Splitters

Splitters can be used to split or join belts, but have many other not so obvious usages.

Items

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

Task: Make a branch in the middle of a longer belt to deliver other parts of your factory.

remove a belt-segment in this long belt.
select a splitter, rotate it into the right direction and place it into the gap.
the items continue to flow on the old belt, but you can now begin to built another belt from the second output of the splitter.
when you finish and the belts are not jammed, then you can see that every second incoming item is output on the new belt.

For a more founded introduction into the belt mechanics see Belt transport system.

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!

Splitters/Priority: right input is only taken to fill gaps in the left input.
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.

Splitters/Weighted splitters: Use splitter to achive special ratios on the outputs
- Splitters/Cascading: Use Cascading to fill storages only, when not needed otherwise
Splitters/Lane contributor: use the two lanes of a belt.
Splitters/Joining: more explained
Splitters/Wormhole Trick: an empty splitter transports items faster, they disappears on input side and dive up on output side, "jumping" over about half a tile. It is questionable, how this behavior could be used. A good usage is to make something like a "micro-buffer", or a "spread-buffer" with that, because a line of 10 splitters can store about 60 items - a half stack - and the first items are delivered very fast, but the last items have the normal belt speed to move through the splitters; so the items are spread on the belts.
Splitters/Constructions: Examples of using.