Size of logistic networks

[<X>]

Hello,

in my megabase the size of the logistic network became so big, that it takes forever until the robots build, what I want them to build. So I guess it'd be better to make several smaller logistic networks, where there are chests at the border, that provide building material (such as belts, solar panels, landfill, ammo, and so on) to the other logistic network.

What do you think would be the optimal size of a logistic network, and how do you provide the building material? What's the gap between those networks? 2? So that there are no issues with trains?

[Kahnugo]

While logistic networks do get more efficient when they cover smaller areas, it might not necessarily be the size alone causing issues.

When you say the robots take forever to build stuff, is that because they take long to react to ghosts being placed or simply because they move from far away.

1. If the robots do not react to the placement of ghosts it's most likely due to leftover ghosts on the entire map. It is a separate system from the logistic networks and changing the networks will not do anything to solve this. The only solution is to reduce the amount of unfulfilled construction requests globally.

2. If the construction materials are far from where you are building, then you would need to move items to more remote places of your base preemptively so that bots wont have to visit storage far away when the construction request is placed. You could move it around by train or just setup buffer chests in various building zones that request various materials needed eventually.

3. If the construction bots often come from far away when responding to construction requests (before they pick up materials), then it's because the area of the network is causing bots to travel vast distances completing jobs all over the network. In this situation there is much to win by splitting the network up in smaller parts, dedicating robots to various parts of your base. To transport materials from network to network you can as before either make use of trains or make the borders of the networks meet with a single tile gap and bridge it with inserters between chests.

I am not sure what issues with trains you are referring to.

Edit: In terms of how large the networks should be, I'd say that depends on the situation. Generally trying to avoid gaps/holes in networks is preferable, from any point in the network you should be able to draw a straight line to any other point without leaving the network.
Also try to keep them fairly single purpose, if the main purpose is supplying for construction, the network can be larger as demand is not continuous and longer routes are more sustainable. If the network is used for focused production in larger quantities it should be smaller and not include many different productions in different places.

[<X>]

My whole base is completely covered in city blocks, so leaving 1 gap between 2 logistic networks would make it difficult to build the train tracks. By now I've only seen logistic networks split at the edge of the base. And therefore it was no issue to them. But that's a minor thing

At the moment the construction bots have to travel about 2000 tiles to get the item, and another 2000 tiles to build them, as the production of most things is slighty east, and I'm building in the very west.

I have quite a few ghosts queing up, but that shouldn't be a problem, because most of it is for paving, and I don't have enough building material for that yet. Only about 10,000 of my 25,000 contruction robots are working.

Do you think it'd be a good idea to make 9 logistic networks for future bases? One in the center covering all production parts and belts, and then 1 in each direction (north, north-east, east, ...)? And then some inserters emptying the request boxes from the center and filling the other boxes in the outer logistic networks?

[Kahnugo]

Ghosts for things where you do not have the material still fills the construction queue and they will regularly be checked postponing other construction jobs, so that will likely cause delays when you place new blueprints.

If linking networks with chest/inserter connections is cumbersome I would do something else. I have never played with a city block design before so I have no personal experience on what works best.

I would probably keep it as one network if it's only used for construction and personal logistics and try to organize transportation of materials towards building areas, either by logistic robots or trains. Once the construction starts in an area that should lower the travel time of robots considerably, especially if you have enough construction bots to do several projects simultaneously as idle bots are likely selected by proximity to the source containers of materials (if you establish local containers closer to building zones bots will accumulate nearby over time).

[<X>]

Ghosts for things where you do not have the material still fills the construction queue and they will regularly be checked postponing other construction jobs, so that will likely cause delays when you place new blueprints.

Good to know. Thank you

[astroshak]

It sounds to me like you need to set up a building train.

Have one block designated to build everything. That block supplies the building train with all of the stuffs needed to build the other city blocks. The train then takes the stuff to the city block, with low item thresholds (IE - no more than a few of any one thing needed to be held at the building station) to avoid overstocking the various building stations.

It would be just like making a solar train (builds out your solar field with materials supplied by train) or your nuclear train (builds nuclear power plant with materials supplied by train) only it would be for the rest of the base.

Remember, construction areas can overlap without actually having the logistics network connect. To help that situation, simply maintain a few rails/signals/etc. at each station so that no matter which port gets the item in the building queue, the item is there. Split out each city block into its own logistics network, with its own small(ish) construction bot fleet, and though it will still be limited by the number of build orders the game can process per tick, at least the bots won’t have nearly so far to travel and thus the construction will get done overall a bit faster.

[JimBarracus]

It sounds to me like you need to set up a building train.

Have one block designated to build everything. That block supplies the building train with all of the stuffs needed to build the other city blocks. The train then takes the stuff to the city block, with low item thresholds (IE - no more than a few of any one thing needed to be held at the building station) to avoid overstocking the various building stations.

It would be just like making a solar train (builds out your solar field with materials supplied by train) or your nuclear train (builds nuclear power plant with materials supplied by train) only it would be for the rest of the base.

Remember, construction areas can overlap without actually having the logistics network connect. To help that situation, simply maintain a few rails/signals/etc. at each station so that no matter which port gets the item in the building queue, the item is there. Split out each city block into its own logistics network, with its own small(ish) construction bot fleet, and though it will still be limited by the number of build orders the game can process per tick, at least the bots won’t have nearly so far to travel and thus the construction will get done overall a bit faster.

It could also be a good task for the spidertron. Sure you cannot fully automate it, but I think this is a nice solution.
Just throw some personal roboports in the spidertron to get a decent area covered and you are good to go.