Well, I did it.. finally launched one... slow and inefficient and almost 50 hours in game but it happened...

That's one of the things I'm enjoying is the constant tweaking with expansion. I took the screenshot before I finished belting in a near by iron node that can handle 60 electric mining drills. Then adding gray science that then needed more stone and brick and so on and on and on.

Hey thanks for all the replies. Trying to play here and there I did build out an area to make some of the items automatically. It's not the prettiest or most efficient but it's helped a ton. I did divert off the smelter line for grenades but I don't plan to keep it that way.

screenshot-tick ...

When you say dedicated coal lines for boilers and smelting do you mean a certain number of miners for each line vs dumping all coal into say four lines and out to while balancing the outputs with splitters?

Does this make more sense? Tried to balancing the input and send one side just for smelting ...

So first off I'm full on hooked. Absolute blast of a game. Made it through the initial campaign with some pains but finally started freeplay. Started a second map since my first was a spaghetti mess. For the sake of learning things I turned off cliffs and opened the starting area to 600% I know tsk ...