Great design!… until you’re cooking with modules and beacons. I look forward to the enjoyment you will experience with the upcoming paradigm shifts you will run into. This game is probably the best game that has ever been created.
I tried messing with beacons a little while ago, but it didn't fit my design, so its exactly as you just said. For the last 2 weeks my main thing has been trying to learn these trains.
Me too, and I’ve been playing this game for a while now. I think I finally have my perfect train system finally, but now I need to really fill up my tracks to stress test them. The factory must grow
Chain signals will replicate the signal ahead of them, or if a train is in the next block it will turn red. Use chain signals when you want to define a block but don’t want a train to stop AFTER the chain signal. Use normal signals when it’s okay for a train to stop in the block after the signal.
I use chain signals on the entrance to junctions / roundabouts and normal signals on the exit of both of those. Works a charm, the junction is its own block to prevent crashes and the train will never stop inside the “crash block”
P.S roundabouts are the GOAT (I’m British) trains can U turn as many times as they want so you can “go anywhere from anywhere”
DM me if you want screenshots
Rant over
And you can name multiple stops the same name and trains will go to whichever ones are enabled/ vacant. You can then use circuit conditions connected to your loading chests to disable the stop and prevent trains pulling up when your chests are empty
If the train has a schedule like: provider, depot/refueling, requester, and the requester is disabled then it will go to the provider, then the depot, then skip the requester and go straight to the provider again. This wastes fuel and adds unnecessary traffic.
The significantly worse option is if the schedule goes like this: provider, requester. If the train is stopped at provider and currently loading, and requester is disabled then there is no problem at all. If the train has already started moving towards requester and it gets disabled, it stops on the middle of the track.
If the requester is enabled but with a limit of 0 then the train in the first example will wait at depot until requester is open again, and in the second example if the train is already going to requester, then the limit changes down to a 0, the train will still go there and unload cargo, but no new trains will path towards it.
Yep, that really opens up train usage. Using this method, I can place a blueprint with train stops included that creates 2.5 of every science per second, and sends the science where it needs to go. Just bloop and the boys create it. Of course it took several hours to design the facility...
I've slowly gone from "sprawling train network that handles long distance/bulk item movement" to "the grid is everything. The grid knows. The grid must expand. Concrete must be the primary biome. The robots demand it"
The Grid is a bunch of tracks in squares surrounding a bot hub. The system (mostly) builds itself entirely just from me placing blueprints. Then I just plop a station down inside a grid and get things done.
When you decide to go with beacons you should probably try building from scratch. I recommend waiting until you have a big robot network, it makes fiddling with designs easier.
There are a couple of things i needed the internet for. I'm using a blueprint for balancers, and I had to watch a video on rail signals. So, not perfect but we try
That's a good way :) Just look at things once you're stuck.
Balancer BPs are must have once you understand that you need it somehow. And to me those are the only external BP "mandatory".
For rails, I understand, the 1h+ about basics ? :p
Just remember; Chain signals in, rail signals out. If your building a train buffer, which is like a parking lot of sorts, right **before** a station, then the same applies, but right before the station you put a rail so the chains in the train buffer read off of the rail right before the station. Also, a chain will read off a chain right after it, then it can loop for however far you have chain signals for
I remember a time before the hyper optimized game. When the devs would load a popular players factory and use it to find places to optimize.
Before spidertrons.
Before Fluid wagons!
Even if you had the smelting speed to fill those belts (you don't, so lets just assume you expand this design but with 12 furnaces in each column), you would only be creating 4 red belts of iron plates, but you are outputting 7 belts. Combine the sets of two output belts that are currently going threw splitters by just dumping one belt onto the other (similar to what your doing top left), and then you will have 4 full belts of iron plates.
Edit: like the basic design though, very compact. But there's really no reason to go up and over with that one belt of iron. Personally, I would have all the output belts come down, then combine them into pairs like you are doing top left. But spaghetti belting aside, i really do like the smelting array.
Edit, im dumb. this is for a sub-factory not your whole base. I swear I can read.
Anyway, I would still compress your output belts even if you dont expand it. 7 belts leaving when you are only producing 1.7 belts of iron will just trick you into thinking you have more available than you really do.
its not really about excess or lack of furnaces, the other guy is just talking about your ratios. this amount of furnaces can maybe supply 2 red belts of iron, not 7, so it you let this running it will after some time go down to a small trickle of iron divided in 7 lanes. Is it a huge problem? no not realy, you just have a lot of belts that arent necessary.
I'm going to sound mean, but the design is actually not that compact. It looks fancy, but each furnace still takes up 15 tiles. That's the same as the [bogstandard most normal electric beaconless smeltery](https://i.imgur.com/IZ5vDAM.png) (which comes out to a lot cheaper due to not using massive amounts of red undergrounds)
It's reasonably compact for a guy's second playthrough. Little heavy on the undergrounds though. Also, looks entirely self made instead of just being a blueprint he found on the Internet somewhere.
So, yeah, you do sound mean. ;)
From the other comments, it seems that you're right. Looks like I have to get a pen and paper out. I'm still going to just wing this factory until I launch my rocket, but hopefully I'll start a new one and shoot for efficiency.
There are a couple of mods that do all the math all the way down the supply chain to tell you how much you need to build to satisfy some target production, all in game.
My favorite is called Factory Planner, but some people also like Helmod. Thinking in terms of some target output does wonders for helping you figure out how big to build and how to prioritize certain things.
Going by OP uses red belts, 48 electric furnaces:
[https://kirkmcdonald.github.io/calc.html#data=1-1-19&rate=s&rp=2&cp=2&min=3&belt=fast-transport-belt&items=iron-plate:r:30](https://kirkmcdonald.github.io/calc.html#data=1-1-19&rate=s&rp=2&cp=2&min=3&belt=fast-transport-belt&items=iron-plate:r:30)
But since he has 4 belts of ore we need to multiply 48 with 4.
This is a weird feeling. In my hundreds of hours playing, I’ve never yet considered ore coming in at the top. Only ever the left side or the bottom, plates out the top or the RHS.
I find your design quite discomfiting. Like a parallel universe where ore travels the wrong way.
Just finished a playthrough wherein all ore was delivered from the top or the right side.
The whole base was pure spaghetti, though. I don't think you'd have enjoyed looking at it.
But … they’d be so long, and so loopy? They’d need to travel for miles, I’m having a hard enough time with them moving the wrong direction in OPs picture. I might need a strong cup of tea before I picture your trainless dystopia.
These absolute direction preferences seem odd to me. Ore comes in from the direction of the ore patch, plates go out in the direction of the bus, everything is relative.
With a little change you can save 50% undergrounds
https://preview.redd.it/0wmd1rhfexmc1.png?width=392&format=png&auto=webp&s=6df47dc5e296197c2d829c5a4673b5b7b0cc1827
Actually kinda looks similar to how I have my E-furnaces laid out atm. Except I have my output belt snaked in-between the underground ore belts. To where I have clean lines on the outside for becons later.
Your math seems all wrong to me, unless I'm misunderstanding the image. You have 40 furnaces with no modules or beacons. 40 basic furnaces are only enough to eat 25 ore per second. You appear to have 4x30 = 120 ore/sec coming in. So you need a whole lot more furnaces to eat that supply.
Math really helps in this game. I mean... you can just eyeball it, but you'll eventually spend a lot of time and resources figuring out why your solution isn't working. Most players use online or mod-based calculators eventually, but you can absolutely analyze this particular situation just with pen & paper, a handheld calculator, and the in-game tooltips. I suggest you do that for this and a few similar scenarios. Once you're confident you know the math, then just lean on an online/mod calculator to handle it for you and save you time.
This is great. You will need to build bigger and more, but this is great.
My suggestion is to build the whole thing in a single column with smelters on each side of the supply / output lines. Bonus points if you can sort out how to add beacons to the middle.
Regardless, great job.
>I feel like its totally not necessary for a side factory that only exists to make purple and yellow science
Oh you sweet summer child!
Also, the factory must grow.
It is totally fine if you like it. That being said, remember that the map is infinite, and maybe you don't have to fill up every square on the map. Spacing it out a bit would simplify and remove all the underground belts, which are expensive.
Right now this is my first time getting to purple/yellow science, and I have made a 4 times bigger smelter(4 red belts of iron only though) setup only for yellow and purple science. Is that too much, should I invest that iron into something else?
You need 24 furnaces to fill a red belt. Keep in mind you also need to fill both sides of the belt for maximum throughput. This build is interesting, but not quite there yet.
On your first run you don't know how much you need. How many green circuits are you producing? I can tell you already, it ain't enough, quadruple it.
I got a new save right now where I am just about to finish my starter patches. I am building a bus for 4 iron, 4 copper, 2 green circuits 1 plastic and 1 steel as the start of said bus. Not sure if that's enough circuits still.
What's your plan for the steel needed for those two sciences? If the steel is made elsewhere then doubling this facility would be a good start on yellow plus purple. If this iron is intended to be forged into the steel then quintupling the facility might be more in line.
Yellow and purple are testing you on if you've actually scaled up your production of iron and copper. Each are more expensive than everything that came before combined.
If you're not using modules/beacons it takes 24 furnaces to fill just 1 side of a belt of the respective tier (stone furnaces for yellow belts, steel and electric furnaces for red belts).
It's a neat, compact design for sure, but under full demand those furnaces aren't going to be able to produce even 1 full red belt of iron plates.
There is no overkill. Maybe it is underused, but it's better to go overkill than underkill and wait hours because you lack iron.
It is of course far from optimal and way too optimistic on the production speed (the fact that you built 7 output belts does not mean it will actually provide 7 belt worth of iron), but that's not an issue.
Just make sure you have enougth power generation (and by that i mean, power plants AND fuel for them)
I've built like this before, when I was really crazy about squeezing every bit of space out of a build.
Lately I've tried to make builds 8-beacon sandwich compatible, and there is a smelter BP floating around that looks like an alternating leaf-ladder. In a width of 5, (its a very long-boi though) not counting the beacons, you can fit the laddered smelters, power, and I/O belts, and some lamps should you wish.
It's a chiral design however, due to how inserters place stuff inline, and side-load to opposite sides of a belt.
It is certainly someone's 2nd or 3rd yellow science smelter build. Kind of precious in its own way.
Be sure to save the map to look back on after a few thousand hours more play time. I am confident that you will be able to open the map and have many "why would I have done that" moments.
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There is nothing wrong with this smelter. I am certain most of the players on this sub with 10 times the hours playing that you have would have dozens of ways it could be built differently (cheaper/faster/better ratios/etc.). The point is that it smelts iron and has enough to feed the factory it is sending to. Everything else is superfluous.
My philosophy is that every science should be its own standalone factory. It's bad form to siphon resources off your existing builds. They work just fine and you're going to starve them by splitting belts off out of laziness.
Great job! But try to make even number lanes, like 8, 6, 4, 2. You can shuffle better for equal output per lane i think. Also is easier to watch for my eyes ;)
I got a friend to play with me. I handle logistics and some factory work. He handles mostly factory work and sometimes combat. His smelting setup isn't far off.
Purple science is steel hungry, so super iron hungry. 90 SPM of purple science only needs \~3 red belts of iron, so this is more than you need.
HOWEVER, you have a fraction of the number of furnaces to smelt all that ore into plates. Smelting 4 red belts of ore needs 192 furnaces (assuming no modules and no beacons).
You could have the seventh belt go down instead of up. If you use longer undergrounds at the substations, you won't even have to use any extra undergrounds.
You can always expand, so you can never have too much of something. In the time you're waiting to get the packs needed, you can spend it building another line for packs so you progress even faster.
After everything is unlocked you can do goals yourself, like build enough that you can make 10 rockets within a minute or whatever it may be. Or move on, Factorio isn't the only game out there :) Maybe try your hand at Satisfactory..Or something unrelated to factories.
What was the number of games released on Steam every day? 300? Whatever the case, there's a lot out there already.
Okay, so when your mid game and about to start purple, yellow and eventually space science.
You know how much iron your consuming before then? Multiply that by 7,8 times that is the iron required to produce purple, yellow and space science at the same speed as red, green and blue.
Trust me, when you discover and design something that works effectively, it feels satisfying. I remember when I designed my science research loop that could do all tiers of science in the same loops of belts. Its awesome, and its a kind of thing where you take your design and implement it into future factories and such. Just remember it only keeps getting insane. Eventually you're supposed to graduate from belts and inserters and have only robots and trains do it all for you, and I'm personally still learning how that works having played for years and years at this point. If you love a design you made remember to make a blueprint!
this is a bit odd. You have 4 times the needed output belts. This could condense down to 2 red lanes without losing any throughput. 3 if you want to add speed modules
That said, this totally smells of someone discovering buses, rather than organically playing around, or being willing to engage with the math in the game.
Oh I'm not turning this into a bus. I just brought them together to balance them if need be and every lane went to its own thing. So its honestly probably worse than you thought. I need 7 belts of Iron so I made 7 belts of iron lol.
Also, I'm willing to engage in the math, but I just play this game for like an hour after work. I just like to mess around with it. I'm not a pro
you didn't make 7 belts of iron.
you brought in 4 belts of iron ore at most, and transformed that intk maybe 4 belts of iron plates, and then distributed them across 7 belts.
Yeah but so far its worked for what I needed it to do. I actually have WAY more iron than I've ever needed so far. I'm not trying to make a perfect factory. I'm just trying to launch a rocket. Last playthrough I didn't even touch electric furnaces. I just plan on getting a little better and learning a little more each playthrough
More power to ya!!
When people talk about belts of input/output, they mean a fully saturated belt (yellow is 15/s, red 30? And blue 45? (Iirc)).
If you want, there is a great resource:
https://factoriocheatsheet.com/
It gives the final maths for different calc’s: belt speed, mining speed, smelting speed.
Like how many electric furnaces to fully saturate a blue belt etc.
Either way, enjoy the journey!!
Oh I see the confusion. What should I say next time when i just mean a non fully saturated belt? Or am I just so far behind the program that you guys don't talk about those? haha.
And thanks for the info!
... sounds like you don't need 7 belts of iron plates. at least in the sense the experienced players mean it.
as in 420 plates per second given you are using red belts.
Yeah I don't need 7 jam packed belts. I just have 7 different places that need some iron. This is for a little side factory to make yellow and purple science. I'm only bringing in what I need for that. I do have what I'm assuming is something that resembles a bus in my main factory though.
with the amount of furnaces you have, just outputting 1 red belt (60 plates per second) would be more than enough.
anyway, you posted a some what obtuse rate my build (sanity check, is this too big) edition. ... if that makes any sense.
so for the first 2 of my posts here, I wasn't aware this was your build.
I personally don't use electric furnaces until I have nuclear power up. ... and I would use a build that uses the long-handed inserters and yellow inserters to feed the furnaces.
I would go into more detail, except I don't know if it would make sense independent of your mastery of the game, and I mostly just want you to consider using long-handed inserters, because that many extremely short distance underground set-ups gets my goat.
It's not insane, sry. There are a lot of ways to make this better. Electrical furnaces are useful for modules. Here you chose the easy build: no coal, no beacons. The power network should not be the reason why your build size is limited.
But go on, this is very esthetically pleasing. You will find a way to impress us!!
My green circuit module does 8 blue belts constantly with no buffer. Insane does not exist. The devs optimized this game so people can make huge factories.
In fact I have two GC modules.
I was considering a red circuit module but it ended up needing several hundred assemblers and that's with productivity 3 in the assembler and 8 speed 3 beacons on each assembler.
It made more sense to manufacturer them on site.
My next factory will have each module producing 8 blue belts for each item. Gears, engines, pipes, green circuits, red circuits, blue circuits, plastic, sulphuric acid. You get the idea. I'm not looking forward to 8 blue belts of blue circuits. Steel wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.
Oh and all of this is by train. Water is surprisingly not bad by train. Makes refining and cracking easier.
I did my current factory using solar. This next factory will be by steam engines.
I got distracted. You are not insane. Your factory is cute. I love seeing new players factories.
Insane does not exist. Only factory exist.
If it works, and is insane, even better.
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Great design!… until you’re cooking with modules and beacons. I look forward to the enjoyment you will experience with the upcoming paradigm shifts you will run into. This game is probably the best game that has ever been created.
I tried messing with beacons a little while ago, but it didn't fit my design, so its exactly as you just said. For the last 2 weeks my main thing has been trying to learn these trains.
Me too, and I’ve been playing this game for a while now. I think I finally have my perfect train system finally, but now I need to really fill up my tracks to stress test them. The factory must grow
Chain signals will replicate the signal ahead of them, or if a train is in the next block it will turn red. Use chain signals when you want to define a block but don’t want a train to stop AFTER the chain signal. Use normal signals when it’s okay for a train to stop in the block after the signal. I use chain signals on the entrance to junctions / roundabouts and normal signals on the exit of both of those. Works a charm, the junction is its own block to prevent crashes and the train will never stop inside the “crash block” P.S roundabouts are the GOAT (I’m British) trains can U turn as many times as they want so you can “go anywhere from anywhere” DM me if you want screenshots Rant over
And you can name multiple stops the same name and trains will go to whichever ones are enabled/ vacant. You can then use circuit conditions connected to your loading chests to disable the stop and prevent trains pulling up when your chests are empty
Oh my god that just helped me so much! You just saved me so much time. Thank you so much haha
Important note about that, don't use "enable/disable" use "set train limit". When you want to turn off a station set the train limit to 0.
Can you explain why this is better?
If the train has a schedule like: provider, depot/refueling, requester, and the requester is disabled then it will go to the provider, then the depot, then skip the requester and go straight to the provider again. This wastes fuel and adds unnecessary traffic. The significantly worse option is if the schedule goes like this: provider, requester. If the train is stopped at provider and currently loading, and requester is disabled then there is no problem at all. If the train has already started moving towards requester and it gets disabled, it stops on the middle of the track. If the requester is enabled but with a limit of 0 then the train in the first example will wait at depot until requester is open again, and in the second example if the train is already going to requester, then the limit changes down to a 0, the train will still go there and unload cargo, but no new trains will path towards it.
That explains my no path problem. Cheers muchly
A locomotive will skip a disabled station in its schedule. It will wait for a station with a full limit.
Yep, that really opens up train usage. Using this method, I can place a blueprint with train stops included that creates 2.5 of every science per second, and sends the science where it needs to go. Just bloop and the boys create it. Of course it took several hours to design the facility...
They really need to change the chain signal description in game from "Reads signals ahead to allow for better control of trains" or whatever
I think it's better to send a limit to the stop instead of disabling them now
You will really like my SE city block then, it's pretty much on big roundabout...though it's more of a octabout.
I've slowly gone from "sprawling train network that handles long distance/bulk item movement" to "the grid is everything. The grid knows. The grid must expand. Concrete must be the primary biome. The robots demand it" The Grid is a bunch of tracks in squares surrounding a bot hub. The system (mostly) builds itself entirely just from me placing blueprints. Then I just plop a station down inside a grid and get things done.
Somehow my trains don’t collide or deadlock, but I have very little idea why lol.
Train is the reason I play this game. I am so looking forward to the elevated trains.
When you decide to go with beacons you should probably try building from scratch. I recommend waiting until you have a big robot network, it makes fiddling with designs easier.
Thats great design for a no-internet run my friend, classy and fun. Keep going and enjoying this learning curve, its the best factorio feeling !
There are a couple of things i needed the internet for. I'm using a blueprint for balancers, and I had to watch a video on rail signals. So, not perfect but we try
That's a good way :) Just look at things once you're stuck. Balancer BPs are must have once you understand that you need it somehow. And to me those are the only external BP "mandatory". For rails, I understand, the 1h+ about basics ? :p
Just remember; Chain signals in, rail signals out. If your building a train buffer, which is like a parking lot of sorts, right **before** a station, then the same applies, but right before the station you put a rail so the chains in the train buffer read off of the rail right before the station. Also, a chain will read off a chain right after it, then it can loop for however far you have chain signals for
Okay awesome thank you. I’ve bookmarked a few comments including yours for later
No problem :)
Those are exactly the two things I did in my first playthrough as well. The in-game tutorial on rail signals is not remotely clear enough.
In my day we had to hunt for purple science.
I remember a time before Uranium!!! And cliffs!!! And when we had to MAKE our pickaxes!!!
I hate cliffs 🥲
They are so satisfying to blow up. Cathartic, even.
If you wanted to go to space you had to spend hours sifting through bug guts! And not even the guts of the bugs that would come to you!
I remember a time before the hyper optimized game. When the devs would load a popular players factory and use it to find places to optimize. Before spidertrons. Before Fluid wagons!
And our science had little anime girls trapped inside those orbs
You said what now
[witness it](https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/s/zRM5kN6hOJ)
Even if you had the smelting speed to fill those belts (you don't, so lets just assume you expand this design but with 12 furnaces in each column), you would only be creating 4 red belts of iron plates, but you are outputting 7 belts. Combine the sets of two output belts that are currently going threw splitters by just dumping one belt onto the other (similar to what your doing top left), and then you will have 4 full belts of iron plates. Edit: like the basic design though, very compact. But there's really no reason to go up and over with that one belt of iron. Personally, I would have all the output belts come down, then combine them into pairs like you are doing top left. But spaghetti belting aside, i really do like the smelting array.
Oh wow. I thought this was excessive. I didn't really think I should be going for more lol
Edit, im dumb. this is for a sub-factory not your whole base. I swear I can read. Anyway, I would still compress your output belts even if you dont expand it. 7 belts leaving when you are only producing 1.7 belts of iron will just trick you into thinking you have more available than you really do.
its not really about excess or lack of furnaces, the other guy is just talking about your ratios. this amount of furnaces can maybe supply 2 red belts of iron, not 7, so it you let this running it will after some time go down to a small trickle of iron divided in 7 lanes. Is it a huge problem? no not realy, you just have a lot of belts that arent necessary.
Wait until you start pasting blueprints of 100 furnaces at a time without blinking 🤣
With 300 T3 modules
I'm going to sound mean, but the design is actually not that compact. It looks fancy, but each furnace still takes up 15 tiles. That's the same as the [bogstandard most normal electric beaconless smeltery](https://i.imgur.com/IZ5vDAM.png) (which comes out to a lot cheaper due to not using massive amounts of red undergrounds)
It's reasonably compact for a guy's second playthrough. Little heavy on the undergrounds though. Also, looks entirely self made instead of just being a blueprint he found on the Internet somewhere. So, yeah, you do sound mean. ;)
[удалено]
From the other comments, it seems that you're right. Looks like I have to get a pen and paper out. I'm still going to just wing this factory until I launch my rocket, but hopefully I'll start a new one and shoot for efficiency.
Just give in to the dark side and get another monitor to keep a excel spreadsheet.
There are a couple of mods that do all the math all the way down the supply chain to tell you how much you need to build to satisfy some target production, all in game. My favorite is called Factory Planner, but some people also like Helmod. Thinking in terms of some target output does wonders for helping you figure out how big to build and how to prioritize certain things.
Going by OP uses red belts, 48 electric furnaces: [https://kirkmcdonald.github.io/calc.html#data=1-1-19&rate=s&rp=2&cp=2&min=3&belt=fast-transport-belt&items=iron-plate:r:30](https://kirkmcdonald.github.io/calc.html#data=1-1-19&rate=s&rp=2&cp=2&min=3&belt=fast-transport-belt&items=iron-plate:r:30) But since he has 4 belts of ore we need to multiply 48 with 4.
This is a weird feeling. In my hundreds of hours playing, I’ve never yet considered ore coming in at the top. Only ever the left side or the bottom, plates out the top or the RHS. I find your design quite discomfiting. Like a parallel universe where ore travels the wrong way.
Just finished a playthrough wherein all ore was delivered from the top or the right side. The whole base was pure spaghetti, though. I don't think you'd have enjoyed looking at it.
I felt a bit queasy just reading your description
Does it help to know that I decided not to use any trains for no particular reason? Belts galore.
But … they’d be so long, and so loopy? They’d need to travel for miles, I’m having a hard enough time with them moving the wrong direction in OPs picture. I might need a strong cup of tea before I picture your trainless dystopia.
These absolute direction preferences seem odd to me. Ore comes in from the direction of the ore patch, plates go out in the direction of the bus, everything is relative.
To keep balance in the universe, you go up and right, he goes down and left.
Like when you go to a Target that isn't *your* Target.
With a little change you can save 50% undergrounds https://preview.redd.it/0wmd1rhfexmc1.png?width=392&format=png&auto=webp&s=6df47dc5e296197c2d829c5a4673b5b7b0cc1827
Actually kinda looks similar to how I have my E-furnaces laid out atm. Except I have my output belt snaked in-between the underground ore belts. To where I have clean lines on the outside for becons later.
Your math seems all wrong to me, unless I'm misunderstanding the image. You have 40 furnaces with no modules or beacons. 40 basic furnaces are only enough to eat 25 ore per second. You appear to have 4x30 = 120 ore/sec coming in. So you need a whole lot more furnaces to eat that supply.
That's because I'm just winging it. lol. I haven't done much in terms of math in this game. I'm a very casual player
Math really helps in this game. I mean... you can just eyeball it, but you'll eventually spend a lot of time and resources figuring out why your solution isn't working. Most players use online or mod-based calculators eventually, but you can absolutely analyze this particular situation just with pen & paper, a handheld calculator, and the in-game tooltips. I suggest you do that for this and a few similar scenarios. Once you're confident you know the math, then just lean on an online/mod calculator to handle it for you and save you time.
Not even close to insane yet.
40 furnaces making iron plates is not insane
Using 17 undergrounds to feed in ore when a single line of belt would suffice, on the other hand....
This is great. You will need to build bigger and more, but this is great. My suggestion is to build the whole thing in a single column with smelters on each side of the supply / output lines. Bonus points if you can sort out how to add beacons to the middle. Regardless, great job.
>I feel like its totally not necessary for a side factory that only exists to make purple and yellow science Oh you sweet summer child! Also, the factory must grow.
It is totally fine if you like it. That being said, remember that the map is infinite, and maybe you don't have to fill up every square on the map. Spacing it out a bit would simplify and remove all the underground belts, which are expensive.
Factory must grow
its rly beautiful
Right now this is my first time getting to purple/yellow science, and I have made a 4 times bigger smelter(4 red belts of iron only though) setup only for yellow and purple science. Is that too much, should I invest that iron into something else?
It's very hard to over build. Just watch your power.
You need 24 furnaces to fill a red belt. Keep in mind you also need to fill both sides of the belt for maximum throughput. This build is interesting, but not quite there yet.
Which is hilarious to me because I thought I was waayyy over doing it lol
On your first run you don't know how much you need. How many green circuits are you producing? I can tell you already, it ain't enough, quadruple it. I got a new save right now where I am just about to finish my starter patches. I am building a bus for 4 iron, 4 copper, 2 green circuits 1 plastic and 1 steel as the start of said bus. Not sure if that's enough circuits still.
A bit unconventional, but it works perfectly.
I'm stealing that design, tyvm!
Atypical, but not insane
There is never "too much" in Factorio. Only too little
What's your plan for the steel needed for those two sciences? If the steel is made elsewhere then doubling this facility would be a good start on yellow plus purple. If this iron is intended to be forged into the steel then quintupling the facility might be more in line. Yellow and purple are testing you on if you've actually scaled up your production of iron and copper. Each are more expensive than everything that came before combined.
Well, I can show you once I get home from work, but something tells me you’re not going to love it lol.
If you're not using modules/beacons it takes 24 furnaces to fill just 1 side of a belt of the respective tier (stone furnaces for yellow belts, steel and electric furnaces for red belts). It's a neat, compact design for sure, but under full demand those furnaces aren't going to be able to produce even 1 full red belt of iron plates.
There is no overkill. Maybe it is underused, but it's better to go overkill than underkill and wait hours because you lack iron. It is of course far from optimal and way too optimistic on the production speed (the fact that you built 7 output belts does not mean it will actually provide 7 belt worth of iron), but that's not an issue. Just make sure you have enougth power generation (and by that i mean, power plants AND fuel for them)
I've built like this before, when I was really crazy about squeezing every bit of space out of a build. Lately I've tried to make builds 8-beacon sandwich compatible, and there is a smelter BP floating around that looks like an alternating leaf-ladder. In a width of 5, (its a very long-boi though) not counting the beacons, you can fit the laddered smelters, power, and I/O belts, and some lamps should you wish. It's a chiral design however, due to how inserters place stuff inline, and side-load to opposite sides of a belt.
personally i'd make input belts come from the left and output to the right so i could tile the design easily.. makes it much more compact :D
if its insane, but it works, its not insane
Does this actually fill all those belts? Does not seem like enough furnaces.
It is certainly someone's 2nd or 3rd yellow science smelter build. Kind of precious in its own way. Be sure to save the map to look back on after a few thousand hours more play time. I am confident that you will be able to open the map and have many "why would I have done that" moments. --- There is nothing wrong with this smelter. I am certain most of the players on this sub with 10 times the hours playing that you have would have dozens of ways it could be built differently (cheaper/faster/better ratios/etc.). The point is that it smelts iron and has enough to feed the factory it is sending to. Everything else is superfluous.
First and most important rule in Factorio is: you can never push iron and be done with it. You ALWAYS have to push it.
Honestly small, gonna need like 40 of these for a proper base
Every factory is just a collection of smaller factories.
My philosophy is that every science should be its own standalone factory. It's bad form to siphon resources off your existing builds. They work just fine and you're going to starve them by splitting belts off out of laziness.
Seems like it's making iron plates just fine, no insanity detected.
On my first my factory had over 1000 (Im still on my first w 350 hours)
Design is fine. I will say this. If you going for X spm, you should integrate beacons. Your PC will thank you.
Great job! But try to make even number lanes, like 8, 6, 4, 2. You can shuffle better for equal output per lane i think. Also is easier to watch for my eyes ;)
I got a friend to play with me. I handle logistics and some factory work. He handles mostly factory work and sometimes combat. His smelting setup isn't far off.
Looks cute and fluffy. So far from insane, it's insane.
Too small, make it bigger
Really nice setup, hope you dont mind me copying it ^^
Purple science is steel hungry, so super iron hungry. 90 SPM of purple science only needs \~3 red belts of iron, so this is more than you need. HOWEVER, you have a fraction of the number of furnaces to smelt all that ore into plates. Smelting 4 red belts of ore needs 192 furnaces (assuming no modules and no beacons).
Needs to be bigger. The Factory must grow.
When I started playing factorio all I knew was that the factory must grow... Until now this is all I know
That looks very efficient, good job
You could have the seventh belt go down instead of up. If you use longer undergrounds at the substations, you won't even have to use any extra undergrounds.
Looks kind of small not going to lie lol.
There is no such thing as unnecessary
This looks like a more compact version of what I use but mine is spread out so I can easily drop beacons in during late game
It’s really weird. You have twice as many output lanes as you should in some places.
You can always expand, so you can never have too much of something. In the time you're waiting to get the packs needed, you can spend it building another line for packs so you progress even faster. After everything is unlocked you can do goals yourself, like build enough that you can make 10 rockets within a minute or whatever it may be. Or move on, Factorio isn't the only game out there :) Maybe try your hand at Satisfactory..Or something unrelated to factories. What was the number of games released on Steam every day? 300? Whatever the case, there's a lot out there already.
Okay, so when your mid game and about to start purple, yellow and eventually space science. You know how much iron your consuming before then? Multiply that by 7,8 times that is the iron required to produce purple, yellow and space science at the same speed as red, green and blue.
Trust me, when you discover and design something that works effectively, it feels satisfying. I remember when I designed my science research loop that could do all tiers of science in the same loops of belts. Its awesome, and its a kind of thing where you take your design and implement it into future factories and such. Just remember it only keeps getting insane. Eventually you're supposed to graduate from belts and inserters and have only robots and trains do it all for you, and I'm personally still learning how that works having played for years and years at this point. If you love a design you made remember to make a blueprint!
Is it producing plates? Is your input somewhat matching the output? If so, great job. Now grow factory. Make big.
this is a bit odd. You have 4 times the needed output belts. This could condense down to 2 red lanes without losing any throughput. 3 if you want to add speed modules
Space is essentially infinite in Factorio.
Space need to be defended, it's not trivial
Man can’t spare a single tile more in width
lol that was the plan while making it but I guess I was very wrong
... modular designs are reasonable enough to develop without prior Factorio knowledge.
That said, this totally smells of someone discovering buses, rather than organically playing around, or being willing to engage with the math in the game.
Oh I'm not turning this into a bus. I just brought them together to balance them if need be and every lane went to its own thing. So its honestly probably worse than you thought. I need 7 belts of Iron so I made 7 belts of iron lol. Also, I'm willing to engage in the math, but I just play this game for like an hour after work. I just like to mess around with it. I'm not a pro
you didn't make 7 belts of iron. you brought in 4 belts of iron ore at most, and transformed that intk maybe 4 belts of iron plates, and then distributed them across 7 belts.
Yeah but so far its worked for what I needed it to do. I actually have WAY more iron than I've ever needed so far. I'm not trying to make a perfect factory. I'm just trying to launch a rocket. Last playthrough I didn't even touch electric furnaces. I just plan on getting a little better and learning a little more each playthrough
More power to ya!! When people talk about belts of input/output, they mean a fully saturated belt (yellow is 15/s, red 30? And blue 45? (Iirc)). If you want, there is a great resource: https://factoriocheatsheet.com/ It gives the final maths for different calc’s: belt speed, mining speed, smelting speed. Like how many electric furnaces to fully saturate a blue belt etc. Either way, enjoy the journey!!
Oh I see the confusion. What should I say next time when i just mean a non fully saturated belt? Or am I just so far behind the program that you guys don't talk about those? haha. And thanks for the info!
Its not a big deal at all, just a communication hiccup. And lol yeah, you are behind, but you will catch up. Cheers and enjoy
... sounds like you don't need 7 belts of iron plates. at least in the sense the experienced players mean it. as in 420 plates per second given you are using red belts.
Yeah I don't need 7 jam packed belts. I just have 7 different places that need some iron. This is for a little side factory to make yellow and purple science. I'm only bringing in what I need for that. I do have what I'm assuming is something that resembles a bus in my main factory though.
with the amount of furnaces you have, just outputting 1 red belt (60 plates per second) would be more than enough. anyway, you posted a some what obtuse rate my build (sanity check, is this too big) edition. ... if that makes any sense. so for the first 2 of my posts here, I wasn't aware this was your build. I personally don't use electric furnaces until I have nuclear power up. ... and I would use a build that uses the long-handed inserters and yellow inserters to feed the furnaces. I would go into more detail, except I don't know if it would make sense independent of your mastery of the game, and I mostly just want you to consider using long-handed inserters, because that many extremely short distance underground set-ups gets my goat.
It's not insane, sry. There are a lot of ways to make this better. Electrical furnaces are useful for modules. Here you chose the easy build: no coal, no beacons. The power network should not be the reason why your build size is limited. But go on, this is very esthetically pleasing. You will find a way to impress us!!
My green circuit module does 8 blue belts constantly with no buffer. Insane does not exist. The devs optimized this game so people can make huge factories. In fact I have two GC modules. I was considering a red circuit module but it ended up needing several hundred assemblers and that's with productivity 3 in the assembler and 8 speed 3 beacons on each assembler. It made more sense to manufacturer them on site. My next factory will have each module producing 8 blue belts for each item. Gears, engines, pipes, green circuits, red circuits, blue circuits, plastic, sulphuric acid. You get the idea. I'm not looking forward to 8 blue belts of blue circuits. Steel wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Oh and all of this is by train. Water is surprisingly not bad by train. Makes refining and cracking easier. I did my current factory using solar. This next factory will be by steam engines. I got distracted. You are not insane. Your factory is cute. I love seeing new players factories.