Beautiful Sushi Belts

Circuit-free solutions of basic factory-design to achieve optimal item-throughput.
Involving: Belts (balancers, crossings), Inserters, Chests, Furnaces, Assembling Devices ...
Optimized production chains. Compact design.
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Circuit-free solutions of basic factory-design to achieve optimal item-throughput
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xaetral
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Beautiful Sushi Belts

Post by xaetral »

A long time ago I heard about sushi belts, but the only pictures I could find was only made of an awful combinator crap, so I decided to make my own.

Then, some time later, 0.16 was out and introduced a filter functionality in splitters, allowing me to improve my design.

During those years I hesitated a lot about whether or not I should post it, but today I ended up posting it anyway, because I just want to share my work.


Here's a single sushi belt:
Image


And here's a dual sushi belt:
Image


I hope you enjoy ;)


Edit: someone asked about much more items on one belt, and I quite loved the idea, so here's a 32 items sushi belt:
Image



Edit: Here's my latest innovation in my splitter sushi, by using rate-limiting I was able to achieve true circuitless while staying free of any deadlock:
Image


As you can see the top part is doing the rate limiting using the belt speed like my old design, so in case you have different belt speed you can duplicate the bottom part which is rate-limiting using splitters.
Last edited by xaetral on Sat Apr 13, 2024 9:56 am, edited 2 times in total.
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ThaPear
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Re: Beautiful Sushi Belts

Post by ThaPear »

Cool! I always used circuits to do sushi belts, but that's always a pain to hook up. This looks much better, I think I'll steal this. :twisted:
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Re: Beautiful Sushi Belts

Post by Koub »

Would I be correct if I assumed this wouldn't work when at least one of the input lines doesn't back up ?
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Re: Beautiful Sushi Belts

Post by xaetral »

thanks pear ( 'w')

yeah koub you're right, every single feed belt needs to be full, but you can add a simple circuit to stop the belt in that case.

the circuit is that simple: one wire on each feed belt (read, hold) that goes into one arithmetic combinator (each + 0) then wire the output of this combinator to the very first belt of the sushi belt (enable/disable, [signal outputed by the combinator]>[4 times the number of belt minus 1])

for example with every science packs it gives you:
input belt (read, hold) x 7 (x4 in fact, see below) --> combinator signal A = each + 0 --> output belt (enable/disable, signal A > 23)

it would work with signal A >= 24 or signal A == 24 too

and please do note that it is not needed for the triple item part (yellow, purple and white science packs) because they already are lacking a belt (splitters works in power of 2) and they are regulated with the yellow belts (one yellow belt being 1/3 of a blue one, it makes sure that the sushi belt will never get more than 1/3 of one of those belts)

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Re: Beautiful Sushi Belts

Post by Nosferatu »

I think the combinators are not needed.
The Sushi will stop beeing perfect if belts are not backing up - true.
But the belt will always "clean" itself and will add the missing items back into the loop as soon as they come back.
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Re: Beautiful Sushi Belts

Post by xaetral »

yeah, you're right, that's why I didn't put them on the blueprints ( 'w')

but if a belt is not full, the sushi belt will fill up with the remaining ones, so if these items cost a lot it can be problematic, depends on your usecase ^^
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Re: Beautiful Sushi Belts

Post by Qon »

xaetral wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2019 6:39 pm yeah koub you're right, every single feed belt needs to be full, but you can add a simple circuit to stop the belt in that case.
The circuit does mean the sushi belt won't lock up when 1 ingredient is missing. But instead, you get a completely empty belt when 1 ingredient is missing. It's not really that much better.

And the 'simple circuit' is just as much work if not more than the fantastically simple but working solution by DaveMcW

Nosferatu wrote: ↑Tue Apr 30, 2019 4:41 am I think the combinators are not needed.
The Sushi will stop beeing perfect if belts are not backing up - true.
But the belt will always "clean" itself and will add the missing items back into the loop as soon as they come back.
No, it won't. It can't 'clean' itself because there's no mechanism that lets items leave the loop once it has been overfilled with any item. And once it is overfilled it will lock up. And when it locks up no item can enter. And no machines will pick up from the sushi belt if the items at their inserters are not the correct ingredient at that moment.
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Re: Beautiful Sushi Belts

Post by xaetral »

well the purpose of this isn't to be compact (we can't really talk about work since there are blueprints) but to be powerful and beautiful.
you're mainly right on the clogging part, any overfed item will stack between its scavenge filter splitter and its first splitter, but if these items are consumed until they complete the full loop it won't clog, that's why I said that it depends on the use case.

anyway feel free to not use my design, I don't claim it to be the best, I just simply love it :D
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Re: Beautiful Sushi Belts

Post by Qon »

xaetral wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 5:20 pm well the purpose of this isn't to be compact (we can't really talk about work since there are blueprints) but to be powerful and beautiful.
you're mainly right on the clogging part, any overfed item will stack between its scavenge filter splitter and its first splitter, but if these items are consumed until they complete the full loop it won't clog, that's why I said that it depends on the use case.

anyway feel free to not use my design, I don't claim it to be the best, I just simply love it :D
It's a neat experiment. And I do like it. I just think Dave's design is better for practical play since it allows you to not worry about the items that are looping back.

For your particular design, if you can guarantee that it doesn't clog up by having a factory eating everything from the sushi belt, then the loopback is completely pointless because it will always be empty. Anything looping back can clog your factory if it isn't at some point taken before it's too late. It won't stop clogging if you don't feed the belt back into the sushi mixer, but having can only be useful when you stop the input whenever anything is missing and if you make sure you start it up correctly again.

I'm doing my own sushi experiments. Sushi belts are cool even if they are usually a bit impractical. But there are methods to make sure they at least work reliably.

But here are some logical steps that lead to a conclusion.
  1. The most important part of sushi belts (if used in a factory for "practical" use and not just as art) is that you want items to eventually reach the machines that use those items as ingredients.
  2. For that to happen there needs to be space for everything needed to enter the sushi loop.
  3. And that can only happen if the belt is always moving (or growing. But then it has to grow at the speed it moves. Forever).
  4. And that can only happen if everything ends up in a machine or have space to loop back to the beginning again.
  5. And it can only have space to re-enter if you don't fill it completely with a (strict) subset of the items you want on the belt (Factorio belts stop completely when 100% filled but the tiniest gap is enough to keep it moving) or make room by removing things that you have too much of.
    1. And the items that are removed enter a reserved buffer space so they aren't in the way for the flow. This buffer space needs priority as input to back into the belt before the newly produced items that have never looped before or they might never get used and items will always constantly be produced and buffered indefinitely.
    2. But the buffer needs an indefinite size anyways because you don't know in advance how long the items on the sushi belt will not be consumed. You have such a buffer, but it's 2 belts long (for each item on the 32 item sushi belt) so pretty far from infinite q:
  6. Since removing items and placing them in infinite buffers is not that great I prefer never letting any belt be filled with more than its dedicated share of the belt.
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Re: Beautiful Sushi Belts

Post by Nosferatu »

You are right input needs to be limited.

For a 3 to 1 sushi xaetral has already posted a working solution. (First post upper half - works by slowing down too yellow and speeding up blue again)

Here is my proof of concept for a 2 to 1 sushi
Sushi2to1.png
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Re: Beautiful Sushi Belts

Post by xaetral »

interesting solution you got there
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Re: Beautiful Sushi Belts

Post by Nosferatu »

Thanks. And here is the finished 2to1 both lanes suhsi.
Sushi 2to1 both lanes.png
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Re: Beautiful Sushi Belts

Post by Qon »

Impressive. Seems like it would work. Haven't tried to make it fail yet though. But I like it so far.
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Re: Beautiful Sushi Belts

Post by Nosferatu »

And here we have Science Sushi:
Science Sushi.png
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Sorry for using stone. I don't have space science yet on my new map.
Take care when connecting the inputs - the sushi is lane sensitive...
And thanks xaetral for the idea on how to make this sushi.
This science build is visual more pleasing for me than using the filter inserter trick.
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Re: Beautiful Sushi Belts

Post by xaetral »

new design!

2700 SPM Sushi Belt:

Image

Please do note that:
1) the idea does NOT come from me, someone on discord posted this design it, I then designed my own version with cleaner belts
2) it is not fully functionnal, there are still a few bugs to deal with (the belts keep getting overfed and there are no combinator circuits yet)

but it is a cool idea so I wanted to share ^^

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Re: Beautiful Sushi Belts

Post by Dani1973 »

I made some improvements to avoid problems when you run out or don't have a specific science pack.
The idea is to use an item as buffer (I used copper ore for testing).

I am using Warehouse Mod and Loader Redux, if you don't wanna use those just replace the warehouse and loaders by a few chests (I tested with 4 chests) and inserters on every chest (you must fill both lanes at the output, no gaps!!!)

When setting up you have to use enough "buffer items" and fill the system first.
Depending on how long your sushi belt is you may need more chests.
There has to be enough room in buffer chest for all buffer items.
Even if you have all 7 science packs there will still be one buffer item to fill the gap for the 8th item.

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Re: Beautiful Sushi Belts

Post by mrvn »

As I see it there is no problem if one item is lacking. But depending on consumption there can be a deadlock when that item later comes back. Because then for example the red flasks that are too frequent on the sushi belt can't be put back on the belt and stop the sushi belt.

Solutions so far:

- combinator that stops the sushi belt when an input is lacking (bad if the input isn't even needed for the current research)
- rate limiting inputs (looks complex to build)
- item buffers (I don't want copper ore on my science belt)

My solution here is buffer chests and a single wire per item.

The buffer chest comes after the splitter that merges new items with the ones returned from the sushi-belt and has a wire to the belt for new items. The belt is set to Everything < 100 or similar. That way at the start the belt is filled all with red flasks. Then when green flask appear the buffer chest will soak up the excess red flask and backlog the new red flasks for a while. Same when blue flask or grey flasks appear.


As a cost saving measure I would also suggest yellow belts for the inputs and yellow splitters. Then when inputs get merged switch to red and then blue. And where you recycle items from the belt it would go from blue to red to yellow again.
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Re: Beautiful Sushi Belts

Post by Dani1973 »

mrvn wrote: ↑Thu Jan 30, 2020 2:17 pm As I see it there is no problem if one item is lacking. But depending on consumption there can be a deadlock when that item later comes back. Because then for example the red flasks that are too frequent on the sushi belt can't be put back on the belt and stop the sushi belt.
Have it running for +24h and hasn't locked once (using warehouse and loaders because loaders keep working even when there is a power outage).
If you run out of an item that position on the sushi belt is replaced by a buffer item, when that item comes back it will take it's position again and the buffer item get send to the warehouse.

There is a fixed position for every item. If there is room for 800 items on the sushi belt there will be 100 of each on the sushi belt (since there are only 7 packs 100 buffer items will remain and fill the 8th spot). If you run out of one there will be 100 buffer items filling those spots and the others will still only be 200 of each. When re-introducing the missing pack it will only replace the buffer items that took its spot (those will flow back to buffer).

Even if you only have a few items from time to time (slow production) it keeps working as expected.

Afaik, the only lock you can have is when the buffer has too few or too much items, or the belt fed by the buffer has gaps (this can occur if there are not enough inserters or if they stop working because of low power, the use of loaders will avoid this since they don't need power).
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Re: Beautiful Sushi Belts

Post by mrvn »

Dani1973 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 30, 2020 4:49 pm
mrvn wrote: ↑Thu Jan 30, 2020 2:17 pm As I see it there is no problem if one item is lacking. But depending on consumption there can be a deadlock when that item later comes back. Because then for example the red flasks that are too frequent on the sushi belt can't be put back on the belt and stop the sushi belt.
Have it running for +24h and hasn't locked once (using warehouse and loaders because loaders keep working even when there is a power outage).
If you run out of an item that position on the sushi belt is replaced by a buffer item, when that item comes back it will take it's position again and the buffer item get send to the warehouse.

There is a fixed position for every item. If there is room for 800 items on the sushi belt there will be 100 of each on the sushi belt (since there are only 7 packs 100 buffer items will remain and fill the 8th spot). If you run out of one there will be 100 buffer items filling those spots and the others will still only be 200 of each. When re-introducing the missing pack it will only replace the buffer items that took its spot (those will flow back to buffer).

Even if you only have a few items from time to time (slow production) it keeps working as expected.

Afaik, the only lock you can have is when the buffer has too few or too much items, or the belt fed by the buffer has gaps (this can occur if there are not enough inserters or if they stop working because of low power, the use of loaders will avoid this since they don't need power).
That comment was about the initial design. Yours is listed as one of the fixes.
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Re: Beautiful Sushi Belts

Post by disentius »

mrvn wrote: ↑Thu Jan 30, 2020 2:17 pm As I see it there is no problem if one item is lacking. But depending on consumption there can be a deadlock when that item later comes back. Because then for example the red flasks that are too frequent on the sushi belt can't be put back on the belt and stop the sushi belt.

Solutions so far:

- combinator that stops the sushi belt when an input is lacking (bad if the input isn't even needed for the current research)
- rate limiting inputs (looks complex to build)
- item buffers (I don't want copper ore on my science belt)

My solution here is buffer chests and a single wire per item.

The buffer chest comes after the splitter that merges new items with the ones returned from the sushi-belt and has a wire to the belt for new items. The belt is set to Everything < 100 or similar. That way at the start the belt is filled all with red flasks. Then when green flask appear the buffer chest will soak up the excess red flask and backlog the new red flasks for a while. Same when blue flask or grey flasks appear.


As a cost saving measure I would also suggest yellow belts for the inputs and yellow splitters. Then when inputs get merged switch to red and then blue. And where you recycle items from the belt it would go from blue to red to yellow again.
I would go for rate limiting, like this:
Was not "circuit free" :oops: retracted
Last edited by disentius on Fri Jan 31, 2020 11:14 am, edited 2 times in total.
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