Dyson Sphere Program – Practical Setup of Mixed Item Belt

 
 

Common Setup

As we all know, mixed item belt comes with cons and pros: 
 
Pros: 

• Huge save on space, both for long distance item transfer and production item supply. 
• Reduced effort for building belts, especially when using main bus.

 
Cons: 

• Less throughput 
• Items might clog 
• One type of items might end up taking all the slots of the belt and making the belt run at super low efficiency, if not stop at all.

 
In order to avoid the Cons, we need: 

• Upgrade the belt to MK2 at least. Do not use mixed item belt for some items that needs huge throughput. 
• Always make mixed item belt a loop. This prevents item clog. 
• Use load balancing technics below to avoid one item overwhelms other items.

 
If you go for main bus, I recommend to use this easy main bus: 
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2388161257 
As explained below, this is going to make our load balancing more accurate. 
 
 
 

Basic Concepts

Before we jump into details, we’d like to define some terms: 
 
SD: Sorter Delay 
SD = Belt Speed / Sorter Speed A number to represent the cost a sorter needed to make one round trip, in the number of belt slots. 
 
IS: Item scarcity 
IS = total belt slots / total item count on belt or IS = 1 / item occupation ratio Item that does not exist on the belt has infinite IS while item fully filled the belt alone has 1 IS. 
Specifically, "empty slots" can be considered an special item and can define IS similarly. 
 
Load Balance Equation: 
IS_x = IS_empty + (SD_upload - SD_download)  
These are results from my math analysis guide: 
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2386838331 
 
 
 

Load Balancing

To achieve load balance, we need this principle: 
Never directly merge upload items into the loop. 
Instead, always use 
A pair of upload sorter and download sorter 
 
For example: 
 
Using the equation of previous section, we have: 
SD_upload = SD_download (same sorter) => IS_item = IS_empty Therefore, this specific item will have the same ratio as empty slots on the belt. 
If there are N types of items, the long term balance condition is that each item type takes 1/(N+1) slots on the belt. Most of the time, this is already exactly what we need for a mixed item belt. If you would like one item to take more potions, simply adjust the upload/download sorter type. Using the Load Balancing Equation you can calculate the intended result. 
 
(DON’T FORGET TO SET FILTER FOR THE DOWNLOAD SORTER) 
 
 
 

Perfect Controller

Production Stopper 
A T shaped belt has a unique property: when the main street has items flowing, the side street traffic will be completely stopped. If the production comes from the side street, it will be stopped due to output clog. 
We can achieve the same effect with splitter but T shaped belt is easier. 
 
Perfect Controller 
We still have one issue to worry even when using sorter pairs. The download link might end up getting clogged. For example if the download goes into a storage, the storage, no matter how big is it, can eventually be filled up. When that happens, the load balancing will fail. 
 
To solve this issue permanently, we designed this perfect controller setup: 
 

• Production Arm: The belt from below 
• Buffer Storage: The double deck Storage. The one below is the base buffer and the one above is the overflow buffer. 
• Feedback Loop: The belt that fetches from the overflow buffer and feeds into base buffer. Specifically, when the Feeback Loop is active, the production is stopped. 
• Upload and Download Arm: The two belts that extend to the north. They will reach out to the mixed item loop and use the pair sorter for uploads and downloads respectively.

 
So how does it work? 
The pair sorters interact with the mixed item loop. 
If this item is abundant in the loop, the download arm runs more efficiently than the upload arm, as a result it will fill up the base buffer (remember you set the storage size for your intended value). Once the base buffer is filled up, it starts to fill overflow buffer. If there are items in the overflow buffer, the feedback loop will be active and the production will be stopped. 
If this item is scarce in the loop, the upload arm runs more efficiently. As a result, it will start to use up items in the buffer. Once items in the overflow buffer is exhausted, the feedback loop will be stopped and the production resumes. 
 

I hope you enjoy the Guide we share about Dyson Sphere Program – Practical Setup of Mixed Item Belt; if you think we forget to add or we should add more information, please let us know via commenting below! See you soon!