Just In Time modular factory

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Optymistyk
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Just In Time modular factory

Post by Optymistyk »

For those who don't know Just In Time(JIT) is a method of manufacturing which aims to minimize overproduction while providing a satisfying response time. Basically what it does is you order a bunch of stuff and shortly after it gets delivered to you, but the factory doesn't produce things that are not necessary.You just type into this Constant Combinator whatever you need and the nearby chest(s) will be filled with the exact ammount of items you had ordered.

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It is a factory template I designed as an alternative to the popular Main Bus template. I wanted to aim this towards PvE gamemodes cuz I think it provides a lot of benefits if you consider Biters.

When you think about it Biters are a mechanic that punishes the player for overproduction. The more you overproduce the more pollution you create, the stronger the Biter attacks, the more ammo and turrets you need to replace the losses, the more pollution you make and on and on... It's a vicious cycle. Before you know it you'll be fighting Tier 4 Biter armies with rows of turrets and spend more time running around to fix things than actually building. That's why I think the Efficiency modules are so good, 80% reduction to pollution means Biters are a lot less threatening. In theory by minimizing overproduction and utilizing Efficiency modules you can make it so Biters rarely ever attack you at all and in very weak groups.

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Here it is in all it's glory. This is a Sandbox game, I am yet to test this in Freeplay, but I really like how it turned out. It really doesn't require that many resources and it only needs some basic green science tech to work(railways and combinators). The combinator setup is quite complex but that is not really a problem because you can just copy-paste using blueprints and not worry about the innerworkings one bit. Combinators are also really cheap all things considered. Much cheaper than this

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(notice the extreme overproduction of the Main Bus template)

With mods it could require less combinators, but I wanted it to be possible in Vanilla

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Above is what I call a "cell". It is a basic module. Each cell produces one type of item, but there can be multiple cells producing the same type of item if you really want.This particular one produces Engines. It's a "Black Box". All you need to know to use it is: You build it, you do some simple setup with Constant Combinators, then you put any spaghetti production line you want inside it and it's gonna work.

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If you want to know here's how it works more in-depth

Each cell can order items from other cells that it needs for production. For example if I order 20 Engines, then the Engine cell will order 20 Steel,20 Gears,40 Pipes from other cells. It has an "input" station on the left and an "output" station on the right. Trains arrive at the "input" station, drop off the exact ammount of items the cell needs, and go to the next cell that needs parts. The cell produces the items and calls a train to pick them up, then load the exact ammount that was ordered. What makes it JIT and not On-demand is that each cell also stores a small ammount of items in a buffer, for quick responses to small orders. The size of the buffer of course can be set manually. If you build multiple cells of the same type of item they will distribute the workload equally. The entire thing is setup in such a way that trains don't make unnecesary trips to save on fuel and avoid jamming the railways

I'm gonna try this in Freeplay and if I still like it I might post blueprints and a guide to setting this thing up

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disentius
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Re: Just In Time modular factory

Post by disentius »

Cool!
MojoD has something like this, with robots:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOxDM30wEaQ

Optymistyk
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Re: Just In Time modular factory

Post by Optymistyk »

disentius wrote:
Wed Sep 23, 2020 2:05 pm
Cool!
MojoD has something like this, with robots:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOxDM30wEaQ
That is really cool too, more compact than mine but it does require bots which come later

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