Need more gears!

[ArrowRL201]

This is my first attempt at a bus setup. I'm producing a fair amount of iron but as you can see not a lot of it is going towards my gear plant, which is stressed since it's feeding Inserters for green pots and red pots. I thought about adding another one but my issue is a lack of iron, not an overabundance of it. Any recommendations?

[DaveMcW]

my issue is a lack of iron

Build 24 mining drills and 48 stone furnaces, that is enough to saturate a yellow belt.

If you need more, build more mines/furnaces and a second belt.

[ArrowRL201]

That brings me to my other issue - I'm running out of iron in my region, and I haven't unlocked trains or anything yet.

EDIT: Just to clarify, the deposits in my area are rich but small, so I can only cram so many extractors in a single patch.

[aober93]

Yea you need to have a reasonable big patch of ore from the get go. One that can hold perhaps at least 30 mining drills. In Vanilla game, you have the chance that you find a good patch of iron just off screen. I restart my game often enough so that i find a patch of iron, copper,stone and water in the near vicinity, as well as 1 or 2 spots of oil nearby. Depending on the alien setting of course. With normal aliens, its no problem going off screen and tap a new orepatch.

You dont necessarily need a train for another patch that is near. Just build a long belt =D

[Bushdoctor]

Yeap, what Aober93 said.

Usually there's more iron ore in your starting area, so you seem to have had a bit of bad luck when generating this map.
There has to be more iron close by. Grab some belts, some drills and some power lines and get your exploration on.

btw, the Alt-button gives you a nice icon over your buildings that shows what they're producing.

Good luck and have fun!

[kinnom]

the vein in the top left looks promising

[Bushdoctor]

the vein in the top left looks promising

You're right! Actually, now that I've put my glasses on, I think I see several iron ore patches in that starting area. Small ones, but still.
Isn't there one directly to the bottom right of your base?
Use the belts Luke!

[The Eriksonn]

I defenitly see a qiute big iron deposit just under to the right of your factory, could be a good place to start some spamming drills on.

A slightly more negative sight is that you are researching oil but i dont see any on the map, so you probably want to go explore, find some, and then research trains to get it back to base.
Luckely trains dont require oil. yay

[aober93]

And build something like this for more iron

http://guide.factorio.com/img/31.jpg