Handling 7 Science Paks

[tutu10]

In 17 there are a total of 7 Science packs, which means you would need 4 belts to supply all science to one Research Dome, but you can only reach 2 belts using the regular and long inserters.

So how do you all handle this in 17? Complicated underground belt ribbons? Mixed belts?

I'm thinking of 3 belts ending at a Research dome and bots to bring the white/space science atm.

[SirSmuggler]

Last I checked, there where more then one side on a lab, infact I think it was four sides. So by utilizing only half the sides I can get supply from 4 belts, so I even have a lane to spare

[Koub]

You can also "sandwich" your labs between 2 sets of 2 belts, with inserters in between labs to transfer science packs from one side to the other.
Or if you're OK with bots, you can feed everything with bots.
There is also the sushi belt option, I find very elegant, but it has limited throughput.

[mrvn]

Or have 2 belts go N/S and 2 belts W/E and place a 10 x 10 grid of labs around the crossing point with inserters chaining each lab to the ones nearer to the belts.

[nosports]

i feed one lab from two sides (-> max 3x2x2 paks) and then let the inserters carry on the paks to the other labs.

granted the reseach will be somewhat slower, because some paks will be fetched from labs to other labs but - how cares about speed in research ?

[JimBarracus]

I use 2 belts on 2 sides.
I also leave a gap of 3 between the labs to leave space for beacons.

[Ormy]

Use logistics bots?

All my science packs are fed to passive provider chests.

Then I have a single requester chest (requests 3 stacks of each science pack) feeding three research labs via 3 stack inserters. I blueprint this setup and copy it a several dozen times. Works great.

[Hannu]

If you are not allergic to awful hacks, you can use cars on belts. Katherine of Sky made recently such contraption, which seemed to work flawlessly.

I am boring engineer and prefer just mundane 2 lane belts on bots sides. Even yellow belt can support long chain of laboratories. There is not room for beacons but I do not use them in any game. If I would, I would probably surround every lab with 12 beacons and use bots to feed them.

[eradicator]

i feed one lab from two sides (-> max 3x2x2 paks) and then let the inserters carry on the paks to the other labs.

This. Every. Single. Time.

granted the reseach will be somewhat slower, because some paks will be fetched from labs to other labs but - how cares about speed in research ?

Can be fixed by overriding the stack size (or using fasterters instead of stackserters), which will make them leave a few packs in each lab.

[T-A-R]

Usually when my triangle of labs can't handle the packs anymore (inserters in the first lab are the limiting factor here) i start running three parallel yellow underground belts. This is a design i found in a multiplayer game. The space on top of the undergound belts can be filled with labs which use three inserters to feed 6 types of packs. these labs can form rows perpendicular on the underground belts. When more labs are needed you can increase labs in a row, or the amount or rows. Next to to the underground belts you can run a normal belt once you reached space packs. As a Bonus, the underground belts leave enough space for rows of beacons between the labs.

Bus lab

buslab.png (510.93 KiB) Viewed 13613 times

An other idea i designed myself is using filtered wagons to buffer all packs. Not really prepared for beacons however:

Wagon lab

train lab.png (1.7 MiB) Viewed 13613 times

[Lubricus]

Use the mod MSP - 30 new Science Packs for extra fun
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/MoreSciencePacks

On the more serious side
1. You can use some sort of belt-weave
Ex.
https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comme ... elt_weave/

2.
You can also move science pack from lab to lab with inserters so you don't necessary need to supply all labs directly with all different packs.

3.
You can use requester chests and bots (you first have to unlock requester chests)

4.
Maybe use stuff like trainwagons between belts and labs?

5.
Use sushi belts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Gt5Zx0bsOQ

6.
I used a sort of sushi belts with buffers and circuit network. I used that model with great success for the 30 extra science pack mod.
It works like you have buffer chests before the labs. Wire up the buffer chest with the production of the science packs. Only enable the science pack prod when they are low in the buffer. Shuffle all the science pack on the same belt that goes to the buffer chests.

7.
Science labs have 4 sides you can insert stuff from

8.
long handed inserters can be place directly adjacent to the lab and one tile away, so you can insert direct from tree rows of belts.

[adam_bise]

I just braid them between beacons.

sci_brd2.png (1.22 MiB) Viewed 13404 times

[mrvn]

Or feed 4 labs (2 per side) from a cargo wagon and chain them 5 deep. You can chain the cargo wagons with inserters between them for more labs. Set filter on each cargo wagon so it has 1 stack of each science pack.

[rcp27]

I use 3 rows of labs with two double-loops of belt. One loop runs outside row 1 and between rows 2 and 3, the other loop runs between rows 1 and 2 and outside row 3. Each lab has 1 red and 1 yellow (my base ant big enough to need more than yellow belt, eventually red or blue belt might be needed) inserter each side. That gives 8 lanes where every lab can grab directly from every lane. One lane of blue belt carries 22.5 items/second, or 1350 items per minute. With blue belt, such a system can hypothetically support >1k science/minute.

[Bauer]

... and I always thought that 1k SPM meant 1k each. nvm.

[Optera]

... and I always thought that 1k SPM meant 1k each. nvm.

You thought right. 1k SPM means 1k each including military. Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise.

[MobRules]

I create a double-loop of two belts, put labs around this, and another two loops around the outside. Each side of each lab has one regular and one long inserter feeding into it; I put each type of science pack on one lane of one of the belt loops. (Don't have a screen shot handy, will try to add one later.)

[Adamo]

Last I checked, there where more then one side on a lab, infact I think it was four sides. So by utilizing only half the sides I can get supply from 4 belts, so I even have a lane to spare

In fact, it's easier than this... just load your science flasks into one research lab, and then put inserters between that lab and the other labs, and chain them out from there... labs can trade flasks back and forth. So I just bring my train in to the front, load the flasks into the front labs, then those pass the flasks back until everyone is full. I don't even use belts since the train wagons can reserve spots for every type of flask, directly. I have a science train yard blueprint if anyone wants to try it, but it's pretty simple to make.

[slippycheeze]

Last I checked, there where more then one side on a lab, infact I think it was four sides. So by utilizing only half the sides I can get supply from 4 belts, so I even have a lane to spare

In fact, it's easier than this... just load your science flasks into one research lab, and then put inserters between that lab and the other labs, and chain them out from there... labs can trade flasks back and forth. So I just bring my train in to the front, load the flasks into the front labs, then those pass the flasks back until everyone is full. I don't even use belts since the train wagons can reserve spots for every type of flask, directly. I have a science train yard blueprint if anyone wants to try it, but it's pretty simple to make.

Labs contain two packs of each type. If you remove both the lab will stop working until it gets new ones fed in from the source ahead of it. So, unless you carefully control your stack size, and ensure that you are feeding fast enough that you have new pack in each lab (total two) before the lab behind tries to grab a second, you cause stuttering.

This will substantially slow down research, and is annoyingly hard to control for as every improvement to inserters -- stack size, speed -- changes the rate you need things to feed through, and the odds that you hit a bottleneck in supply that breaks thing.

You also need to be wary of how long your lab/inserter chain is, or risk the same stutter, or starvation, along the way.

Chaining inserters is easy, but it isn't efficient unless you invest heavily in it.

It is about as simple, and much harder to screw up, either to use the logistics network to supply labs, or to put space for four belts, two each side of a single lab, and use normal/long inserters to populate them from the belt. Create a nice single lab wide structure, loop the belts around so they form a pair of runs at either end, and feed one science pack to one side of a belt, plus one empty lane, covering the 7 packs.

If y'all do want to go for the "simple" chaining solution, I commend this thread on reddit which gives a good summary of the ways to "overfill" your labs, and so make it less likely that you will end up breaking research progress briefly to feed the next lab.

[Adamo]

Nah, it's simpler than you're making it out to be. Just make sure that your input stream/inserters is/are faster than your intermediate inserters share across the labs, and the labs will work with a constant rate. So you need to have one input lab for every total amount of science packs than can be passed between the chained labs. I think I found that three stack inserters into one "interface" lab supports about 12 labs behind that first one in two chains branching from the input lab without stuttering, but you should play with it to find the right ratio.