Lane balancing :: Factorio General Discussions

Store Page

Factorio

All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos News Guides Reviews

Factorio > General Discussions > Topic Details

AngryDragon has Factorio

Mar 1, 2019 @ 7:19am

Lane balancing

I'm just wondering if there's a way to truly balance the 2 lanes of a belt. I ran some tests yesterday. I started with the lane balancer seen on the wiki.

https://wiki.factorio.com/Belt_transport_system

The belt shown on the wiki isn't anywhere near full. My belt is about as close to full as it gets and that lane balancer clearly fails at that point.

To explain this a bit better, let's pretend that my lane balancer has the same arrangement as on the wiki. It hits the splitter and then moves on to the section where it merges both belts. What happens at that point is that materials on the leftmost side of the screen slide in first, thus completly blocking anything on the right side of that belt. In other words, that contraption is useless as soon as you have anything approaching a full belt. I've tried much more complicated belt setups with the same result, which I guess was to be expected since splitters never mix lanes.

This has a knockdown effect all the way to the miners which end up mining unevenly and mostly from one side. Admittedly, the factory connected to that belt was cobbled together with no concern at all for any kind of symmetry, so the issue is of my own doing in the first place. At this point, I'm not concerned with that at all since the entire thing is getting dismantled. At this point, I'm just keeping it running because it's a problem that I want to solve. Any insights?

Last edited by AngryDragon; Mar 1, 2019 @ 7:22am

< >

Showing 1-15 of 25 comments

Gosera

Mar 1, 2019 @ 7:44am

you could always try to split the lane then feed it in to a buffer chest that then feed the line you are trying to balance.

Something like this http://puu.sh/CTyiK/073af4c6d5.jpg

vts6482

Mar 1, 2019 @ 7:45am

Those are the basic lane balancers but obviously you will never have a fully saturated belt after them unless the input belt is fully saturated or of a higher speed. For mines, the right-hand style is useful if you have two input belts coming in (e.g. for compressing two 75% saturated lanes into a single fully saturated lane for smelting). Beyond that, post an image and we can help you out.

Last edited by vts6482; Mar 1, 2019 @ 7:47am

AngryDragon has Factorio

Mar 1, 2019 @ 7:56am

Both the input and output are saturated. The input is a full iron lane coming straight off the smelters and miners. The output is a factory which isn't big enough to fully use that belt, let alone a single side of that belt.

Buffer chests on their own would not fix the issue because of the fact that inserters only grab from the close side of the belt and always place on the far side, but you've given me an idea. If I can have both the right and left side of a belt feeding one row of chests, I might be able to better balance the input.

Last edited by AngryDragon; Mar 1, 2019 @ 8:03am

brian_va

Mar 1, 2019 @ 8:05am

Might not be exactly what you want, but Use the loaders mod to dump 1 or more belts to a chest and then a loader to put back on to a belt. If your inputs are enough, the loader will send out a full belt or evenly across multiple. Might need the warehouse mod if you want multiple lanes in or out. Other than that, a picture of what you are trying to solve would help

AngryDragon has Factorio

Mar 1, 2019 @ 9:10am

Oh, I'm definitely going to make it happen without mods. I've got a plan, just need to make it happen. Getting in game right now.

AngryDragon has Factorio

Mar 1, 2019 @ 9:39am

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197996081421/screenshot/1000267470287780037

This lane balancer actually works as intended. The speed of the input lanes isn't quite the same, but it's about as close as it's going to get.

AngryDragon has Factorio

Mar 1, 2019 @ 9:53am

Oh, I just found this!

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197996081421/screenshot/1000267470287826748

It also works, but it's a lot more compact and uses only belts, underground belts and splitters. I way overengeneered things.

AngryDragon has Factorio

Mar 1, 2019 @ 10:36am

Seriously though, splitters should have an optional lane balancer option which can be enabled or disabled in addition to the existing filter options.

Zaflis

Mar 1, 2019 @ 10:53am

Originally posted by AngryDragon:
Oh, I just found this!

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197996081421/screenshot/1000267470287826748

It also works, but it's a lot more compact and uses only belts, underground belts and splitters. I way overengeneered things.

That is just the standard input balanced lane-balancer.

brian_va

Mar 1, 2019 @ 11:03am

Originally posted by AngryDragon:
Seriously though, splitters should have an optional lane balancer option which can be enabled or disabled in addition to the existing filter options.

There was a mod that did that, after placing a handful of them performance tanked. That's likely why it hasn't yet.

#10

AngryDragon has Factorio

Mar 1, 2019 @ 11:06am

Originally posted by Zaflis:
Originally posted by AngryDragon:
Oh, I just found this!

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197996081421/screenshot/1000267470287826748

It also works, but it's a lot more compact and uses only belts, underground belts and splitters. I way overengeneered things.
That is just the standard input balanced lane-balancer.

Try it out and see for yourself. What happens is this:

Step 1: Splitter creates 2 belts
Step 2: Both belts are side loaded on the right using underderground belts. This is the magic that makes it all work.
Step 3: The second splitter balances the 2 belts using both the right and left belt equally.
Step 4 Left belt is side loaded on the left thus reuniting both lanes on a single belt.

It's fully balanced. Since splitter do not mix lanes, the material on both belts remain on the right while the left lane is completly empty. This is why it works. The proof of that is the equal utilization of my forges despite the fact that the left lane is the one being used. Try it for yourself, setup a gear factory which loads only from one side right after large smelter and see what happens.

Last edited by AngryDragon; Mar 1, 2019 @ 11:08am

#11

AngryDragon has Factorio

Mar 1, 2019 @ 12:40pm

I did some further testing. Turns out that I'm actually partially wrong about what I stated above. The behavior can be qualified as being "inconsistent". If both lanes are being pulled at the same rate, or near the same rate, for the most part, the splitter isn't going to do ziltch in that particular setting. What is on the right belt is, for the most part, going to remain on the right. The balancing on that design only starts to kick in once one of the output lanes slows down or stops. This might be due to the fact that one lane is completly empty.

I've included in this screenshot a second design that actually performs as expected.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1670146722

It's made me really curious about other popular belt designs. Here's an exemple of a typical dual product lanes like those you often find in popular smelter designs. It fails the test.

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197996081421/screenshot/1000267470288358632

Last edited by AngryDragon; Mar 1, 2019 @ 12:47pm

#12

Warlord

Mar 1, 2019 @ 1:23pm

Sounds like what you want is an *EDIT* INput balancer, not a lane balancer. That is, if only one half of a lane is being eaten by machines, then you want both lanes of the input to be taken equally.

Last edited by Warlord; Mar 1, 2019 @ 1:48pm

#13

Killcreek2 has Factorio

Mar 1, 2019 @ 1:28pm

@AngryDragon ~ The difference is that the left design in your pic is only output-balanced, whereas the design on the right is both input AND output -balanced.

In situations where you only need output balancing, the simple belt-wiggle design is perfectly adequate (& cheaper to build). But if if you need both input and output balancing, then the more-costly underneathie design is required.

#14