Mid-End Game - How much is too much?

[Zenith]

Hi everyone,

I'm back to playing factorio again after a short break and I've finally progressing further than I have before. I've started using beacons with modules for smelting to produce full blue belts or plates etc (not really got this far before).

The issue I have is that my main bus is basically 4 iron and 4 copper then 1 of everything else. I've upgraded my copper to be 8 lanes that split down into 8 (one of which goes to green belts and another somewhere else) so then I still have the 4 running through my main base.

However, I'm wondering if it's best to just remove everything and start over (or to move to a different part of the map).

For mid-late game planning how many belts of each type of item is recommended. I know it can scale infinitely but should I plan for 8 belts of iron and 8 of copper, 2 steel, 2 green circuits, 1 red circuit etc. What kind of numbers work for most people for a reasonable scale factory.

I'm considering finding ore patches close enough together so I can produce green circuits at the outpost and train them back in (I struggle with trains, never got my head round them but I'm trying to give them a go this play through). Is this was most people recommend because I can see green circuits already being an issue.

I've basically been following KatherineOfSky's vanilla 0.15 play through but have diverted and doing my own thing now (once Katherine had trains I was lost so decided to follow my own path).

Thanks for your suggestions, I'm just thinking of starting a new bus and wondering how best to plan it out so I don't have issues again down the line.

Thanks,

Zenith

[Deadly-Bagel]

I think you need to find your own balance. After some trial and error I played 4 iron + 4 copper belts for awhile, most of it went into Electronic Circuits leaving 2 iron 1 copper belts for the rest of the factory. Realistically, I struggled to make Steel and any of its derivatives but because I was spending so much time on everything (still getting to grips with the game) it didn't really affect me.

In my more recent games I've been using 6 Iron 4 Copper, 2 belts of iron were sent straight to Steel, 2 to Electronic Circuits and 2 for everything else. Again it still wasn't quite enough Steel but I'd recently learned the power of Modules and was busy fitting everything with Productivity, including the Furnaces. I pumped a full belt of Iron Ore into each furnace array and one belt went into the factory, the excess (from Productivity: 6 * 0.2 = 1.2 belts) went into Steel (also with Productivity) which provided me with more than enough.

On the other hand, many people seem keen on arguing the benefits of using miles of yellow belts instead of trains which must provide awful throughput so it's basically just trying stuff and finding what works for you, that's part of the beauty of this game =)

[SyncViews]

For bigger factories, putting iron and copper onto the bus for steel and circuits inst really viable (even more so with expensive recipes), as 8+ belts of green circuits isn't even that much to make lots of red and blue, and then you need a very large number of iron and copper.

Build you steel and circuit facilities to the side (on big games, I even built furnaces, circuits, and everything else as 3 distinct bases and ran a train) so that they can have a separate input bus, while the final circuits get delivered to the main bus for the rest of the production. For steel you may choose to use iron ore directly as input (without productivity, its exactly 1 iron furnace to 1 steel furnace, with productivity that gets more complex).


For big bases, this can also apply to iron gears since 1 gear belt is equivalent to 2 iron plates on normal and 4 iron plates on hard. Plus its easier to add productivity and beacons.

[Engimage]

You can take a look at my designs for building your bus.
viewtopic.php?f=202&t=49452
I have found that most of lines on a bus a dedicated to intermediates such as gears, steel and green circuits.
That is what made me think of such designs which will provide your base with really needed lines.

As a result I do not need reciculous 8+ lanes of iron etc.
Most bases can handle next bus:

1 steel
2 gears
2 iron
2 copper
2 green circuits
1 red circuits
1 blue circuits (not full). Actually making a full belt of blue circuits will consume a shit ton of resources and space. So in my designs common load will take 4-8 lines of setup.

Be aware that none of these lines are consumed by each other and will only need ores/plastic fed as an input.