Cutters "buildings per full belt" is confusing

[shell marten]

I assume this is the case at all levels, but at level 3, the Cutter states that it takes 4 buildings to saturate a belt. This is confusing since they have 2 output belts. If you build 4 cutters, you will have 2 fully saturated output belts. The case where this came up and was confusing for me was the Rotated Stacking task. I was using a RbRuRbRu as a base and cutting it in half to use both pieces for stacking. I was confused why my inputs were backed up when I connected all 8 outputs of the 4 cutters. I then realized that if you're combining the outputs, you only need 2 cutters. So for one belt of input, I have it going into 4 cutters, 2 output to 1 belt, the other 2 output to another belt.

I'm not sure if this is a "bug" per-se, but it is definitely very confusing and should be explained better.

[loud socket]

from what i'm told, the tooltip is actually saying you need four cutters for one saturated belt of each unique shape that building produces... a cutter produces two different shapes, so you need four in order for each shape to fill a belt of its own

the game seems to assume the player is actively trying to avoid mixing shapes on a belt, which is good advice, but probably not something new players are thinking about and even if they were, it's not entirely clear that this approach is what the tooltip is making reference to

watching the game on twitch for a couple of days, it seems like a lot of players think the tooltip is simply telling them how many buildings to place to keep a single saturated input belt moving, but this isn't the case

and swappers are similarly confusing — the tooltip for those says four, but neglects to tell you that you need two saturated belts of input to achieve this

[shell marten]

ya i think that's what's confusing for me too. I think that I need 4 to keep the input from backing up.

[fresh burrow]

I stumbled across them too

it makes much more sense knowing it's the output number and not the input number

which is sadly not explained anywhere (for example the tooltip)
it just reads something like "number needed for a full belt" which could mean in or out but doesn't specify

so the suggestion would be to just slightly improve the wording of that tooltip to read like "number needed for full output belt" or something

or honestly machines could just have both numbers 🤷‍♀️

[buoyant marsh]

Thanks for the feedback. As mentioned this has been suggested and reported a few times. We need to improve the communication for the Swapper/Cutter to make it clear it talks about 2 belts in/output.