Modular Extensible PnP Factory

[dee-]

Currently Version 3.1 is the current version of the bus and rack layout for the Modular Extensible PnP Factory System.

The main characterstics and philosophy are still unchanged through the versions and they can be looked up in the introductionary first post of this thread.

Also notice the history and changelog at the bottom of this post.


Layout:


Annotated:

Changelog and history

Version 3.1
Based on v3.0

Only change is this layout now also puts blue circuits on the bus for the more advanced end-game products, which leaves the bus with one unused belt and one unused pipe.

Layout:


Annotated:



Version 3.0
Entirely new bus layout! Inspired by MeduSalem.

- Belts and pipes now interleave, which results in a more compact bus footprint. Still, the belts and pipes are as accessible as before because of the wiggle-room the interleaving creates
- It carries power now, too. The pole has to be placed in the column of the iron plates, as low as possible, and can only differ in extreme situations from this rule
- Instead of red belts the faster blue belts are used to increase throughput of the bus
- Iron/copper plates and green circuits now use two instead of one belt each, which doubles their already increased thoughput to help quench even higher demands
- Due to the symmetry of the layout, two belts and one pipe are unused. If and for what they will be used is as of yet undecided

Layout:


Annotated:



Version 2.0
Based on v1.2

This layout adds pipes to the bus, which helps bringing all kinds of fluids to further away racks in a tidy matter.
The order of liquids is the same as given in this wiki entry.

It also increases the rack height to 13 tiles, which helps in some rack designs so it is now possible to have insertes pick up items from the first row and the last row of the rack, put those into a factory each and have a central belt with inserters getting the stuff out of both factories and laying it onto the central belt.

This is the layout which is used in the introducionary first post.

The free space between the belts and the pipes can be used for belt/pipe routing of the rack facilites.

Layout:


Annotated:



Version 1.2
Based on v1.1

This layout adds steel onto the bus as it turned out it is in higher demand and is inefficient to be produced locally: needs a long time and a large amount of steel is buffered in smelters.

Layout:


Annotated:



Version 1.1
Based on v1.0

This layout increases its height from 11 to 12 tiles, which leaves a bit more room for implementing facilities in the rack.

Layout:


Annotated:



Version 1.0
First more-or-less stable and usable bus layout, using a 4-wide and 11-high footprint.

The width of 4 makes it possible to have underground belt run easily across them.

Previous Iterations either only had copper and iron plates on them, which made feeding green circuits for later stages difficult und unnecessary messy, or had some other downfalls like inconsistent belt item types, etc. I consider them prototypes, version 0.x-es

This layout still uses the red belts from those earlier designs as their thoughput was sufficient for my early bases.

Layout:


Annotated:

[vanatteveldt]

Did you consider making the duplicate parts of the belts symmetric, e.g. something like

iron - copper - || - green - steel - || - blue - red - || - steel - green - | | - copper - iron

That would allow you to more easily put racks to the left or the right, since the copper/iron/green/steel connectors would be easily mirrored? (it's a shame you can't automatically mirror a blueprint though, so maybe it's not very useful...)

I'm inspired again to reorganize my newest factory along your lines (but of course with some adjustments - I'll probably put plastics and sulphur on the belt, and only carry lube in pipes), will post screenshots when I have some!

[dee-]

Blueprints

And lots of. However this list is not complete to give you a chance to invent your own racks for your own production needs

Also the designs are of varying quality: some are awesomely great (IMHO ), most are good/okay and some are quite old and/or not overly optimized.

These don't use modules and are designed for Factorio 0.12. Who knows what 0.13 will bring upon us?


"NOP" v3.0, v3.1

Takes up a rack slot and just forwards items and fluids to the next rack.
Very useful to reserve some space between racks for later use or to group racks.




Bus Plate-Feeder v3.0, v3.1

Joins the current iron and copper plate belts on the bus with new plates coming in from the right side (upper: copper plates, lower: iron plates).
As the side-feed continues to the left, it is possible to replenish several independent busses running in parallel with the same feed.
This joiner can be used at whatever place inside the bus as the other items and fluids are forwarded.




Steel Smeltery and Pipe Production v3.0, v3.1

Takes iron from the bus and produces steel bars.
Inserters need a sufficient large space on the belt to put their held items. Thus the produces steel bars are not inserted directly onto the output belt but first onto a separate belt, which then gets joined into the output belt, to make sure the inserters find a place to put the steel bar. This increases the number of items on the belt.
These are then lane-balanced and fed into the steel belt on the bus.

Additionally in this blueprint is the pipe production, as it uses iron plates from the same row.
It's a quite old design which still uses red belts so put it last.

While this blueprint consists of two facilities, they are however independent.




Green Circuits v3.0, v3.1

Produces green circuits and feeds them into the bus, while making sure both belts are evenly feeded and if one is full the other gets the whole load, all the while also lane-balancing them.
Can feed up to one blue belt of green circuits; so to fill both belts on the bus, just place two racks of these.
Speciality of this blueprint is they are placed a bit overlapping, conserving some space and filling the vertical belt from both sides.




Red Circuits v3.0, v3.1

Produces red circuits. It is inspired by a design from Smoothbandit.
The red circuits are lane-balanced and the whole rack can produce up to blue belt speed.




Blue Circuits v3.0, v3.1

Produces blue circuits, lane balances them and feeds the bus. One rack should come up to red belt speed.




Underground Belts, Belts and Splitters v3.0, v3.1

Produces all of these in yellow, red, blue and green types. They are put into a logistics chests so adjust the smart inserter to how many you'd like to have as spare.
These designs are not overly superquick but small and compact and remmeber you can repeat them horizontally and have more than one rack of these around.

There are two designs for the belt production, one of them is a bit faster but also needs a bit more space.




Inserters v3.0, v3.1

Produces all varieties of inserters and, like belts, are stuffed into chests.
As a single module not very fast but compact.




Plastics v3.0, v3.1

Takes side-fed coal and ejects lane-balanced plastic waste.




Ammo and Poles v3.0, v3.1

Makes medium and large poles (I don't like the small ones) and best shotgun/rifle ammo.
The layouts can intersect to conserve space.
Everthing is put into logistics chests, so adjust the inserters.




Modules, Level 1 v3.0, v3.1

One needs quite many of these so repeat often. One rack produces up to red belt speed and lane-balances the output.
All sorts use the same ingredients so pick your color.




Motors v3.0, v3.1

Produces yellow and red motors and feeds both out to the side. Red motors grab from yellow motors.
Not lane balanced and quite slow.




Batteries v3.0, v3.1

For your Tesla Model 3. Lane balanced.




Accumulators v3.0, v3.1

Produces accumulators and lane-balances the output.
Intermediate batteries are produced in place as they're in high demand.

Not the optimal battery:accumulator ratio but not bad either.




Oil unbarreling v3.0, v3.1

This is where the oil flow begins.

Takes side-loaded oil barrels (lower belt), opens them and pours the oil into the pipe system, then ejects empty barrels to the side (upper belt) for storage and later reuse.




Lube v3.0, v3.1

Converts heavy oil to lube.




Sulphur v3.0, v3.1

Produces Sulphur from Water, Petroleum Gas and Electricity




Acid v3.0, v3.1

Produces LSD. Sulphur is to be side-fed for maximum effect.

The power poles are supposed to be put on-top of each other.




Solid Fuel (from water and oil) v3.0, v3.1

Very compact. Creates solid fuel cubes from water and oil alone, in case you don't want to disbalance your fluid production. Lane-balanced.

For getting rid of overproduced fluids other methods exist.




Rocket Fuel (from Petroleum Gas) v3.0, v3.1

Takes petroleum and produces rocket fuel.

Other blueprints use different fluids, this is an example.




and many many more... (see some other, old ones here)

[dee-]

Did you consider making the duplicate parts of the belts symmetric, e.g. something like

iron - copper - || - green - steel - || - blue - red - || - steel - green - | | - copper - iron

That would allow you to more easily put racks to the left or the right, since the copper/iron/green/steel connectors would be easily mirrored? (it's a shame you can't automatically mirror a blueprint though, so maybe it's not very useful...)

Well, no, because I think in this design there is not enough space left to feed both right and left side with full 2x blue belt speed or equally if both sides are populated.

I'm inspired again to reorganize my newest factory along your lines (but of course with some adjustments - I'll probably put plastics and sulphur on the belt, and only carry lube in pipes), will post screenshots when I have some!

"Let's see you clever builds"

[Westrum]

Oh wow, this is like christmas! I got that Factorio itch again! 1 more hour at work, and I'm home for a weekend of marathon gaming! Thanks

Edit: Why does your lane balancers use yellow belts which points in the wrong direction? Am I missing something clever?

[dee-]

Edit: Why does your lane balancers use yellow belts which points in the wrong direction? Am I missing something clever?

They don't transport items but make the blue belts, right after the first splitter, not to make left/right turns but to be straight, so the items are side-fed onto the belt, with only one lane used:



The balancer balances lanes (uneven demand on the consumption-belts lanes on the right gets balanced backwards to evenly balanced demand on the supply-belts lanes on the left) and is able to operate at full blue speed without loss of throughput or compression.

Yellow belts are the cheapest, so...

[Westrum]

They don't transport items but make the blue belts, right after the first splitter, not to make left/right turns but to be straight, so the items are side-fed onto the belt, with only one lane used:



The balancer balances lanes (uneven demand on the consumption-belts lanes on the right gets balanced backwards to evenly balanced demand on the supply-belts lanes on the left) and is able to operate at full blue speed without loss of throughput or compression.

Yellow belts are the cheapest, so...

Now THAT'S engineering for ya!
Got any more amazing tricks? You're spoiling me here
Would love some efficient smelting setups

[dee-]

Well I don't consider myself that clever with Factorio but thanks

Also keep in mind the bus system I show here is not very efficient per se.
- The demand is unbalanced as the facilities are always on the left side, thus the inserters often taking from the same lane. A mirrored (not rotated!) approach would be better for lane-balance, which I try to maintain with the lane-balancers.
- All the splitters along the bus make the items prone to trickle out at the end so there's a limit how long your bus can be. A tree-like structure would even the item-sinks out more equally but also has a limit.

The design "worked for me" (tm) because I wanted to try something new, more structured, and it also should be flexible and pain-free and bring inherent small challences (rack height, make sure it's repeatable, etc.) so I somehow got stuck with this

If you're aiming for a more efficient and professional factory with more "of a purpose", get inspired by THIS and my feeble attempts turn to dust

[vanatteveldt]

Did you consider making the duplicate parts of the belts symmetric [..]

Well, no, because I think in this design there is not enough space left to feed both right and left side with full 2x blue belt speed or equally if both sides are populated.

Well, I guess most racks only take 1x blue of 1-4 resources right? I could imagine e.g. a ammo factory to the right (copper+steel), and a belt factory to the left (iron+green), without interfering with each other.
That said, balancing the lanes from opposite ends will be messy, and you can't mirror blueprints anyway, so maybe it's a stupid idea to begin with.

What do you do? Just leave everything empty on one side of the bus?

I guess I can also do the "proper racks" to the left, and the "preprocessing" (smelting, making circuits, etc) to the right.

I'm inspired again to reorganize my newest factory along your lines (but of course with some adjustments - I'll probably put plastics and sulphur on the belt, and only carry lube in pipes), will post screenshots when I have some!

"Let's see you clever builds" [/quote]



I will *not* show my current setup, which is the "temporary get my research done till robotics" setup, which was of course just too small to do everything so half the lines are duct-taped on in weird places. I'll hopefully have the first proper screenshots this weekend, but those will be 0.1 compared to your 3.1 Anyway, I'll post in my own thread to not hijack yours.

[dee-]

Did you consider making the duplicate parts of the belts symmetric [..]

Well, no, because I think in this design there is not enough space left to feed both right and left side with full 2x blue belt speed or equally if both sides are populated.

Well, I guess most racks only take 1x blue of 1-4 resources right? I could imagine e.g. a ammo factory to the right (copper+steel), and a belt factory to the left (iron+green), without interfering with each other.
That said, balancing the lanes from opposite ends will be messy, and you can't mirror blueprints anyway, so maybe it's a stupid idea to begin with.

Well then: Blueprint Flipper
There are more, some deprectaed, some for 0.11.x...

What do you do? Just leave everything empty on one side of the bus?

As I have a straight edge on the right I can be pretty sure my factory won't extend into this area so I use it for other permanent stuff like stations, logistic storage, etc.

I guess I can also do the "proper racks" to the left, and the "preprocessing" (smelting, making circuits, etc) to the right.

Hm, that's actually an idea. Have the "basics" on the right side, the more interesting things on the left.
I just don't think this will conserve vertical space as you still have to add them above each other:

Code: Select all

advanced ---+
            +--- basic
advanced ---+
            +--- basic
            +--- basic

or you have to make complex connectors so you can always feed in new basic items...

Code: Select all

advanced ---*--- basic
advanced ---*
advanced ---*--- basic
            *--- basic

I'm inspired again to reorganize my newest factory along your lines (but of course with some adjustments - I'll probably put plastics and sulphur on the belt, and only carry lube in pipes), will post screenshots when I have some!

I will *not* show my current setup, which is the "temporary get my research done till robotics" setup, which was of course just too small to do everything so half the lines are duct-taped on in weird places.

I know exactly what you mean

[vanatteveldt]

Hm, that's actually an idea. Have the "basics" on the right side, the more interesting things on the left.
I just don't think this will conserve vertical space as you still have to add them above each other:

Code: Select all

advanced ---+
            +--- basic
advanced ---+
            +--- basic
            +--- basic

or you have to make complex connectors so you can always feed in new basic items...

Code: Select all

advanced ---*--- basic
advanced ---*
advanced ---*--- basic
            *--- basic

Well what I was planning is to have a "basic" rack with ore going up, and plates, circuits going down, and then back up. If needed (because of throughput problems) they can also be inserted halfway in.

I other words, I would have three lanes:

Code: Select all

[advanced]  | ↑ bus ↑ |  | ↓ plates ↓ |  | ↑ ore ↑ | [basic]
[advanced]  | ↑ bus ↑ |  | ↓ plates ↓ |  | ↑ ore ↑ | [basic]
[advanced]  | ↑ bus ↑ |  | ↓ plates ↓ |  | ↑ ore ↑ | [basic]
                  ↑          ↓             ↑     ↑
                  ⬑ [storage]↲            [station]

[vanatteveldt]

I'm inspired again to reorganize my newest factory along your lines (but of course with some adjustments - I'll probably put plastics and sulphur on the belt, and only carry lube in pipes), will post screenshots when I have some!

"Let's see you clever builds"

Version 0.1: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=23617

[dee-]

They don't transport items but make the blue belts, right after the first splitter, not to make left/right turns but to be straight, so the items are side-fed onto the belt, with only one lane used:



The balancer balances lanes (uneven demand on the consumption-belts lanes on the right gets balanced backwards to evenly balanced demand on the supply-belts lanes on the left) and is able to operate at full blue speed without loss of throughput or compression.

Yellow belts are the cheapest, so...

Now THAT'S engineering for ya!
Got any more amazing tricks? You're spoiling me here
Would love some efficient smelting setups

Here's a much smaller version with the same characteristics:



"Why haven't I thought earlier of that?"

[Azraelle]

I've started building my next factory based on this concept:


Research Facility


Liquid Processing (still need to add lubricant and switch my refineries over to Advanced Processing)


Green circuit and steel production

My main bus is not yet saturated with plates, and thus green circuit production is crawling along, so I need to move my mining facilities to larger ore patches. But the overall concept seems to work rather well.

[Don_Camillo]

Hey dee, Thank you for your design ruleset! I had a lot of fun with it! I took a lot of your basic designs. Thanks for that too.

I play vanilla+ (RSO+RSO radar and some comfort mods like Foreman Blueprints or more light)

Some designs, sorry if there are still some errors in them, my blueprints got corrupted

Science

Science Setups

Science 1.PNG (1017.96 KiB) Viewed 45787 times

Science 2.PNG (992.63 KiB) Viewed 45787 times

Robot Frames

A design by havoc_mayhem I customised
Just set one spot in the Wagon for every item in the chain and block all other spots

Robot Frame.PNG (1.18 MiB) Viewed 45787 times

Chemical Plant

A desing by me, i like the compactness. Suitable for other Items too

Chemical Plant.PNG (990.76 KiB) Viewed 45787 times

Base

I had a buggy requester chest, 10K Barrels :-/

Storage.PNG (1.17 MiB) Viewed 45787 times

As you shurly know, the factory gets quite long, had to add a train track for fast movement.
I use a two way railway system, sometimes a U-turn to shorten distances which are the only crossings.

Map.PNG (107.93 KiB) Viewed 45787 times

Stations

"Modular" Roll on Roll off Stations.

RoRo.PNG (2.83 MiB) Viewed 45787 times

Unloading.PNG (282.69 KiB) Viewed 45787 times

I wanted to build next to it a Rocket-factory based on these principles, but i think now it is not really suited for that task, i think troughput is to small, did you do some high troughput stuff with it?
Another problem is that some racks just have not enough input capacity, to suit more than 2-3 repetitions, so you have to repeat them vertically and maybe add feeders in between, which makes the factory even longer.

[dee-]

This... this is beautiful...

It really makes me happy you had fun toying and tinkering around

From your blueprints I see you put some serious thought into them to keep the design rules intact and what came out is really really clever and inspiring!
I'd be interested about a critical feedback from you on the design rules themselves. How was the experience, what would you change.


As you rightfully stated, the factory tends to get quite long as every rack adds 13 tiles on top and producing the most basic items like circuits, steel and all the fluids already use some racks creating a basic minimum height.

Also the belts and pipes for the bus itself are a not neglectible overhead. Sure, you can mass-produce all the blue belts and all the pipes and at that stage resources are usually not a problem anymore, but they tend to add up and also take up some "ineffective space".


To make the factory shorter you can have two busses running parallel, e.g. by using a splitter after the base items (circuits et al.) or by producing them in both busses:

Code: Select all

           ^
           |
     rack -+
     rack -+
     rack -+
     rack -+
     rack -+
     rack -+
base rack -+
base rack -+
base rack -+

becomes:

Code: Select all

      ^         ^
      |         |
rack -+   rack -+
rack -+   rack -+
rack -+   rack -+
      '----<----+
     base rack -+
     base rack -+
     base rack -+

When doing this you limit yourself how wide the right bus with its racks can get before running into the left bus, but there are sorts of items that do not need a wide amount of space (as seen on your map) and their expected max-width can be estimated.
Keep the side-feeds in mind, so group depending racks together to keep the side-feeds short and ideally contained in one bus.

And of course you're not limited to 2 but you can make 3, 4 or even more parallel busses.

If the base items become too sparse in one of the branched-off busses you have to add another base rack inside to ramp up the supply again.
Then the balancing mini-game starts anew


It's also possible to rotate the blueprints as-is and have the bus running up on the left side and down on the right side. I haven't tried it myself but it should be feasible (and I imagine it would possibly look pretty cool )

Code: Select all

           .---.
     rack -+   +- rack
     rack -+   +- rack
     rack -+   +- rack
     rack -+   |
     rack -+   v
     rack -+
base rack -+
base rack -+
base rack -+

You can even go completely crazy:

Code: Select all

                       k
                       c
                       a
                       r
                       |
                     .-+-.
               rack -+   +- rack
               rack -+   +- rack
      ^        rack -+   +- rack
      |        rack -+   +- rack
rack -+   base rack -+   +- rack
rack -+   base rack -+   +- rack
rack -+   base rack -+   +- rack
rack -+              '-------------<---- stockpile
rack -+                  +- rack
      '---+----+-----+---'
          |    |     |
          r    r     r
          a    a     a
          c    c     c
          k    k     k

The main problem with these "folding" approaces is that it could get a bit messy when you want to feed in fresh plates from the stockpile and that crosses another bus. The easiest solution would probably to just feed all busses using the "Bus Plate-Feeder" from this post (larger example with some NOPs):

Code: Select all

      ^         ^         ^         ^
      |         |         |         |
rack -+   rack -+   rack -+   rack -+
rack -+   rack -+   rack -+   rack -+
rack -+   rack -+   rack -+   rack -+
      |         |         |         |
      +----<----+----<----+----<----+----<---- stockpile
      |         |         |         |
rack -+   rack -+   rack -+   rack -+
rack -+   rack -+   rack -+   rack -+
rack -+   rack -+   rack -+   rack -+
      |         |         |         |
      '----<----+         '----<----+
                |                   |
                '---------<---------+
                                    |
                         base rack -+
                         base rack -+
                         base rack -+
                                    |
                                    '----<---- stockpile

As the feeders are serial and not treelike, the rightmost bus gets the most share of items, up to 50%, the next one 50%*50%=25%, the next one 12.5% and so on. One way would be to split the resources in a fair way before joining them into the bus:

Code: Select all

      ^         ^         ^         ^
      |         |         |         |
rack -+   rack -+   rack -+   rack -+
rack -+   rack -+   rack -+   rack -+
rack -+   rack -+   rack -+   rack -+
      |         |         |         |
      |   rack -+         |         +-<--+ 
      |         |         |         |    +-+
      |         |         +-----------<--+ |
rack -+         |         |         |      +- stockpile
      |         +---------------------<--+ |
      |         |         |         |    +-+
      +-------------------------------<--+ 
      |         |         |         |
rack -+   rack -+   rack -+   rack -+
rack -+   rack -+   rack -+   rack -+
rack -+   rack -+   rack -+   rack -+
      |         |         |         |
      '----<----+         '----<----+
                |                   |
                '---------<---------+
                                    |
                         base rack -+
                         base rack -+
                         base rack -+
                                    |
                                    '----<---- stockpile

But this escalates quickly


The nice thing is you can experiment with all the larger base layouts quite easily because all facilities fall exactly into the raster of the rack height, which makes ripping out a whole rack and placing something entirely different in its place so easy. Usually nothing else has to be modified (besides side-feeds). It's plug and play


Regarding the question about supplying a rocket silo; yes, it takes a helluva of resources per second as you have to repeat the production facilities very often to get the desired number of items in a reasonable time. So I assume it's only possible if you are able to feed enough raw resources like plates quick enough to keep the production pace up.
I suppose there are several ways to approach this. One way to do this would be by using a more integrated production rack or by using the multibus approach seen above.

The more homogenous your racks are the better you can calculate their demand and optimize the whole bus layout for them regarding when to feed, where to split, etc. It's like creating a production matrix on a larger scale consisting of racks on parallel busses and then consider those racks and busses again as a single unit, a building block, which can again be embedded into a larger scale system where resources are fed into and produced items are received from in a standardized way.


Hm. Actually that gave me an idea

[Don_Camillo]

Thank you for your friedly feedback

I'd be interested about a critical feedback from you on the design rules themselves. How was the experience, what would you change.

I really like the strictness of the rules, the small spaces you have to get your assemblers, inserters and belts into! it's like a big puzzle.
The modularity of it is something very very very practical, need more circuits here? no problem, just move my chest production up the line and put circuits there. Takes two minutes.
what I was thinking about, maybe use double racks for complex Items, so you don't have to sidefeed to much. so you don't get this ugly sidefeed chains:

Examples

chain.PNG (1.22 MiB) Viewed 45747 times

chain2.PNG (1.35 MiB) Viewed 45747 times

But maybe the trainwagon desin solves that problem, because you can have a lot of different inputs. Need to thinker with it.

Also the belts and pipes for the bus itself are a not neglectible overhead. Sure, you can mass-produce all the blue belts and all the pipes and at that stage resources are usually not a problem anymore, but they tend to add up and also take up some "ineffective space".

It's not a bug, its a feature! buffering I think this problem is hardly solvable by desin when working with belts and PnP. But you can just disconect the items not used furter up if you want to do it "efficiently".
And yeah... belts and pipes are the first thing you shoud automatise if you use more or less any desin

To make the factory shorter you can have two busses running parallel, e.g. by using a splitter after the base items (circuits et al.)

That is/was actually my next project, i just wanted to have everything i need first so i don't need to handcraft anymore, but i know, it got a "little" out of hand
but now i saw the problems I get with high troughput, i thinking just splitting the fluids and make the rest independent(inclusive smelting, outposts and trainnetwork)
why use the fluids from the first bus then? i got an awful lot of oil saved there, thanks to my 10k barrels (and i was thinking why do my outposts run out of oil so fast, i dont need that much XD)

It's also possible to rotate the blueprints as-is and have the bus running up on the left side and down on the right side. I haven't tried it myself but it should be feasible (and I imagine it would possibly look pretty cool )

I love that idea, but would interfere with my trainnetwork, which is also north-south aligned

Map

Map 2.PNG (105.41 KiB) Viewed 45747 times

The more homogenous your racks are the better you can calculate their demand and optimize the whole bus layout for them regarding when to feed, where to split, etc.

I'm not so the calculator type, i just throw resources at it until it works that is actually one of my favourite things about this desin, just add or move things arround as you see stuff is missing.

It's like creating a production matrix on a larger scale consisting of racks on parallel busses and then consider those racks and busses again as a single unit, a building block, which can again be embedded into a larger scale system where resources are fed into and produced items are received from in a standardized way.

so for example use a different bus for every component of rocket parts?

and two other layouts of mine:

Roboports

Roboports.PNG (765.2 KiB) Viewed 45747 times

Smelting

smelting.PNG (923.72 KiB) Viewed 45747 times

Modular and tilable, produces a balanced full blue belt of Plates out of a full blue belt of ressources, ressouces are evenly distributed, you can place the next module right over the belt on top or bottom

[dee-]

Thank you for your friedly feedback

You're most welcome

I'd be interested about a critical feedback from you on the design rules themselves. How was the experience, what would you change.

I really like the strictness of the rules, the small spaces you have to get your assemblers, inserters and belts into! it's like a big puzzle.
The modularity of it is something very very very practical, need more circuits here? no problem, just move my chest production up the line and put circuits there. Takes two minutes.

Exactly what I like about the design myself

what I was thinking about, maybe use double racks for complex Items, so you don't have to sidefeed to much. so you don't get this ugly sidefeed chains:

Examples

chain.PNG

chain2.PNG

But maybe the trainwagon desin solves that problem, because you can have a lot of different inputs. Need to thinker with it.

The sidefeeds in these screenshots can be avoided.
The reason you have these is because you use a rack of Modules 1, one of Modules 2 and one of Modules 3, when in the end all you wanted was a Module 3.
Having all items in separate racks makes it easy to split of some of the items for other purposes because you have a good access to the items as they go around on the side-feeds.
But if you are only interested in the final Module 3, then you can produce level 1 and 2 "in situ" and use them directly inside your level 3 rack.
Then you would have a blueprint that produces level 3 modules of base items from the bus, without the sidefeeds.

Sadly, train wagons are not blueprintable.

Also the belts and pipes for the bus itself are a not neglectible overhead. Sure, you can mass-produce all the blue belts and all the pipes and at that stage resources are usually not a problem anymore, but they tend to add up and also take up some "ineffective space".

It's not a bug, its a feature! buffering I think this problem is hardly solvable by desin when working with belts and PnP. But you can just disconect the items not used furter up if you want to do it "efficiently".
And yeah... belts and pipes are the first thing you shoud automatise if you use more or less any desin

What I do is build racks north the "base baseline" that need items from the bus and all the racks that only need or produce fluids below the baseline as they don't grab items from the bus, thus the belts can remain empty.

Splitting off into several branches gives you also the chance to control which items or fluids you want or need on this branch, saving on wasted because never-used items and fluids. But you already said that

To make the factory shorter you can have two busses running parallel, e.g. by using a splitter after the base items (circuits et al.)

That is/was actually my next project, i just wanted to have everything i need first so i don't need to handcraft anymore, but i know, it got a "little" out of hand
but now i saw the problems I get with high troughput, i thinking just splitting the fluids and make the rest independent(inclusive smelting, outposts and trainnetwork)
why use the fluids from the first bus then? i got an awful lot of oil saved there, thanks to my 10k barrels (and i was thinking why do my outposts run out of oil so fast, i dont need that much XD)

Don't tell me about zillions of full oil barrels lying around Worst is, oil is endless so you have to pull the line at some time otherwise at the end of the universe you will only have filled barrels and all iron went into barrel production.

It's also possible to rotate the blueprints as-is and have the bus running up on the left side and down on the right side. I haven't tried it myself but it should be feasible (and I imagine it would possibly look pretty cool )

I love that idea, but would interfere with my trainnetwork, which is also north-south aligned

Map

Map 2.PNG

Your base looks like a sibling to my base; I also have the stations directly on the right of the base. That's actually a nice feature of this system: you can rely on a straight right edge as the racks grow to the left, so the space on the right can be used for things that are not so flexible to move like stockpiles with millions of plates.

That's also the reason I have not tried it myself; the space on the right is already in use. But when starting a new or separate base it would be possible to try this, although I probably prefer splitters to Uzumaki bases, but the idea is tempting, just for giggles. (Actually, Uzumaki is pretty cool )

The more homogenous your racks are the better you can calculate their demand and optimize the whole bus layout for them regarding when to feed, where to split, etc.

I'm not so the calculator type, i just throw resources at it until it works that is actually one of my favourite things about this desin, just add or move things arround as you see stuff is missing.

It's like creating a production matrix on a larger scale consisting of racks on parallel busses and then consider those racks and busses again as a single unit, a building block, which can again be embedded into a larger scale system where resources are fed into and produced items are received from in a standardized way.

so for example use a different bus for every component of rocket parts?

I more thought about creating a parallel bus system which is specialized on producing the ingredients for rocket bases like fuel, etc. in such a way it has all the necessary basic items and feeds in a good and efficient ratio

Code: Select all

      ^         ^         ^         ^
      |         |         |         |
rack -+   rack -+   rack -+   rack -+
rack -+   rack -+   rack -+   rack -+
rack -+   rack -+   rack -+   rack -+
      |         |         |         |
      +----<----+----<----+----<----+----<---- stockpile
      |         |         |         |
rack -+   rack -+   rack -+   rack -+
rack -+   rack -+   rack -+   rack -+
rack -+   rack -+   rack -+   rack -+
      |         |         |         |
      '----<----+         '----<----+
                |                   |
                '---------<---------+
                                    |
                         base rack -+
                         base rack -+
                         base rack -+
                                    |
                                    '----<---- stockpile

and then use this whole thing as a blueprint to scale up the production.

and two other layouts of mine:

Roboports

Roboports.PNG

Smelting

smelting.PNG

Modular and tilable, produces a balanced full blue belt of Plates out of a full blue belt of ressources, ressouces are evenly distributed, you can place the next module right over the belt on top or bottom

I actually stopped creating blueprints for every item in the game as it was too much work for me to design the racks. They tend to get quite trivial so they became not too much fun for me. I produce these "simple" items with logistic chests and logistic robot factories as also the needed amount of those is not as high as other items. But by all means, the more the merrier

[Don_Camillo]

The sidefeeds in these screenshots can be avoided.
The reason you have these is because you use a rack of Modules 1, one of Modules 2 and one of Modules 3, when in the end all you wanted was a Module 3.
Having all items in separate racks makes it easy to split of some of the items for other purposes because you have a good access to the items as they go around on the side-feeds.
But if you are only interested in the final Module 3, then you can produce level 1 and 2 "in situ" and use them directly inside your level 3 rack.
Then you would have a blueprint that produces level 3 modules of base items from the bus, without the sidefeeds.

yes i know, but then you run into problems for example the destroyer capsule: you just need to many different items and you got not enough troughput of ressources and your rack gets just get incredibly long you need around 30 assemblers for 2 capsules every 15 sec. (without modules)

Sadly, train wagons are not blueprintable.

it's not to bad, you can shift+click copy their settings. its a little more to do, but i think the compression of desings they allow is worth it.

What I do is build racks north the "base baseline" that need items from the bus and all the racks that only need or produce fluids below the baseline as they don't grab items from the bus, thus the belts can remain empty.

I think the logical thing to do

That's also the reason I have not tried it myself; the space on the right is already in use. But when starting a new or separate base it would be possible to try this, although I probably prefer splitters to Uzumaki bases, but the idea is tempting, just for giggles. (Actually, Uzumaki is pretty cool )

It will be so unpractical, it would to be cool as hell

I more thought about creating a parallel bus system which is specialized on producing the ingredients for rocket bases like fuel, etc. in such a way it has all the necessary basic items and feeds in a good and efficient ratio

okey, I see what you mean, that could be actually a suitable design for a megafactory i think.

I actually stopped creating blueprints for every item in the game as it was too much work for me to design the racks. They tend to get quite trivial so they became not too much fun for me.

was my challenge to do every item i use in a blueprint and yes it kinda gets trivial after some time, but then i just tried to get more creative to find a better, more beautiful, more compressed and/or more practical solution than the simple standart three belt two assembler design

do you have a screen of your map? would love to see it

[dee-]

Hi there! Sorry, I really kept you waiting...

Instead of screenshots I simply uploaded my most recent savegame.
In it you will find a big bunch of blueprints, for the racks and also for my Modular Extensible PnP Train Station (R) tm design.
Feel free to dig around! I'd be delighted to get a feedback and improvement suggestions.

The base uses the modded Nixie Tubes mod (see screenshot). If you don't have the mod installed then that's no problem, you'll simply miss out on the storage amount counter, which is just a visual and not a functional aid.





And here's the savegame: link.

Please let me know if you have any problems downloading it.
I have an ad-blocker installed and to me the site looks pretty clean and works without nags. If it's a hassle I'll switch the file hoster.

Have fun
dee-