smart conveyer routing

[jamiechi]

Anyone use these yet?

[Sistermatic™]

Yup. One example is I have both animal feed and flour coming on a single belt between farms and I sort them out to storage and shed once they're out in the open.

[Peter34]

Not yet, but I imagine it'll be useful for Farm produce, like when I get 2 or 3 different raw products on the same Flat Belt or U-Belt.

[ainijames]

Yep same as sister, I route all my farm exports along the same route, then they are split into smart routers, each product has a storage bin that leads to what it is used for, any overflow is routed off to be made into animal feed & then goes into the chickens mouths, any remaining in the animal feed bin is used as fuel (again with priority routing over coal) in boilers. So my farms are never full, I always have a full bin of raw mats to be made into finished food & it cuts down on my coal use. Alternatively you can turn it into fuel but I prefer to just make a proper oil plant & use excess food for boilers.

[jamiechi]

Thankyou All. Very helpful. I have been watching youtube videos for this game but didn't see a good example yet.

[Annoying Cat]

Three examples I use a lot:

1. Steam overflow. Having a pipe balancer can help route your steam to the next phase (generator or cooling tower), but you never want it to get backed up. So using a balancer can designate a priority output (steam to a cooling tower) but you can also have a smoke stack attached to it in case there's an overflow so that it just releases the steam.
2. Waste water - Similarly, water treatment creates a number of byproducts. If those get backed up, it might back up your waste disposal, which makes your city unhappy. Having a pipe balancer to help route the overflow to a liquid dump will keep your people happy until your wastewater treatment can catch up.
3. Microchip production - Microchips take several cycles, and you can run them through the same machines multiple times. So I have my "A, B, and C" stations in a row, then a switch that will remove completed chips or send incomplete ones around again. On the front end, I also have a balancer that prioritizes in-process chips over new silicon wafers, which helps keep things moving.

[Foo]

Originally posted by ainijames:

Yep same as sister, I route all my farm exports along the same route, then they are split into smart routers, each product has a storage bin that leads to what it is used for, any overflow is routed off to be made into animal feed & then goes into the chickens mouths, any remaining in the animal feed bin is used as fuel (again with priority routing over coal) in boilers. So my farms are never full, I always have a full bin of raw mats to be made into finished food & it cuts down on my coal use. Alternatively you can turn it into fuel but I prefer to just make a proper oil plant & use excess food for boilers.

Like Farm - belt - balancer - storage?

[Tankfriend]

If he's using the same setup I do, then it's:
farm -> belt -> sorter 1 -> belt -> sorter 2 -> belt -> sorter X (however many you need)

Every time a sorter splits off, the split looks like this:
sorter -> belt -> balancer -> option #1 and #2
#1 is priority output -> belt -> storage
#2 is non-priority output -> belt -> overflow processing

That way, you can put all your farm produce that uses the same type of belt unto one central belt, that will then automatically sort out all the things into their specific storage solution. If any of these fills up, the non-priority output on the balancers kicks in and sends the stuff down another belt into whatever you want to use to get rid of the stuff.

Edit: Here's a screenshot from my current setup:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2822609268
All of the farms that produce goods fitting a u-shape conveyor are connected to this setup and all route their stuff down this central conveyor belt and then towards the left. They go through an array of sorters, where each sorter sorts out one type of material and sends it towards the respective storage bin to be transported away by trucks.
If any of the materials back up that can be recycled directly into animal feed and then compost and so on and so forth, the belt balancers on those belts have an overflow output, that will send the excess material unto a second conveyor belt that runs from the left all the way to the right to processing.

In this example, I'm still in the process of setting up the canola processing, so the belt currently has backed up. But storage is still filled well, so I don't have to hurry.
It's probably worth considering keeping canola and sugarcane separate, since they currently do not have an option to be turned directly into animal feed (which can be burned as fuel or processed into compost) without producing a byproduct.

[ainijames]

Yup that’s exactly what I do, though I use the animal feed as priority over coal into boilers (the animal feed bin is directly linked to chicken farms so chickens always are full before the bin starts to fill).

[tripodalt]

i made gas of all excess tought after checking the polution and energy its not very eficient
in this game the coal the better