Team Build Enormous here. Definitely manifolds because the less splitters and belts you use the further you are away from the games object count limits. And the better game performance is. Anything simpler is better.
I am team whatever works better for the situation. Manifolds are good in some situations and bad in others, and vice versa with load balancers. One thing not mentioned that I don’t see many creators say anything about is utilizing storage “buffers”. With the constant shift in resource needs as you progress, along with the increasing complexity, I always find that having some “buffers” inline makes a huge difference in keeping things running at peak performance. I can always tell if a manufacturing line is gonna have problems when I check the containers. If resource output is faster than the input, I will will investigate the line and make appropriate adjustments while everything is still running smoothly. You can even manifold/load balance a bunch of containers which can seriously increase your total output so you hook up even more machines!
Having played Factorio a lot, I have religiously used load balancers in Satisfactory to maintain what I need for inputs to smelters and machines, but I will agree that the manifold on outputs is an absolute must for space saving. To save space with load balancers, I construct a basement floor beneath the machines so that the belts and splitters have their own space.
I find designing elaborate load balancers more fun and engaging than extending a manifold. Combinations of both are also fun where you split off the input and reintroduce it halfway along a manifold line to get it to fill up faster.
I was so happy when I figured it out and additionally figured out that it could be used in manifold setup. Have single line 480 and 60belts coming off and additionally splitting into smelters. Worked like a charm. No stacking and when I turn off the miner basically instantly can delete it without getting excess raw materials. You don't need smart splitters :) Soon setting up on copper 60+84 1st then 120 and 168. Need it for oscillator balancing. I was surprised the weird numbers could be balanced with even overclocks. Well according to my math. And will test sushi belt + splitting. Hopefully everything equals out evenly.
Solid arguments, especially nuclear, which I hadn't thought much about. I generally do minimal load balancing on resources, like belt compressors or saturate an mk.3 miner on pure node for mk.5 belt at 780, then "peel off" 30 or 60 or whatever to get full multiples of machines, or maybe 0.5 multiple and send excess of 2 manifolds to an odd machine. To make manifolds faster, I put the smallest speed input belt possible that is at least 1 faster than machine input speed. if machine needs 1-59 input, mk.1, but if it needs 60-119 input, mk.2, so each machine will eventually saturate, but excess gets kicked down the manifold a lot faster, and it slows the fluttering/struggling between head and tail during starvation. But sometimes load balancing is fun, so I might manifold to simpler load balancers, as it gets benefits of scalability, compactness, versatility, and speed... Sometimes vertically stacked balancers look cool too. I avoid 4x4 because if it gets to that point, I really messed up bad. 4x4 is just too clunky. I limit myself to 3x3, 3x2, 2x3 and 2x2, sparingly.
Yeah I do that quite often. My input line is typically an MK4 belt (pre-aluminum builds). And I peel off with either an MK1 or 2 pending... And I also try to keep each manifold array in the range of 8-12 machines max. In some situations I may even add a merger just before the last couple of machines to saturate the belt so that they are not starving and just let the end of the belt overflow and feed that back into the system. This does require a second input source line of say about 20-50% extra material but any excess could be transported back out as output or can simply be set to a sink just to keep the lines moving. I also use buffer storage bins before and every each stage of production. And using over and under clocking schemes in some situations can also help with the manifolds. I typically do not use belt balancers and I do not suffer from any issues of either shortages or backed up bottle necks either, but I may use partial hybrids... still a manifold but with some balancing towards the end so that the machines aren't starving with an overflow or feedback output. Now once you start getting into Aluminum production and especially Nuclear that's when and where belt balancing is kind of a requirement...
You pointed out why I'm usually on team manifold, but for some low volume items like uranium rods for nuclear reactors, load balancing is usually the best way to go unless you want to build enough rods to fill up all the reactors. While you point out radiation is an issue, its not so much anymore now that you can always wear your super suit. lol. Thanks for the video!
I used to use manifolds exclusively, Now I exclusively use load balancers. I find the puzzle of how to build it as small as possible (no clipping) very fun. I have a blueprint I made with 16 smelters load balanced within walls. Also in addition to immediately being efficient it's also just as fast to turn off. When you want to disassemble to replace it (like where you have new alternate recipes) it's nice to be able to immediately disassemble without clogging my inventory with unprocessed machine fill and belt items. Also balancers are more fun to watch, very satisfactory.
An information Id like to add. If you want to use manifolds, and you want the start up time to be better, you can easily do this using smart splitters. Instad of always splitting 50%/50%, just send to the first machine everything, and then the overflow to the rest of the line. This will make the machines fill up way faster!.
I've heard of everyone talking about manifolds in their late game taking up a lot of time to start up. I thought they were talking about a machine I just didn't unlock yet. I've been using load balancers for absolutely everything (besides water pipes, if that counts). Gonna have to redo my whole factory again lol. This helps a lot!
I've seen videos where people push load balancing as the only way to go because "you go to 100% effiency immdiately." But as you say, Manifolds do achieve 100% eventually. To which I asked, why does everything need 100% effiency immediately? It doesn't. For most things, it's just a personal choice, not a practical one. I like how you provide practical examples why one would load balance in given situations. As one makes that initial jump from Biomass to Coal, which far surpasses starter biomass setup in every way, a staggered approach is often more than adequate. Your analysis is pretty much the same as mine. I usually do manifold unless I have different items on same line that I want or need it's production to be independent of what would be the first group on a manifold line, as your Starting Factory Reinforced Iron Plates point is explained perfectly.
5:18 You can always do a hybrid system between to add the other two smelters. Add just one more splitter at the start. Two outputs going to the two extra smelters directly and the third goes to the 24 load balancer. The two additional smelters will fill so fast that you’re still getting the quick wind up time of a load balancing system.
I would call hybrid single line 480 and 60 belts splitting off and additional split or overclock. I placed splitting belts and mergers under the smelters, loved the solution I came up with. Blueprint requires more tweaking for looks and modularity.
Excellent explanations, thank you! I like to use load balancers for smaller/earlier builds and switch over to manifolds for the bigger and later game stuff
I would add to the end for when to use load balancers, when the production is small compared to the storage of machines, so it fills up very VERY slow. I usually use manifolds though.
An easy solution to manifolds is to prime them, just disconnect the power to the tools and let them fill a bit, or pull some of whatever component out of storage and prime by hand. Make sure every tool has full stacks in it (or leave the last tool half empty to keep stuff on the belt moving) and and the manifold will just continue to feed everything. For nuclear, a load balancer, if you're making the EXACT amount you need, would be ideal. With their size, hiding a load balancer in plain sight would be very easy. With that said load balancing and manifolds could be a thing simultaneously, but noooo we only get flow rate limiters for liquids and not solids
Manifolds FTW. If "something" happens and you lose half the input, then you are the problem, not the belt system. Wraping half of your factory in belts just in case is not the way to go. If you sink the final product only, the rest will balance itself out eventually. In this world of endless resources there is no other reason to go load balancers but to grow your OCD to its terminal stage.
Looking forward to your trains video! I usually balance the outputs from my train stations as well, I’m interested to see what buffers and balancers you recommend
I like using a combination of manifold and load balancing for loading into smelters / refiners / etc. When I split off of the manifold, I use a mk 1 belt, so that it only takes a maximum of 60, and then split that 60 between the 2 or so machines next to the manifold entrance.
The way I see it, you have a massive map, with planning, balancers are usually the way to go for me. With blueprints, update 8 is super easy to build compact balancers, compared to tedious glitch building to get shit to fit previously. I love they just let you clip now. I dont clip through conveyors, but its nice to snug up to the machines. As long as it looks right, clipping is fine. Vertical building also helps keep compact.
I am using more "hybrid" approach. Basically in most cases i use very simple load spreader, that final adjustments makes similar to manifold style. Recently i also almost overuse overflow function of snart splitters. Basically i am making manifold main line that will split to aimple load spreaders. Ie for coal generators. I am using segments of four generators on spreaders. Manifold is on smart splitters that will have main exit on overflow. This solution allows of graduating turning on of all segments of power gens. It will fill up faster each segments. And also allows me to build in advance. In recent playthrough i had 16 coal generators with useable only 8 at the beginning. (Mk2 belts in moment of building this facility) Only first 8 were getting coal at beginning but runned very smoothly. After i upgraded to mk3 conveyors and mk2 miners, that took me about 30 sec, next segments just came online
I find load balancing a lot of fun. Figuring out how to balance between a prime number of belts, how to do so with a full belt that has no extra wiggle room, or how to balance an unfull belt evenly onto the same belt were all fun challenges. Anywhere I can use a load balancer I do, but boy do I pay for it in time and space.
The neat thing of manifolds is that you can pre-fill the machines quite quickly. Just collect a few stacks of the material in a container and manually dump it into the machines 😁
I use manifolds for basically everything, but I construct them a little bit different. First I split a line for different products. In the example in the video I would put a splitter at the start so die iron plates and iron rods each have a belt with 50%. It is also possible to use different belt speeds if it fits better. Secondly I use smart splitters instead of splitters before a production building. This way one building after another filling up with resources. If there are fewer resources than needed the first buildings still run on 100% and only the last buildings have less or even 0 production. For me this way it is easier to see how much is really produced.
I have found that with manifolds because the earlier machines still take more input whenever they finish a build (in this instance when a smelter finishes an ingot and consumes an ore to start the next), the final smelter/constructor will never reach 100% efficiency. There are always those split seconds where it does not have the required material and so it operates at 99% efficiency. You can fix this by barely underclocking the final machine, but this can cause problems for machines being fed by the output. You could overclock the input (like the miner) to produce slightly above the required (like 121 ore per minute instead of 120) but that is kind of a waste of a slug. The best solution I have found so far is to overclock the input where practical, but instead of just barely overclocking, overclock by one extra machine's worth plus a little. So instead of 120 or 121 ore per minute on a miner, have 151, add another smelter to your manifold, and an extra ore to help keep your last smelter running. This way the slug isn't as big of a waste but also you dont run your power usage through the roof.
I tend to use saturated manifolds to create a pulling system. In this setup I can get more variety covered from a small number of resource nodes. I just need to accept slow progress on restocking when I grab large amounts of many materials.
hey man this is a great video but I feel obligated to point out to you that, whether you use 2 or 3 of a splitter's outputs for a given task, in both cases, you are dealing with a prime number! primality is not a factor in complexity here - in fact I would go so far as to argue that it helps, as 2 and 3 are great factors to work with when I'm trying to split things into more complex sized piles. (obviously 1 isn't prime but if you're only using 1 output then there's no use to the splitter)
I use a mix of both like for the reinforced plates and a splitter that goes into 2 separate manifolds for the respective parts. now you are technically using a load balancing manifold
A trick for loading manifolds faster, set all the machines to the minimum overclock, so they still accept items, but use it so slowly, it fills way faster than it uses, then set it back to the desired speed on ine, copy and paste that setting to each machine, saves time and lets you buffer the last couple machines.
Usually I just do manifold. If I get to nuclear I've usually got the means to mitigate the radiation so I don't worry about backup too much. However, sometimes if I make a longish manifold I will split the input and feed it from both sides so it gets to efficient faster. I'm sure that's not THAT effective, but it makes me feel good lol. And it adds just a little extra visual interest to just a line of smelters or whatever. If I'm planned ahead enough to build a logistics floor to feed buildings making low volume items, then I'll load balance "properly."
My problem most of the time is not to build a manifold... But to plan how the output get split and feed into the new buildings... Especially with items which produce a lot like screws or something... So I try to use the tips like using factory planner websites which give me some fancy graph of how to distribute items... But it always says that I need X amout per minute for that product... but this would mean that I have to use 3 seperate belts to support it... but other parts need them as well later and I do not know how to extract them in exactly the right amount
I believe with the example of 110 items input you can easily use normal splitter since Mk1 belt will still get a max of 60/min and the rest with go to other belt.
10:50 thats wrong, the production may fluctuate, but in the end its items in = items out, the stuff you put in will not magically disappear just because you used a manifold. So on average you will produce exactly the same.
how much input is required for the manifold? does it depend on machine? like the 26 constructor example does that mean we need like 240 something ore coming in? or does it not matter
i would love if they added the ability to tell smart splitters how much to send out on each output, blank would mean it will send whatever is left, for example, 30 iron ore to the left, and forward is left blank, it would send 30 iron ore per minute to the left and the rest out the other output.
Thank you for your detailed explanation. However, a question has arisen. What is the name of the device placed on the conveyor that shows the current flow rate? I can't find one on mine. But maybe I haven't opened it yet.
I just load balance before I use a manifold. Like in your smart plate example, I wouldve just split the iron into the proper ratios for pipes and plates, and then use that line with a manifold
Loved the video. Properly explained, and the editing is top notch. Still, I think there's a concept you are not teaching the best way. When doing manifolds, you should never use regular splitters. Instead, you should be using smart splitters, sending everything to the machine, and the overflow down the line. I have just done a video in my channel comparing both approaches. A manifold with regular splitters took 64.92 minutes to properly startup, while the same manifold with smart splitters took 30.16 minutes. Its the same technique, same complexity of build, but only different splitter. You get twice the efficiency! There's a lot of people out there using regular splitters, and the thing is, when your factory has several stages, and each one of those is done via manifolds, those times will start to stack up. Still, I think that this video is a masterpiece, and I really want to stress that. The ones I do end up looking 100 times shittier, and not even smart splitters can help with that
Industrial storage units don't balance between their outputs - they pick one and send most resources there first, the second belt basically being overflow when both input belts give it an item at the same time. Whichever output is the 'primary' belt is usually the first belt you attach to it, but IIRC it can change on reloads. Every time I've done a load-balanced setup and also needed an industrial storage container, I had to load balance the outputs or never use move than 1 input and 1 output.
If you have enough resources then manifold are better in every way. They are easier to build, takes less space, easy to expand and overall gives less headaches. Only downside I can see is that it takes some time to start up as the machines woll up with peoducts
What about a hybrid of a manifold and partial load balancing? What do I mean by this? Let's say you have an array of say 12 smelters pulling on an MK4 belt (pre aluminum processing and MK5 belts). You set up a simple manifold and yes over time it will balance out to where all the machines are running at 100% efficiency due to the back propagation and overflow mechanics of the splitters and mergers. If you want your manifold to work at 100% efficiency early on instead of waiting for it to catch up where say the last 2-3 smelters are starving for materials, then what I would do in this situation is to add a merger before the last 3 splitters. This will involve and require another line of material coming in though. For this we don't need another MK4 belt. A simple MK2 or 3 belt would be more than enough. We can feed this second line into the manifold after say the first 8-10 machines, or if you want to be more symmetrical we can place it after the 6th machine on the line of 12. This will over saturate the belt source belt. This okay though. At the end of the line we can feed it back to an extra output with the last splitter on the line to be a smart splitter taking all overflow out of the line so that the line keeps on moving and doesn't back up. These are little extra padding on a simple manifold but are less complex than a full load balancer. We can always either transport this extra material out to another location to be used somewhere else or we can simply just sink it. But yes this does require bringing in a little extra resources into your assemblies. If you are feeding this second line 1/2 through your main manifold line, then I would say an extra 30-50% would help to have your machines running optimal early on. If you add it towards the end of your array to component for the last few machines only then perhaps only an extra 10-20% of material would be needed. Again this would also depend on how long your manifold lines are. Personally I try to keep my manifolds on the smaller side such as saying an array of 8 machines, this way those machines are not starving early on. The extra material at the end of this array would merge into another belt and then start another manifold of 8. There are hybrids of the manifold - belt balancers that work well too. However, these are only good for pre-aluminum and uranium solutions. You might be able to get away with these with oil production for plastic and rubber but you have to be careful with your fluid flow and intakes. As for aluminum that's a different beast altogether. Anything that is simple smelter - constructor, assembler... A simple manifold system will do especially if your manifold lines are kept small. If you start to run say 12+ machines on a single line... then this is where the manifolds start to have that accordion effect. Anything that is 8 or less is just fine. For lines that are between 8-12 it may vary on your needs but this is where overclocking and underclocking comes in handy! A trick here might be to underclock your first few machines and use a lower belt feeding them so that they don't become belt hogs and allow more material to pass through. Then your middle array machines could be set to normal production, then the very last machine or two on the line you can add a second feedline with a merger and over clock these two. There are many ways to build these systems. I find these hybrids solutions to be good in several situations, but most of the time, for all lower level productions I simply use a basic manifold system and I also use buffer storages before and after each stage of the assembly lines.
That works too, but what I love to do instead of the extra logistics is to just turned off all the machines, let them all fill up, and turn them back on. Or manually load them up first. This speeds up the whole process.
Not only does my huge nuclear plant use manifolds but also big storage crates full as back up power inline with them. but the worst place is the plutonium cell manifold, it drains the filters super fast :)
Question that's probably noob-ish since I just started playing this week. You said the manifold layout is scalable, but beyond that 30/30 splitter I don't see how all future smelters operate efficiently. They just get exactly how many they need so there's no overflow. Since 120 is all I can get off a Mk2 belt, am I just hard limited to 4 smelters per miner until I find a way to upgrade? Or do I underclock the later smelters until there's a backup farther down the line?
I honestly prefer load balancing 'cause I like seeing everything moving constantly. But to be fair, I've only played for about 10 hours and didn't even think of manifold. Didn't really come to mind.
alright heres the thing. if your not providing the perfect amount of resources youre not playing the game right. in the beginning it says to not mbe wasteful and only be efficient. that means that manifolds should work perfectly. additionally you can use a smart splitter at the end if you provide too much material and bring the excess elsewhere
Your 75 to 15x5 example is more easily solved with 1 smart splitter to a full 60 with overflow of 15 then split that 60 into 30/30 and then 15/15/15/15 and done. Now if the 75 ever dipped the overflow 15 would suffer, clearly.
Your reinforced iron plates statements around manifolds are actually incorrect. Once the iron plates saturate, the output will stabilize to a fixed amount of reinforced iron plates per minute, the exact same 5 as per the load balanced example. And that facially must be true, because if it weren't, that means you would have iron ore building up somewhere. But if the iron plates are saturated, then all of your iron must be going into screws, and your system can't starve if it's being oversupplied iron into screws while plates are saturated. The bouncing you describe will happen so fast that it will be literal noise, identical to the same sort of flow fluctuations that happen in every factory.
Still not reach nuclear, but i only use balancer on a stator factory, 1 belt needs 320 and other 400, excepet that never use balancer, only manifold system ^^ . Kind afraid try to make any nuclear power plant now. Btw i play this game like 1year ago and was a recipe called "wet concrete", now i cant find anymore, already open last tier´s and got all alternate recipes from drives and the thing dont show in refineries, so the question is this recipe was removed from the game?
@@spectrumdad_ I dont know why my alternate recipes just vanish. Solution was upload save on satisfactory calculator and re-unlock all recipes, now they apear o.O
Manifolds are way better than load balancers IF the entrance direction is the same as the exit (if it enters from left to right, it exits from left to right).
BS if I take the first example I can make it with just 2x2 corner in additional space on each side. And I can easily expand it to the max throughput of 1 belt. That said I only divide by 2 or 3 or multiples of that. Anything else is not worth the effort
Do you really need that last splitter for the last unit? It seems unnecessary to divide the penultimate split one more time since it won't be going more than one.
Well you made the belts on load balancers too long i get it just for video but i condensed my bets to where no mater how long they are its thinner so it may take an extra half of a floor unkess you have that long splitter like the ln yes it will take more space
manifolds save time and space. Just make an extra machine or 2 here and there. At the end of the day your production is always limited by the output of your miner.
5:10 I know you're trying to showcase how load balancers take up more space here, but this example is absurdly exaggerated. You could've easily cut that down to half the size by not making the belts needlessly long.
I confess I sometimes prefer load balancing only because it seems more complicated, and finishing a complicated design makes me feel like I've achieved more.
You actually don't know how to explain manifolds. Totally wrong . The only value that was right was the saturated output volume on overflow . The output is always half of the input when split And then the ratio changes if there is a belt speed imbalance Input of 240 full , an output of 60 and an output of 240 would give you a 1/4 split on the 60 for the first manifold , unsaturated . And then approaches closer to half for each manifold until the output regardless of the belt speeds is equal Belt speeds matter when manifolding , and most manifolding should be avoiding early game unless you don't really care about efficiency
Food for though... A manifold that's being fed by just the right amount of materials mathematically can never actually reach 100% efficiency. It can get to 99.99999% it can get infinitely close to 100% but technically never actually reach it.
That's simply not true. You can set up a basic iron processing to see that every machine gets to 100% once the belt and previous machines are saturated
Or if you do want to cover for that small percentage all you have to do is to prime it with one or two extra material in order to cover for the travel time issue
@@RG-gn8pe it is true. It can get infinitely close to 100% but not actually reach it. Once I get back to my computer I'll pull some real numbers for examples. Simply, if you feed a manifold with just the right amount of materials and eventually let it saturate so it functions as if at 100% efficiency but you remove one item from the belt, you can imagine that removing that item from the belt will mean that for the brief period of time that gap works it's way through the system, you're under feeding the system. Eventually it appears to catch up but how? How could it possibly catch up if being fed by just the right amount of material? The reality is, over time that deficit slowly becomes less and less of a fraction of the system throughout and you approach infinitely close to 100% efficiency but never TECHNICALLY reach it. Functionally though it makes no difference.
1> Load balancers don't automatically give everything the exact required amount. They split the item stream equally. If everything used the same amount then they all get perfectly fed. If not, then it works like a manifold. 2. Load balancers can take up a significantly smaller footprint than shown if you don't build them with 49867543987 miles of useless converyor between each splitter.
"load balancers don't automatically give everything the exact required amount" - right, they don't. Correctly built load balancers do, though. But you have to figure them out, which is exactly why they take more time and space. "they split the otem stream equally" - nope, that's what splitters do. Splitters and load balancers are not the same thing. Load balancers are systems that utilize splitters, but only you decide how exactly it will be split. As for taking up space, they will still take a lot compared to manifold. Even if you try to minimize the amount of belts between splitters, at the end you still have, let's say, 24 smelters and each of them has their own input. In order to build a correct load balancer for all of them, you will need splitters set up in a few rows, and each of them will need some distance between them, because whatever you do, you can't just squeeze the inputs if the smelters into one single point
load balancers ruin the aesthetic of this game, if you can't build to compensate for uneven belts, then you don't know what you're doing. They are such an eye sore.
What style do you prefer? (UBG5 coming soon 😅)
Team load balancing here
Take your time, your content is worth the wait
Team Build Enormous here.
Definitely manifolds because the less splitters and belts you use the further you are away from the games object count limits. And the better game performance is.
Anything simpler is better.
I am team whatever works better for the situation. Manifolds are good in some situations and bad in others, and vice versa with load balancers. One thing not mentioned that I don’t see many creators say anything about is utilizing storage “buffers”. With the constant shift in resource needs as you progress, along with the increasing complexity, I always find that having some “buffers” inline makes a huge difference in keeping things running at peak performance. I can always tell if a manufacturing line is gonna have problems when I check the containers. If resource output is faster than the input, I will will investigate the line and make appropriate adjustments while everything is still running smoothly. You can even manifold/load balance a bunch of containers which can seriously increase your total output so you hook up even more machines!
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Having played Factorio a lot, I have religiously used load balancers in Satisfactory to maintain what I need for inputs to smelters and machines, but I will agree that the manifold on outputs is an absolute must for space saving. To save space with load balancers, I construct a basement floor beneath the machines so that the belts and splitters have their own space.
I find designing elaborate load balancers more fun and engaging than extending a manifold. Combinations of both are also fun where you split off the input and reintroduce it halfway along a manifold line to get it to fill up faster.
13:23 Downgrading to lower MK conveyor belts to adjust different flow rates is an excellent idea, never thought of this.
I was so happy when I figured it out and additionally figured out that it could be used in manifold setup. Have single line 480 and 60belts coming off and additionally splitting into smelters. Worked like a charm. No stacking and when I turn off the miner basically instantly can delete it without getting excess raw materials.
You don't need smart splitters :)
Soon setting up on copper 60+84 1st then 120 and 168. Need it for oscillator balancing. I was surprised the weird numbers could be balanced with even overclocks. Well according to my math.
And will test sushi belt + splitting. Hopefully everything equals out evenly.
Solid arguments, especially nuclear, which I hadn't thought much about. I generally do minimal load balancing on resources, like belt compressors or saturate an mk.3 miner on pure node for mk.5 belt at 780, then "peel off" 30 or 60 or whatever to get full multiples of machines, or maybe 0.5 multiple and send excess of 2 manifolds to an odd machine. To make manifolds faster, I put the smallest speed input belt possible that is at least 1 faster than machine input speed. if machine needs 1-59 input, mk.1, but if it needs 60-119 input, mk.2, so each machine will eventually saturate, but excess gets kicked down the manifold a lot faster, and it slows the fluttering/struggling between head and tail during starvation. But sometimes load balancing is fun, so I might manifold to simpler load balancers, as it gets benefits of scalability, compactness, versatility, and speed... Sometimes vertically stacked balancers look cool too. I avoid 4x4 because if it gets to that point, I really messed up bad. 4x4 is just too clunky. I limit myself to 3x3, 3x2, 2x3 and 2x2, sparingly.
Yea I usually put in the highest speed belt I have in the manifold hwy belt to make things go quicker
Yeah I do that quite often. My input line is typically an MK4 belt (pre-aluminum builds). And I peel off with either an MK1 or 2 pending... And I also try to keep each manifold array in the range of 8-12 machines max. In some situations I may even add a merger just before the last couple of machines to saturate the belt so that they are not starving and just let the end of the belt overflow and feed that back into the system. This does require a second input source line of say about 20-50% extra material but any excess could be transported back out as output or can simply be set to a sink just to keep the lines moving. I also use buffer storage bins before and every each stage of production. And using over and under clocking schemes in some situations can also help with the manifolds. I typically do not use belt balancers and I do not suffer from any issues of either shortages or backed up bottle necks either, but I may use partial hybrids... still a manifold but with some balancing towards the end so that the machines aren't starving with an overflow or feedback output. Now once you start getting into Aluminum production and especially Nuclear that's when and where belt balancing is kind of a requirement...
You pointed out why I'm usually on team manifold, but for some low volume items like uranium rods for nuclear reactors, load balancing is usually the best way to go unless you want to build enough rods to fill up all the reactors. While you point out radiation is an issue, its not so much anymore now that you can always wear your super suit. lol. Thanks for the video!
I used to use manifolds exclusively, Now I exclusively use load balancers. I find the puzzle of how to build it as small as possible (no clipping) very fun. I have a blueprint I made with 16 smelters load balanced within walls. Also in addition to immediately being efficient it's also just as fast to turn off. When you want to disassemble to replace it (like where you have new alternate recipes) it's nice to be able to immediately disassemble without clogging my inventory with unprocessed machine fill and belt items. Also balancers are more fun to watch, very satisfactory.
An information Id like to add. If you want to use manifolds, and you want the start up time to be better, you can easily do this using smart splitters. Instad of always splitting 50%/50%, just send to the first machine everything, and then the overflow to the rest of the line. This will make the machines fill up way faster!.
or splitting your initial input once to split the manifold in two
I've heard of everyone talking about manifolds in their late game taking up a lot of time to start up. I thought they were talking about a machine I just didn't unlock yet. I've been using load balancers for absolutely everything (besides water pipes, if that counts). Gonna have to redo my whole factory again lol. This helps a lot!
I've seen videos where people push load balancing as the only way to go because "you go to 100% effiency immdiately." But as you say, Manifolds do achieve 100% eventually. To which I asked, why does everything need 100% effiency immediately? It doesn't. For most things, it's just a personal choice, not a practical one. I like how you provide practical examples why one would load balance in given situations. As one makes that initial jump from Biomass to Coal, which far surpasses starter biomass setup in every way, a staggered approach is often more than adequate. Your analysis is pretty much the same as mine. I usually do manifold unless I have different items on same line that I want or need it's production to be independent of what would be the first group on a manifold line, as your Starting Factory Reinforced Iron Plates point is explained perfectly.
OMG. Yes! Peak efficiency sounds great. :D
5:18 You can always do a hybrid system between to add the other two smelters. Add just one more splitter at the start. Two outputs going to the two extra smelters directly and the third goes to the 24 load balancer. The two additional smelters will fill so fast that you’re still getting the quick wind up time of a load balancing system.
I would call hybrid single line 480 and 60 belts splitting off and additional split or overclock. I placed splitting belts and mergers under the smelters, loved the solution I came up with. Blueprint requires more tweaking for looks and modularity.
Excellent explanations, thank you! I like to use load balancers for smaller/earlier builds and switch over to manifolds for the bigger and later game stuff
I would add to the end for when to use load balancers, when the production is small compared to the storage of machines, so it fills up very VERY slow.
I usually use manifolds though.
Dude, this video was perfect! It explained everything concisely, and answered sooo many questions for me. Thanks man!
An easy solution to manifolds is to prime them, just disconnect the power to the tools and let them fill a bit, or pull some of whatever component out of storage and prime by hand. Make sure every tool has full stacks in it (or leave the last tool half empty to keep stuff on the belt moving) and and the manifold will just continue to feed everything.
For nuclear, a load balancer, if you're making the EXACT amount you need, would be ideal. With their size, hiding a load balancer in plain sight would be very easy.
With that said load balancing and manifolds could be a thing simultaneously, but noooo we only get flow rate limiters for liquids and not solids
Manifolds FTW. If "something" happens and you lose half the input, then you are the problem, not the belt system. Wraping half of your factory in belts just in case is not the way to go. If you sink the final product only, the rest will balance itself out eventually. In this world of endless resources there is no other reason to go load balancers but to grow your OCD to its terminal stage.
AHH! Why did you use the same sound effect as Slack?!?! Making me paranoid that my co-workers will know I'm watching RUclips on the clock! LOL
Keep up the great work! Love your vids
Looking forward to your trains video! I usually balance the outputs from my train stations as well, I’m interested to see what buffers and balancers you recommend
I like using a combination of manifold and load balancing for loading into smelters / refiners / etc. When I split off of the manifold, I use a mk 1 belt, so that it only takes a maximum of 60, and then split that 60 between the 2 or so machines next to the manifold entrance.
The way I see it, you have a massive map, with planning, balancers are usually the way to go for me. With blueprints, update 8 is super easy to build compact balancers, compared to tedious glitch building to get shit to fit previously. I love they just let you clip now. I dont clip through conveyors, but its nice to snug up to the machines. As long as it looks right, clipping is fine. Vertical building also helps keep compact.
I am using more "hybrid" approach.
Basically in most cases i use very simple load spreader, that final adjustments makes similar to manifold style.
Recently i also almost overuse overflow function of snart splitters.
Basically i am making manifold main line that will split to aimple load spreaders. Ie for coal generators. I am using segments of four generators on spreaders. Manifold is on smart splitters that will have main exit on overflow. This solution allows of graduating turning on of all segments of power gens. It will fill up faster each segments. And also allows me to build in advance. In recent playthrough i had 16 coal generators with useable only 8 at the beginning. (Mk2 belts in moment of building this facility) Only first 8 were getting coal at beginning but runned very smoothly. After i upgraded to mk3 conveyors and mk2 miners, that took me about 30 sec, next segments just came online
I just spend 3 hours building a factory just to now rework it because of this vidoe thanks a lot :( / :)
I find load balancing a lot of fun. Figuring out how to balance between a prime number of belts, how to do so with a full belt that has no extra wiggle room, or how to balance an unfull belt evenly onto the same belt were all fun challenges. Anywhere I can use a load balancer I do, but boy do I pay for it in time and space.
1:7 splitters are always fun to make
The neat thing of manifolds is that you can pre-fill the machines quite quickly. Just collect a few stacks of the material in a container and manually dump it into the machines 😁
I use manifolds for basically everything, but I construct them a little bit different. First I split a line for different products. In the example in the video I would put a splitter at the start so die iron plates and iron rods each have a belt with 50%. It is also possible to use different belt speeds if it fits better. Secondly I use smart splitters instead of splitters before a production building. This way one building after another filling up with resources. If there are fewer resources than needed the first buildings still run on 100% and only the last buildings have less or even 0 production. For me this way it is easier to see how much is really produced.
I have found that with manifolds because the earlier machines still take more input whenever they finish a build (in this instance when a smelter finishes an ingot and consumes an ore to start the next), the final smelter/constructor will never reach 100% efficiency. There are always those split seconds where it does not have the required material and so it operates at 99% efficiency. You can fix this by barely underclocking the final machine, but this can cause problems for machines being fed by the output. You could overclock the input (like the miner) to produce slightly above the required (like 121 ore per minute instead of 120) but that is kind of a waste of a slug. The best solution I have found so far is to overclock the input where practical, but instead of just barely overclocking, overclock by one extra machine's worth plus a little. So instead of 120 or 121 ore per minute on a miner, have 151, add another smelter to your manifold, and an extra ore to help keep your last smelter running. This way the slug isn't as big of a waste but also you dont run your power usage through the roof.
I tend to use saturated manifolds to create a pulling system.
In this setup I can get more variety covered from a small number of resource nodes.
I just need to accept slow progress on restocking when I grab large amounts of many materials.
Yea same. You can preload to make things go faster too
hey man this is a great video but I feel obligated to point out to you that, whether you use 2 or 3 of a splitter's outputs for a given task, in both cases, you are dealing with a prime number! primality is not a factor in complexity here - in fact I would go so far as to argue that it helps, as 2 and 3 are great factors to work with when I'm trying to split things into more complex sized piles.
(obviously 1 isn't prime but if you're only using 1 output then there's no use to the splitter)
Lots of great and useful info here, thanks much my dude!
Fantastic explanation! Thanks for making this.
I use a mix of both like for the reinforced plates and a splitter that goes into 2 separate manifolds for the respective parts. now you are technically using a load balancing manifold
Love all your Satisfactory videos! Any chance for some more content, with 1.0 just around the corner?
@@sandreid87 working on it :)
A trick for loading manifolds faster, set all the machines to the minimum overclock, so they still accept items, but use it so slowly, it fills way faster than it uses, then set it back to the desired speed on ine, copy and paste that setting to each machine, saves time and lets you buffer the last couple machines.
Usually I just do manifold. If I get to nuclear I've usually got the means to mitigate the radiation so I don't worry about backup too much. However, sometimes if I make a longish manifold I will split the input and feed it from both sides so it gets to efficient faster. I'm sure that's not THAT effective, but it makes me feel good lol. And it adds just a little extra visual interest to just a line of smelters or whatever. If I'm planned ahead enough to build a logistics floor to feed buildings making low volume items, then I'll load balance "properly."
My problem most of the time is not to build a manifold... But to plan how the output get split and feed into the new buildings... Especially with items which produce a lot like screws or something...
So I try to use the tips like using factory planner websites which give me some fancy graph of how to distribute items...
But it always says that I need X amout per minute for that product... but this would mean that I have to use 3 seperate belts to support it... but other parts need them as well later and I do not know how to extract them in exactly the right amount
I believe with the example of 110 items input you can easily use normal splitter since Mk1 belt will still get a max of 60/min and the rest with go to other belt.
No, with a normal splitter it will just split it to 55/min on each belt
10:50 thats wrong, the production may fluctuate, but in the end its items in = items out, the stuff you put in will not magically disappear just because you used a manifold. So on average you will produce exactly the same.
how much input is required for the manifold? does it depend on machine? like the 26 constructor example does that mean we need like 240 something ore coming in? or does it not matter
i would love if they added the ability to tell smart splitters how much to send out on each output, blank would mean it will send whatever is left, for example, 30 iron ore to the left, and forward is left blank, it would send 30 iron ore per minute to the left and the rest out the other output.
Thank you for your detailed explanation. However, a question has arisen. What is the name of the device placed on the conveyor that shows the current flow rate? I can't find one on mine. But maybe I haven't opened it yet.
It's a mod, throughput counter I think. Not sure mods aren't working right now.
I just load balance before I use a manifold. Like in your smart plate example, I wouldve just split the iron into the proper ratios for pipes and plates, and then use that line with a manifold
Decided to make a super computer farm (10 per minute)
This video saved me because of manifold lines
Thank you so much i finnaly understand it❤🎉😊
12:53 I'm confused, why don't we want to radiate the areas? I love making my desert a wasteland.
Desert is the best kind of wastelands.
@@spectrumdad_ That or the swamp... Let's build a Nuclear facility in the heart of D.C.
Loved the video. Properly explained, and the editing is top notch. Still, I think there's a concept you are not teaching the best way.
When doing manifolds, you should never use regular splitters. Instead, you should be using smart splitters, sending everything to the machine, and the overflow down the line. I have just done a video in my channel comparing both approaches. A manifold with regular splitters took 64.92 minutes to properly startup, while the same manifold with smart splitters took 30.16 minutes. Its the same technique, same complexity of build, but only different splitter. You get twice the efficiency! There's a lot of people out there using regular splitters, and the thing is, when your factory has several stages, and each one of those is done via manifolds, those times will start to stack up.
Still, I think that this video is a masterpiece, and I really want to stress that. The ones I do end up looking 100 times shittier, and not even smart splitters can help with that
I am team load balancers. I typically route the mess in the floorspace between floors.
Ever considered a 4x4 balancer using the Industrial Storage units? 2 ins, and 2 outs, automatically evenly split.
Industrial storage units don't balance between their outputs - they pick one and send most resources there first, the second belt basically being overflow when both input belts give it an item at the same time.
Whichever output is the 'primary' belt is usually the first belt you attach to it, but IIRC it can change on reloads.
Every time I've done a load-balanced setup and also needed an industrial storage container, I had to load balance the outputs or never use move than 1 input and 1 output.
I prefer load balancers because I think they look nicer, and it gives me more control over the materials.
Use load balancers to get right amount for the line of machine. Manifolds for each of the lines
I think programmable splitters are excellent for manifolds. No need to wait for 100% efficiency .😊
If you have enough resources then manifold are better in every way. They are easier to build, takes less space, easy to expand and overall gives less headaches. Only downside I can see is that it takes some time to start up as the machines woll up with peoducts
What about a hybrid of a manifold and partial load balancing? What do I mean by this?
Let's say you have an array of say 12 smelters pulling on an MK4 belt (pre aluminum processing and MK5 belts). You set up a simple manifold and yes over time it will balance out to where all the machines are running at 100% efficiency due to the back propagation and overflow mechanics of the splitters and mergers. If you want your manifold to work at 100% efficiency early on instead of waiting for it to catch up where say the last 2-3 smelters are starving for materials, then what I would do in this situation is to add a merger before the last 3 splitters. This will involve and require another line of material coming in though. For this we don't need another MK4 belt. A simple MK2 or 3 belt would be more than enough. We can feed this second line into the manifold after say the first 8-10 machines, or if you want to be more symmetrical we can place it after the 6th machine on the line of 12. This will over saturate the belt source belt. This okay though. At the end of the line we can feed it back to an extra output with the last splitter on the line to be a smart splitter taking all overflow out of the line so that the line keeps on moving and doesn't back up. These are little extra padding on a simple manifold but are less complex than a full load balancer. We can always either transport this extra material out to another location to be used somewhere else or we can simply just sink it. But yes this does require bringing in a little extra resources into your assemblies. If you are feeding this second line 1/2 through your main manifold line, then I would say an extra 30-50% would help to have your machines running optimal early on. If you add it towards the end of your array to component for the last few machines only then perhaps only an extra 10-20% of material would be needed. Again this would also depend on how long your manifold lines are. Personally I try to keep my manifolds on the smaller side such as saying an array of 8 machines, this way those machines are not starving early on. The extra material at the end of this array would merge into another belt and then start another manifold of 8. There are hybrids of the manifold - belt balancers that work well too. However, these are only good for pre-aluminum and uranium solutions. You might be able to get away with these with oil production for plastic and rubber but you have to be careful with your fluid flow and intakes. As for aluminum that's a different beast altogether. Anything that is simple smelter - constructor, assembler... A simple manifold system will do especially if your manifold lines are kept small. If you start to run say 12+ machines on a single line... then this is where the manifolds start to have that accordion effect. Anything that is 8 or less is just fine. For lines that are between 8-12 it may vary on your needs but this is where overclocking and underclocking comes in handy! A trick here might be to underclock your first few machines and use a lower belt feeding them so that they don't become belt hogs and allow more material to pass through. Then your middle array machines could be set to normal production, then the very last machine or two on the line you can add a second feedline with a merger and over clock these two. There are many ways to build these systems. I find these hybrids solutions to be good in several situations, but most of the time, for all lower level productions I simply use a basic manifold system and I also use buffer storages before and after each stage of the assembly lines.
That works too, but what I love to do instead of the extra logistics is to just turned off all the machines, let them all fill up, and turn them back on. Or manually load them up first. This speeds up the whole process.
So I would suggest, load balancers to balance the material for different machines, manifold after that for the same machine
Not only does my huge nuclear plant use manifolds but also big storage crates full as back up power inline with them. but the worst place is the plutonium cell manifold, it drains the filters super fast :)
Question that's probably noob-ish since I just started playing this week. You said the manifold layout is scalable, but beyond that 30/30 splitter I don't see how all future smelters operate efficiently. They just get exactly how many they need so there's no overflow. Since 120 is all I can get off a Mk2 belt, am I just hard limited to 4 smelters per miner until I find a way to upgrade? Or do I underclock the later smelters until there's a backup farther down the line?
You will upgrade
I honestly prefer load balancing 'cause I like seeing everything moving constantly.
But to be fair, I've only played for about 10 hours and didn't even think of manifold. Didn't really come to mind.
alright heres the thing. if your not providing the perfect amount of resources youre not playing the game right. in the beginning it says to not mbe wasteful and only be efficient. that means that manifolds should work perfectly. additionally you can use a smart splitter at the end if you provide too much material and bring the excess elsewhere
Your 75 to 15x5 example is more easily solved with 1 smart splitter to a full 60 with overflow of 15 then split that 60 into 30/30 and then 15/15/15/15 and done. Now if the 75 ever dipped the overflow 15 would suffer, clearly.
What is being used to make the tunnel with the sign on the belt?
super clear thanks
Great video!!
Your reinforced iron plates statements around manifolds are actually incorrect. Once the iron plates saturate, the output will stabilize to a fixed amount of reinforced iron plates per minute, the exact same 5 as per the load balanced example.
And that facially must be true, because if it weren't, that means you would have iron ore building up somewhere. But if the iron plates are saturated, then all of your iron must be going into screws, and your system can't starve if it's being oversupplied iron into screws while plates are saturated. The bouncing you describe will happen so fast that it will be literal noise, identical to the same sort of flow fluctuations that happen in every factory.
8:06 what is that belt speed counter mod known as???????????????
I wondered the same thing
Throughput Counter and Limiter
That's the one!
with manifolds its better to put the lower cost machines at the start of the manifold line with higher cost ones later
manifold gang here!
Still not reach nuclear, but i only use balancer on a stator factory, 1 belt needs 320 and other 400, excepet that never use balancer, only manifold system ^^ . Kind afraid try to make any nuclear power plant now. Btw i play this game like 1year ago and was a recipe called "wet concrete", now i cant find anymore, already open last tier´s and got all alternate recipes from drives and the thing dont show in refineries, so the question is this recipe was removed from the game?
Wet Concrete still exists. Only need Tier 3 Coal Power milestone unlocked.
@@spectrumdad_ I dont know why my alternate recipes just vanish. Solution was upload save on satisfactory calculator and re-unlock all recipes, now they apear o.O
i prefer te syle of ubg5
Manifolds are way better than load balancers IF the entrance direction is the same as the exit (if it enters from left to right, it exits from left to right).
BS if I take the first example I can make it with just 2x2 corner in additional space on each side. And I can easily expand it to the max throughput of 1 belt. That said I only divide by 2 or 3 or multiples of that. Anything else is not worth the effort
Do you really need that last splitter for the last unit? It seems unnecessary to divide the penultimate split one more time since it won't be going more than one.
At the end i share blueprints with you
The blueprints: hidden behind a disgusting paywall
Are you planning to keep making 100% efficient builds?
cool info, dont like the blueprints being paywalled... tutorial would be nice
Does not matter, use whatever you like.
Me watching this video even though i know i won’t use it because i just use the modular load balancer mod
that weird number comment 🤣
Well you made the belts on load balancers too long i get it just for video but i condensed my bets to where no mater how long they are its thinner so it may take an extra half of a floor unkess you have that long splitter like the ln yes it will take more space
manifolds save time and space. Just make an extra machine or 2 here and there. At the end of the day your production is always limited by the output of your miner.
Manifolds with intellgient Splitters
5:10 I know you're trying to showcase how load balancers take up more space here, but this example is absurdly exaggerated. You could've easily cut that down to half the size by not making the belts needlessly long.
Yes for sure, but I mostly wanted to show the layers of splitters more than anything.
4:25 the splitter directly below the merger is completely unnecessary. You will be hearing from your FicSit Efficiency Manager.
😰
I confess I sometimes prefer load balancing only because it seems more complicated, and finishing a complicated design makes me feel like I've achieved more.
Arent 2 and 3 prime numbers?
spaghetti style is the best
These are words.
You should always put more than you need into manifold
You actually don't know how to explain manifolds. Totally wrong . The only value that was right was the saturated output volume on overflow .
The output is always half of the input when split
And then the ratio changes if there is a belt speed imbalance
Input of 240 full , an output of 60 and an output of 240 would give you a 1/4 split on the 60 for the first manifold , unsaturated . And then approaches closer to half for each manifold until the output regardless of the belt speeds is equal
Belt speeds matter when manifolding , and most manifolding should be avoiding early game unless you don't really care about efficiency
Food for though... A manifold that's being fed by just the right amount of materials mathematically can never actually reach 100% efficiency. It can get to 99.99999% it can get infinitely close to 100% but technically never actually reach it.
That's simply not true. You can set up a basic iron processing to see that every machine gets to 100% once the belt and previous machines are saturated
Or if you do want to cover for that small percentage all you have to do is to prime it with one or two extra material in order to cover for the travel time issue
@puddleofbooks this is what i have in mind. I typically make the miners first, so I can just stockpile the inputs before starting it up.
@@RG-gn8pe it is true. It can get infinitely close to 100% but not actually reach it.
Once I get back to my computer I'll pull some real numbers for examples.
Simply, if you feed a manifold with just the right amount of materials and eventually let it saturate so it functions as if at 100% efficiency but you remove one item from the belt, you can imagine that removing that item from the belt will mean that for the brief period of time that gap works it's way through the system, you're under feeding the system. Eventually it appears to catch up but how? How could it possibly catch up if being fed by just the right amount of material?
The reality is, over time that deficit slowly becomes less and less of a fraction of the system throughout and you approach infinitely close to 100% efficiency but never TECHNICALLY reach it.
Functionally though it makes no difference.
1> Load balancers don't automatically give everything the exact required amount. They split the item stream equally. If everything used the same amount then they all get perfectly fed. If not, then it works like a manifold.
2. Load balancers can take up a significantly smaller footprint than shown if you don't build them with 49867543987 miles of useless converyor between each splitter.
"load balancers don't automatically give everything the exact required amount" - right, they don't. Correctly built load balancers do, though. But you have to figure them out, which is exactly why they take more time and space.
"they split the otem stream equally" - nope, that's what splitters do. Splitters and load balancers are not the same thing. Load balancers are systems that utilize splitters, but only you decide how exactly it will be split.
As for taking up space, they will still take a lot compared to manifold. Even if you try to minimize the amount of belts between splitters, at the end you still have, let's say, 24 smelters and each of them has their own input. In order to build a correct load balancer for all of them, you will need splitters set up in a few rows, and each of them will need some distance between them, because whatever you do, you can't just squeeze the inputs if the smelters into one single point
@@holeintunii think he meant you can stack splitters on conveyor lifts and use that
Chad Manifold vs Virgin Load Balancer
load balancers ruin the aesthetic of this game, if you can't build to compensate for uneven belts, then you don't know what you're doing. They are such an eye sore.
To you maybe and there is no right or wrong way to build your factories, as long as they make your product and make you happy. What a bad take