Very early r/g science factories

[grouchysmurf]

Right, so first I must say the early game is what I am enjoying best: making most with very limited resources is what I'm keen on (that's sad that coal age doesn't - and can't - last for long; most of facilities require electricity which renders burner drills and my favourite burner inserters everything but useful). That is why I tinker mostly with low level designs.

Anyway, early game is also a research rush - you want to establish your defences as soon as possible, start the trains and crack oil so setting up red / green science production is of crucial importance.

With no automation, you would provide resources by yourself i.e. put them in chests, as few as possible, preferably. The following should let you through first red researches:



Should you discover automation T2, you may establish green science factory; there are dozens of approaches - mine uses hardly any belts, hand-crafting of which takes time and in general is against spirit of factorio where you strive to AUTOMATE all the things. There are only two input chests: one for iron plates, the other for copper ones. You may want to feed into first one as many of them as possible, as the factory eats them up in a fast pace:



Later on you would simply feed in two belts, one with copper, other one with iron to automate the production:

[brunzenstein]

I fully agree with you - find get clever solutions within the first ⅓ within the game is the most fun.

[AlyxDeLunar]

I really like your design for the green science. It's compact but still simple and tidy. I do love tidy builds

[grouchysmurf]

Thanks.

Just don't you forget to limit storage of the chests to just one slot or you may end up with hundreds of iron gears.

[mennoo1996]

Did you ever try the marathon mod? It lengthens the early game/burner stage a lot

[vanatteveldt]

Nice design. I always automate circuits before green science, but I guess there is really no need to.

If you move the cable and circuit assemblers one down, it is a bit more compact and looks better (imho) because the top assemblers are aligned.

Edit: for reference, this is the green/red I am currently using. Has a single copper+iron belt as input and a green/red belt as output:

science

[grouchysmurf]

You're right, it looks a bit more compact:



Personally I strive to feed in only raw resources i.e. I would always make green circuits on site.

Yours is very clean and "airy", from the lack of better word. I like how you managed to align all assemblers in one line - looks neat!

[zebediah49]

If you're willing to give up the intermediate chests, you can drop the long-inserter requirement as well

[grouchysmurf]

@zebediah49: hey, that looks cool! Thanks, that's even simpler and neater. However, I am not that sure about giving up on chests -- they are a buffers of some kinds and should there be a shortage of anything, science would keep on going. That's not something, though, that would made me not using your design so thanks for sharing

[Guu]

my decision, where each assembly has a dual task

[Quax]

You're right, it looks a bit more compact:



Personally I strive to feed in only raw resources i.e. I would always make green circuits on site.

Yours is very clean and "airy", from the lack of better word. I like how you managed to align all assemblers in one line - looks neat!

How do you get an even production in this setup? I have one side running idle allways as the gear factory cannot satisfy both the needs of the belt and the inserter factory?

[Mehve]

You can't run both the belt and the inserter assembler at full speed from a single gear assembler. What should happen over time is one of the two assemblers backs up, since they're being made faster than the green pack assemblers are using them, at which point the other gets their full share of the gears produced, and things level out. But if you have too many assemblers, that will never happen. Assuming similar tier assemblers, I imagine you'd be good for roughly 5 or 6 green pack assemblers per gear assembler.

[Quax]

You can't run both the belt and the inserter assembler at full speed from a single gear assembler. What should happen over time is one of the two assemblers backs up, since they're being made faster than the green pack assemblers are using them, at which point the other gets their full share of the gears produced, and things level out. But if you have too many assemblers, that will never happen. Assuming similar tier assemblers, I imagine you'd be good for roughly 5 or 6 green pack assemblers per gear assembler.

You're right, I wittnessed that after some minutes (half an hour?) of gameplay both gear boxes are filled up (I set a maximum of 100 gears for each), thus making the inserter/belt production more or less Independent from each other.

[mrvn]

You can't run both the belt and the inserter assembler at full speed from a single gear assembler. What should happen over time is one of the two assemblers backs up, since they're being made faster than the green pack assemblers are using them, at which point the other gets their full share of the gears produced, and things level out. But if you have too many assemblers, that will never happen. Assuming similar tier assemblers, I imagine you'd be good for roughly 5 or 6 green pack assemblers per gear assembler.

You're right, I wittnessed that after some minutes (half an hour?) of gameplay both gear boxes are filled up (I set a maximum of 100 gears for each), thus making the inserter/belt production more or less Independent from each other.

That's why I would always make this without chests. The buffer means one side will get way to many on some things before it blocks and the other side gets to run. Early on this is the worst. The gear factory will eat up all the iron plates and then the circuit boards can't be produced due to lack of them and so on.

There is also a trick you can do in some cases: Feed the assembler with one or more fast inserters and remove the product with two slow inserters. If you can produce items faster than one slow inserter can handle then they will alternate between the two slow inserters giving you an even split. Only works if you can sustain the production speed. If you don't input enough source materials then usually one side still gets all output till it blocks.

The setup above really could use a few fast inserters too. By the time you need green science you should be able to afford a few.

[renius]

Very early rg science that can be scaleable

[huliosh]

more compact and balanced


edit:
Not a problem, it's even more balanced.

[Xeanoa]

more compact and balanced

But yellow assemblers are not early game. You'll need two plants for copper wire and two for gear wheels.

[mrvn]

Nice

[Nich]

I love this design it is the same basic thing I came up with after 3 hours of farting around :/ Except you version has every thing tightened up better. I also fed mine with a 1/2 copper 1/2 iron input.

You can also pull off extra belts and inserters as they can support up to 12 green assemblers (if you upgrade belts to blue). but I like the 5/6/12 science ratio.

[vanatteveldt]

more compact and balanced

Why the long-handed inserters where normal inserters would work as well? Also, for 6 science assemblers, do you actually need the extra gear+cable?