pic the factory is only at about 20% of its full production so lines are backing up much worse than normal, usually the left side of line a is backed up fully, and the right side has 1/3 the amount of metal plates on it as in the pic. sorry if my question is hard to understand, its hard to put into words what im trying to say also lol.

i think my main issue is that ive been running my iron to the bottom of all my assembly machines, making them all pull from the top of that line (the right side when running north shown on pic) also, do splitters maintain their amounts per side when split.? im thinking so, in other words, if the left side is backed up ahead on both sides of a splitter, will the items that go into the splitter ALL go to the right side? or only those that go into the splitter on the right side? if inserters would always take from the fullest side of a belt, my issue would be solved. any help is appreciated.

i took this screen shot also, its further up on my line which still has some yellow belts, to try and slow its taking metal so the faster blue lines before it could get more. but the same issue is shown here, where the assembly machines in yellow box are stealing all iron off one side only causing a back-flow on the opposite side of the belt, this is exactly what im trying to prevent, here and on my other lines and is the exact issue im having.

[Gammro]

I'm on mobile, so I might have misinterpreted your problem(can't really see your screenshot that well). But as far as I get it, your problem may be solved by a load balancer on both output lines. Use a splitter to split the one line up, and then let those 2 separate lines comee back to one on opposite sides. This way, 50% comes on the left, and 50% on the right and the full width is used. And if one side is completely backed up, the load balancer can only put the items on the other side of the belt

I hope you get it in text only.

EDIT: Hopped on my PC, as I forgot to shut it down anyway
Example

As you can see, the inserter places all items on one side, and after the load balancer, both sides are used. You can build balancers in various shapes, adapting it to surrounding structures.

Regarding your second question, inserters always take the closes first. Experiment with this and build the load balancers at various stages in your factory for optimal usage of your belts.

[inzain]

fast reply, thanks much, this might fix parts actually. i can see this helping if placed inline where the issues are, after posting this, another way i was thinking might be, to use boxes, and inserters to grab all plates off one side, and another set to grab all off the other just past the furnaces, then have inserters placing them on the line that goes through the factory, giving an even amount constantly, regardless of the flow rate. if i then find one side slower, i can add an additional inserter to that side, increasing its flow by one more than the other side and vice versa. i think writing this, forced me to think of the issue, deeper, trying to put it into words here lol, allowing me to think harder on it, iono lol. still more examples are greatly appreciated. just seeing yours, with the crate and inserter, is what caused me to think of the above, so thanks much.

[Gammro]

That load balancer isn't even optimal for the given example. It can be done with 3 less belts by shifting the splitter to the right, and letting the right one get back on the "main" belt immediately, this way. This would work because you know the plates will only come on the left side of the belt.

The one in the picture is more of a big all-purpose balancer.

[Garm]

Might be even better to intentionally get them on one side of a faster belt in his case have his red belt join blue on the side, and then add balancer and downgrade back to red belt.


I have found similar designs working a bit better at higher speeds.

[ssilk]

Maybe too late and missing a nice pic:

https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... right_side

There are more elegant solutions, but this works in every case I found to balance every type of imbalanced belt now and in future, when the other side goes imbalanced.

[Gammro]

Don't the 2 splitters cause an imbalance? The last splitter has one connected to the main line(It looks like that in the graph)
This would cause something like this:

Code: Select all

      ->0.25---->0.25----\
1->0.5->0.25---->0.25 ------>1
 ->0.5---------->0.5-----/

With this I mean that if you connect the second splitter to the mainline, it would cause 50% of the items to be on the lower side, 25% on the left side, and 25% on it's original position on the belt. In the image below, you can see that 20 items in total were inserted on the left side of the belt. Only 25%(5) got forced to the right side, 25%(5) got to stay in the middle and 50%(10) stayed where it was.

Of course, you could disconnect the direct connection to the mainline, but working around this would only make it bigger and function like my previous example, which is smaller.

[Nova]

One side with 50% percent is the intention. An already imbalanced belt can be rebalanced with this construction.

[ssilk]

Hm. Well. You must look this statistics for both sides of belts:

Code: Select all

 upper lane:                                                                                                               
                       >   > 1/4 #---#\ 
                       >   > 0   ---- #\
 >##### >    > 1/2 #-# >   > 1/4 #---#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#  1/2
 >----- >    > 0   --- >   > ---------#-#-#-#-#-#-#-  1/2  
        >    > 1/2 #-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#- -/
        >    > 0   -------------------/    

 lower lane:
                       >   > 0   ------\
                       >   > 1/4 #---# -\ 
 >----- >    > 0   --- >   > ---------#-#-#-#-#-#-#-  1/2  
 >##### >    > 1/2 #-# >   > 1/4 #---#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#  1/2
        >    > 0   ------------------- #/    
        >    > 1/2 #-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-/

Theoretically it should be equal.
I was at this point, when I found out, what you showed above: that it doesn't behave like that. So this is on my todo-list - but if anyone can explain this I would prefer that.

On the other hand, the construction works:

- If one side of the output belt is full, this construction delivers very reliable to the other side. I tested this now several times for many cases and rare situations. Maybe you need faster belts, to speed the construction up a little bit. There are some situations, where another construction is better, but this is in general the best.
- And isn't that not a wanted feature: First one side is delivered more, to fill the belt as fast as possible, and if one side is full, then the other side.

[Nova]

Important things about this belt layout: Which side the splitters go and on which side the items on the belt come from.
Oh, and your layout is wrong for the second layout, ssilk: The top belt line only has 1/4 while the bottom line has 3/4 of the items.

belt.png (123.48 KiB) Viewed 25847 times

[ssilk]

Ah, right, that was my mistake. Me stupiz. Thanks!

Corrected version:

Code: Select all

 upper lane:                                                                                                               
                       >   > 1/4 #---#\ 
                       >   > 0   ---- #\
 >##### >    > 1/2 #-# >   > 1/4 #---#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#  1/2
 >----- >    > 0   --- >   > ---------#-#-#-#-#-#-#-  1/2  
        >    > 1/2 #-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#- -/
        >    > 0   -------------------/    

 lower lane:
                       >   > 0   ------\
                       >   > 1/4 #---# -\ 
 >----- >    > 0   --- >   > ---------#-#-#-#-#-#-#-  1/4  
 >##### >    > 1/2 #-# >   > 1/4 #---#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#  3/4
        >    > 0   ------------------- #/    
        >    > 1/2 #-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-/

Exactly the numbers of your example-pic.

So in overall, when both input-lanes are equally balanced, the result is

Code: Select all

                       >   > 1/4 #---# \
                       >   > 1/4 #---# -\ 
 >##### >    > 1/2 #-# >   > 1/4 #---#-#################  3/4  
 >##### >    > 1/2 #-# >   > 1/4 #---#-###################### 5/4
        >    > 1/2 #-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-# #/    
        >    > 1/2 #-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-/

This is true, when there is enough space left on the input belt. But when the input belt is already full, the result is, that both belts are filled 1:1. That's what we want.


Edit: Now, some hours later, I can say that this layout has a simple advantage over the layout of https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =18&t=1808
It is this: If the capacity isn't at it's maximum, you can still side-insert some items. With the other layout this isn't possible. Disadvantage is, that it costs some one more splitter and it doesn't balance exactly 50%.

Prove of concept: The right side uses the unbalanced contributor. You see here, that the side-insert (from down) is empty, while the side-insert on the left side with the balanced contributor is full. In other words: the left unbalanced contributor offers more capacity, then the balanced, because of it's non-symetric.

Bildschirmfoto 2013-12-17 um 21.34.16.png (958.55 KiB) Viewed 13744 times

Sorry for the size. It was thought for the wiki, but I think I redo it on my PC with better grafix-card.

Here is another pic about handling unbalanced belts and types of side-inserting (e. g. with splitter rises capacity):

Handling unbalanced belts and side-inserting

Bildschirmfoto 2013-12-17 um 21.35.46.png (618.61 KiB) Viewed 13744 times

And here a pic about the the former post. The inserters cannot insert anymore. You can see clearly that the ratio is either 1/4 : 3/4 or 1 : 1.

Unbalanced contributor

Bildschirmfoto 2013-12-17 um 21.36.18.png (1.03 MiB) Viewed 13744 times

Another trick is hidden in this last pic: The upper inserters built two side-inserters each. The upper output of the splitter inserts into a basic belt, but the lower on a fast belt. This combination rises the insert-rate dramatically.

[Carhugar1]

So I think I have fixed at least this design to work for any line input. Although it is bulky. Shout out to ssilk for the starting design.
Note: |---| is the direction the underground belt is running. | | is the opening.

Code: Select all

 upper lane:                                                                                                               
                       >   > 1/4 #---#\ 
                       >   > 0   ---- #\
 >##### >    > 1/2 #-# >   > 1/4 #---#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#  1/2
 >----- >    > 0   --- >   > ---------#-#-#-#-#-#-#-  1/2  
        >    > 1/2 #-# |   |        - #
        >    > 0   --- |---|        - -
                       |---|        - #
                       |   |        - -
                        \# - 0   ---- #/
                         \#- 1/2 #-#-#/

 lower lane:
                       >   > 0   ------\
                       >   > 1/2 #-#-# -\ 
 >----- >    > 0   --- >   > ---------#-#-#-#-#-#-#-  1/2  
 >##### >    > 1   ### >   > 1/2 #-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#  1/2
        >    > 0   --- |   |        - -
        >    > 0   --- |---|        - -
                       |---|        - -
                       |   |        - -
                        \- - 0   ---- -/
                         \-- 0   -----/