, computers.
It is semi smart - the player can set the smelting process for the whole plant by hand using only 1 constant combinator. In addition, the player can set the amounts of items for the logistic roboports to deliver, train station to activate or energy be cut off with very easily. I wrote a long explanation and hope that, with it, a broad variety of players can easily understand the design.
Per minute, it outputs about 26k iron and copper plates, 4,7k steel plates and 14k stone bricks, if the trains can keep up.
TL;DR
For a TL;DR, take the screenshots and the infos, that- the plant smelts slightly faster the trains abilities to feed it with input
- it's ocd-factor is not satisfying
- it scales very nicely
- the target audience of this post is a broad spectrum of players
- use 2000 logistic bots
- overview2.png (14.87 MiB) Viewed 1338 times
Design choices
- The primary intents were aesthetics and a nice controlability (both understandable and editable).
- From my ocd view, it's beacon-to-plant-ratio is pretty bad (228:144 = 1,583), because
- It is about 5 x 3 chunks in size.
- but, on the other hand, the flight distances are very low.
- It's wireless logistic network is designed to be separated. The roboports delivery range does not exceed the chest loading or unloading the trains.
- The train stations are made for L-CCCC-L trains that drive from left to the right. Flipping the blueprint will break train stations and rail signals.
- I choose to give all stations the same name (i.e. "Smelting - Iron Ore Unloading") and to enable & disable the train stations with the stations combinator logic. That means, the stations may be disabled while some trains are traveling anywhere, leading them to be stuck there with a no path error. To avoid this, at least one station of each name should a) be always enabled and b) have a big enough waiting area to handle all trains using that stations name.
- I placed a train waiting area directly before the station, i choose not to include here.
- The train paths allow trains coming from the wating area to bypass every occupied station on their way. Trains accidentally misrouted through the smelting station can buypass it at all.
- The whole plant consists of several smaller modules, that can easily be stacked and recombined to expand the station. I'll explicate this under the next heading.
- Combinator logic, train stations and roboports are always powered with electricity. Beacons and furnaces are switched on and off via the stations logic. The switching behavior can easily be understood (!) and changed.
- I've done some live testing and it seems, that 2k logistic bots get the job done pretty well.
The modulability
The actual modules are all pretty much straight forward and easily hand buildable for further copying and pasting. The combinator wiring, once understood, is simple, too. The plant is nicely expandable vertically and horizontally, as you can copy & paste nearly everything and just have to connect very few green wires. I'd recommend to expand vertically, as the trains feeding the inputs in will have problems keeping up very fast when expanding sideways. It might be the wisest choice to expand the train size and prolong the train stations.1. Train stations for unloading the resources to be smelted
The train stations have to be renamed manually to match the input type (here: "Smelting - Iron Ore Unloading").
The plant-wide filter for the inserters is set by the player with 1 constant combinator. It's signal name is it's type; here, it is iron ore. The signal can be routed further with green wire.
The content of each set of 6 passive provider chests is counted and routet as signals R (resources) and I (input). Signal R is used to enable or disable the train station. If 3 or more sets of 6 chests are not filled to their (almost) maximum, the station is enabled. Signal I is send further to the combinators logic.
- unloading station.jpg (2.52 MiB) Viewed 1366 times
2. Train stations for loading the smelted goods
The train stations have to be renamed manually to match the output type (here: "Smelting - Iron Plates Loading").
The plant-wide filter for the requester chests is set by the combinators logic. It's signal name is it's type; here, hence the player choose "iron ore", it is "iron plates". The signal can be routed further with green wire.
The content of each set of 6 steel chests is counted and routet as signals P (products) and O (Output). Signal P is used to enable or disable the train station. If all 4 sets of 6 chests are filled to an amount able to fill at least 2 train cargo wagons, the station is enabled. Signal O is send further to the combinators logic.
- loading station.jpg (2.09 MiB) Viewed 1366 times
3. The actual smelting stuff
Most interesting stuff here is the placing of the wires supporting electricity. Substations provide energy for beacons, furnaces and inserters, while poles provide energy for the roboports and train stations. Note that the green wires from the combinator logic are connected via the first substations. It would be more easy to not use the substations, but this way, it is more convenient when when expanding the plant vertically: simply copy&paste a new row of beacons/smelters, and connect it using the very first substation.
- smelting2.jpg (1.18 MiB) Viewed 1337 times
4. Combinator logic
- The constant combinator sets the chosen resources as a filter for the inserters loaded the resources from the trains to the provider chests. (here: I chose iron ore, the logic selects iron plates as resulting smelted item.) If you want to switch to another resource, remember that rest amounts of iron plates (for smelting steel) or stone ore (for smelting bricks) may remain inside the furnaces. See "future prospects" at the end of this post.
- The decider combinators take in the input resources and send the corresponding output resources to set the requester chests at the train loading stations.
- The arithmetic combinators multiplie the signals from the constant combinators by 120 (30 bots with cargo capacity of 4). Change multiplier at your own liking. Smaller values leads to more even distribution between the requester chests. Higher values use more bots. On lower values, not all passive provider chests will be emptied. Use more roboports if necessary.
- The arithmetic combinator prevents the [input item type] signal to be multiplied by the other arithmetic combinators. Just for convenience/readaibility.
- The two decider combinators recieve the I and O signals from the train stations. They transform them to the E (electricity) signal to enable/disable power to the beacons and furnaces. Here, it is set to: when there are at least 2k ore as input (~13 per furnace) and not more than 450k plates as output (requester chests not filled completely), then the energy is enabled.
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5. Energy support
As mentioned and shown above, train stations and roboports are wired to always have electrical power. Just connect any of its poles/substations to the electrical power grid will support everything.
Electrical network for beacons and furnaces is separated and controlled via a power switch. Connect the Big Electric Pole or substation at the combinator logic to the electrical power grid.
Future prospects
Things to do next, I will most likely not do.- expand train length
- implement all-in-one-smelting (expand logic, remove residue matererials in furnaces)
- construct plant for steel smelting with iron ore as the delivered input
- create a blueprint book with recursive blueprints of lower tech stages.
- the color scheme should be unified. I'd like to see, i.e. green for reading stuff (i.e. content of a chest), and red for setting statuses (i.e. setting the filter for a inserter).
- specify how to deliver rocket fuel (for fueling the trains) to the plant