Halite, through libtorrent, supports queuing. Which means it makes sure that a limited number of torrents are being downloaded at any given time, and once a torrent is completely downloaded, the next in line is started.
Torrents that are auto-managed are subject to the queuing and the active torrents limits. To make a torrent auto managed, set Manage Torrent when adding the torrent or later from the listview right click context menu..
The limits of the number of downloading and seeding torrents are controlled via ‘Active downloads’, ‘Active seeds’ and ‘Active limit’ in ‘Global’ settings tab. These limits take non-managed torrents into account as well. If there are more non-auto managed torrents being downloaded than the ‘Active downloads’ setting, any auto managed torrents will be queued until torrents are removed so that the number drops below the limit.
The default values are 8 active downloads and 5 active seeds.
At a regular interval, torrents are checked if there needs to be any re-ordering of which torrents are active and which are queued. This interval defaults to every 30 seconds.
Seeding
Auto managed seeding torrents are rotated, so that all of them are allocated a fair amount of seeding. Torrents with fewer completed seed cycles are prioritized for seeding. A seed cycle is completed when a torrent meets either the share ratio limit (uploaded bytes / downloaded bytes), the share time ratio (time seeding / time downloaing) or seed time limit (time seeded).
Example
For example if there are 10 seeding torrents and 10 downloading torrents, and ‘Active downloads’ is 4 and ‘Active seeds’ is 4, there will be 4 seeds active and 4 downloading torrents. If the settings are ‘Active downloads’ = 2 and ‘Active seeds’ = 4, then there will be 2 downloading torrents and 4 seeding torrents active. Torrents that are not auto managed are also counted against these limits. If there are non-auto managed torrents that use up all the slots, no auto managed torrent will be activated.
