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I like that you talk about these things like they are real. like molten channels are in the ground and the conveyor belt needs more room since stuff would slide.
No clues on the Molten Balancer because in every case I've seen, the Smelter makes exactly double whatever the next stage is so it's a 2 for 1 ratio. The 'enforced in' and 'enforced out' buttons are good for when you're using a messy supply chain coming in and your ratios don't perfectly match (Example: You have ALL of your Mechanical Parts flowing into a single Storage and you are feeding three Maintenance buildings from it. You CAN set up a single belt to feed all three Maint. buildings but the first one will always work, the second only when the first is full etc. With a Balancer, you can force all three to have equal outputs and run consistently.). This video was worth it for the 'connector/smokestack' thing!
Something that I'd like to add to that not many people know about: You can build height 4 transports, but only if you need to go over a height 3 transport and you can't go underneath it. Useful for anyone who's building a complex refinery setup in a small area. I've tried to exploit it but at height 4, transports just do not want to make any supports and won't attach to existing supports. You can however branch off a height 4 transport if you want and are able to go over 12 consecutive height 3 transports at height 4 before the the game refuses to let you build it. Also it's worth mentioning that you can build transports over certain buildings and over certain parts of buildings such as the metal or cooled metal casters.
This video explanation on the controls for laying transports was a good one. One thing I've learned since watching this clip; I noticed JD did not share about it whether he's figured it out or not, you can get perfect 90° turns out of your pipes, anywhere. As JD showed, use the pause-build tool to build a right angle with the pipe. Now, copy just the corner. Keep paused and place out of the way as a reference... lol
There a glitch I found where you can remove supports from raised belts and pipes. Pretty handy when your truck cannot reach a storage etc. While in planning mode make a 1 pipe/belt intersection directly above the support pillar then delete the 1 added section, support will be gone, does work on double stacked pipes just add intersection to both then delete top first.
Oh I'm going to do this in the future! before copy paste and the devs updating the supports I did manage to build a pipe that went for about 40 tiles without supports just because I ran out of room!
One note that I think should have been mentioned is that the filters don't have an overflow option. Meaning, if the filtered item backs up, it won't go out the other output. So, you will need a way to deal with the excess items. I did this by putting a balancer in front of the filter and priority the filter output then merge the other output's belt back in after the filter. That way the items that are not being filtered out can continue to flow if the filtered item backs up. Hopefully they'll add an option to do this in the filter itself to keep the design cleaner.
I'm running into that issue with food right now. One flat conveyor II for almost all my final food and then a bunch of filters in series, but as soon as one of them backs up I'm in trouble. Could have those be the last items filtered but I realized which items would be the ones backing up long after I built the system unfortunately.
Oh did they, I know they featured the Power Video in Steam forums, we worked together on it. But I hadn't known they were featuring them elsewhere. Where abouts? I'd like to thank them! The devs have been lovely, and I've been happy to report and get feedback on every bug or not bug I've found so far. Great little team they have!
I used the exclusive even input to loop an output out of a manufacturing building, and back to itself. The catch was I need 4 total inputs to do this but the building only has 3 inputs. Two of the inputs needed exactly 6 items each. I had those share an input using the exclusive even setting. That way they could share the same belt in a 1 to 1 ratio and not clog the line up, blocking the other.
I use the enforce strictly even inputs option for importing crude oil off the cargo ships. It's not strictly "necessary" but I always found it annoying that the game wouldn't automatically offload all 4 fluid modules evenly.
4:04 I've been designing a main hub in my latest game and sending molten anything down the logistical highway seems quite wasteful. Thinking critically; unless those belts are mini-furnaces, the molten product needs to find it's way to a shaper fast before it hardens and ruins the belt.
the prio in and out on the balancers are mint for builds like the compact micro chip set up you can have the copper plastic and gold fed in to a single balancer out put onto a single belt and then use sorters for each to the machine doing things like this allows you to clean up spaghetti and be super compact you will always have a consistent feed and the belts never get clogged even if you run out of one item
@@Dyanosis Yeah, that was my exact thought. Reduce shortfalls by keeping the ship moving. Admittedly, the buffer storage could just be one large storage but, uh, I didn't wanna.
For bus I prefer to leave one or more squares to factory and connect using space only between factory and belt. This way I can use all 4 levels for bus.
I see a use for a molten balancer. If you use lets say iron smelters and later on you want to add iron scrap without rebuilding everything you can prioritize the iron scrap smelters to not clog up the recycling line and using less resources. Of course you can rebuild it all but sometimes this might come in handy
You can just run both recipes on all smelters, just feed both iron ore and scrap on the same belt, better if prioritizing the scrap with a loose balancer, and prioritize the scrap recipe in the smelters
I can accept that different types of connectors should not interfere with each other, but it seems strange that two connectors of the same type cannot be placed beside each other. Technically, that would be a T-connector instead of a 4-way connector. Maybe an option to block one end could be added later? Even adding a panel on one side to close the opening should be an option, for the belts and the molten channel. Is it something that would be easy to implement? I know that we are still waiting for something like that in vanilla Factorio, so that parallel pipes do not connect automatically. We will need to wait and see. As well, knowing that height-3 is the maximum for the belts and the pipes provides some limitations to work around. Once you know how the routing works, then placement becomes easy. However, could you do better than side-by-side supports, so that you are losing less terrain for the trucks to use? And, if you are leaving room for the trucks to drive around, in a different video that tested the fastest delivery method, you enclosed your test area inside retaining walls. Would it make sense to use retaining walls like guardrails, and leave gaps close to certain buildings or at major intersections?
Connectors are funny, the devs have said they are considering adding more options to allow connectors of different types to naturally be built beside one another, as well as possibly letting 2 connectors of the same type sit beside one another. Knowing logistics can only have 4 levels you would think would make life easier for routing, but I have to say there are many spots where another level would REALLY help!
Need for strictly even outputs: I made a looping microchip setup. 3 microchip machines in a row (you need 12 to do every step). Each step takes 1 item and outputs 1 item. I set up my 3 machines so that the first one does steps 1a, 2a, 3a, 4a, the second does 1b, 2b, 3b, 4b, third does 1c 2c 3c 4c (final) and outputs. The output of the last machine gets sorted -- the final product into storage, all others go back to the start. Problem: the first step needs input from a storage. If I just dump the storage output into the first machine it gets jammed and can't then take in the output from the end of the chain. So: balancer at the start with strictly even inputs. I let 5 or so of the first product in to charge the setup, then switch on strictly even. That way another start material can't come in until something has gone through the loop. It worked kinda but was pretty finicky, I just used it to get enough microchips to build enough data centers to use 12 machines straight through. Its just that you need the output of the microchip machines to build the data centers, but you need data centers to make microchip machines so the 3 machine setup was just to bootstrap microchips
One use of the molten balancer is in case you want to prioritize steel production over iron production or vice versa but yes not really as useful as the others
It would be nice to explain how throughput works, on pipes in particular. I'm having difficulty getting water to flow though my tier II pipes, regardless of the amount I'm producing, at the moment.
Does anyone know what "Priority" actually does when it comes to balancers? I get that it prioritises the flow in that direction but what exactly does that mean? That direction gets an extra 50%, 10%, 25%? Or something different?
Priority will get all the required flow up until the capacity of pipe/belt/storage, example if priority pipe can transport 200 per cycle and you feeding a balancer 150 it will take all 150 while on priority output. If balancer is receiving 250 per cycle 200(pipe capacity) will go to priority, 50 will go to non priority output
Why are you so hard up on truck movement? If you have the input storage next to the output storage (loop your finished product belt around) you can shove your factory off to the side and so long as they can access the I/O trucks don't need to go near it.
All depends on HOW much truck movement you want/need. Personally I dont like the bus/mainfold set, but the details are in there incase someone wants to provide a path in/out of their assemblers, or through the middle of their build
The molten balancer. I use it always if i have multiple buildings that give or use molten stuff. So that what ever the molten is coming from it can go every where and even when its allready left some where that it can go back to the factory they past. Even out and in put on the balancer, Well JD try balancing your depot dock, the game doesnt do that thats why you try do even in put and if you do even out put if 1 belt hasnt have anything it doesnt out put
I'm at that point where I just use red belts/pipes every where, cannot be arsed with sitting there and figuring out if the building will suffice with a t1/t2/t3 belt/pipe🤣
@@Dyanosis yea good point but I mean nuclear power is pretty amazing, and then there is solar, I haven't had a serious power issue since I built my 3 nuclear plants and and the 2 solar banks, but I get your point, I'm just lazy
Every time you mention something like death spirals or backup supplies that you've "never needed" I get a distinct impression you've been through some things. 😂 Of course I'm absolutely not speaking from experience.
Yes, I had a power plant, that made water, that was linked to a water plant that was linked to oil, that had excess steam go back into the water plant.... it was a VERY tied together system.... it had one flaw.... it took 15 hours of backups, brown outs, and other occasional problems to track down 😂
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I like that you talk about these things like they are real. like molten channels are in the ground and the conveyor belt needs more room since stuff would slide.
No clues on the Molten Balancer because in every case I've seen, the Smelter makes exactly double whatever the next stage is so it's a 2 for 1 ratio.
The 'enforced in' and 'enforced out' buttons are good for when you're using a messy supply chain coming in and your ratios don't perfectly match (Example: You have ALL of your Mechanical Parts flowing into a single Storage and you are feeding three Maintenance buildings from it. You CAN set up a single belt to feed all three Maint. buildings but the first one will always work, the second only when the first is full etc. With a Balancer, you can force all three to have equal outputs and run consistently.).
This video was worth it for the 'connector/smokestack' thing!
Yeah but enforced in/out would create a lot more problems than it would solve.
Something that I'd like to add to that not many people know about: You can build height 4 transports, but only if you need to go over a height 3 transport and you can't go underneath it. Useful for anyone who's building a complex refinery setup in a small area. I've tried to exploit it but at height 4, transports just do not want to make any supports and won't attach to existing supports. You can however branch off a height 4 transport if you want and are able to go over 12 consecutive height 3 transports at height 4 before the the game refuses to let you build it.
Also it's worth mentioning that you can build transports over certain buildings and over certain parts of buildings such as the metal or cooled metal casters.
Oh Getting height 4 transports that long was not something I had stumbled onto yet!
This video explanation on the controls for laying transports was a good one. One thing I've learned since watching this clip; I noticed JD did not share about it whether he's figured it out or not, you can get perfect 90° turns out of your pipes, anywhere. As JD showed, use the pause-build tool to build a right angle with the pipe. Now, copy just the corner. Keep paused and place out of the way as a reference... lol
There a glitch I found where you can remove supports from raised belts and pipes. Pretty handy when your truck cannot reach a storage etc. While in planning mode make a 1 pipe/belt intersection directly above the support pillar then delete the 1 added section, support will be gone, does work on double stacked pipes just add intersection to both then delete top first.
Oh I'm going to do this in the future! before copy paste and the devs updating the supports I did manage to build a pipe that went for about 40 tiles without supports just because I ran out of room!
I never knew it was possible to do what you did in Advanced Belt and Pipe Mechanics.
One note that I think should have been mentioned is that the filters don't have an overflow option. Meaning, if the filtered item backs up, it won't go out the other output. So, you will need a way to deal with the excess items. I did this by putting a balancer in front of the filter and priority the filter output then merge the other output's belt back in after the filter. That way the items that are not being filtered out can continue to flow if the filtered item backs up. Hopefully they'll add an option to do this in the filter itself to keep the design cleaner.
I'm running into that issue with food right now. One flat conveyor II for almost all my final food and then a bunch of filters in series, but as soon as one of them backs up I'm in trouble. Could have those be the last items filtered but I realized which items would be the ones backing up long after I built the system unfortunately.
@@JayRay4924 Yea, I'm using the filters for food as well. I have excess going to make animal feed.
I think it's great the last two tutorials the devs suggested are both your videos.
Oh did they, I know they featured the Power Video in Steam forums, we worked together on it. But I hadn't known they were featuring them elsewhere. Where abouts? I'd like to thank them! The devs have been lovely, and I've been happy to report and get feedback on every bug or not bug I've found so far. Great little team they have!
@@JDPlays Steam discussion board. In game tutorials.
I used the exclusive even input to loop an output out of a manufacturing building, and back to itself. The catch was I need 4 total inputs to do this but the building only has 3 inputs. Two of the inputs needed exactly 6 items each. I had those share an input using the exclusive even setting. That way they could share the same belt in a 1 to 1 ratio and not clog the line up, blocking the other.
Hmm what were you crafting, I havn't see a building that needed 4 inputs and only had 3 slots
That's what I love about COI, you can play for 100s of hours and learn how to do something more efficient, or elegant, or both! Thanks JD
Couldn't agree more!
Great informative video. I think the devs probably thought everything else has a balancer. They made the molten one to give the player options.
Yeah I agree
I use the enforce strictly even inputs option for importing crude oil off the cargo ships. It's not strictly "necessary" but I always found it annoying that the game wouldn't automatically offload all 4 fluid modules evenly.
Hmmm mine always offloaded evenly wonder why the difference
4:04 I've been designing a main hub in my latest game and sending molten anything down the logistical highway seems quite wasteful. Thinking critically; unless those belts are mini-furnaces, the molten product needs to find it's way to a shaper fast before it hardens and ruins the belt.
the prio in and out on the balancers are mint for builds like the compact micro chip set up you can have the copper plastic and gold fed in to a single balancer out put onto a single belt and then use sorters for each to the machine doing things like this allows you to clean up spaghetti and be super compact you will always have a consistent feed and the belts never get clogged even if you run out of one item
I use balancers for cargo ships. I use buffer storage for each module and the balancers empty them at the same rate.
@@Dyanosis Yeah, that was my exact thought. Reduce shortfalls by keeping the ship moving. Admittedly, the buffer storage could just be one large storage but, uh, I didn't wanna.
For bus I prefer to leave one or more squares to factory and connect using space only between factory and belt. This way I can use all 4 levels for bus.
I see a use for a molten balancer. If you use lets say iron smelters and later on you want to add iron scrap without rebuilding everything you can prioritize the iron scrap smelters to not clog up the recycling line and using less resources. Of course you can rebuild it all but sometimes this might come in handy
You can just run both recipes on all smelters, just feed both iron ore and scrap on the same belt, better if prioritizing the scrap with a loose balancer, and prioritize the scrap recipe in the smelters
Do you plan to do a farming/fertilizer tutorial? I never seem to get it right and always either produce way too much or not enough.
I can accept that different types of connectors should not interfere with each other, but it seems strange that two connectors of the same type cannot be placed beside each other. Technically, that would be a T-connector instead of a 4-way connector. Maybe an option to block one end could be added later?
Even adding a panel on one side to close the opening should be an option, for the belts and the molten channel. Is it something that would be easy to implement? I know that we are still waiting for something like that in vanilla Factorio, so that parallel pipes do not connect automatically.
We will need to wait and see.
As well, knowing that height-3 is the maximum for the belts and the pipes provides some limitations to work around. Once you know how the routing works, then placement becomes easy. However, could you do better than side-by-side supports, so that you are losing less terrain for the trucks to use?
And, if you are leaving room for the trucks to drive around, in a different video that tested the fastest delivery method, you enclosed your test area inside retaining walls. Would it make sense to use retaining walls like guardrails, and leave gaps close to certain buildings or at major intersections?
Connectors are funny, the devs have said they are considering adding more options to allow connectors of different types to naturally be built beside one another, as well as possibly letting 2 connectors of the same type sit beside one another. Knowing logistics can only have 4 levels you would think would make life easier for routing, but I have to say there are many spots where another level would REALLY help!
"Visually" my sorters seem to stutter the throughput. Do we know for sure if sorters (like connectors) are speed-agnostic?
I 90% sure they speed limited in some way, I need to make a closed test so I can report it to the devs
Need for strictly even outputs: I made a looping microchip setup. 3 microchip machines in a row (you need 12 to do every step). Each step takes 1 item and outputs 1 item. I set up my 3 machines so that the first one does steps 1a, 2a, 3a, 4a, the second does 1b, 2b, 3b, 4b, third does 1c 2c 3c 4c (final) and outputs. The output of the last machine gets sorted -- the final product into storage, all others go back to the start. Problem: the first step needs input from a storage. If I just dump the storage output into the first machine it gets jammed and can't then take in the output from the end of the chain. So: balancer at the start with strictly even inputs. I let 5 or so of the first product in to charge the setup, then switch on strictly even. That way another start material can't come in until something has gone through the loop. It worked kinda but was pretty finicky, I just used it to get enough microchips to build enough data centers to use 12 machines straight through. Its just that you need the output of the microchip machines to build the data centers, but you need data centers to make microchip machines so the 3 machine setup was just to bootstrap microchips
Ok, that makes sense. Ive seen people do it with a single machine and a LOT of sorters!
Enjoyed!
One use of the molten balancer is in case you want to prioritize steel production over iron production or vice versa but yes not really as useful as the others
2:00 The Molten Channel might be boring, but it looks pretty!
true
This video really really helpful me. Tq
It would be nice to explain how throughput works, on pipes in particular.
I'm having difficulty getting water to flow though my tier II pipes, regardless of the amount I'm producing, at the moment.
If you build iron and Steel line yet don't have manpower for full line, you can share the forge for Iron and steel and use balancer for priority.
Molden balancer seems useful of you were need to redirect production to iron and steel while sharing the same infrastructure and save some resources
Does anyone know what "Priority" actually does when it comes to balancers? I get that it prioritises the flow in that direction but what exactly does that mean? That direction gets an extra 50%, 10%, 25%? Or something different?
Priority will get all the required flow up until the capacity of pipe/belt/storage, example if priority pipe can transport 200 per cycle and you feeding a balancer 150 it will take all 150 while on priority output. If balancer is receiving 250 per cycle 200(pipe capacity) will go to priority, 50 will go to non priority output
@@KevHarkins1 Makes sense. Nice one, mate.
Remember, there is no situation so bad that you can't make it worse, especially in captain of industry.
Why are you so hard up on truck movement? If you have the input storage next to the output storage (loop your finished product belt around) you can shove your factory off to the side and so long as they can access the I/O trucks don't need to go near it.
All depends on HOW much truck movement you want/need. Personally I dont like the bus/mainfold set, but the details are in there incase someone wants to provide a path in/out of their assemblers, or through the middle of their build
Wait.
So can you build a chain of connectors with unlimited speed?
You could, except 2 connectors of the same type cant connect to one another
The molten balancer. I use it always if i have multiple buildings that give or use molten stuff. So that what ever the molten is coming from it can go every where and even when its allready left some where that it can go back to the factory they past. Even out and in put on the balancer, Well JD try balancing your depot dock, the game doesnt do that thats why you try do even in put and if you do even out put if 1 belt hasnt have anything it doesnt out put
I'm at that point where I just use red belts/pipes every where, cannot be arsed with sitting there and figuring out if the building will suffice with a t1/t2/t3 belt/pipe🤣
Pipes I admit im lazy and use T2 when i need T1 or use T3 when i need T2.... Belts use power, im still playing it a little bit safe with them
@@Dyanosis yea good point but I mean nuclear power is pretty amazing, and then there is solar, I haven't had a serious power issue since I built my 3 nuclear plants and and the 2 solar banks, but I get your point, I'm just lazy
i give up weird i cant join different elevation of pipe of this game
Every time you mention something like death spirals or backup supplies that you've "never needed" I get a distinct impression you've been through some things. 😂
Of course I'm absolutely not speaking from experience.
Yes, I had a power plant, that made water, that was linked to a water plant that was linked to oil, that had excess steam go back into the water plant....
it was a VERY tied together system....
it had one flaw....
it took 15 hours of backups, brown outs, and other occasional problems to track down 😂
+
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