Prioritized merge? Give preference to one of the items being merged.

[zOldBulldog]

I noticed that there are times when many of my lines go idle. No big deal, since all of my chests are full. But I don't want to waste, so I plan to send them to the Awesome Sinks.

Since some items are more valuable than others (have more points for coupons) I would like to make sure I prioritize the more valuable items when I merge Overflows towards the Awesome sinks.

But... I have not seen any "smart mergers" similar to "smart splitters". Rather, merges seem to try to let one item from each feeding belt.

QUESTION: Are there any design tricks that can be used to ensure that when I am merging A and B, A is always picked to go through if available, making B wait until there is capacity in the merged belt?

[Ultima]

If I understand correctly your problem: you are merging different items together and you want to prioritize which of those items may be sink before the other(s).

I personnaly put smart splitter right after each "final item" of a production, putting any overflow to sink. That way, you never waste anything and have nothing to manage or prioritize, because your "useless" items are already sink before they come to your merger.

So my solution: put smart splitter right when your item is created, before your mergers.
Set the smart splitter: All items going in one way (to your merger I guess), and overflow another way to sink.

Hope I helped a bit.

[Doc✪Hollywood]

I mosty sink uranium for coupons. the rest I mostly sink to just get rid of it.

With the system you do you can generate coupons but it is also energy consuming if all of your production lines constanly work just to produce sink stuff.

Raw uranium and some Alien DNa capsules have provided me with so many coupons that I simply don't want o keep my machines constanly producing after I have enough parts.

[tdb]

Originally posted by zOldBulldog:

QUESTION: Are there any design tricks that can be used to ensure that when I am merging A and B, A is always picked to go through if available, making B wait until there is capacity in the merged belt?

There's one trick to increase the priority. First build a series of mergers on the low-priority belt. Then build an equal number of splitters where the high-priority belt comes in. Connect each splitter to a merger. If you build the splitters above (or below) the mergers in the right way, you can use conveyor lifts to connect both sides. This way each merger will pick the high-priority item two times out of three, and the low-priority item has to pass through all mergers at a one of three chance of getting picked, so the high-priority item will be preferred. The more splitters and mergers you have, the stronger the preference. This can take quite a bit of space though, so it's inconvenient if you have many items to merge at different priorities. It may be better to build multiple sinks so that there's enough capacity to sink everything.

[kLuns]

Smart split the lower priority items into a production line making better items.
Turn wire into cable and stators, turn those into automated wiring.

[zOldBulldog]

Originally posted by tdb:

Originally posted by zOldBulldog:

QUESTION: Are there any design tricks that can be used to ensure that when I am merging A and B, A is always picked to go through if available, making B wait until there is capacity in the merged belt?

There's one trick to increase the priority. First build a series of mergers on the low-priority belt. Then build an equal number of splitters where the high-priority belt comes in. Connect each splitter to a merger. If you build the splitters above (or below) the mergers in the right way, you can use conveyor lifts to connect both sides. This way each merger will pick the high-priority item two times out of three, and the low-priority item has to pass through all mergers at a one of three chance of getting picked, so the high-priority item will be preferred. The more splitters and mergers you have, the stronger the preference. This can take quite a bit of space though, so it's inconvenient if you have many items to merge at different priorities. It may be better to build multiple sinks so that there's enough capacity to sink everything.

Space is not an issue, all of my splitting/routing towards chests and factory lines will happen a decent distance from storage :) I am actually planning a double split on overflow, to separate what goes to my (small) storage, what goes to a storage buffer for factory lines, and then the final overflow to sink.

I will definitely use your idea to split high priority into 2 then merge those and the low-priority line in. It is not perfect but should yield better coupon income.

Originally posted by kLuns:

Smart split the lower priority items into a production line making better items.
Turn wire into cable and stators, turn those into automated wiring.

Yes, the plan is to turn lower value into higher. But why not earn early coupons on the highest value items I have while I build all of that? I am at a fairly early stage and in my design I get space for 1 sink for every 6 production lines I add. I obviously want to saturate the sink lines with as many high-value items as possible. What gets sunk will change over time, and there will be more sink lines, but the goal is to always sink the highest value stuff as I expand.

Try not to laugh. I currently implemented only 10 lines, for which I will have 3 sinks. My main "volume" sink is Quickwire (on a temporary sink) but I want to send Rotors, Reinforced Iron Plates, Solid Biofuel and Copper ♥♥♥♥♥ in first, as much as possible in that order, as they are worth more. The rest I will likely just send in to fill in if there is any belt space left.

[cboath11]

Maybe just plunk down another awesome sink? It just seems to me you might be overthinking it.

[ThemePark]

Another solution is to just use higher Mk conveyor belts for the higher priority items, and thus lower Mk belts for the lower priority items. I.e. the most valuable items are fed to the sink on a Mk 5 belt.

[kimba-rip]

try use'in a programmable splitter...

[kLuns]

Originally posted by zOldBulldog:

Yes, the plan is to turn lower value into higher. But why not earn early coupons on the highest value items I have while I build all of that?

From my own humble experience you can buy most of the buildables in the awesome shop before unlocking oil.
I use a smart plating blueprint which turns 107,75 iron into 5,4 smart plating
and a blueprint that turns 270 raw quartz into 450 silica.

I start using both blueprints when i have the mk2 miner and mk3 belt unlocked. Most of the starting areas have 2 quartz nodes on a reasonable distance and iron is really everywhere.
So there is always a good chance to get 10,8 smart plating and 900 silica sunk every minute you work on your next factory.

[Doc✪Hollywood]

that is all so obsolete

just sink uranium ore and you have more coupons that you ever need

(if you don't try to get golden nut and other trophies)