How many adv. circuit/processing units factories to build?

[silman]

I am heading into making advanced ciruits and soon after processing units but don't know how much space i should reserve to expand the adv. circuits and processing units? Should i simply build adv. circuits on the spot for each thing that needs them? I feel that enough things use them that it could warrant a main bus line that breaks off into processing units and other items.

That said, I am facing he same issue with processing units, i simply don't know how many facotories of them i shold expect to build. certain things require a lot in small burts (like power armor) and some require a constant flow (like making tier 3 modules for rocket defense). So i have no idea how many to build and whether they should be on their own bus too? My instinct says that advanced circuits should be on a bus but processing units should simply be moved around with logistic bots, but i am unsure....

[Xecutor]

You need A LOT of space for these. Mainly because:
1) They are produced quite slowly. You need quite a lot of factories to have more or less good flow.
2) They are eating basic electronic circuits at an alarming rate. You will need a lot more factories to build these.
3) Because of 2) you will need to increase production speed of basic resources. Preferably separate line that exclusively feeds EC production.

Usually I have separate (sub)factory for all the circuits and deliver them where needed with robots.

p.s. exact amount of factories depends on time you want to spend producing modules for rocket defence. The more factories you have - the faster you'll finish it.
Last time I had 16 AM3 factories producing advanced circuits.

[silman]

You need A LOT of space for these. Mainly because:
1) They are produced quite slowly. You need quite a lot of factories to have more or less good flow.
2) They are eating basic electronic circuits at an alarming rate. You will need a lot more factories to build these.
3) Because of 2) you will need to increase production speed of basic resources. Preferably separate line that exclusively feeds EC production.

Usually I have separate (sub)factory for all the circuits and deliver them where needed with robots.

p.s. exact amount of factories depends on time you want to spend producing modules for rocket defence. The more factories you have - the faster you'll finish it.
Last time I had 16 AM3 factories producing advanced circuits.

Thats what i was afraid of...

Now i need to expand my factory looking for nearby copper and iron and somehow get my plastics all the way over there.... I have plenty of room for over 16 factories, but i don't have any dedicated copper/iron supply to make electronic circuits, currently i have El. Circuits just being made from a split off of my main copper line. If i somehow pump tons of copper into my main line would i be able to avoid having a dedicated area?

[DerivePi]

I usually plan on 2 copper lines and 2 iron lines for each main base. One line of each is usually sucked up into my electronics department. I typically have 8 or so advanced circuit assemblers. You will also need about 4 refineries to handle the plastic.

[silman]

I usually plan on 2 copper lines and 2 iron lines for each main base. One line of each is usually sucked up into my electronics department. I typically have 8 or so advanced circuit assemblers. You will also need about 4 refineries to handle the plastic.

Do you think it would be acceptable to have two (or more) copper/iron outposts shipping in plates that simply get recombined into one main belt? Or is there some reason a second belt is necessary? I feel that as long as I am producing enough plate the number of belts taking it into my factory shouldn't really matter.

[n9103]

Greatly reduced belt costs, overall throughput, belt item balancing, and so on.
A single belt won't keep a good sized EC plant fully supplied, even if they're all express belts.
Having two standard belts is either almost as good as, or better than a single express belt.

[silman]

Greatly reduced belt costs, overall throughput, belt item balancing, and so on.
A single belt won't keep a good sized EC plant fully supplied, even if they're all express belts.
Having two standard belts is either almost as good as, or better than a single express belt.

Really? That seems so strange to me. What is the ratio of ECs you need per Adv. Cir. assemblers? If i have, say, 16 adv. circuit assemblers how many EC assemblers do i need to fully pressurize the adv. cir. assemblers?

I was under the impression that if copper plate bus is fully pressurized (via joining up multiple lines with splitters) the speed of the express belt would be more than enough. as a full pressurized belt contains a lot of compact plate. I don't have any first hand experience so i am not sure, but it's hard for me to imagine all my plate being eaten off the main bus from just EC assemblers.

[n9103]

More than the number that you can feed off one express belt
It's not just the ECs that empty the belts, but the number of wires that go into the ECs in an AC, plus the wires themselves.
I guess my initial post was a bit misworded, and missed the nuance that I was talking about the overall Adv. Circuit production.

I actually don't know off hand what the exact ratio is of ECs to ACs, so can't give you a good guesstimate on just what kind of throughput you're gonna need.
My rough(bad) guess would be that you could supply just the EC part of this 16x AC plant with a single fast belt. But that's as far as I could guess.
I'm not too keen on doing a mock-up at the moment, but you can experiment with test mode yourself and report back:
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =46&t=2842