Satisfactory: Manifold vs Load Balancing for Belts + Tutorial

Worth to note that load balancers with loopbacks don't work right on full and near full incoming belt since create a choke point where additional resources merge back.

As for example, you have 1 to 5 and 780 belt filled to 700 (140 into 5 directions). This won't work right because 1/6 will follow back and choke incoming flow since reach belt speed limit, back up and cause uneven split. At this point may as well use a manifold.

Furthermore, final speed of a loopback is actually higher than 1/6 of the incoming flow since flow is now faster due to loopback.

Manifold requires less math, so I know what I will be building :D

Im a big fan of the manifold personally. Its just too easy to scale up or out with it.

i used manifold because it looked aesthetically pleasing. I realized it's flaws as I saw how materials would need to wait but didn't know what load balancing was.

Loopback is not possible when you have a full load on a input belt.
For example, if you have tier 2 belt full of ore (120) as an input, then you can't add another 20 from the secont splitter, cuz it will be 140.

What's whacky to me is that I figured out and was doing the difference types already and at different parts of my factory.

As someone who loves math, i see load balancing as an absolute win

what about balancing with multiple inputs?

I "prime" my manifolds. I shut down the machines and let the belts saturate. Then I activate production.

here I was only doing load balancing not even thinking about the manifold method or knowing of its existance

Ive been playing satisfactory for well north of 1200 hours since the first release of Early Access. I've felt the need to use a load balancer exactly twice. The first was so long ago that conveyor lifts werent even a thing since i remember feeding one end of that monstrosity into one of those conveyor helix structures that were a thing back then. And the only reason I used it was because I didn't have enough input to saturate both lines. The second was my nuclear power station. The fuel takes a long time to make so the "fill up time" of the system would be so long that the load balancer made sense.

Literally twice in my entire time with the game... 99% of the time a load balancer is a waste of time, space and resources. And ficsit does not waste.

was this before smart spliters and programable spliters were in the game? I tend to to use manifold with smart spliters; when 1 belt isn't enough (like if the math says I need 1.4 belts for an ingrediant in a recipe) I belt in a full belt going the other direction and merge it in with machine that wasn't taking enough. Then I put a sign saying how much is being used, so I know how much I have left over in case I need that ingrediant somewhere else.

I usually build a split manifold

manifolds can be balanced a little bit better if you input into the middle of the manifold and split out to two different manifold sections. won't be a big deal for 3-5 machines, but for large numbers it will be helpful.

Honestly, never see the point of load balancing for maschine inputs. Its larger, actually costs more due to all the extra splitters, more anoying to set up AND they suck if you wanna actually put these into factory buildings cause of the like 1-3 extra foundations space you would need compared to the manifold.

The ONLY time I would say load balancing is worth it, is in the very specific scenario where you wanna do early quarz processing for some easy ticket production, but you barely have any Tier 2 belts yet. Then doing load balance is a bit better there

The thing about manifold is that it’s not efficient. Let’s say you have a 120/min iron node and smelters at 30 iron per min in to them. That 4 smelters with load balancing you split twice and each gets 30. With manifold the first gets 60 the next get 30 the the 2 after that get 15. At that moment only 1 is efficient but when the first backs up the the 2nd gets 60 while the 3rd and 4th get 30. Then the 3rd and 4th get 60 and eventually they basically all get 120. The end result for load balancing is every machine gets the 30 it needs while for manifold the end result is they all get 120. There is a exception to this. Let’s say you have 240 out of an iron node the the smelters need 60. If you go manifold the main bus is sending 240 but if you use mk1 belts the smelters will always get 60 meaning that it’s just an easier way to get the same result.

I use both depending on given situations. I tend to use balancing on the output from smelters when you produce 3-5 or more items per cycle. That tends to load up belts and backup machines quickly.

You can speed up startup of a manifold by grabbing the excess resources from the first smelter/constructor/etc and using those to prime the rest of the system

I have issues with both. sometimes manifolds run out of materials at the last machine when my math for the input and belt speed is correct. and sometimes in the case of my nuclear plant, one belt takes all the nuclear rods no matter what.

haha, i am new in game and use only balancing belt, idk about manifold, so now building factory will be easier with using manifold

Im confused about why load balancing works as described. For simplicities sake lets say all belts are mark 1. So we have 60 items in. Passing through merger 1. To splitter 1. This creates belts with 30 items each. Splitters 2 and 3 create lines with 10 items each. But heres where the confusion happens for me. How is the loopback belt able to merge it's 10 items with the full belt of 60? Wouldnt it be at max capacity already and just back itself up immediately and stop moving? If not. Where do those resources go? Does the game just delete them? Im very confused by this.

Just use the manifold but inject in the middle. More "sections" more smooth your flow will be.

I like to use Load Balancing whenever it is possible. And not only for Inputs, but also for Material Outputs. It can save Building Material because you need less Splitters or Merger.
For Example: If i want to feed 6 Machines in a efficient Way, i only need 3 Splitters. One to Split the Incoming Main Belt into two and the other two to Split these into 2x 3 Belts.
I don't know if I'm right about that, but I think, each splitter and merger that you place on the map must and will probably be calculated individually. The fewer of them I place, the longer Satisfactory stays smooth. So I always try to place the amount of splitters and mergers as low as possible.
For 6 melting furnaces with a manifold I would have to place 6 splitters at the entrance and 6 mergers at the exit. Here I prefer to choose load balancing, placing only 3 splitters at the input and 3 mergers at the output. As your own factory grows, the difference will certainly be felt over time.

You can also start your manifold in the middle, like where you had the line coming up. would save space in the set up you had as well.

If you have power to the machines in your manifold, but have not turned off, the materials enter the machine. They will fill quickly enough and then you turn them on. This cuts down the time you are waiting for your system to start up as they all already are overflowing.

I like to have the manifold input in the middle. Helps reduce the logarithmic fallout.
Oh.. You covered it as I was typing. Manifold injection.

You use load balancing because it’s efficient, I use it because it looks cool…

this was seriously the best way i have ever seen this explained.... it finally clicked.

Maybe it's just me... When im setting up a modular factory with a manifold I wait for the first row of machines in the production-line to completely saturate with materials before i turn it on to avoid the imbalancing issue.

This doesn't take into account smart spliters

Manifold mostly. But given the slowness of early game belt speed. I use the reverse of injection. Rather than trying to speed up the end, I speed up output, by adding an extra splitter in between the third and fourth splitter. This is then fed to the injection system further down the line, where delivered its seem to take forever to reach. You can tell when this is needed. The factories will be filling up with the item being made, and the items are backing up along the belts. As a bonus of doing it this way, you can easily remove these extra splitters and belts, when you get faster belts. This will make the entire thing more pleasing to the eye!

Here's my comment, this game should have a script based feature. Like Stationeers. I'm 170 hrs in Satisfactory and was quite disappointed when the programmable splitter actually was not programmable. At least you should have basic fractions like inserting a number and how much you want to split up. Cheers!

It's funny how all this information was out there, and these methods were what I just figured out through brute force of playing before realising they existed on the wiki 🤦‍♂ Very good and clean guide though, I think you captured each perfectly!
For me personally, I always use the belt balancing system for coal power, and always use the manifold (with oil pipes) for fuel generators. When it comes to production of items I usually get my available input in ingots, then use my big manual ingot:item ratio list to find out how many of the item I want that I can make, then will use balancers in that situation to get that amount. The great thing about this is that the efficiency is fantastic. The bad thing about this is that it's not expandable, so if you ever want to start producing more you need to either redo your system, or essentially get enough input to "double" your system capacity, which is very expensive in both resources and space.
Based on this, I think for me the best system to use is balancers when you know you are using your full capacity and don't expect to need to expand for a while e.g. I use a bunch of balancer systems for my Iron Ingot -> Heavy Modular Frame plant. However if you know you want to constantly be expanding a certain production (for example Fuel Generators, or say you have a factory that exclusively produces Screws to be shipped around) then the manifold is the best bet. Chances are in this situation you have no reason to get up and running instantly and are alright to let it run a bit before full efficiency. However it also makes it super easy to expand, so for example Screws are needed in massive quantities for a ton of different items, and so it's a good candidate for regular expansion. Using the manifold here means all you need to do is add on the extra constructors and input as necessary, and also lets you overclock at will since efficiency isn't so much of an issue as long as you know you have "enough" being output.

Load balancer is for nerds.
Manifold is for people who play this game.

Fairly new player. I note I have gravitated toward Load Balancing after experiencing the slow to start manifold method. My current setup has an injected manifold (Manifold Loading?) for Coal Power. But it just makes me nervous. If something goes wrong it's a dicey setup to get back up to stable, safe, full power. I tend to let the whole system back-fill before actually turning on the machines.

I use manifold most of the time, and I use slower belts to balance my splitters better. The splitter can't do 50/50 if items are coming in at 300/s and one of the outputs is only taking 60/s. It's not always perfect, but it gets you the best of both worlds imo.

Literally didn't think of adding 1 and looping it back. I mean..I did looping back sometimes, but for a different reason.

after the years playing factory games, this manifold was never a good idea to ever use. i allways fit in a load balancing system

If you just stockpile a few stacks of resources to prime the manifold that method gets to capacity faster.

Instead of using a loop-back, just add additional buildings to your factory and underclock them. So instead of 5 buildings running at 100%, build 6 running at 83.4%.

late to the party here, but the main downside to manifold is eliminated by setting up your first-phase production before setting up the rest of the factory.
your factory won't produce anything until it's finished anyway, so letting the first-phase production fill up their buffer inventory as everything else is being built ENTIRELY does away with the slow startup speeds.

even if you don't do that, using your fastest tier of belts between splitters (and only the speed needed as the input into your machines) solves the problem. a low-speed belt can only hold a fraction of what a high-speed belt can, so the drawback of slow-startup is mitigated.
this solution is probably the one that requires the least change in playstyle, so personally, i think it's the best option.

to add to that, you should really only use load balancers on raw item input and output. as in... ores onto belts, ores into ingots, ingots into belts, and ingots into factory input.
only balance your load where the load needs to be balanced. think of a belt splitter more like factorio's inserter rather than its splitter. yes, it does still perform the function of a factorio splitter, but you aren't placing splitters EVERYWHERE in factorio.

I actually use a combination of load balancing and manifolds. Split original resources into a few equal parts at the entrance to the factory, then create separate manifold systems for each. That way, startup time isn’t too long and I don’t have a complicated system to load balance at the beginning.

Thanks

Saw a comment about manifolds on reddit searched up the term found this video left pretty satisfied on what I learned

I have never finish building the next section of the factory before the manifold fully backed up

we Load Balance and then we split, for rods shets usw and over build the production, most off the timeis one backed up so the other can produce faster like 20%

using priority splitters in a manifold that prioritize the earlier buildings and just overflow into the next buildings is a very factorio-esque way of doing it, but I don't know if there's any change in efficiency from regular manifold splitters

Ah, an age-old question with a simple answer. I hadn't thought of it that way, but I'll make sure to remember! Thanks!

Load balancing is kinda pointless for low-tier tech.
Most machines only require a Mk 1 or Mk 2 Belt to feed their input. So if the feeding main line is a Mk 5 belt that transports 780 items per minute, the first Mk 1 manifold will split it into 30/750, not even. Next one 30/720, 30/690 and so on, until the last manifold which splits 60 into 30 and 30, and then the line has to end anyway.
You only have to load balance if the main line is transporting considerably less items per minute than the connected belts can withdraw - this becomes important only at hier-tier tech like supercomputers, nuclear etc, basically everything thats produced in manufacturers - and these need a lot of space to properly set up their 4 inputs anyway, so adding load balancing to that is almost free.