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So while I was playing one day I got the idea to make huge automated mines away from my factory and then bring the materials to my main factory by train. I've never seen anyone else do this, anyone out there who does?

Damerow wrote:So while I was playing one day I got the idea to make huge automated mines away from my factory and then bring the materials to my main factory by train. I've never seen anyone else do this, anyone out there who does?

In long games, everyone eventually has to do this unless they wanna pick up their entire factory and move it somewhere else, or spam shittons of belts (which is cost inefficient by comparison). My first factory is 40some hours in, and I have 3 different train loops, one for oil, one for iron, and now one for Copper (I still have tons of stone despite fully covering my Base with Concrete).

Frightning wrote: In long games, everyone eventually has to do this unless they wanna pick up their entire factory and move it somewhere else, or spam shittons of belts (which is cost inefficient by comparison). My first factory is 40some hours in, and I have 3 different train loops, one for oil, one for iron, and now one for Copper (I still have tons of stone despite fully covering my Base with Concrete).

How much do you normally have your outposts producing? I want to know if mine are overkill

Shipping the plates, rather than the ore, by train is more space-efficient than shipping the ore. Ore stacks are 50 and plate stacks are 100, so you can fit twice as much material in a train car.

tuplex wrote:Shipping the plates, rather than the ore, by train is more space-efficient than shipping the ore. Ore stacks are 50 and plate stacks are 100, so you can fit twice as much material in a train car.

I already figured that out, its also more space efficient to make that plates at the outpost rather than at the main base.

Damerow wrote:

Frightning wrote: In long games, everyone eventually has to do this unless they wanna pick up their entire factory and move it somewhere else, or spam shittons of belts (which is cost inefficient by comparison). My first factory is 40some hours in, and I have 3 different train loops, one for oil, one for iron, and now one for Copper (I still have tons of stone despite fully covering my Base with Concrete).

How much do you normally have your outposts producing? I want to know if mine are overkill

In that game I am playing with default resource settings. As it is, my Iron deposit that I am currently working on is very large, and I am only mining part of it atm, so I decreased the wait time at both loading and unloading stations for that train so that it would provide enough throughput to keep up with on-site production. I haven't felt the need to bother with smelting on-site because I have plenty of throughput (especially since I have Inserter Stack Size Bonus up to 4 now), I can empty a full train car using only one side in like all of 30 seconds.

Realistically, single-wagon trains are typically enough if you are loading resources from one deposit only at a given station, unless that deposit is huge (like my Iron, if I was fully mining it). What I want to try at some point, but I not there yet, is creating a 'hub' where I use short single-wagon trains to bring resources from a bunch of individual mines to one place, and then run a long train from there to my main base (might do smelting and some pre-production on-site).

The most important aspect of a good train station is using chests as a loading/unloading buffer. That allows you to take advantage of the Inserter Stack Size Bonus and significantly increase throughput between train car and station (which among other things allows that station to easily serve multiple trains).

tuplex wrote:Shipping the plates, rather than the ore, by train is more space-efficient than shipping the ore. Ore stacks are 50 and plate stacks are 100, so you can fit twice as much material in a train car.

The flip side of this argument is setup/teardown of the smeltery. I personally like to build a large smelter/storage depot, haul ore to it, haul plates away. Lets me set up an expandable smelting area, with modules, a short term buffer (as part of the train loading/unloading), a long term storage (logistics bots dump plates into storage if the plate loading stations are full, or empty storage if the stations are near empty).

The benefits to me are: less setup/teardown at mining sites. Centralized storage/loading eases multiple bases needing plates. More trains = more fun. Pollution is more centralized (of course the miners still pollute, but not as badly as the moduled furnaces...)
Cons: More trains to move the same amount of material (but I like to have lots of trains anyway!). I'm sure there must be other downsides as well.

Yup I think most people eventually end up doing this. As for shipping it back as plates, ore or even actual finished products, I think that's personal preference.
For me, I prefer just sending the ore back even though it's less space efficient than sending plates. Mostly I prefer this method because if I build a smeltery at the outposts I have to tear them down once it runs dry (which can be surprisingly often depending on size and demands), or leave it there which is a waste. Plus I usually have to wall off my outposts and having smelting or production stuff there is just more I have to put a wall around.

It's certainly more fascinating to smelt on site, and I certainly will try it once to see how I like it, but you certainly need a few prereqs before its feasible over shipping ore. You need to have gotten construction bots up and running, preferably electric furnaces (though steel would be a fun challenge to also keep coal supplies going to the outposts), and a few more defenses to deal with the additional space and increased outer pollution.

Just ONE yellow belt saturated smelting line can fill one cargo wagon (3000 plates) in 225 seconds. RSO default patches can often sport 1.5-3 full yellow belts. Given travel time and reasonable 90 sec stops this is quite efficient regarding fuel and space.

I keep selling myself more and more on trying it next play with 0.13. After my starting patch is gone I'm going to pick up my smelting lines and plant em at the outposts. Fun stuff, less room consumed at the main base!

Working on a Custom map right now where I have given myself large deposits at near infinite capacity at a fair distance away and do everything by train. Getting a decent throughput is challenging especially because stations can only be build vertically due to the size difference. Generally on regular saves I build a massive base with lots of storage and just import all the ore I can find by train. Finally feel confident enough to experiment with the Towns concept with a depot on a regular save with biters but I'm waiting for the 0.13 to start a new game