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So after playing a game where I was using a logistics network to unload my trains into, for this new game I set out to do the ore sorting using only belts. I play using the resource spawner overhaul mod, so resources in the starting area are fairly limited and I need to branch out fairly early in the game to even get my basic factory up and running. Obviously, this gives me an excuse to play with trains a lot (at this stage, I have 11 trains running around - only got run over once!)
All trains have two wagons. One that hauls the incoming goods (all of copper, iron, coal, stone and oil) and the back carriage carries supplies back to the outposts. With so many trains and the manual setup involved, I prefer not to pick up the trains after I set them up, so any trains not currently needed are parked at a special stop near the main station. Unloading is done using 7 inserters, takes just under 20 seconds (I'm sure we've all timed this whenever we're using trains on a larger scale ) From the chests, the materials are unloaded unto a set of belts to lead into the sorting area.
In the sorting area, smart inserters pick stuff off the belt and send it on its way to the buffers to the south. While I'm not using logistics for the ore handling, I do have it all sitting in logistics chests, so I can easily tell how much I still have in stock. Also, filled oil barrels get handled by the logistics network, because those are such low volume. South of the sorting area are the smelters, nothing too special about them I suppose. Output goes onto a belt and into a buffer on the other side. To really stresstest the setup, I shamelesly copied DaveMcW's module 3 factory (https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=8&t=5905). The power requirements added something extra too, I have a dedicated station for incoming coal next to a battery of 200 steam engines to power that whole thing
Finally, the full map so far looks like this
Overall, I think it's a nice setup, but I think next time I'll again go for a (possibly dedicated) logistic network for unloading the trains. Main reason being that this scales rather poorly, adding an extra set of stops is quite a bit of work (not so much the sorting area itself, that's mostly copy-paste, but the output needs to be fed into the rest of the system at some point). Also, this system doesn't handle buffer overflows too well. I have some chests at the end of the sorting area that pick up everything that makes it through and takes it to an extra sorting line, but once those are full as well the entire sorting on one or two belts could potentially stop.

Come to think of it, I suppose by bringing the output lines further to the east instead of down, that could probably help with the scaling problems. Perhaps a challenge for my next game after all


*edit* I notice the spoiler tags don't give scrollbars, so some of the wider images get cut off on the right. Right-click -> open to view the full image.

Boogieman14 wrote:*edit* I notice the spoiler tags don't give scrollbars, so some of the wider images get cut off on the right. Right-click -> open to view the full image.

I believe the forum itself cuts images off at a certain width, whether an image is in a spoiler or not.

I've been trying to find a good unloading and sorting system that fit's within a relatively compact area. I use an inline buffering and rebalancing system I designed to store ore prior to sending it to smelting. The copper one in the image below fit well, though the location of the iron one on the other hand was constrained by the space available, since I originally didn't have buffering built into the system.

I filtered each cargo wagon to haul half Iron, half copper. I dedicated a separate train to carrying outpost supplies (walls, turrets, repair packs) that run to a number of dedicated stops at various defensive positions. It just seems like a waste to have an extra wagon on every train for that purpose, unless the biters are really doing a lot of damage and you need to get a ton of outpost supplies delivered on a constant basis.

sbroadbent wrote: I've been trying to find a good unloading and sorting system that fit's within a relatively compact area. I use an inline buffering and rebalancing system I designed to store ore prior to sending it to smelting. The copper one in the image below fit well, though the location of the iron one on the other hand was constrained by the space available, since I originally didn't have buffering built into the system.

I guess that's another approach, one I hadn't even considered Only downside I see is that it probably doesn't scale too well to coal and stone (both of which I also need to import, because of smallish fields in the starting area)

I dedicated a separate train to carrying outpost supplies (walls, turrets, repair packs) that run to a number of dedicated stops at various defensive positions. It just seems like a waste to have an extra wagon on every train for that purpose, unless the biters are really doing a lot of damage and you need to get a ton of outpost supplies delivered on a constant basis.

Yeah, I considered that too. I decided to go for this approach, because this way I won't need to remember to add a new stop to the supply train(s).

Boogieman14 wrote:I guess that's another approach, one I hadn't even considered Only downside I see is that it probably doesn't scale too well to coal and stone (both of which I also need to import, because of smallish fields in the starting area)

In this particular factory Stone (and Limestone because I'm using the Roadworks Mod) has it's own dedicated station to supply the stone works area (anything that requires stone including rails, walls and the roadworks tiles). Although Coal unloading was not planned for, I have an existing stop that I can convert to unloading Coal which was originally used to Load Solid Fuel to be delivered to my Steam Engines that I had relocated away from the main base. The Solid Fuel line isn't used for much anymore now since the factory runs pretty exclusively on Solar/Accumulators with Steam solely as a backup. The Solid Fuel stop is likewise relatively close to my Plastics production that it makes more sense to use it than the main unloading station. Since it is also near my Oil Refineries, if I ever needed to import Oil via train, it can also function as an Oil Transfer station.

Having separate trains and dedicated stops for different materials simplifies things. A good option for you, since you're only unloading from one side of the train would be to switch the existing inserters to smart inserters with Copper/Iron settings, while placing a second set on the other side with stone/coal settings.

I love looking at the different sorting ideas that are out there!

The main problem with sorting is the potential for a jamb. With a sizable buffer and reactionary mining, the problem can be ignored (ex. you have 300 storage chests to place iron ore and 300 for copper and you expand your mining operation to evenly fill both types of storage). However, I think the more elegant solution is provide circuit controls to limit the intake of an ore you have too much of (ex. when the storage for iron ore exceeds 25% of its capacity, the red wire network tells the iron ore mining station to stop loading the iron ore on the train wagons. When storage is at 10% it starts loading again).

The other thing I like to do is put my sorter on a circular path. With a circular path (I use an "s" shape that returns on itself), items will recycle if they aren't removed on the first pass. This is advantageous when you consider sorting oil barrels. With a linear sorter, you will need 8+ smart inserters (per wagon!) to remove every type of item from the sorting belt even though the overall amount of "oil barrels", in this case, is only 50 barrels every 10 minutes. With a circular sorter, you only need 1 smart inserter to remove the oil barrels. It just takes a little longer for all of the barrels to be removed. Of course for high volume items (circuits with a stack size of 200 being one of the worst) you would want to have 16+ smart inserters to feed the circuits into the factory. A circular path, where room allows, can scale fairly nicely too.

Here is a related link -

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=8&t=5588

Yeah, I actually have an overflow area with a separate sorting area as well. You can actually see if on the overview picture. On the right end side of the incoming belts is a bunch of inserters that just put everything in chests (with backup chests daisychained) that then put it on the far right upward belt to go through that extra sorting line at the top and then feed what then remains back into the loop (on the top track, which is used least frequently anyway). I now notice I never got around to hooking those outputs up to anything though But I actually got "done" with that game, so I just started a new challenge using DyTech mods for some new stuff Will probably go for a dedicated lognet for train unloading though, mostly because of the number of different ores it offers (and because it does give a more compact design, which is probably beneficial given that I'll try a game with big and many biter nests )