More realistic conveyor behavior

[max dom]

I am currently playing around with conveyors that are moving pipe of alternating lengths. I noticed that when accumulating the first entity moves to the very end of the conveyor. When the conveyor can move again it instantly moves the entity to the next component. 

  This behavior is very unrealistic. The entity should move until it reaches 0.5(AccumulationLength) and then stop. When the release threshold is lifted it should then move the final half of its length before entering the next component. 

I wonder if this behavior could be added in a future update or if it is possible how I could recreate this behavior? 

Greetings Max

[max dom]

Adding to this thread: currently I can not think of a way to add entities to the 'middle' of a conveyor. I am now adding about 4 conveyors after each other with a entitygen between them to add items 'in the middle' of the larger conveyor. This is fine for small items but when working with the long pipes like I am this is also problematic when the number of pipes that can exist on this conveyor are quite important for the simulation.

If someone can think of some smart work around this would be greatly appreciated. 

FYI the length of pipe I am working with have lengths from 10m to 25m (oil and gas) and the total conveyor length can be around ~100 meters.  The reason I want to add pipes in the middle of conveyors is that cranes can lower these pipes one multiple spots of this conveyor. The conveyor accumulating logic is extremely useful for me which is why I prefer them hugely to entitydelays.

Op donderdag 17 juli 2025 om 11:32:50 UTC+2 schreef max dom:

[Alvaro]

Hi Max, 

Regarding your first question, the behavor you expect is not obvious. What are you trying to simulate?

For your second point, I think you should be able to set the conveyor time to an attribute specified in the entiy. For example, if the entity enters the conveyor on the last 25% of the length, you can set an attribute of your entity "conveyorEntryPoint" at 0.25, and the converoy delay at this.totalDelay * this.obj.conveyorEntryPoint, considering totalDelay as the full conveyor delay, which you also define in its atteibutes list. This way you can get any delay as a fraction of the total, with a single conveyor.

Regards,

Álvaro

[max dom]

Hi Alvero,

You are correct my explanation was a bit wrong for my first question. I have added a picture to illustrate my point. The main thing is that when the conveyor is allowed to move again after having accumulated some pipe it should not instantly move the pipe to the next component. it should have some travel time remaining otherwise the entity (pipe) would be sitting on the final edge. 

As for the second point: I came up with the same solution as you did. The problem is that the travel time over the conveyor is global equal for all entities on the conveyor. Which makes sense normally. In my case if I add a pipe with this trick of reducing the travel time and a few seconds later another pipe enters the conveyor they both get the same travel time. So the speed of the first pipe reduces. 

Thanks for the response 

Max

Op donderdag 17 juli 2025 om 19:01:28 UTC+2 schreef Alvaro:

[john.b...@arup.com]

Harry and Harvey have updated the EntityConveyor positioning logic in a recent release - suggest you use latest 2025-05. Attached is a model with some examples of how to position items on a conveyor. Perhaps this will help you?

As for having items appear midway on a conveyor, I don't think this is possible, as far as I know. When I need this, I have created more than one conveyor so that I can put an item at the start of one conveyor, but it looks/behaves as one long conveyor.

John

[max dom]

John,

Thanks a lot for the alignment cfg that does help. What I figured to do now is keep my conveyors the same as before but before my pipes enter their next process add an entity delay based on the their length. This simulates the last bit of length they would need to traverse in real life. 

For the second point I feel like that is indeed the only way. I will just need to be careful with my durations to make sure the pipes still have the same timing as before. 

Max

Op vrijdag 18 juli 2025 om 09:48:08 UTC+2 schreef john.b...@arup.com: