Manifold and Load Balancing ADVANCED Tips | Satisfactory
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- čas přidán 31. 05. 2024
- It turns out math is hard, and I made some mistakes in my previous video about manifolds and load balancing. Not wanting to lead you astray, hopefully these additional details and corrections help. Did I make any more errors here? If so, let me know. And if it's all good, I appreciate positive comments as well.
The video I am referencing: • Satisfactory: Manifold...
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - 00:35 Intro
00:36 - 1:16 Manifold: Optimal Belt Speed
1:17 - 1:50 Manifold: Smart Splitters
1:51 - 2:34 Manifold: Prime the Factory
2:35 - 3:27 Balancing: My Math Mistake
3:28 - 4:56 Balancing: Loopback Clogs
4:57 - 5:29 Balancing: Loopback Belt Speed
5:30 - 7:55 Balancing: Clarified Rules
7:55 - 8:29 Balancing: Underclocking
8:30 - 9:17 Balancing: Loopback Overflow
9:18 Outro - Hry
I just want to point out two things -
It's obvious when you sit down and think about this, but I think a lot of people don't realize this for quite a while. Besides splitters and mergers, the game also has a hybrid of the two. The Industrial Storage. Has two inputs *AND* two outputs. Only thing you have to keep in mind is that its behavior can be kind of odd if you're using a mixed resource belt. Storage units only output from the last stack.
When choosing between a manifold and a balancer, there's a third option - You can hybridize the two. Suppose you're feeding an array of 12 machines. There's nothing saying that you can't split the feed into 4 mini manifolds of 3 machines. Pros and cons sit right between the two options.
I've been playing the game since inception and there's a couple things here I've even been overlooking in my maths of committing to load balancing. Couple of my latest load balancing builds just were not running up to snuff when I knew they should have been so I switched them to Manifold. Now, that worked and I won't be going back but I could have possibly tried some of your fixes and kept load balancing.
I will keep these fixes in mind for future when I get back to the game when 1.0 is released.
TY!!
I appreciate the detailed information on load balancer theory. I'm not a Math Person myself, so when a video is like "here's an example of a load balancer" and shows off some pre-made assemblage of splitters and conveyors with little explanation of why it is built the way that it is, it doesn't help me understand how to actually implement one. This video helped tremendously. Thank you!
That is exactly why I made these videos about balancers. I never understood it from other explanations, so I really dove into how they worked and tried to explain it in a way that would have made sense to me. I'm glad that is resonating with other people!
Glad to see this uploaded again! It'll get better every time. 🤠
I think the most correct way to tell whether you'll need loopback belts is that if *every* prime factor is 2 or 3 you can skip them, rather than if *one* prime factor is 2 or 3. Your text restatement around 5:40 says the same as your original statement :)
I think my intention was to communicate that, but perhaps I didn't. I tried to use simple language to avoid being wrong about something but maybe it was too simple lol.
It's hard to be specific and succinct without using terms that most people forget as soon as they leave school lol.
8:18 that plus 1 machine isnt taking up more space than all those splitters and mergers for the loopback
Fantastic explanation and will be used by me as my maths is not great!
I also stage my factories:
build a section, prime it with materials
Then I use a throughput mod and dump the output into a sink to see how that section performs
Once sorted, I move onto the next, leaving space for an overflow smart splitter should my calculations be wrong (they usually are... I love overflow splitters)
I'm with you on overflow splitters, I have more than a few of those 😂
Appreciate the time you take to do make these videos. It's interesting to see others understanding of these methods, I agree you should use use whatever you are happy with, though given I always "load balance" first, it always seems that the disadvantages of "manifolds" are understated and those for load balancing exaggerated. Especially the space taken, which is usually more, but your 1 input to 10 output example, probably expanded to illustrate the loopback mechanism, can be built on the one 4m wide strip of tiles next to the machine inputs, so the same as allocated for a manifold.
The power of load balancing also goes beyond the simple one input to multiple outputs shown in your videos, to distributing a common source in the exact amounts required by multiple processes. There is some math involved with this and needs to be done out of game, same as working out what splitter/merger assemply is required to do this, but can be used whenever the same ratios are present, whether you're making 10 parts per minute or 100.
I unfortunately do have to remark on the Balancing: Loopback Overflow section. If overflow is required in the normal running of a process then balancing is not being done.
I think load balancing gets a bad reputation because it's most unnecessary. Manifold will get the job done 99% of the time. There are very few cases where a factory requires a load balancing system to function properly. You're right that size isn't really an excuse, especially in this massive game world, but it's something to keep in mind.
As far as the loopback overflow section, there is some truth to your comment. When you have to do this, it becomes a less-than-perfect system. However, it gets pretty close. The system is not very efficient at the beginning, but the more iterations it goes through, the more balanced and up-to-speed it gets. It's also a "simple" solution that gets close enough for, again, like 99% of cases.
Very nice video. As an enthusiast of logistics, I find it both enjoyable and informative and appreciate you taking the time to (re)make it despite having covered the topic already. Well done.
As a sidenote, most of the concepts covered could be extended to mixed belt (sushi) scenarios. Mixed-item manifolds (aka "sushifolds") can be commonly seen (especially at higher tiers and lower throughputs) and possibly confuse new players. And, even if with much more niche usage than mixed manifolds, even mixed belts can be load-balanced in different ways and even make use of loop-backs in some scenarios (just like normal balancers, but with more than one kind of item). If interested in covering the subject, I can provide more in-depth info (afaik, the only (rudimentary) video on the subject is on my channel, atm).
Thank you! I couldn't live with my errors anymore, haha.
I haven't seen too many players using sushi belts but i will check out your video because that sounds interesting.
One thing I do, on any type feed system, is to power all buildings, then switch them until the input(s) is full. I then turn on the buildings one at a time from closest to source to farthest.
Ya, nah, i'll stick with the manifold. ot enough problems with math to use the loadbalancing type lol Great video. followed you until the load balancer
Yeah this load balancing stuff isn't for me, either 😂 I am generally not a fan.
Top level balancers and 4 splitters manifold, works reasonably well
A note about the first two chapters, regarding how to reduce the "startup time" of manifolds.
There's 2 preferences I'd like to highlight: wanting all machines to produce/reach 100% efficiency as soon as possible, or wanting to have output items come out of the system as soon as possible (these can lead to different results).
Trying to have all machines in production, with a manifold, means that all machines (minus one or two) need to have an inventory full of input items. The QUICKEST ways to do so are (from the fastest):
1) Manual prefill.
2) Smart splitters in the manifold.
3) Normal manifold.
4) Manifold with low-tier input belts for machines (exception being when the belts' throughput matches the input requirement exactly, aka "balancefold", or the main belt has more input than the line of machines need so it can "overfeed" all inputs).
What's a bit counterintuitive, is that method (4), while being the best at satisfying the second preference mentioned earlier, it's also the one that takes the longest to fill up all machines with input items. The reason for that is that since more machines start running while the whole system fills up, more input items will be consumed, thus needing more time for the main belt to provide the items to fill up machines AND feed the ones already consuming. On the opposite end, using smart splitters leads to the least items produced AND consumed by turning on machines one by one.
Addition: if one dislikes manually filling machines but still wishes to speed up a normal manifold, they can add one or more container(s) and connect them to the manifold via (temporary) mergers. When provided with items, the containers will "refill" the manifold at the merging points, ideally after it has too few items/min on it as they're being used to fill up the first few machines of the production line.
Thank you for the comment and all the additional information! I'm hearting this comment so it appears up at the top so people can see it.
If want you can use manifold input also center so example 4 smelters your input is between 2 and 3 working maybe little bit better 🤔
Yeah I cover manifold injection in the original video
I'm good with math but i really don't like the bunch of splitters, mergers and belts (and in some cases spaghettiness) needed for load balancing, i fell in love with "modular load balancers" mod, it's very aesthetic and easy to learn to use for everyone, a must have for lovers of order and minimalist design ❤
"Multi Splitter/MergerBalancer" mod also has balancers. Made everything look pretty, functional, and consume less space.
In my opinion, a complex loop-back system is better than under-clocking because we have an abundance of space for the footprint but only a limited amount of power. Conveyors don't suck up any power (THANK YOU for that magic Coffee Stain!) so spamming them like a pile of spaghetti is only aesthetically problematic.
yeah? you can underclock the buildings/machines so that they dont consume extra power than needed for the desired amount though
Underclocking saves power per item
I use load balancing and underclocking for inputs to all machines, it makes me feel wasteful to let all machines load up
And use manifold only when produce has to be only stored and not sent to another machine
I linked an imgur gallery of load balancer designs to the last vid, but it looks like my comment was removed before the last vid was taken down.
Are links like that not allowed?
Also, good vid. I've recently switched to using manifolds myself, but I find balancers to be more aesthetically pleasing.
CZcams probably flagged it if it had a link, so I did not see it.
I thought for a moment that you had Drew Scanlon guesting on your video from that thumbnail.
omg, I love you
How come you had to reupload this one?
Someone was quick to point out that my math was STILL wrong about load balancing , so I re-recorded some information and re-uploaded it.
Not for nothing but I've never felt the need to use balancers instead of manifolds. Takes time to saturate? And? you'll set it up once and walk away.
All the funky math around loop backs on balancers? slap a manifold on it and walk away lol
Is this a re-upload?
Yeah, I had to fix a few errors with the math that were pointed out
One additional way to remove the manifold warm up is to just manually put a full stack in each machine.
Load balancers are for perverts imho.
That's an... interesting description.
Why does anyone even care to use a load balancing system?
It only really matters for power set ups without buffers.
It matters in some very particular cases, and it's a way to nerd out about math which some people like. I have exactly one load balancer in my game, it's really not needed in most cases.
Because they make for a satisfying factory.
@@RainbowGin But they look ugly and manifold is definition of conveyor factory - belt in, belt out
i am here at this video because i just made 6 nuclear power plants. and the first plant is filled up with materials but the last plant is still at 0. due to not all 6 plants receiving a 1 to 1 input. the machines previously in the chain are backing up on sulfuric acid because i set it all up to be a perfect 1:1 ratio.
load balancing would have fixed my issue but i went manifold