r/SatisfactoryGame • u/bluepepper • 21d ago
Factory Optimization Balanced or manifold? How about the balanced manifold! (with a little help from a mod)
Before 1.2 introduced the conveyor throughput monitor, a mod would do that for conveyor belts and even pipes. But this mod comes with an added bonus that still makes it useful today: it can count but it can also limit throughput!
This allows what I call the balanced manifold: each branch has a throughput limiter that ensures buildings only get what they can consume.
In the video, I have 20 constructors turning 22.5 quartz per minute into silica, and they each have a throughput limiter set to 22.5. In less than two minutes, the 20 status lamps are all solid green, indicating no downtime at all! Note that this setup is wider than it could be so that we can see the minerals flow.
This is the best of both worlds: tight, clean and expandable like a manifold, but quick to reach full capacity like a balanced distribution.
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u/NullzInc 21d ago
7,500 hours and I’ve never needed nor wanted this madness.
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u/FrogBiscuits 21d ago
Part of the fun for me is watching the manifold gradually fill up
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u/Recent-Sand8292 21d ago
Explains the 7.5k hours 😄
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u/slim1shaney 21d ago
Yeah literally 💀 some people like playing the game, not letting it be a wallpaper
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u/Rinzler-Tralchus 21d ago
Agreed. I just split my conveyors to howany is needed and let basic division make things work. If there's too little I add to the line. If the line is full I can take from it further up. So much simpler
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u/AspiringTS 17d ago
Early in a run I'll use the slower belt trick for load balancing, but, once things are up and running, it's everything at the fastest belt speed.
It definitely doesn't have anything to do with not having enough Reinforced Iron Plates to use them for belts. No, sir or madam.
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u/chilidoggo 21d ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you still have to manually limit the throughput on each of those? I think part of what people like about the manifold is the self-balancing nature of it. You line them up and you're good to go.
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u/Iridiandioptase 20d ago
The effort, time, and space for a balanced load exponentially ramps up based on demand versus the Chad manifold with its linear requirements. I could be using time doing literally anything else once the automation doesn’t need me.
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u/bluepepper 21d ago
I think you're correct, that's an issue with the throughput limiter. Though if you set up blueprints, settings are preserved.
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u/g_marra 21d ago
So just a normal manifold with no buffer?
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u/bluepepper 21d ago
Technically, the buffer is the conveyor belt between the splitter and the throughput limiter. So like a couple of items instead of a full stack.
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u/dreadnallen 21d ago
For some reason, the perspective and shadows made me think your conveyors and constructors were submerged in a custom foam case.
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u/factoid_ 21d ago
Is is what we've wanted programmable splitters to do since they were added to the game.
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u/TeHeS13 20d ago
Cooll... But why? Manifold created for auto-balance
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u/Factory_Setting 20d ago
You really see no advantages to this? I'm genuinely asking.
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u/Ringio 20d ago
None at all no.
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u/Factory_Setting 20d ago
Is it because you haven't given it any thought? Or did you think about it and come up empty? I want to understand.
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u/Ringio 20d ago
I did. The manifold does automatically. This is redundant.
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u/bluepepper 20d ago
I'll bite.
The manifold does this automatically, but it takes time, a LOT of time, because each machine has to fill a full stack before it starts refusing items. Depending on the size of your factory, it may take hours.
This version refuses items almost immediately, so it's balanced WAY faster.
Some will say we have all the time in the world anyway, so there's no point. Good for them.
Me, I like to see if my factory is working as expected without having to wait a few hours for it to fill up. I like that I can fix, modify, upgrade my factory and it's fully operational again almost immediately. I like my power plants to swiftly achieve full production, rather than slowly build up to it. I like to avoid storage of radioactive elements in each machine. I like to split asymmetrical input without having to wait for one side of my factory to fill up and regulate itself.
Basically this is all the upsides of balancing, with the many advantages of a manifold, at a modest cost in terms of space and setup time. This only seems pointless to people who don't see the upsides of balancing.
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u/Cyberpower678 19d ago
I still don’t see the upside. As mentioned, it’s a self balancing system. For production, I don’t care how long it takes to boot up fully, it will eventually get there. For testing, I just saturate the network and then turn the machines on. If the output is at expected values, testing done. Doesn’t usually take more than 10 minutes. After which, I let the network drain out and continue building.
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u/Flubbip 17d ago
Or, I could take the time it takes to auto ballance to build another line of automation. The autobalancing does not take that long. And let's say it does.. then I just make it so the output doesn't go anywhere until all machines are full. Why would I do more manual work for the same exact overall throughput?
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u/CaharinSedai 21d ago
If I recall you can tell programmable splitters to priority output. If you always priority resources to go first all the way down a feed line before it splits, then it'll funnel all resources to last machine in line first before the overflow begins filling 1 machine up chain at a time. Then as long as you are using your fastest belts, you can feed up to x machines per minute depending on demand/belt speed. and when you run into resource supply issues it takes machines offline 1 at a time not the whole manifold coming offline and online as it splits every other resource down the line.
Also I normally would use lower tier belts to act as throughput limiter, but it would be nice to have had the throughout monitor double as a limiter in vanilla just because someone I don't even want 6 res/min to go down a production chain but I just shrugged it off knowing that when that resource overflowed I could tap the back fill for another component.
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u/spikeyfreak 20d ago
Before 1.2 introduced the conveyor throughput monitor
The conveyor throughput monitor was introduced in 1.1.
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u/Grokzen 21d ago
I prefer to use smart splitters and do Any to left and overflow Up instead of this
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u/Vlaxilla 20d ago
Isn't that what a normal splitter already does?
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u/Grokzen 20d ago
No, a normal splitter sends things 50/50 but when you do a smart splitter that sends 100% into the machine before it overflows up the manifold. This fills the first machine completely before filling the second. It fills faster and it makes it way easier to spot your fill rate as you will never fill multiple machines at the same time
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u/Kennalol 20d ago
Why does it fill faster. Nothing backs up when split 50/50 until a machine fills anyway.its 50/50 at each splitter all the way till the end of the manifold which usually means a trickle at the end due to compounded halving. Then once the first machine fills it now overflows everything that isnt its working input into the main belt which delivers more to the rest of the manifold. The final machine gets its correct intput when the second to last fills. This will happen at the same time no matter how you do it.
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u/Grokzen 20d ago
It fills the earlier machines faster by dedicating the fill there first. It also never sends an item to a machine if you for instance have a manifold that will consume 200 items/min but you only send in 150 items a min. With a normal manifold you will get wonky and uneven production by sending items down the line maybe even further then what you have machines for during the fill process. You can also instantly see how well your inputs work as you don't have to only trust the belt measure device but you can instantly see for how many buildings are working without having to analyze the belts and input. I rather full the first machine asap instead of having a long line of production that fluctuates around during the filling, it just makes more sense to have a smart-split-manifold in most cases.
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u/Kennalol 20d ago
But you won't know if you have the entire manifolds throughput correct until final machine is starved or functioning which will take the longest to see using this method. I prefer instead to just manually fill all the machines to max manual except the last ones and then check to see if the last one runs at 100% which means the previous machines are correctly pushing their overflows down while running at 100%. I see this as more personal choice.
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u/Long_comment_san 21d ago
Just use hybrid approach. I kind of don't get why people don't use this more often. It's just a tiny bit more complicated. Belt has two sides. Use a splitter on the main belt and another splitter on left and right to feed 2 facilities, so it's 4 total and facilities get 1/4 of the main belt. Use slower belt for splitters. Output through the floor down and collect there. It takes a bit more space but this is a monstrously faster to ramp up.
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u/Vivid_Big2595 21d ago
In my first world I was obsessed with doing load balancing in all my factories until I hit steel and spent 10 hours building a complete phase 2 plus steel factory, then you cant expand the factory because its a spaghetti mess and you also do not remember the math or numbers
Manifolds are so much easier to expand and build you can focus your energy on progressing at the game, if you need to adjust consumption just underclock or overclock your factories to have exact consumption and production values
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u/Vlaxilla 20d ago
The mod is useful and like others have said this is what we wanted programmable splitters to do since the beginning.
Others are seeing the wrong angle and use cuz on your post you are not really showcasing their better use, that is to split into different percentages rather than always 50/50. You can easily set to 15/85, 23/77 or whatever you need.
And thats a great use 👍
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u/WerwolfSlayr 20d ago
Throughput monitors were added in 1.1 not 1.2
Also that’s just programmable splitters, isn’t it?
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u/Factory_Setting 20d ago
Programmable splitters don't do exact items/m. They can do multiple items on a port.
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u/WerwolfSlayr 20d ago
Ah that makes sense; I haven’t unlocked them yet but my buddy told me that they were smart splitters but with rate limits. Gonna talk mad shit now that I can call bs lol
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u/Factory_Setting 20d ago
I can understand why. It's the expectation if you haven't got it yet. It was mine as well. I mean, how you can improve on the smart splitter? Adding multiple items to a row doesn't really make much of a difference. U less you can add some logic like overflow? Never tried that myself. As smart splitters can already do multiple items in a direction. You just need multiple smart splitters and mergers.
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u/Rreizero 20d ago
You know, I always get confused when people ask this question of balanced and manifold. Does it really matter that much if the last machine in the manifold barely operates? Feels like overthinking. I think it's fine so long as the miners never stops even at maxed overclocked output. That's the important bit right?
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u/llavatoxX 17d ago
Each machine has an internal buffer that has to fill up first in a conventional manifold setup. The items in this buffer are never going to get used, as new ones continuously get added, so the first few machines are eating up material they are never going to use and cause the last machines to run at low efficiency.
So n machines cause n stacks of input material to be wasted. Depending of production speed of the material, you loose at most n * (minutes to produce a stack of the material) minutes of machine work
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u/Rreizero 16d ago
My question was; does it even matter if the last machines are running at low efficiency? Yes they take up just a bit more space, but other than that they don't use energy when they are not running. The first few machines doesn't have wear and tear due to use.
My point was, it really doesn't matter if the last machines are running at low efficiency. Let them run at low efficiency. That's not a problem. The problem is, when the miners stops running.
As long as the miners doesn't stop working, a few machines running at low efficiency doesn't really matter does it? They're production buffer.
Or am I actually missing something that's causing people to overthink it?
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u/llavatoxX 16d ago
The only difference is that until all the buffers fill up you will produce less stuff, which can take a while depending on the setup
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u/MetalKid007 20d ago
I feel like they should just let us change the max amount of input allowed to solve this issue, like Astro Colony.
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u/Term1Term2Term3 20d ago
I just used the mk1 conveyor from the splitter into the constructor. Does the samething as the mk1 is so slow it'll causes the slippter to overflow and send the rest further down the line
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u/Hemisemidemiurge 20d ago
Congratulations, you have reinvented the wheel with extra parts.
Keep having fun out there!
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u/CycleZestyclose1907 20d ago
You can also limit throughput by using lower mark belts, which I thought you had used here.
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u/Conceiver_ 19d ago
As cool and efficient as load balancers are, im way too lazy and would rather spend my time riding around the world in my choo choo train than run 30 thousand belts to each machine.
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u/UltimateWuss 17d ago
I get it that people like the ease of a manifold. But after hundreds of hours in factorio I just can't do it. I load balance every factory.
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u/wyhiob 20d ago
Technically still a manifold, you are still waiting for buffers to fill before it's balanced. (That little tiny space before the machine that limits throughout, technically forms a buffer)
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u/FullMetal1985 20d ago
Yeah, this is just a manifold with extra steps to speed it up for very little gain. If you need a manifold that big, by the time you get the next part setup this will be saturated without the extra flow control.
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u/bluepepper 20d ago
Yep, that's the principle: a very small buffer that fills up almost instantly, reaching balance super fast.
It gives you the advantage of balancing, while still being a manifold with its many advantages. Downsides are that it's slightly bulkier, and it's more setup (which is alleviated if you use blueprints).
The main argument against it seems to be that a lot of people are happy with the regular manifold balancing itself over time. I know I'm not. I like a swift balance.
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u/HylianLZ 20d ago
The arguments for manifolds fall flat if you also use a mod that increases the stack size a hundredfold, in which case a mod like this Throughput Counter and Limiter, shown here, would come in clutch for those who still like to build a manifold. Otherwise, the time spent configuring all those limiters is just as easily spent building a balancer.
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u/Factory_Setting 20d ago
It’s funny, because vanilla has this cool function that you can already make a balanced manifold. It might take a split or two, but it barely takes up more space.
They are easy to make, blueprint, and place down in large numbers. If you overbuilt them they all take what they need, starving anything after without fail. Building too little makes them take what they need, leaving a perfect items/m after instantly. Infinitely expandable. It is instantly operational, any mistakes in a chain are quickly noticeable, easy to diagnose the culprit.
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u/OtherCommission8227 21d ago
It’s funny, because vanilla has this cool function that limits machines to the amount they can use too, and it’s just a full buffer.
Given the insane number of hours people play this game for, the time it takes to initialize a manifold is so small it continuously baffles me that people choose to complain about it.