How to properly balance a massive amount of belts?

[Mist of Majora]

I've been slowly chipping away at my first rail and megabase world and I'm getting to the point where I need to efficiently grow my copper and iron stations. They're currently setup to support 48 lines of their ore type (24 on either side of the station), but all my stations are filling up at different rates.

I noticed on the wiki that theres balancers up to 16 lines (and I should add I can't use the 16 line version since I only have access to red belts right now). Basically, my lines are a mess which is why I'm not even bothering to post a screenshot, and I'm all for remaking all my 48 output lines (or I can make it a slightly different number if that's easier), but how would you go about balancing something on this scale?

[Name Lips]

If you combine all your belts with splitters, you'll have half as many belts, and you can keep working from there. The main issue is that this cuts throughput in half.

Other than that, you might just invent a new balancer.

[piccolo255]

Here's a forum post from 2 years ago, with in-line (i.e., as wide as the belts themselves) balancers for 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, and 512 belts.[forums.factorio.com] Warning, they're huge, though beautiful :)

[Mist of Majora]

Oh my piccolo. They're beautiful for sure, but I may lose my mind before I copy something of that magnitude from a screenshot haha! Still, thats a great reference thank you :)

And Lips, that's definitely one way to go about it in general, but that won't help me. I have roughly 12 trains randomly picking stops at my station to feed my 48 mining stations. I actually am currently using a derivation of that where I have splitters in a diagnoal pattern to keep shoving ore down the line if one line goes full, but its far from balanced (I just did it to get a bit further in progression lol).

[piccolo255]

Originally posted by Mist of Majora:

Oh my piccolo. They're beautiful for sure, but I may lose my mind before I copy something of that magnitude from a screenshot haha! Still, thats a great reference thank you :)

No problem :)

I haven't downloaded them myself (never needed more than 8-belt balancers), but this post[forums.factorio.com] apparently includes blueprints for 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024(!), and 2048(!!#$&%!?)-belt balancers. It seems that the author, Qon, made an automated tool to generate them :D

[Hedning]

You should consider reducing the amount of balancing needed because as you can see the balancers get huge rather quickly.

My smelting trains take 48 belts each but I don't use balancers because I don't need them:
https://i.imgur.com/7QSPHEi.png
https://i.imgur.com/zWiZ133.png

[KatherineOfSky]

That number of (fully comrpessed) belts would indicate a megabase -- why don't you have access to blue belts yet? Bots (in a restricted network) are also a good option to balance throughput on belts.

[Mist of Majora]

As always, this community rocks with the quick and helpful responses!

Piccolo-san: Yea thanks again. I'll take another look but looking at that screenshot - it actually gave me an idea for a 'quick and dirty' way to balance the belts without perfectly balancing them.

Hedning: I'll try to do just that, I'm going to cut a few corners balancing using Piccolo's link as a reference. That being said, I love your setup - it's so nice and clean :) I think I may 'borrow' your loading station design when I hit blue belts if that's cool :)

Katherine: You'd normally be spot on as usual about the blue belts, but I guess you'd call this a challenge run for me where I'm building mini-factories from the start, connected by rails, rather than your preferred (and MUCH easier) method of waiting until hitting the top of the tech tree and having the bots do all the work. I did give myself a small mini factory with some essentials before I started expanding, but I'm really enjoying this challenge run even though it's been a WIP for over 3 months now as I've been chipping away.

Bots are great too, but I try not to use them except for logistic deliveries and getting rid of those blasted trees & rocks. Using belts is so much more relaxing to watch as they work :)

[KatherineOfSky]

Agreed about watching the belts -- I just wanted to give you more options :-)

[Mist of Majora]

Haha I can ALWAYS use more options in this game :)

[Name Lips]

Originally posted by piccolo255:

Originally posted by Mist of Majora:

Oh my piccolo. They're beautiful for sure, but I may lose my mind before I copy something of that magnitude from a screenshot haha! Still, thats a great reference thank you :)

No problem :)

I haven't downloaded them myself (never needed more than 8-belt balancers), but this post[forums.factorio.com] apparently includes blueprints for 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024(!), and 2048(!!#$&%!?)-belt balancers. It seems that the author, Qon, made an automated tool to generate them :D

Those... are some of the most beautiful things I have ever. seen.

[impetus_maximus]

mind sharing the save standing next to the stations? zippyshare mediafire etc. would be easier to find a solution for you.