Difference between revisions of "Flat Balancer"

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The '''Flat Balancer''' is a [[:Category:Transports|transport]] with 8 [[Flat Conveyor]] [<nowiki/>[[Flat Conveyor II|II]] • [[Flat Conveyor III|III]]] ports. Its serves two different but important roles: To allow you to pick priority Input(s) and Output(s) of the '''balancer''' and to allow for the (strict) evening out of the resources between multiple inputs, multiple outputs, or both.


The '''Flat Balancer''' is a [[:Category:Transports|transport]] with four [[Flat Conveyor]] ports. Its serves two different but important roles: to allow for the balancing of units between multiple inputs, multiple outputs, or both; and to give the capability to be able to input or output from a specific Flat Conveyor connection.
Each of the 8 ports can be either input or output (or neither). The direction of the port is determined by the direction of the Flatd conveyor connecting to it.
 
The '''Flat Balancer''' works as a balancer, without any options toggeled - it will balance any inputs and outputs (with the same level of priority), effectivly acting as an (double) [[wikipedia:OR_gate|OR Gate]]. This may be useful, as the [[Flat Connector]] does not balance belts and prefers one of the input/output belts randomly(?).
 
The '''Flat Balancer''' can only be connected to [[Flat Conveyor]]s [<nowiki/>[[Flat Conveyor II|II]] • [[Flat Conveyor III|III]]], it can not be connected directly to buildings.


On one side, one port is marked <code>X</code> while the other port is marked <code>O</code>. The same is true likewise on the other side but with reversed coloring. While there are two chevrons painted on the machine and the in-game description would seem to indicate that two must be inputs and two must be outputs, any of the 4 connections can operate as either inputs or outputs, though obviously there cannot be four input or four outputs at the same time. Input or output determination is done automatically using the belt direction of the conveyor attached to that port. Thus, rotating the balancer 180 degrees only has the effect of switching which side the <code>X</code> and <code>O</code> letters and chevrons appear on the transport graphically and rotating the balancer 90 or 270 degrees only serves to change which colors the port labels are on any given end.


==Balancer UI==
==Balancer UI==
The player can open the balancer's UI by clicking on the transport. Three toggles are available:
The player can open the balancer's UI by clicking on the transport.  
 
Two toggles are available under "Even I/O ratios":
 
* Enforce strictly even inputs
* Enforce strictly even outputs
 
Under "Prioritization" each port can be prioritized and it also dislpays whether it's an input or output port.
It is possible to prioritize none, one, two,  ... ,  or even all of the ports simultaneously, depending on the desired use case.
 
On the right side of the UI is "Priority", which sets the power/manpower/maintenance priority for this building. It is advised to keep this fairly high for any of the balancers, as they will severely damage any resource chains when out of order and they do not actually consume any of manpower nor maintenance, only 5kW of power.


* Prioritize incoming products to port marked X
* Prioritize outgoing products from ports marked X
* Use alternative priority ports (O) instead of default (X)


In other words, the first toggle is provided to mark the incoming <code>X</code> port as the one receiving input priority. The second toggle does the same for the outgoing <code>X</code> port. The third toggle changes all instances of the letter <code>X</code> to <code>O</code> on the UI and applies the equivalent logic to balancer. It is possible to enable one, two, or even all three toggles simultaneously depending on the desired use case.
==Strictly Even inputs or outputs==
If both the first and the second toggles are activated, the transport will only pull equally from connected ''input ports'' and push equally to connected ''output ports'', effectivly acting as an (double) [[wikipedia:AND_gate|AND Gate]].  
 
Which means that if one of the ''output ports'' is full (blocked) then any resources won't be sent through any other ''output ports'' either.  
 
Similiarily when an ''input port'' is lacking resources, no resources are brought in from any other ''input ports''.
 
Enforcing strictly even inputs/outputs resets any priorities set for the ports.


==Balancing inputs or outputs==
If neither the first nor second toggle are activated, the transport will attempt to pull equally to from the number of connected inputs and push equally to the number of connected outputs. In this case, the third toggle has no impact whether set to on or off. This means that that a single balancer can act as a perfect "1-to-2", "2-to-1", "2-to-2", "1-to-3", or "3-to-1" balancer simply by connecting conveyors with the desired direction of flow.


==Priority input or output==
==Priority input or output==
The only limitation is when both priority input and priority output are desired at the same time ''and'' there are two inputs and two outputs connected. In this case, the priority choices can be only be "from X to X" or "from O to O" as the the third toggle swaps the letters of both ports at the same time. This limitation can be bypassed by swapping the two input conveyors or two output conveyors physically and is typically not an issue except in very compact builds.
Any prioritized port is prioritized over a nonprioritized port. All nonprioritized ports are equal, all prioritized ports are equal.  
 


==Example use cases==
==Example use cases==

Revision as of 10:54, 8 August 2022

Transports.png
Flat Balancer
Flat Balancer.png
Allows distributing and prioritizing products using any of its two input and output ports.
Construction
Construction Parts II.png
8
ElectricityElectricity.png 5 KW
Footprint2x2
CargoUnit products
Required ResearchTransports Balancing
DesignationTransports Transports.png
VariantsMolten Balancer
Pipe Balancer
U-shape Balancer

The Flat Balancer is a transport with 8 Flat Conveyor [IIIII] ports. Its serves two different but important roles: To allow you to pick priority Input(s) and Output(s) of the balancer and to allow for the (strict) evening out of the resources between multiple inputs, multiple outputs, or both.

Each of the 8 ports can be either input or output (or neither). The direction of the port is determined by the direction of the Flatd conveyor connecting to it.

The Flat Balancer works as a balancer, without any options toggeled - it will balance any inputs and outputs (with the same level of priority), effectivly acting as an (double) OR Gate. This may be useful, as the Flat Connector does not balance belts and prefers one of the input/output belts randomly(?).

The Flat Balancer can only be connected to Flat Conveyors [IIIII], it can not be connected directly to buildings.


Balancer UI

The player can open the balancer's UI by clicking on the transport.

Two toggles are available under "Even I/O ratios":

  • Enforce strictly even inputs
  • Enforce strictly even outputs

Under "Prioritization" each port can be prioritized and it also dislpays whether it's an input or output port. It is possible to prioritize none, one, two, ... , or even all of the ports simultaneously, depending on the desired use case.

On the right side of the UI is "Priority", which sets the power/manpower/maintenance priority for this building. It is advised to keep this fairly high for any of the balancers, as they will severely damage any resource chains when out of order and they do not actually consume any of manpower nor maintenance, only 5kW of power.


Strictly Even inputs or outputs

If both the first and the second toggles are activated, the transport will only pull equally from connected input ports and push equally to connected output ports, effectivly acting as an (double) AND Gate.

Which means that if one of the output ports is full (blocked) then any resources won't be sent through any other output ports either.

Similiarily when an input port is lacking resources, no resources are brought in from any other input ports.

Enforcing strictly even inputs/outputs resets any priorities set for the ports.


Priority input or output

Any prioritized port is prioritized over a nonprioritized port. All nonprioritized ports are equal, all prioritized ports are equal.


Example use cases

  • Priority input: to ensure that a Unit Storage is emptied before accepting stock from a main conveyor line
  • Priority output: to ensure that Impure Copper goes to a Copper Electrolysis using Acid before falling back to one using Water
  • Balancing inputs: to ensure that two production lines of the same item are are utilized equally to prevent backups of either one
  • Balancing outputs: to ensure that Cement from a Rotary Kiln is equally split between four Cement Mixers