How it differs:
I split my main bus into two halves. "Smelting" is on one side, and "Manufacturing" on the other.
The basic factory plan is as follows:
Smelting Manufacturing
<<<<< >>>>>>>>>>
<<<<< >>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
<< >>>>>
Where the ">" are belts.
Materials being consumed by the smelting processes flow outward from the middle, while smelting products flow toward across the middle into the manufacturing side. All manufacturing materials and products flow outward from the middle opposite from the smelting. (I design my factories in such a way that no item from manufacturing is ever needed on the smelting side)
Uh, Why?
I think the reason I originally did this was that many "smelting" items are not used in production, such as copper ore or whatever, so I didn't want them taking up space in the main line. At the same time however, I still needed to be able to add items on to the smelting area, just as I did the manufacturing end. Thus the "split" evolved.
The Current Factory
This is my factory as she currently stands. I've set my resources to very low frequency, but very high richness, forcing me to expand outward at least a little. I also have radar coverage of all active areas of the factory minus a small extension directly North of the main line which I haven't had time to provide radar coverage yet.
One of the major challenges with this factory has been defense. I don't even have access to blue science yet, and the factory is already massive. Surrounding the entire structure with walls and turrets would be prohibitively expensive, so I have opted instead for small groupings of 2 - 4 Sniper Turrets (Mk I's) and 2 - 4 Gun Turrets (Mk 3's) spaced so that the sniper turrets have just barely overlapping fields of fire. To date, I have never had a biter attack make it past the turrets, though there are some areas of the defensive line that require regular maintenance. The Zinc outpost in particular draws a lot of heat.
I can built laser turrets, but the standing power cost to replace my gun turrets with laser turrets would be excessive, as would the material cost of producing the turrets in the first place. I do plan to make the change over once I have tier II or III laser turrets, but that won't be happening for quite awhile.
The Split
Everything North of the train tracks is considered the Smelting wing, while everything South is considered Manufacturing. Currently Iron, Copper, Steel, Tin, and Brass plates are flowing into the manufacturing wing, along with Resin, Explosives, and Plastic Bars. The steel pipe is also flowing from Smelting and contains Ferric Chloride Solution for creating Phenolic Boards.
The Trains
In making this factory, I decided that each raw resource would have an individual train input. Currently the factory only brings in Tin, Zinc, Sulfur, Nickel, Lead, and Crude oil by rail, but I have plans to bring in many many more. Currently Bauxite and Tungsten are next on the list.
The delivery system has to be fairly compact in quite a few places, so I've opted for a twin headed train system without loops. It seems to be working pretty well so far, though I'm a newb when it comes to trains (this is the first factory I've used them in) I also have Player Access Sidings for each outpost I build.
Manufacturing Wing
This is the current end of the manufacturing wing. As you can see, my factory plan groups the belts in sets of four, with two spaces in between each. The reason for this is the span of a basic underground belt. this way I only have to mess with a single group of belts to remove or add items to the main line. Of course, the downside is that this makes my main bus even bigger than it would otherwise be.
The lone belts on the far right are still in groups of four, but the items they will be grouped with are not yet being manufactured. (My current factory plan has something like nine groups so far >.< )
Plans for the Future
This is actually my first play-through using Bob's Mods, so I don't have a really good grasp of what will be needed in the future (hence why I opted for such an extensible design). I've planned out until about Tier III roboports, but beyond that I'm in the dark. It'll be fun to see what comes after.
In general, the factory has been really fun to build so far, even though the huge number of items added by Bob's Mods has made it much more challenging. Thanks for reading!
