What's the best way to mine mixed ore patches like this?

[BrickVoidFCT]

I seem to be coming across mixed ore patches like this in my Factorio worlds from time to time, see attached image for an example deposit. Some questions:

1. What's the best placement of electric mining drills in such a situation?

2. Should I expect multiple ores to be output if they are placed over two deposits, or is there a priority the drills use to determine what ore is mined first?

3. Do I need smart inserters or can the ordinary electric inserters figure out multiple ores coming along the same side of a belt automatically and act accordingly?

4. I also have a question about trees, mass loads of them: Is there some way of automating the clearing and collection of the wood? Early game, it can be quite time-consuming to have to hack myself a path to an ore deposit, and as is shown here, trees (and other objects not shown here) abound on the deposits, necessitating clearing of them before construction of large scale mining can commence. While wood can make a nice early fuel, I get sick of collecting it, sometimes to the point where I want to throw away the world because progress is so slow.

Edit to add map exchange string:

>>>AAAKAAwAAAADAwYAAAAEAAAAY29hbAMDAgoAAABjb3BwZXItb3Jl
AwMCCQAAAGNydWRlLW9pbAMDAgoAAABlbmVteS1iYXNlAwMCCAAAAGl
yb24tb3JlAwMCBQAAAHN0b25lAwMCr3G25T6qAABXEwAAAAAAAAAAAA
ADAIF1i5A=<<<

Note, of course, you're highly likely to get biter nests outside of the starting area for ore deposits like that, but for anyone who wants to give it a go, there's the map string you'll want. Have at it! I found it tough going early on with lots of manual collecting needed if you want to stamp electric mining drills everywhere, because as soon as it mines a different resource to the one in front of it, it get stuck.

Cheers ...

BrickVoid

[Chibiabos]

Not sure what to do about the mixed ores there, probably not a pretty solution no matter what (will probably have to use smart inserters).

As for trees ... shotgunning seems to be all the rage. As in ..... get a shotgun and use it to clear trees (best if you research speed and firepower upgrades). Unfortunately this will tend to damage some trees (so they'll have health bars) which tend to mar up the map, consume ammo, and you should do this before you have any buildings anywhere near where you are clearing with a shotgun, or stand next to your buildings and always point away from them else the shotgun will also damage your own buildings.

[DaveMcW]

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... php?t=7045

[BrickVoidFCT]

Not sure what to do about the mixed ores there, probably not a pretty solution no matter what (will probably have to use smart inserters).

As for trees ... shotgunning seems to be all the rage. As in ..... get a shotgun and use it to clear trees (best if you research speed and firepower upgrades). Unfortunately this will tend to damage some trees (so they'll have health bars) which tend to mar up the map, consume ammo, and you should do this before you have any buildings anywhere near where you are clearing with a shotgun, or stand next to your buildings and always point away from them else the shotgun will also damage your own buildings.

Thanks! Yeah, I think shotgunning seems to be good, but even getting that is a time consumer. I'd much rather get my electricity network up and some basic turrets, because if you so much as stand too near an alien they and their friends want you very dead. Which is a natural alien reaction.

On the ores question, one last, related to the smart inserters: What research items gives me these? There doesn't seem to be a cross-index on the wiki pages, and I think there really needs to be one, although I'm not volunteering because I have very little wiki know-how anyway.

Cheers ...

BrickVoid

[Chibiabos]

Thanks! Yeah, I think shotgunning seems to be good, but even getting that is a time consumer. I'd much rather get my electricity network up and some basic turrets, because if you so much as stand too near an alien they and their friends want you very dead. Which is a natural alien reaction.

On the ores question, one last, related to the smart inserters: What research items gives me these? There doesn't seem to be a cross-index on the wiki pages, and I think there really needs to be one, although I'm not volunteering because I have very little wiki know-how anyway.

Cheers ...

BrickVoid

Electronics gives Smart Inserters.

And ... I tend to avoid clearing trees as much as possible, not just time consuming, but the trees consume pollution and thus help reduce biter attacks. Every tree you kill means that much less dissipation of pollution. I know its unavoidable in some circumstances, when they're over ore patches and to make a path for transporter belt from those patches to your production area.

[spacesloth]

For trees I clear only what I need to and wait for poison capsules to clear large sections of trees. They are most bothersome for me when laying rail track. I use shotgun when I need to clear a line for a track and poison capsules when I need to clear a large area for an outpost. The tank may be good for clearing them too but I haven't messed with tanks yet.

[LordFedora]

We did some math and you need about 400 trees per chunk to double the base absorption

You can get 240 max (from our experiments)

Still not useless, but much better to put more worry into efficiency (or a massive forest)

[Xterminator]

For mixed resources just try to position your miners the best you can to have them mine separately. Other than that, gonna have to use smart inserters I'm afraid. :/

Yup... Trees are quite annoying until you get construction robots to clear them. For early game, grenades work decently, or poison capsules.

Best of luck!

[ssilk]

If bots not available: Mine as always and sort it.

Code: Select all

<-From the mines                           >>>>>>>>>>v
       inserters with copper filter --->   IIIIIII   v
>>>>S>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>    v
    Sv   inserters with iron filter --->   IIIIIII   u 
     v                                     >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>  iron
     v   inserters with iron filter --->   IIIIIII   u            
     >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>    v
       inserters with copper filter --->   IIIIIII   >S
                                           >>>>>>>>>>>S>>>>>>> copper

Depending on input add storages after this sorter, so that the belts don't get stuck! Cause if the copper for example stucks, the iron will stuck too. A storage here (somthing like https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... on_buffers or https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=5&t=6667 ) will give you enough time to react, without loosing mining capacity.

If you have bots: Much easier setup: Put everything in logistic chests and let the bots do the work.

[MF-]

Ah. I thought those treetops were coal.
That would be challenging to short.

If there are only two resources mined at the same time, the solution from the original
"mixed mining" thread could be used.