I use splitters for more than just backbones. I split items up from belts to their respective train loader and it would really help when i have an automated station (that is, items change based on what recipe it's currently doing) to set up which train loader gets what items.morsk wrote: ↑Sun Nov 11, 2018 4:22 pm I suspect a programmable filter is useless. Compared to the filter inserter, a splitter guarantees its item will back up, instead of passing through. Letting an item back up on a mixed belt is almost never what you want, as it easily deadlocks. If an item is so toxic to the system ahead of it that it's better to have backup than let it through, it should be filtered 100% of the time, not programmably.
I would absolutely use programmable priority though, even in early-game so my mall passively draws gears, but takes "all the gears" if buffers get low. (I've faked it with multiple splitters, etc., but I'd do this kind of thing more often if it were easier.) No harm in the filter either; I just don't see the point.
There is input priority too, not just output. That's making a lot of signals. Why not just <0, 0, >0 for each?
I don't intend to explain the full picture here, but it's not a matter of "useless" when the problem is completely different from what you expected. There are no backups at that station, there never will be. If there are backups then it's intentional as i've stopped fetching items from that station.
No matter how hard you try, you will ALWAYS have a backup at some point unless you use ALL items equally. That's what buffers are for.
BTW, i don't want the items to just continue on someplace else. That item is at it's last possible stop.
And the type of item changes dynamically based on what's being processed down the line.
I wanted the signals rather than the <0, 0, >0 shenanigans because i truly hate conditions like that. It would still help to have dedicated signals that show at a glance what they are meant for. Rather than having A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, Å, Ä, Ö, BANANA... What was "N" for now again?
A signal that reads "left lane priority" is so simple. In fact, there should be some other common type signals too. Not just colors and letters but "count", "alarm", "power on" and so on. Sure, many of the signals can use the respective items they refer to but the point still stands, sometimes you just need a "count" signal rather than using "C" because that's "count".
