Hey everyone! I am trying to find a way to have a single stream go into a set of 4 research labs where the stream splits and each split splits again, and I found that as long as I make sure the order is AAAABBBB over the space of 20 conveyor belt links (5 spaces), then each lab gets 1 of each A & B every 20 ticks. Making sure the order is stable is not an obvious task, however, so I have been playing with splits that reconnect to create delays that ultimately shift a grouping of 2 every 10 links into a grouping of 4 every 20 links. I currently have a set of conveyors taking up about 24 spaces to accomplish this, but I suspect there is a better way. I also suspect that this idea will continue to be helpful as research uncovers more buildings that operate on a 20 tick cycle rather than a 10 tick one (I'm at the electronics stage at this point). **TL;DR: Does anyone know of an efficient way to turn a 10 tick cycle into a 20 tick one?** P.S. If anyone is interested in the details of how I'm trying to engineer the conveyor layout, I count how many conveyor links back each item is and then add the links they each traverse to get to the final gathering point. For example, take the output of a gas buyer at 4 every 10 ticks (`[0, 1, 2, 3, 10, 11, 12, 13]`) and then split it with the second group going to trash (`[0, 2, 10, 12]`). If the stream is split with the first direction going out one space, parallel one, and then merging back again, then the 1st and 3rd items travel 3 spaces (4 links each) while the other two only travel 1, so the final count (modulo 20) is `[0+3*4, 2+1*4, 10+3*4, 12+1*4] mod 20 = [12, 6, 2, 16]`, and sorted becomes `[2, 6, 12, 16]`, which basically just spread out the 4 items relatively evenly across the 20 links instead of grouping them together. My goal is to get the counts as close together as possible, so my current setup has the 1st item go 3 spaces, the 2nd go 17 spaces, the 3rd go 5 and the 4th go 15, resulting in `[0+3*4, 2+17*4, 10+5*4, 12+15*4] = [12, 70, 30, 72] mod 20 = [12, 10, 10, 12]`, and since I'm still on 1 item per tick on the conveyor, the collisions shift two items to `[12, 10, 11, 13]` or `[10, 11, 12, 13]` once sorted. (Go math!!) ;-)

After having played with this idea a bit, I realized that one way to have a 20 tick cycle from a maker building (as long as efficiency is not the biggest issue) is to only put in half of the required resources so that the maker only outputs it's product once every 20 ticks rather than every 10. In fact, this is not particularly inefficient since the input generators can just split their resources between 2 maker buildings (setting up a 20 tick cycle for each) and then the output streams can merge. This still leaves raw material buyer buildings to figure out, but at least it's a start!

Just supply the research labs with two seperate conveyor belts. Or supply the labs with an odd number of items. Like oil, gas and plastic.

Thank you for your post. I am currently using the odd number trick in a couple places, but it doesn't always apply. Likewise, there is not always enough space for 2 conveyor belts (I'm thinking of the bottom right corner of the first factory space, with research centers along the right wall). The main purpose of the question is less to solve a particular arrangement but more to have another way of thinking that I can consider as I'm laying things out.