Splitters

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Revision as of 23:23, 29 December 2013 by Ssilk (talk | contribs) (→‎Other Usages)
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Overview

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

Related

See also

Behavior

(If not yet done, please read Transport belts, because we suppose some very basic belt behavior on this page.)

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 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 belt 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

  • Splitters/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.
  • Splitters/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

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 one side of a belt.

  • Splitters/Wormhole Trick: items disappears on input side and dive up on output side, "jumping" over half a tile, which is when stacked up in a line of splitters like a wormhole. (Completely untested, just waked up and known that it must be like that - ssilk)
  • Splitters/Constructions: Examples of using.

See also