Smart Splitter (-Suggestions will never End)

[ssilk]

Hm.

Those discussions ended in nearly every case by pointing to existing usages.

See these pages in the wiki:
https://wiki.factorio.com/index.php?tit ... ort_system
Especially
https://wiki.factorio.com/index.php?tit ... un-merging

The point here is, that in nearly almost every case the same functionality can be obtained by using existing belt mechanics. That is part of the game to find this. Even me is from time to time positive surprised what else can be done with those simple mechanics.

[Oblivifrek]

Could We Have a Smart Splitter For Splitting Certain Items onto one belt and other Items to another belt. Should Work in a similar way as Smart Inserters.

Why not prevent items from being mixed first place ?

To me there are some case where you need to mix them for compact factory designs but for example one assembler needs a circuit and it outputs a yellow splitter onto the same belt but you need the spare circuits for something else and the output item ready for export on to a train.

[GriffinOswald]

There are smart inserters and smart chests but what about smart spiltters! What if you had a transporter belt with multiple items on it and you had no room for smart inserters and only a transporter belt with a splitter but when you tried the splitter it split all of your items but you only wanted specific items split. Well than you should make a smart splitter as a smart splitter would only split certain items you wanted to and leave only a few to go forward or take all selected items from the transporter belt and bring them to your designated area without the wasted space of smart inserters. This would make storage extremely helpful and making factories the slightest bit easier and less spacious! Please support this idea and tell me the pros and cons of this! Thank You!

[Koub]

What if you had a transporter belt with multiple items on it

Don't mix the items first place

[ssilk]

The suggestions with smart splitter will never end...

OK, I point to an article viewtopic.php?f=80&t=24061 New Types of Belts (NOT!)
which might explain my reaction a bit better.

[Ubsje]

You can choose what items will go at one side and the rest will go at the other side...

Just a faster way of splitting belts

[daniel34]

Merged 5 of these threads together.
An answer has already been given several times in the previous posts.

So we have had quite a five "Splitter suggestion threads" recently. Here is our view on the problem:

- We are happy with the splitter as it is and don't intend to change it.
- When coming up with the splitter design we have considered a "small splitter" (1 x 1 element with outputs in the sides). However there were a lot of technical problems with visualization and bounding boxes.
- The current splitter is actually multifunctional (can be used as a joiner as well or as a "fast shift element")
- Making the splitter "adjustable" would go against philosophy of Factorio when you are supposed to work out your solution from simple components. Different ratios can be achieved by cascading and recombining splitters. Yes, sometimes it is a lot of work, but that is part of the game. So far we feel that "precise splitting" is not used enough to warrant adding other functionality.

See: Read this OR be ignored!

2. Does it already exist?
You have the absolutely great idea about having a new type of splitter. You thought hours for that and are now keen to write about it.
Really new?? There are tons of suggestions for the splitter, for example. It is unlikely, that there is none, which is not somehow your suggestion.

Before posting a new Idea/Suggestion search the board to see whether the suggestion hasn't already been made. If it already has then use the existing topic to add your input instead of making a new one.

[hansinator]

@Koub
What a great suggestion to not mix items.. What if I want to build a factory that relies on belt-mixing techniques? I can think of plenty of situations where belt-mixing would be
extremely useful. There are ways to manage it with existing game mechanics, but it is very tricky and doesn't work with all belts.
Maybe you can suggest a game like Factorio which doesn't hinder me building great factories like I want to?

The whole splitter thing is so throroughly broken that you can't use them properly to balance more than two belts or do controlled injection of items to another belt. The ingame splitter mechanics are so that they will break nearly every mechanism you try to build with them. If you want to build complex things with it, the resulting "belt machines" will be broken by design and only work properly under certain conditions.

See this thread for example where they discuss 8-belt balancers and conclude that you even cannot balance 3 belts properly:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=25008&start=30

As it turns out in recent threads, its also complicated and tedious to build a priority splitter (which would solve the merging problems partially) that works properly under all circumstances.

While I don't see the necessity for a filtering smart splitter, I would suggest at least a splitter where we can directly control via signals which inputs and outputs are active. A splitter where one could set priority for inputs/outputs would even be better.

And please don't repeat your arguments against smart splitters. I understand your points against it but I believe your arguments are short-sighted. Consider the fact that circuits in factorio have a very limited application.. people often complain that you cannot do anything useful with them.
Why is this the case?
Because you simply cannot control useful aspects of a factory. If you take a look at real automation, you will see that you need actors that are capable of tuning the parameters of your production flow. Where items go for example. In Factorio it is next to impossible to properly control where your items go if you want anything more complex than straight belt connections. Version 0.13 did make a big leap forward with wired belts but it is far from being useful. Another thing is that you cannot control your furnaces and your assemblers.
If you want circuits to be useful you need to make the game such that they can actually control things in a DETERMINISTIC way. Splitters for example while they are deterministic at a first glance don't really allow for deterministic item flow, even with lots of combinators.

I mean there are lots of engineers playing this game and you give them lots of cool stuff to tinker around with and in the end it turns out that this stuff is all so flawed that you cannot do great enigneering with it.

Maybe you can give it another thought and at least implement properly controllable mechanism to transfer items from one belt to two others.

[ssilk]

I think what comes very near into that direction is this: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=23616 Smart Splitter (The Real One)

[hansinator]

Ah damn I didn't read all smart splitter threads, forgive me.. Thank you for pointing out that thread ssilk. Its got ideas worth considering.

[ssilk]

There is another one: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=37070 Logistic system - high tier belt management

[RMJ]

merged with existing thread, see the first post and dev response for an answer --daniel34

I really think it would be nice, if we had some more easy control of splitters, instead of having to chain multiple together and do crazy stuff. Imo we should have precise control as to the ratio of the splitting.

[steinio]

Implemented

[Koub]

[Koub] Indeed, topic moved.