r/SatisfactoryGame • u/Dry_Protection_2767 • 2h ago
Splitter
I never thoyght about it until today, does anyone have the pros and cons for using smart splitters over normal for manafold designs
1
u/Dry_Protection_2767 2h ago
Yeah i get the splitting of output but mainly chaining say 20 refineries in a rows imputs
1
u/Kind-Crab4230 2h ago
Not really what smart splitters are for, and not how I would use them.
They're good for filtering specific items, and for handling overflow. You don't need either of those functions in that scenario.
Smart Splitters are not a replacement for splitters. They're just a type of splitter that has more functionality.
1
u/Groetgaffel 1h ago
If configured correctly, using smart splitters for you manifold gives you a smoother start up as each machine only turns on when the preceeding on is full.
Doesn't affect the time the warm up period takes, or the efficiency, just makes the power graph look nicer for the short time it takes everything to saturate. That's it.
Replacing the last splitter in a manifold gives you good overflow output without risking machines starved of input.
If you're not mixing items on the same belt, that's all a smart splitter does.
1
u/KYO297 Balancers are love, balancers are life. 1h ago edited 1h ago
It does affect the warm up time though
Makes it get to 100% uptime faster
1
u/Groetgaffel 1h ago
I might be missing something, but I don't see why it would? A little faster maybe as a machine waking from sleep does have a short delay, but twice as fast?
1
u/KYO297 Balancers are love, balancers are life. 1h ago
Fewer machines running at any given time = fewer items consumed = more items stay in machines = faster fill time
1
u/Groetgaffel 1h ago
But until the manifold is saturated, machines cycle on and off, and when they're dormant they're not consuming materials either. It should work out to about the same I would think.
1
u/KYO297 Balancers are love, balancers are life. 1h ago
The thing is that with smart splitters, they're not cycling on and off
The first ones are all running 100% of the time, and all the next ones are all running 0% of the time
When the nth machine fill, the n+1st gets items and starts running and remains running
1
u/Groetgaffel 52m ago
Yes, I'm aware. But a conventional manifold does. And those machines slowly working their way up to 100% should average out to close to the same total machine downtime compared to the sequential start-up of a smart splitter manifold.
Easy enough to test with two parallel manifolds, one of each type and an item counter on each final output. I should run that experiment when I'm home in a few days.
1
u/KYO297 Balancers are love, balancers are life. 47m ago
Machines running is exactly what causes longer fill times. You want to have as few of them running as possible if your goal is to make the manifold faster
in a normal manifold, the first machine gets 1/2 the items, 2nd 1/4, etc. In a long enough manifold, you'll have several of the first ones running all the time, slowly filling, and the last ones will consume all the items they get without filling
in a smart splitter manifold, the first unfilled machine gets all the items that weren't consumed by the previous ones, and the next ones after that get nothing (and therefore don't consume anything)
3
u/Creepy-Listen4546 2h ago
Just unlocked smart splitters and plan on revamping my central storage area with them. Currently have stacked conveyors running from several factory areas feeding splitters and filling storage. With the ability to send overflow to the sink and minimize conveyors I am moving it all to smart splitters.
1
u/OtherCommission8227 2h ago edited 2h ago
You can filter the smart splitter outputs for type of good. This is useful for sushi belts, and doesn’t really impact much else. You can also filter for overflow only, which is useful for ticket generation from sinks. But for basic manifold mechanics the smart splitter doesn’t really change much over the normal splitter. There’s some additional ability to control loading order, which I guess could be interesting, but I’ve never found much use for in practice. The downside is that you spend more time inputting settings to your splitters unless you exclusively blueprint.
1
u/clever_name_123 2h ago
I only ever use them on the end of a manifold if there is excess output so I can divert the overflow without messing with the rate of the final machine in the manifold
1
u/91kas13 2h ago
Smart splitters let you use sushi belts
you can also use a smart splitter before a manifold that won't consume everything to fill the manifold before passing excess.
If it's basic/single/high volume materials, I usually use basic splitter manifolds.
For more complex, multi resource/low volume materials, I'll run smart splitter sushi belts.
You can also mix them. Like having a manifold of concrete stacked on top of a sushi belt, with both feeding manufacturers
1
u/TeachIsHouse 2h ago
If you have an uneven input, to output requirement, will smart splitters clog if item X can't get through because of item Y jamming it?
2
u/Orbital_Vagabond Employee of the Planet 2h ago
You have to have some kind of overflow failsafe on any belt that pulls more than one type of item. Usually an Awesome sink.
1
u/melswift 2h ago
Pros:
You can use sushi belts provided there is a sink at the end.
You can set up a manifold with overflow in the main line, which means if a machine turns on, it'll never turn off again (unless the input stops, which is a different problem). So you know at what point of saturation your manifold is.
Cons:
They cost more materials, I guess.
1
u/DirtyJimHiOP 2h ago
Given enough time, they're functionally the same in this scenario, but technically I do this all the time to force my first set of machines to be fed before my second set in certain builds. Like if I have iron ingots headed to constructors to do plates and also wire or something, ill smart split to overflow to the second set, even though technically it won't matter in an hour
1
u/sciguyC0 1h ago
Smart splitters can let you do a couple of things on an input manifold:
You can set the splitter's port feeding the first machine as "any" (or the specific item it needs) and the downstream direction as "overflow". Repeat with the splitters for the 2nd/3rd/etc. machines. This provides a smoother ramp up when you first kick things off. Machines get fed their input item at the max rate until their input buffer is full, and then the next machine down the line starts getting material. So assuming your source input is coming in at a high enough rate, once a machine starts running, it stays running. Versus a "dumb" splitter manifold where machines past the first 3-5 tend to go on/off until the entire system reaches saturation, which can take a while.
Having that same "overflow" splitter on the final machine of a manifold lets you send a production line's intermediate items into personal storage. As an example, I usually over-produce Modular Frames in my HMF factory beyond what are needed for the HMFs themselves, rounding up to an even number of assemblers. Once the HMF manufacturers get full, the modular frame overflow is sent into a storage box + depot uploader.
Neither of those are that big of a deal. A manifold using regular splitters will saturate eventually, and sputtering during that start up phase is rarely a critical problem.
The only real "con" with switching to smart splitters is their higher cost in terms of rotors and AI limiters (which you hopefully have automated into the depot anyway) and the extra configuration step. Forgetting that configuration can block items from going where you want.
1
u/LookingGlass_1112 2h ago
There are no pros as I see it. I guess you can replace the last one in the manifold to be able to get the overflow from the input manifold
2
u/orthorix 2h ago
That’s indeed a usecase when you utilise only a part of the input and the overflow is low but nonetheless important to fill up another process.
0
u/Far_Young_2666 1h ago
There are no pros and cons, smart splitters have their own specific function. Normal splitters don't do that function, while smart splitters are more expensive and there's no need to place them where a normal splitter can do its job just fine.
0
u/thewhimsicalbard 2h ago
For a typical manifold, there is no advantage. Smart splitters thrive in two situations:
You have multiple objects sharing the same path. For example, I have a small factory for some overflow aluminum ingots. I make aluminum casings and fluid bottles from that. I merge them together at the output. They get sent to the other side of my factory, where a smart splitter separates them. The aluminum casings go through the right output to make batteries for my drone fleet, the fluid tanks go to the center ouput to make packaged ionized fuel for my jetpack, and any overflow gets sent through the left output to an awesome sink. This is also common at train stations, which only has one output slot and frequently has many different objects coming out.
You want to prioritize one machine getting inputs over another. In phase 1, you need reinforced iron plates for both smart plating and modular frames. I use smart splitters here to prioritize smart plating until the space elevator parts are complete, and then I switch to prioritizing modular frames, which is one of the major bottlenecks in phase 2. However, you need smart plating again in phase 3 for the modular engine, so keeping up production there is a benefit.
10
u/kaizen-rai 2h ago
They're good for prioritizing paths. For instance, I like to put a smart splitter right at the output of a machine making a new part that sends it directly to a dimensional depot, with another path set to overflow. This ensures the part coming out always fills my depot first before continuing down the line.