Are splitters even useful for anything?

[andrewb]

I'm trying to figure out what splitters are useful for, if anything. They only seem to be useful when you are trying to pump out as much of a single dish as possible, which has only been useful in one level.

When I try to use them to split resources into multiple recipes, the lines always get clogged, even if I use the storage because the recipes never come in the appropriate ratio for the splitter to work well. Could someone give me an example of a good use for a splitter? Thanks.

[Celebane]

Yeah... I haven't found much use for the plain splitters.

[Spiffers]

I do know that there are uses for the Smart Splitter - One good example is on Pier Pressure - You can have it pull out the Small Family Meals from a circle that feeds Fried Chicken and Fries back to the same packager. The problem with this is that I have a feeling that a simple Dumb Arm would work better to complete the same task either at same or better efficiency. But it works none-the-less.

However, I generally agree that it's a little tricky to use the splitter for something without just trying to use it to game the system.

[Celebane]

Smart Splitters are a whole nother story. I use them a lot to send packaged fries back around to the same packager to be added to meals and a few other uses when a certain item needs a detour from everything else.

[Christopurr]

I use dumb splitters for hot dog combo meal when I didnt need it super fast and I had a lot of space. But, generally they are not very useful. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1821272371
Here I use them to split up 3 hot dogs from a single dispenser, and two cheeses from a single dispenser.

[Spiffers]

I was literally just thinking that the dumb splitter could be used for the Hot Dog Sampler. But this becomes the exact problem - maybe we need more of this kind of thing. If there was a recipe that needed Grated Cheese AND Cheese Slices, a dumb splitter could be of use there too.

So back to OP's original question - I think where they're useful is where you need multiple of the same ingredient to end up in different locations for a single recipe. But then the question comes: is it even efficient to bother? Having arms do the same thing is almost always more efficient energy-wise.

[swordless]

Originally posted by Christopurr:

I use dumb splitters for hot dog combo meal when I didnt need it super fast and I had a lot of space. But, generally they are not very useful. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1821272371
Here I use them to split up 3 hot dogs from a single dispenser, and two cheeses from a single dispenser.

But the splitter uses 800w and a dumb arm only uses 300w. You could replace the splitters with a bunch of arms and an order reader to do the same thing for a lot less power which is what I generally do.

[Spiffers]

Yeah, but for some people, they think better in those ways. But I agree that there is no optimal solution that will use a splitter, since an Order Reader and a Dumb Arm have the same energy usage, and more (or the same) downtime with simpler usability

[Christopurr]

Originally posted by swordless:

But the splitter uses 800w and a dumb arm only uses 300w. You could replace the splitters with a bunch of arms and an order reader to do the same thing for a lot less power which is what I generally do.

When I tried this it didnt work as well once you got multiple orders in a row. The first dumb arm would then grab a hot dog for all the orders that were placed, then the second one etc. Would cause huge delays. This setup correctly splits up 3 hotdogs no matter the order cadence.
Although, this is literally the only time I have every used them.....