Afferent/Efferent Rail Design

Smart setups of railway stations, intelligent routing, solutions to complex train-routing problems.
Please provide - only if it makes sense of course - a blueprint of your creation.
Dry Hairy Tree
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Re: Afferent/Efferent Rail Design

Post by Dry Hairy Tree »

Here's the Uranium Processing-Kovarex-Fuel Cell set up. This should take care of 2 x 4 Reactor Builds. I do not know if it'll do 1 x 6 Reactor build I've not got the numbers.
AfEf11.jpg
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Uranium ore entering from the left is processed and leaves the processing facility via two filter inserters for 235 and 238 respectively. the 235 (above) is spare (for other purposes) and gives me a tally of the 235 actually mined (the 40 to prime the Kovarex, plus what goes in the box/boxes). The 238 enters a central box to split off to Kovarex and fuel cells. The inserters are wired so 19 is put in the box for the fuel cells and 3 in the box for the Kovarex. Waste not want not.

The top box to the left of the Kovarex process is primed with one stack of 238 and limited to one stack. The Kovarex is primed with 40 x 235. Two filter inserters exit the kovarex process, one recycles the 2 x 238 via the two boxes, one sends 41 x 235 into the box below the Kovarex...

There are three fast inserters in a diagonal row between the Kovarex and the fuel cells. Top right, wired to left box: U235 = 0. Centre, wired to right box: U235 < 40. Bottom left, wired to right box: U235 = 40. All have stack size adjusted to 1.

The gist is that only the one spare 235 enters the fuel cells at a time. This creates 10 x fuel cells lasting 4 x reactors 500 seconds. Within that time this process will create enough 238 and Kovarex 235 to replenish the 4 x reactors more than twice. By limiting the number of fuel cells delivered to the provider chest the entire process right back to mining can be governed by what is actually consumed.

I'm sure there's an easier way, but it's highly efficient.

For military, make a separate system.

vanatteveldt
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Re: Afferent/Efferent Rail Design

Post by vanatteveldt »

Not sure if it's useful, but I just added blueprints for a 1.7G nuke plant that needs only a 22 tile straight waterfront: viewtopic.php?f=208&t=47895&p=304962#p304962

I like your idea of decentralizing U235 production, maybe I'll adapt it to include it in the design so it only consumes iron and uranium ore.
According to my (untested) calculation (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing) one set of enrichment plants should be able to provide the fuel cells for 12 nukes, consuming about 30 U ore per minute and less than 3 iron plates.

Edit: I just made a blueprint for a slightly different design including reprocessing, see below. Disadvantage is that it is not very U-235 efficient, as the kovarex is only used 25% (so the 40 U-235 is mostly sitting idle), even worse compared to a speed-boosted kovarex. On the other hand, the logistics are simpler: just ship ore to the nuke plant and forget about it, and you don't need to ship back empty cells or regulate military/building vs power plant use.

Reprocessing feeds directly into kovarex with surplus sent to the fuel cell plant (via the red inserter, enabled on U238>10). Kovarex is rate-limited to allow enough 238 to go to the fuel cell: the 238 inserter is disabled if there is 235 waiting to be fed into the fuel cell plant. Processing U235 also feeds into the fuel cell plant (via a buffer chest to prevent processing stopping if there is an abundance of 235). I also use an extra chest for the 235 stream from kovarex, not sure if it is needed. You need to prime with U235 and probably best to include a stack of 238 to enable fuel cell production to start right away.
decentralized nuke fuel
blueprint
Edit: and for reference, here is my design for the smelter, feeding a 1-4-1 plates train from a 2-8-2 ore train. I decided to put the incoming and outgoing lines next to each other and have two blocks of 125 smelters on both sides. I put the rails 6 apart so I can fit a row of roboports next to the load/unload. It seems to use about 2-3k robots and achieves the theoretical value of 48k plates per minute from 40k ore (i.e. the amount of smelters is the bottleneck, not the un/loading). The amount of roboports is presumably overkill :) (but I have no clue how to determine required #roboports

smelter
blueprint

Dry Hairy Tree
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Re: Afferent/Efferent Rail Design

Post by Dry Hairy Tree »

When I get reprocessing I'll send it to the only 238 requester (the box that splits between kovarex and fuel cells). I'll limit the input from the processor so the recycled material gets included within the requesters 'stack' (request a few more than the processor is allowed to input).

That's a sweet smelting setup. Mine can't perform as fast the beacons serve double lines of smelters rather than double beacons serving lines. I think I like your design better but it's getting a bit late to start again (again). I'm getting there...
AfEf 12.jpg
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Not even bothering to set up copper lines for a while. Started mining to the side first, patch right there, Stone too. taking advantage of that as there is/was so many other things to do.

See I have three, THREE types of stations in the centre and their respective destinations according to flow required. OCD need not apply. But need to test this idea with a few things, y'know. One's a high flow loop (to labs), one a medium flow double header (refinery to circuits), one a two way on a single track (to building store).

A line to power from the refinery still required. Minimal traffic so a single line will do there too. I have as of now 0 beacons and advanced modules, but even this skeleton is humming along ok. Need rocket science for robot speed upgrades eventually. They're crazy good around level 10.

No bad intersections. i can see a smelting area like yours with trains delivering plate right to other delivery stations and a circuit/module area could work very well.

I'm making gears in the central area too. Cut's transport space in half which will become important.

vanatteveldt
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Re: Afferent/Efferent Rail Design

Post by vanatteveldt »

Cool, looking good :)

The smelter is in creative mode, I don't even have production or hitech research setup yet.

I wanted to have multiple plants of most type but I'm afraid that my computer won't be able to handle multiple 50k/min smelters (and the rest of the base to consume all those plates...). So I'm thinking I should probably use smaller trains; I might even use 1-2-1 double header trains to artificially lower throughput and make stations more compact.

Edit: half-capacity smelter, turning 2x1-2-1 ore into 1x1-2-1 plates (with some leftover ore capacity due to productivity), or about 25k plates per minute. There's room for a PAX line on the S. Seems to use about 1k robots at full (non-inf) upgrades. The double row of roboports seems enough on full capacity, haven't seen any charging queues yet.
double header smelter stop

Dry Hairy Tree
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Re: Afferent/Efferent Rail Design

Post by Dry Hairy Tree »

I like it! Just not that, y'know, crossover :D

I've run rail around the second iron outpost site to show how I can eliminate intersections despite multiple trains running. Merge points only.
AfEf 13.jpg
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This will service one upgraded 600x smelting area with 4 stations having two trains working each. The smelting rows are actually 28, I miscounted, but more will get added with final tweaks.

Was monitoring the lab station boxes as heavy demand research took place. This quickly identified which resources were in highest demand (iron). After making gears available on the train (and removing lab gear assembly) the demand was for copper. This is good. Easy to deal with.

I could get some rocket assembly going on but I'd rather put in it's own dedicated refinery first. It's with the main refinery, planning plastic/solid fuel set-up across the railway tracks. I have explosives delivered to my building store train already. Might be time to do a bit of nuclear negotiation with the neighbors.

Dry Hairy Tree
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Re: Afferent/Efferent Rail Design

Post by Dry Hairy Tree »

And here's copper's rail hooked up for the first smelter. Only three stations due to the vicinity of the first patch. Branch as close to the resource as possible, branch length determined by two train lengths.

I think this is also proof of concept. Without intersections train jams will never happen. And throughput is mostly assured.
AfEf 14.jpg
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It looks a bit crappy but those resources so close forced rail spaghetti in close. With this second attempt again I can see so much room for improvement, including more compact smelting like you've shown me. And I think keeping smelting as separate networks will greatly improve bot efficiency. Plate trains looping into the circuits and back through the smelters. That'd be sweet throughput for sure.


This thing's making beacons and modules now, but I'm a bit bored with it. Flesh out the bits, build rockets...

Maybe I'm just tired. Development or new map, we shall see.

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Re: Afferent/Efferent Rail Design

Post by Dry Hairy Tree »

Allright. I've spent 45 hours (10 of them hypnotised by trains/robots) on a new factory. It spits out a rocket every 2:10 - 2:12 and the labs outpace the rockets providing 1000 x packs of other science types - then waiting for rockets to catch up. Edit: It spits the rockets out that pace as I've limited them to that pace. It could go faster but I'm just observing the system for now - for the next, better and bigger factory :roll:

Still things to be done e.g. inputs can be doubled in speed if I want without enlarging infrastructure. But it's fully functional and remarkably small considering the output.

I used your nuclear 2x6 design vannatteveldt. But I doubled it up this morning as I was going over what it could do. BTW it holds at 1.7 GW quite well. There's a few superflous pipes by the pumps to remove, and one piece of pipe missing in the very corner. I removed your conditions they were not kicking off. Overall I am really happy you provided the blueprint it's a kickass amount of power I got now, potentially 3.4 GW, and it looks good. Couldn't be bothered designing a big nuke plant I made so much other stuff I just wanted to see it run...
AfEf 15.jpg
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And so far, it runs really sweet. I'll show ya a really tight smelting design soon. Got visitors now...

Dry Hairy Tree
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Re: Afferent/Efferent Rail Design

Post by Dry Hairy Tree »

Internally, the factory is based on the nervous system.

This is the 'base of the spine'.
AfEf 16.jpg
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The lab train (centre) 'starts' here. It works along the track through a series of four stations picking things up as it goes then dumping them all at the labs and returning. The condition for each lab train station is a period of time determined by total demand for an item (always round to over-supply), item stack size, and number of stack inserters/chests available. Iron, copper and green circuits are all loaded at stations 1 and 2, as they are available at both, reducing the need for wait times by half.

This is the 'brainstem'.
AfEf 17.jpg
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Two trains service the labs. The main one and a steel/brick/coal train. Rockets and science have both been slowed down as I've hijacked lots of production for modules to beef up all circuit production. Once the entire base is outfitted the need for modules is gone, till then, they sure eat a lot of stuff. :shock:

The base pictured (in the post) above is basically separate bot networks connected by trains. It's a bit of a catch-22 to set up as the later game researches and equipment to really beef up production are not available as you build, or too expensive making build times impractical. The whole thing was blue assemblers at first. I still haven't made military science in the brain yet. Got everything there... I've been taking on behemoth spitters and biters with laser damage 2 and laser speed 2 - lol! Lose a few turrets but it's fun. Run past em and drop a line of power poles then circle round and run back with turrets haha.

I have a copper patch with 400M ore. I'm not going to tap it yet. I'm going to amass mining production researches, 75 of them, giving me 150% production bonus, for a 1 Billion ore outpost. I have an iron patch even larger. :D

Out here in the badlands is where the real riches can be found. Shun your silly start positions and venture out into the wilds.

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