Factorio Forums

Because I know, that some are reading this: Nothing goes over train stations with logistic bots!
(Sorry, no pic here. My PC is at home, but I'm not, so I have time to write stuff, but can only play on Mac and I've forgotten to take the map with me. We have here an example: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =10#p15125
I promise to make some photos )

They are really, really cool, I played the whole weekend with making big and bigger train stations and tried to come to the limits (one limit was for example the thing with the train stations with the same names, see https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=5&t=2190 ).

Train stations with logistic bots are most useable for
- loading trains equally (the requester chests which are filled into the trains of course)
- unloading trains, because the provider chests where the inserters put the items from the wagon into are emptied first
- storing: No question, that's why the storage chest is needed: You have just no interest what's inside a chest; it's so much, that it doesn't matter.
- sorting: A storage needs as output just some requester chests and they sort most effectively the needed material on the right belt (ahttp://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic. ... =10#p15125) , which brings it into the factory part (I use some parallel belts for that)

It looks quite amazing to have five belts of copper rolling into a cluster of 50-60 furnaces.

And it's fast! I achieved storing of over 200k items per hour in one "train station". Every train had 4 wagons, I had many trains. It would be absolutely impossible to achive that with belts, on which the inserters output the items directly, because they are not equally emptied.
The size of such a storage is BIG. 80x80 tiles is about minimum. I would say 100-120 should be planned. It's most important to keep the robotic network separated from other networks!

My next factory would look like follows:
- A big train station, as described above.
- The items are brought to the smelting factory.
- This part is so organized, that it doesn't matter, which furnace smelts which item: Copper- and iron-ore (and eventually also iron plates, but for them I don't know how I could do that in a always working way - waiting for v0.9) are just "put in" and the output is stored in a second logistic storage. Maybe connected with another train...
- From this storage the items are brought (eventually with more trains) into the "factory sites", circuits, science packs, modules, all are separated factory units with own logistic network.

Keen on playing.

Yes, nice to see that system used by others as well
Here I posted my first version of such a train station, small compared to Balthazars version
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 253#p13691

How many roboports do you use per train? My main hurdle with my train station atm is inability to quickly offload more than 2 trains on average offloading at once.

Hm. From my memory:
- train station with 2 train stops (two train at once)
- every train had 4 wagons and was full with all kinds of ores, coal and stone (so every time about 3800 items)
- unloading from two sides with inserters tooks never longer than 12-14 secs, so the trains stopped for 15 secs and with driving in and out there was a cycles of about 20-25 secs. In the maximum I got up to 10000 items per minute.
- 6 roboports (which is a bit too much, I think 5 would also work)
- 275 logistic bots which could take 3 items
- when two trains arrived, all bots are used, but they where so fast with unloading, that this tooks just 8-18 seconds. (275 x 3 x 10 = 8250 items). The rest if the time the bots used for reloading and sleeping.
- The output of the storage was after the first thirst not so big, only 2000 or so per minute. In some tests I added new requester chests to see, how fast they fill it and if that influences the speed, but it wasn't a big deal, because at some point it was better for them to unload directly into a requester than into a storage chest.

From my watching, the time between the trains is very important. It won't work with 200 bots and only 4 ports. And also not wit 350 bots and only 6 ports! There is a "window" of optimal speed and minimum/maximum amount of bots and number of ports. Or "steps", between the steps it is chaotic. When you go below that number or over that it isn't working so well. My watching also show: with only one Roboport the number of bots "regulates down" by the crashing bots to numbers between 60-80. So with two you should be able to handle 120-160. Etc. but as said, this isn't working at the stations, when the robots have no time to sleep. Making 1-2 more roboports as needed means, that the reloading is much faster and the distance to the next Roboport is not so long, which speeds the unloading, which makes them more time for sleep. Once catched in a evil cycle the bots come not out by themselves, you need to add some roboports or stop the trains for a minute or so.

Yeah I have same problem. The burst processing i have is tremendous, but continuous operation - not so much. Atm I am trying to boost my throughput but as of now my receiving terminal can process ~2500/m while my storage and shipping can only push ~1000/m and ~1500/m respectively on a continuous basis.