What's the optimal way to deliver resources to assemblers?

[Lambi]

So what I mean is that let's say you have Iron. This Iron is supposed to go into 50 Assemblers. Sure, you can use a massive amounts of splitters to perfectly divide the resource evenly among all Assemblers. But first of all this would be a headache to do. And secondly, you will have to redo the entire thing from scratch if you want to add in more Assemblers.

So is there a good way to do this? That still allows for dynamic expansion? Personally I've just run a straight conveyor belt through all Assemblers. But this obviously makes it so that the Assemblers further down the line are less likely to get a resource.

[cswiger]

Originally posted by Lambi:

Personally I've just run a straight conveyor belt through all Assemblers. But this obviously makes it so that the Assemblers further down the line are less likely to get a resource.

Aside from Fractionators, production lines are predictable and there is no chance involved.

You simply add Assemblers sufficient to process their inputs or as limited by belt capacity, and you will end up with perfectly balanced production lines.

[ProviD]

Assuming you have enough input to support Assemblers hunger and the drop indeed comes from the belt not being able to transfer enough goods, the solution is pretty dull:
#1 - Upgrade the Belt (faster speed -> more goods on move).
#2 - Increase capacity (run another Belt, up to 3 per side)

If you've done both already then IMO you're better of constructing completely new production line as you do not gain any (or gain very little) performance boost out of new/split belts.

Don't know if Pilers (stacks 2 goods in space of 1) would do any good in here. Worth a try if you have enough space?

[josmith7]

Don't know about "optimal" but I generally just use a belt that run past all the assemblers.

When first set up (or after resource supply gets interrupted) the assemblers further down the belt will take longer to start up, as the early assemblers will grab items to use and to fill their internal buffers. But as long as the belt is supplying at least as much per minutes as the total number of assemblers need then it'll pretty quickly reach a steady state where all assemblers are in continuous operation.

And if you can supply sufficient material to feed all assemblers then it doesn't much matter if the shortfall is always felt by the final assembler, or each assembler takes turns running out of material and having to wait. Either way your average production per minute should be the same.


The only time a single belt doesn't work is if you're capable of supplying more than it can carry. In that case you might need a faster belt, to invest in pilers or pile sorters to stack items on the belt (up to a 4x increase in carrying capacity) or use multiple supply belts.
(I've done Casimir Crystal factory designs where I needed way more hydrogen than a belt could carry and I'd have additional supply belts that would then join the main belt partway down the line of assemblers to refill it. (That way each assembler's sorters only had to reach 1 grid to grab the hydrogen; but I had multiple belts worth supplying the line of assemblers)

[Scullhead]

Originally posted by Lambi:

Personally I've just run a straight conveyor belt through all Assemblers. But this obviously makes it so that the Assemblers further down the line are less likely to get a resource.

That is for 99% of thge game the best layout.
And the correct amount of Assemblers. And do the Math. if the Convey Belt cant transport more than 30 Units/s than dont build more Assemblers that consume more than this.

[Dashiell]

50 assemblers in a line is A LOT, like assuming ILS with max stacks researched this is maximum what slower productions can take from mk3 belt directly feed from tower to get continuous production.

In case of something fast crafted like iron items you want to split that line into half so say left outputs of ILS supplies left line while right outputs feed right line, additionally if you don't have stacks researched yet you can use auto stackers to make sure belts have maximized their items per min.

That way you can feed items from 4 ILS outputs belts per side while getting 3 output belts from assemblers.

Top tier image representation https://i.imgur.com/hjIZXZR.png

Granted this isn't super optimized line but it's absolutely copy pastable bp set and forget.

[Dragonmaster]

Manifold style is the general goto. Since machines only stock 3x the recipe materials a mathed out manifold will saturate quickly

[Nekogod]

If it's for a mall/hub just run the line past all the assemblers. Assuming each assembler then outputs to a box and you've set sensible stack limits then it doesn't matter if the total possible consumption is higher than what you can put down the belt. Initially yes the last few assemblers won't get any, but often you're not building the whole thing at once but rather you're adding to it as you unlock new things by which point your first chunk of assemblers/storage are already saturated.

I never build my mall to ratio and never had a problem.

For everything else I try to build to ratio so if I can deliver 30 iron a second then I add enough assemblers to use exactly 30 iron a second.

I find mark 2 assemblers easiest for this because of their 1x speed no messing about with 0.75 or 1.5. Usually I'll build to ratio with mark 1s as though they had 1x speed so that when I unlock them I can just upgrade to mark 2 and don't have to add or remove anything.