Basic resource management

[elmarko]

Hey guys, just bought the game, absolutely hooked. What a wonderful game mechanic!

I'm getting to grips with things right now, in terms of how to feed things into assembling machines for manufacturing science packs etc. I can make red and green ones no problem, but I struggle to layout my machines and belts in a very efficient manner. I'm wondering what the best method is for doing that? Right now I have a decent ore/smelting line going, and I have two belts with copper and iron plates running on both sides.

I'm wondering now how to best "split things up" so that I can manufacture different types of intermediate product. Obviously I need gears in lots of different things. Should I set up a space that just makes gears and puts those onto a belt and then send that belt to my other parts to make transport belts and science packs and inserters etc. Or should I have each "product making facility" make it's own intermediate product. Obviously it's much harder in the beginning without underground belts to arrange all of this.

I've tried looking in share your creations but everyone is sharing higher level stuff, so there doesn't seem to be much I can draw inspiration from I do realise this is a very open-ended question, though.

[FishSandwich]

It is difficult to describe in words. Try checking out this page on the wiki, it's a list of let's players on youtube that have factorio series running. They vary in levels of skill, so you can find someone there to match your skill level.

The good thing about factorio is it doesn't punish you for being inefficient. You can make a terribly inefficient base and still reach end game within a decent time limit.

[Holy-Fire]

There are many different designs and players have different preferences. I manufacture gears in one location and move them on a belt. Copper wires I feed directly to the electronic circuit machines.

Note also that while this game is about automation, there's a lot of mileage to gain by having a few manual processes. E.g., transport belts are not needed in huge quantities, so it can make sense to move them manually once in a while to a chest that unloads them to the science pack 2 machines. This is especially true before researching logistics etc.

Here's my industrial zone from a recent game, it might give you some ideas.

[tralala]

I'm wondering now how to best "split things up" so that I can manufacture different types of intermediate product. Obviously I need gears in lots of different things. Should I set up a space that just makes gears and puts those onto a belt and then send that belt to my other parts to make transport belts and science packs and inserters etc. Or should I have each "product making facility" make it's own intermediate product. Obviously it's much harder in the beginning without underground belts to arrange all of this.

Both things work: Making special areas for every intermediate product and then transporting it to other assemblers or building "autonomous" lines which produce a special product and everything needed for that. And every combination of both work as well.
I wouldn't look how others did it at least not in the beginning. Setting up blue science production for the first time was the most enjoyable part of my factorio experience. You'll get it right eventually and once you did it you want to do it again in a more "efficient" manner.

I can give you just one advice build bigger and leave more space open then you think you need to.

[elmarko]

Wow, that's quite something. Obviously I can rebuild things when I have underground belts, but your splitter/delivery stuff is pretty great, with the belts going down and then back up to send things to other areas. Very cool indeed.

[elmarko]

I can give you just one advice build bigger and leave more space open then you think you need to.

This is something I've learnt for sure. Trying to be compact isn't a good idea at all. You need the space to breathe sometimes

[starxplor]

Keep in mind things do not have to be in straight lines. Things like research boots and horse-shoe circuit factories can help keep your facility from sprawling in only 1 dimension.

[Zordah]

I'm wondering now how to best "split things up" so that I can manufacture different types of intermediate product. Obviously I need gears in lots of different things. Should I set up a space that just makes gears and puts those onto a belt and then send that belt to my other parts to make transport belts and science packs and inserters etc. Or should I have each "product making facility" make it's own intermediate product. Obviously it's much harder in the beginning without underground belts to arrange all of this.

Both things work: Making special areas for every intermediate product and then transporting it to other assemblers or building "autonomous" lines which produce a special product and everything needed for that. And every combination of both work as well.
I wouldn't look how others did it at least not in the beginning. Setting up blue science production for the first time was the most enjoyable part of my factorio experience. You'll get it right eventually and once you did it you want to do it again in a more "efficient" manner.

I can give you just one advice build bigger and leave more space open then you think you need to.

I second this motion. I learned a lot setting up my first factory before seeing how others did it.
The way I did it was very cramped and not expandable which I now will keep in mind when I start again. In fact, since I cleared out the biters from near my base I am considering rebuilding my industrial centre nearby to make it more efficient and expandable. That half the fun of Factorio - tweaking your setups...

[GewaltSam]

Obviously I can rebuild things when I have underground belts

Take note of the fact that you can also push some researches by simply crafting those research packs manually. I do that a lot for red in the beginning and even some green packs, so I don't need to rebuild too much. This is especially useful for things like the underground belts, because you only need like ten or twenty research packs for it, and they are crafted in no time.

[Sander Buruma]

At the start I sometimes manual craft the belts and inserters and put them into a few AM1s to turn into green packs. The biggest time costing component are the green packs themselves, the inserters can be produced quite fast manually.

[elmarko]

Well, doing much better now. Got my red and green packs flowing into 8 labs and rocketing through the tech tree.

Started a steel producing facility after I found another source of Iron ore close by, and a stone bricks one too. Time to upgrade those furnaces! Are the Steel ones still 2x2 squares? I can just drop them in as replacements I guess.

Thanks for the advice guys, things are much more fluid now and I don't feel as penned-in. I'm growing in each direction.

[GewaltSam]

Yep, you can simply replace that stone by steel furnaces. If you wanna use electric furnaces, you have to rebuild a bit though.

[DerivePi]

My strategy is to create a central lane of products that get passed to other departments. At each department (ex. electronics) I split off the needed products (ex. FE PL, CU PL, PETRO) and run the production of new products perpendicular to the central lane. needed products run away from the lane and new products run towards the lane.

[Der_Doodle]

My strategy is to create a central lane of products that get passed to other departments. At each department (ex. electronics) I split off the needed products (ex. FE PL, CU PL, PETRO) and run the production of new products perpendicular to the central lane. needed products run away from the lane and new products run towards the lane.

Can you make a screenshot of a factory build according to your blue-(well black&white)-print.
I have some slight problems to imagine the layout from that one in my head

[DerivePi]

Here is a blowup of the logistics department. The items returned are TRN BELT and INSERTER for science 2 and SMT INSERTER for science 3. All the other items are placed in smart chests for robots to collect.

[Der_Doodle]

with what are you doing those "blueprints"?

[DerivePi]

Blueprinting is no longer used in the industry. In some cases, printing plan drawings is going out of style as well (just read it off of the screen).

The large overall drawing is unfinished, but it should give you the concept. I use ACAD to do the plan layout.

[ssilk]

I would like to have this as part of a planning-mode.