AI Solves Factorio's Belt Balancer Conundrum
2024-12-30
This blog post details the author's journey in automating the design of Factorio's belt balancers, a notoriously complex problem. Using Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) and Constraint Programming SAT (CP-SAT) solvers, the author tackled the challenge. While the MIP model struggled with numerical instability for larger balancers, the CP-SAT approach, employing discretization of flows and incorporating Banes networks and memory optimization, successfully solved the design for a 16x16 balancer—a feat practically impossible by hand. The process highlights the crucial role of modeling techniques, algorithm selection, and optimization strategies in achieving efficient solutions.
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