How to Use Satisfactory’s Smart Splitters

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As you progress in Satisfactory beyond the initial stages, your factories will become much more complex. You’ll go from making just a few items to producing large quantities, which means a lot more conveyor belts to move everything around. Learning how to use Smart Splitters effectively is key to keeping your production lines organized and manageable as you expand.

What is a Smart Splitter?

A regular splitter simply divides a single conveyor belt into up to three separate belts. This is really useful for factories that produce a lot of items – imagine a smelter making more ingots than one production line can handle, allowing it to send those ingots to different areas for making plates, rods, and screws. Best of all, it’s incredibly easy to use; you just plug it in and it works!

What sets a Smart Splitter apart is its programmability. This lets you control exactly where items on a conveyor belt are sent. There are also more advanced programmable splitters that can sort items into more than just three different destinations.

How to unlock Smart Splitters

To create a Smart Splitter, you’ll need Reinforced Iron Plates, Rotors, and AI Limiters. You’ll automatically unlock the Reinforced Iron Plates and Rotors as you build the space elevator. To get AI Limiters quickly, use the MAM Research machine and focus on Caterium research – you’ll need 200 Quickwire and 50 Copper Sheets. Once you’ve researched and built 10 AI Limiters, and have 50 Reinforced Plates, the Smart Splitter will be unlocked.

How to use Smart Splitters

Smart Splitters are a simple way to divide items on a conveyor belt. They can take up to three items and send them out evenly across three different exits. Once placed, you can click on the Smart Splitter to customize where each item goes.

One approach is to send all the parts for a finished product along a single conveyor belt, then automatically divert them to the correct machines. This method is most effective at the beginning of the process, but as production advances, the proportions of parts needed at each station can become more complicated, requiring some calculations to ensure everything is sorted correctly.

Smart splitters are also helpful for optimizing production lines. For instance, if you’re producing concrete, you’ll likely find that, once you upgrade to Mk3 miners and belts, you’re creating far more than you can actually use or store.

Even with a system that directs materials to different areas – like storing some and sending the rest directly to production – you could still experience bottlenecks. While consistently full conveyor belts might seem okay, it’s far from ideal. Your production line could be operating at a very low level, perhaps only 20% of its potential.

Instead of letting excess materials go unused, you can direct them to an Awesome Sink. The Smart Splitter has a general setting called Overflow that prioritizes filling your main production lines first, then automatically sends anything extra to the Sink. This keeps your machines running at full capacity instead of idling. While concrete itself doesn’t generate many points in the Sink, constantly sending it there will cause points to accumulate. By adding a Smart Splitter with Overflow and an Awesome Sink to every production line, you’ll significantly improve efficiency and earn more Sink points.

Smart Splitters are essential for improving your production lines. They help things run smoothly and boost overall efficiency, so they’re definitely worth considering.

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2026-01-19 12:39