Complete Splitter Failure

[lamenters]

Hello,

I'm a longtime player, 3000hrs+, and I think that I have built a train twice. And one of those was by accident. I don't play with trains or robots really because I feel that the automatic, 'take from here, go to there', ease of the system doesn't scratch my itch. So I build belt based megabases. Almost exclusively. (I do use logistics robots but only to feed myself)

So I have a whole load of designs that I use or reuse and with which I have never had any problems until the other day. And now I can't play factorio because it's driving me cray-cray.

SPLITTERS ONLY FILTER ONE WAY. That is to say, splitters can only have a filter on the output priority and never on the scondary ouput. AND?!, I hear nobody cry because I am alone in this purgatory. Well the problem is that it might be solvable in a million and one ways but it's still annoying.

I have multiple mixed belts of output, U-235 & U-238 to be precise, that need to be sorted out. It is coming from a perfectly balanced U-238 to U-235 centrifuge setup wihich takes in exactly 45 U-235 per second and outputs 46.4 U-235 per second. This means that I should have a net output of 1.4 U-235 siphoning off the main outputs.

What I would like to do is to have the opportunity to siphon off that 1.4 U-235 by saying; "All input on the two input lines have an exit on the left output on the splitter, where the input is great than the capacity of the exit, the overflow exits from the secondary egress of the splitter, ***provided it is U-235***"

I would very much like, dear WUBE, to be able to place a filter on the non-prioritized output of the splitter. If the overflow material is not of that type then the belt gets backed up.

I hope I'm clear, I may not be. It's Christmas, there's a gloabl pandemic and I cannot output. Trying times for us all.

L.

[Impatient]

[Nidan]

As splitters work right now, their item filter is absolute, so it makes no sense to combine filtered output and output priorities. However, this can be done in 3 splitters: First, one for the priority, then, on the overflow output, one for filtering U235, and finally one for merging non-U235 back onto the priority line.

[lamenters]

Thank you @Nidan
There are many solutions, some elegant, some inelegant. The case in point is space constrained which is how I discovered my above failure.

Still, perhaps a Christmas update from @Klonan, @RSeding91 and @kovarex

Please?

[boskid]

I was reading first post 3 times and i still do not know what it is about. When a splitter has a filter then it outputs all items matching the filter on first output and all non matching on the second output (you can choose which is considered "first"). If you want filter to not have a "hard filter" behavior you may use 3 splitters as it was already suggested.

[lamenters]

Hello @Boskid,

As noted, there are solutions available in Factorio, (may our factories grow forever more), but not the solution I want.

In the video attached, you can see the issue.
Four lines coming in. Filtered into a single U-235/U-238 splitter. This should be the priority. The gap above and below that single splitter could be used for overflow but cannot as the priority should be going through the middle. And I don't want U-238 in the u-235 and vice versa.

Hope this is clearer.

L.

[boskid]

Splitter cannot have 4 belts of input, what is in this video is a throughput limited setup where by merging 2 belts into 1 belt you have some items backing up on the belts, but the splitter with filter only gets 1 belt of items (from the top right splitter) and 1 belt from the bottom. If you want to increase throughput you may use more splitters with filters (use 4-4 balancer with inner 2 splitters set to filter).

Because i still cannot grasp what you want, i am going to move this to "not implemented".

[lamenters]

Exactly @Boskid.
Each one of the two original splitters is output constrained by the second splitter. Everything over 45 items per second *could* be output through the other half of the splitter. 45ips through one half, everything else through the other.
But because I have to have the filter on the priority output, I cannot. I want every item, regardless of type, going through the priority output. But where the input is over 45ips, a filter on the overflow.
It frustrates me that the filter must be on the priority output and not on either.

L.

[posila]

The problem with your request is that currently filter is not added to priority output, it changes the priority output to filter output ... so that items matching the filter are sent only and only to that output and everything else to the other one. There is no overflow anymore ... or in some sense the items that don't match the filter are the overflow. So with this behavior of filtered splitters, your request doesn't make sense.

[lamenters]

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I, and I believe we all, appreciate the diligence that Wube has.

Taking the time to think it all through. Fundamentally I don't like that the filter is attached to the priority. Could they be decoupled?

That is, I guess, the heart of the matter.

L.

[wobbycarly]

I like this idea. Not that I've had a strong use case, but I've always wondered why we can't separate the output priority and the filter. I can completely understand what you want: force EVERYTHING through one side of the splitter, and ONLY if there's no space, filter out something on the non-prioritised side.

[Kyralessa]

lamenters, would you consider showing us a picture?

[lamenters]

@kyralessa, there is a video above.

You can see the slots either side of the central splitter where the overflow should go.

L.

[lamenters]

I like this idea. Not that I've had a strong use case, but I've always wondered why we can't separate the output priority and the filter. I can completely understand what you want: force EVERYTHING through one side of the splitter, and ONLY if there's no space, filter out something on the non-prioritised side.

This is exactly what I mean.

L.