plastanium conveyor

Plastanium Conveyor is an advanced conveyor type used to transport item batches with very high throughput. It appears as a mid-to-late game logistics building and is commonly employed to move large volumes of resources between high-production buildings (for example boosted Airblast Drills, massed drill arrays, Silicon Crucibles, and Surge Smelters) or toward the core. Plastanium Conveyors move batches of items faster than most basic belts and deliver nearly quadruple the throughput of Titanium Conveyors while keeping almost the same batch speed.

Plastanium Conveyors propagate items in discrete batches that travel 6 blocks per second. Each conveyor is internally partitioned into segments; the starting segment on a line only accepts one item type at a time and therefore will refuse other types until it finishes collecting its current batch. Because of this segmentation behavior, starting segments become a bottleneck if they receive mixed-item input. To avoid clogging, ensure each starting segment is fed a single item type or use Sorters to pre-split mixed flows before they reach Plastanium starting segments.

Every Plastanium line requires multiple starting segments to reach peak throughput because starting segments support only half the throughput of subsequent segments. For maximal sustained throughput plan lines with two or more starting segments feeding the same flow. When crossing obstacles or creating junctions, be aware that transition blocks form new starting segments and reduce throughput if not handled correctly.

Plastanium Conveyors interact with other splitter and routing blocks as follows:

• Basic Routers, Junctions, and Bridge Conveyors limit throughput to about 11 items/sec, so crossings using those blocks can become bottlenecks and may require splitting into four branches to carry maximal flow.
• Sorters and Gates can be used to split flows without a practical upper item/sec cap, making them effective for branching lines; however, items cannot pass through more than two Sorters/Gates in sequence without disruption.
• Unconfigured inverted Sorters act like capacity-less junctions but are still limited by the starting segment loading cap (20 items/sec), so pre-splitting a full belt may be necessary.
• When bridging across natural walls, Bridge Conveyors must be used; Phase Conveyors provide longer bridge range and only need two parallel lines to achieve full throughput (rather than four bridges), but they consume power and expensive resources.
• If two approaching lines are not at maximum throughput they can be merged and filtered later with Unloaders, reducing the need for complex branching.

Practical deployment tips:

• Feed each starting segment with a single resource or use Sorters immediately upstream to separate mixed outputs from drills and factories.
• Use two or more starting segments per Plastanium line to achieve peak throughput; plan line splits and merges around segment constraints.
• Prefer weaving Plastanium Conveyors around obstacles rather than crossing them when possible; where crossings are unavoidable, use Gates/Sorters to split and recombine flows with minimal bottlenecking.
• Use Phase Conveyors for long-range crossings where power and materials permit; otherwise plan multiple bridge branches and employ Gates to maintain throughput.
• Plastanium Conveyors were added in Version 6.0 and later received the ability to be unloaded (Build 122). Their health was increased from 65 to 75 in a subsequent update.