Splitters

Overview

belt-type	factor speed	speed (tiles/sec)
File:Basic-splitter.png Basic splitter	1	1.875
File:Fast-splitter.png Fast splitter	2	3.75
File:Express-splitter.png Express splitter	3	5.625

See also Transport Belt/Physics to dig deeper.

Behavior

The behavior of splitters looks simple at first glance. But they are not that simple. Splitters have an astonishing amount of uses.

• splitters have two input-belt-sides and two output-belt-sides on which you can connect any transport belt or underground belt
• splitters don't shuffle the lanes on the belts; items on the left input belt lane don't change the side to the right lane (and vice versa).
• Splitting
  • if two output-belts are connected, then every input-item is put alternated on one of the two output-belts. Or in other words: it is guaranteed, that the inputed items are output in a ratio of 50% on each belt.
  • if one of the output belts lanes are full, then it tries to output on the other output belt. This is useful to fill belts.
• Joining
  File:T&T Belt04.jpg

  Feeding from side is only a good use, if you want to make a queue - e. g. for mines, some output-buffer
  File:T&T Belt03.jpg

  Better: The capacity of the output belt is fully used
  • splitters can be used to join two belts into one. This has a much higher throughput than only side-inserting.
  • as with splitting, the belt lanes aren't mixed up.
  • Use faster splitter if you want to feed into a faster belt, because otherwise your splitter is the bottleneck!

Special behavior

• Splitter/Priority: when both input belts are at full capacity, then the splitter prefers the left input, or in other words: the right input is only taken to fill gaps in the left input. This can be used to priorize an item-source, for example a storage.
  File:T&T Belt08.jpg

  Left side: A splitter cascade to let only the unused items into the storage. Center: A simple storage. Right side: The splitter prefers taking the input of the upper (left) belt, so the input from the storage is lower priority.
• Splitter/When is a faster splitter needed?: a basic splitter can keep up with the input of one fast belt, if the two output belts are connected and empty.

Other Usages

• Splitter/Ratios: Use splitter to achive special ratios on the outputs
  • Splitter/Cascading: Use Cascading to fill storages only, when not needed otherwise
• Splitter/Belt Lanes: from one belt lane to the other.
• Splitter/Joining: more explained or instead of Transport Belt/Side-insert

When you feed a belt from the side, the throughput is limited. With v0.7 this has been improved much, but it is also simply the fact, that you feed only onside of a belt.

• Splitter/Constructions: Examples of using.

See also

• Transport belt
• Underground belt
• Transport network
• Crafting network