Sorter Mk.III

Sorter Mk.III is the fastest standard Sorter in Dyson Sphere Program, used to move items between Conveyor Belts, production buildings, and cargo belts. Like all Sorters, it can insert items into facilities, remove items from them, or transfer items directly between facilities, and it can also be given a filter so that it only handles a chosen item.

Its main advantage is speed: it moves items four times as fast as Sorter Mk.I and twice as fast as Sorter Mk.II. At maximum range, it can cover three grid squares. Its transport rate scales with distance, with a base rate of 6 items/s at 1 grid square, 3 items/s at 2 grid squares, and 2 items/s at 3 grid squares. Because the energy cost per item stays proportional across sorter tiers, upgrading from lower-tier Sorters to Mk.III does not change the energy required to move the same amount of material; it mainly increases throughput. If a higher-tier Sorter is idle more often than a lower-tier one, it may draw slightly more power while waiting.

Sorter Mk.III is especially useful anywhere item flow becomes a bottleneck, such as high-volume assemblers, smelters, and logistics chains feeding or draining large factories. Since building-to-building connections always require at least two grid squares while building-to-belt connections are usually one square, routing through belts is often no less efficient than using direct building links. The choice is usually about layout convenience and capacity rather than power cost.

A few practical points make the most of it:

• Use the filter function when a building should only accept or output one item type.
• Higher-tier Sorters are worth using when throughput matters, but lower tiers are still fine for light loads and can save power in idle-heavy setups.
• For Thermal Power Stations, using at least Sorter Mk.II is recommended so fuel delivery keeps up reliably during heavy strain; Mk.I can become too slow in severe brownouts.
• Filtered or upgraded Sorters can later be replaced or further upgraded as production expands, since the energy per moved item stays effectively the same.

Sorter Mk.III can also be upgraded further into Pile Sorter, making it a late-stage stepping stone in the logistics chain.