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Yet another green cells build :)

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 12:36 am
by LazyLoneLion
I was experimenting with builds of green cells production. Just for the sake of it. :)
Keep in mind, that I'm kind of new to Factorio.
Everyone knows standard build, AKA "3 to 2", like here:
Standard build
Standard build
factorio 2016-03-21 01-29-39-9.jpg (130.46 KiB) Viewed 53000 times
What I don't like is long handed inserters. I just don't like it. You need to remember to build it. it's kind of hassle.
So I came to this quite similar build:
Yet another green cell build
Yet another green cell build
factorio 2016-03-21 01-29-39.jpg (193.11 KiB) Viewed 53000 times
It's the same ratio "3:2" and same container-to-container inserters. It's also symmetrical and scalable.
What's different, is:

1) the design is more narrow, 17 tiles instead of 22. But it is quite higher (15 instead of 9). And you can make it even more narrow, for the price of two more underground belts (i.e. 15 tiles wide and 15 tiles high).

2) it takes more underground belts. 8 instead of zero :)

3) It takes less iron power poles (4 instead of 5).

4) no long handed inserters :) Not even one.

Really, I suppose the original build is just simpler than mine. But whatever.
Maybe you happen to have only 15 tiles for green cells production? ;)

Re: Yet another green cells build :)

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 1:31 am
by MeduSalem
I also dislike the long handed inserter sometimes... especially in combination with green circuits. They are just too slow to deal with the input/output. Either they are slowing the Iron ore input or the Circuit output.

That's why I favor layouts similar to this one:
OcLNt2b.jpg
OcLNt2b.jpg (246.35 KiB) Viewed 52988 times
That one is a bit overkill, but you get the idea. Using a belt 90° to the others really helps avoiding the use of slow Long-Handed Inserters.

Re: Yet another green cells build :)

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 8:30 am
by LazyLoneLion
Sure, I get it and like it.

You probably mean something like this (for a usual factory, without much overkill):
GreenClassic
GreenClassic
Green.JPG (105.48 KiB) Viewed 52934 times
No long handed, belts, still quite wide, but nice and neat. Just a standard build variation with 4 long handed inserters replaced by 2 underground belts and a splitter (this one is not necessary if side-loading only one lane is Ok or if you have symmetric build doubled on the left to fill another lane).

Re: Yet another green cells build :)

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 9:19 am
by BlakeMW
I sometimes use a "linear" design, something like this:

Image

Sometimes the linear design just fits well especially if your iron and copper are already side-by-side, it's also nice when used with beacons because you can place a row of assemblers next to a row of beacons. Although note if you use 4xProd3 modules you only need 1 copper wire assembler to 1 circuit assembler (a 1.4 : 1.5 ratio). Also bot designs are even better when using beacons, but sometimes bots are boring.

However I actually don't mind using long handed inserters. Normally I have a long handed inserter insert into a chest, then a fast inserter take from the chest. The chest acts as a very useful buffer, I like to build up a stockpile of about 4k green circuits, so when it comes time to make my first batch of solar panels, laser turrets or processing units I can just take a few k green circuits from the chest. I find it particulary useful for making my first ~200 processing units for power armor setup.

Re: Yet another green cells build :)

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 9:33 am
by brunzenstein
BlakeMW wrote:I sometimes use a "linear" design, something like this:
Very clever indeed!

Re: Yet another green cells build :)

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 12:37 pm
by LazyLoneLion
In fact, there is enough place to put a two beacons per this design without even reserving additional space:
GreenCircuit
GreenCircuit
Green2.JPG (114.41 KiB) Viewed 52844 times
Every beacon will affect all 5 corresponding assembling machines, and one copper machine will be affected even by two beacons :)
But I'm not using modules at the moment. It just doesn't seem like important to me.

Re: Yet another green cells build :)

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 2:25 pm
by The Phoenixian
MeduSalem wrote:I also dislike the long handed inserter sometimes... especially in combination with green circuits. They are just too slow to deal with the input/output. Either they are slowing the Iron ore input or the Circuit output.

That's why I favor layouts similar to this one:
OcLNt2b.jpg
That one is a bit overkill, but you get the idea. Using a belt 90° to the others really helps avoiding the use of slow Long-Handed Inserters.
A thought with optimizing for long handed inserters: What about using long inserters to move the circuits over an iron belt that lies between the wire and circuit factory? Like so:
Image

Ignoring how ah... terrible my old design was, I think it's worth noting that while it's certainly true that each factory must output twice as much wire as needs to be pulled from a belt, having stack size bonus 3 or greater means that long handed inserters will move four circuits at once. That's two production runs from the wire factory which brings them up to par with the rate of a single blue inserter pulling from the belt, pulling out two runs of material in twice the time.

With a speed of ~0.4* seconds to move two items and ~0.8* seconds to move 4 items, that's almost exactly equal to the unmodified speed of a tier 3 assembly machine running wires, or circuits.

Of course the middle wire assembler in this setup has historically been problematic due to the possibility of pulling too many wires from one side and leaving the other half barren but even if that's just a problem for fast inserters and not something inherent to the design it should be relatively easy to work around. (Simply via pushing that assembler one space closer and running an underground belt beneath it)

So if that can be solved then, mathematically, speed modules or modded machines will outpace the system, but nothing else will.

*as pulled from the wiki.
LazyLoneLion wrote: But I'm not using modules at the moment. It just doesn't seem like important to me.
And now that you mention that, I notice that the raw cost of a lvl 1 module is roughly equal to an lvl 2 assembler and a lvl 2 module is almost double the resource cost of a lvl 3 assembler. I'm going to have to keep that in mind for future games.

Re: Yet another green cells build :)

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 3:00 pm
by MeduSalem
The Phoenixian wrote:So if that can be solved then, mathematically, speed modules or modded machines will outpace the system, but nothing else will.
That's a reason why using Beacons together with Belt Setups is too problematic. The inserters inputting from/outputting to the belt can't handle the throughput. If I use beacons then it's always with Robots to profit from the Inserter Stack Size Bonus. Then I can boost the Assemblers to oblivion and never have to worry about anything.

If Loaders should become implemented then they could alleviate the problem, but it would strongly depend on how they are implemented. If it requires a lot of Splitter mess then they are utterly useless because they would take up so much room together with the Loaders that there is no space left to use any beacons... and without beacons one doesn't need a Loader.

If they would be implemented in a way that they allow item throughput from the "input belt side" to the "output belt side", something like this:
Loaders Concept 4a.png
Loaders Concept 4a.png (49.46 KiB) Viewed 52783 times
Then I imagine it could work.

If throughput from inserting with an Inserter to the belt becomes a bottleneck, you plop the loader ontop of the belt and then the inserter inputs into/outputs from the loader as an intermediate step using the Stack Size Bonus and the Loader then fills the gaps of the belt running underneath.

If done well with the filtered slots and which items are allowed to flow from the input belt side to the output belt side the Loader might actually have quite a lot of applications. Otherwise they won't be really viable for use with Assemblers/Furnaces.

Re: Yet another green cells build :)

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 10:49 pm
by BlakeMW
MeduSalem wrote: That's a reason why using Beacons together with Belt Setups is too problematic. The inserters inputting from/outputting to the belt can't handle the throughput.
Indeed. With my linear green circuit factory linked to earlier (using 4xprod3 modules) it can only support a single row of beacons (that is along one side), if there are beacons on both sides even 3x fast inserters just can't keep up with the crafting speed. Although with only a single row of beacons, the green circuit factory with 3x fast inserter on iron plates, 2x fast inserter on output (to chests, you can use 4x fast inserter from the chests onto belts) and 2x fast inserter on copper wire (direct insert) does work okay. It doesn't make very good use of the prod3 modules (because ideally you want them enjoying the benefit of 8 speed beacons) but it's still pretty impressive.

Re: Yet another green cells build :)

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 10:52 pm
by Kingslayer9
Heard you don't like Long Hand Inserters, while this isn't exactly compact, seeing as it's 25 wide from substation to substation, you could expand it upwards or downwards, depending on where your inputs are, to the point the machines take all the resources off the belt, my current factory has two of them roughly standing 20 Green circuits tall, at that height it pushes out more than enough personally for an early factory.

Thing to note as Green circuits take 3 Copper Cables is that there is a small amount of down time in each circuit machine, I don't really notice it as if you're pushing out more than you need then it backs up anyway and stops them being put onto the belt.

Re: Yet another green cells build :)

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 8:34 am
by gaharmun
If you put productivity 3 modules in both assemblers, the ideal ratio of copper cable to green circuit assembler is close to 1:1.

At full load, this thing achieves about 2/3 ish compression on a blue belt. (full compression, when using the buffer storage)
It is pretty compact as im using a third less assemblers. Sure, the output rate of circuit assmblers is a bit slower per assembler, but you can compensate for this by adding another row and it is still very compact.

plus: The prod modules drastically reduces the stress on your infrastructure as you only need about 51% copper and 71% iron plate as usual per circuit.

Hi guys: Yet another green cells build :)

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 8:47 am
by brunzenstein
Hi guys!
I follow with astonishment your dedicated elaboration on the matter of green cells. One could/can learn a lot of things here.
My wish is that you would now move on to focus on heavy oil processing, cracking, lossless and economic use and transport of the resulting products.
Start a new subject on the matter of oil processing and transport (barrel or line) please -
Thats a problem for many as the fine- tuning of the output of the refinery site is not a so easy matter - at least for newbies like me..

Re: Hi guys: Yet another green cells build :)

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 9:42 am
by Hakusho
brunzenstein wrote:Hi guys!
I follow with astonishment your dedicated elaboration on the matter of green cells. One could/can learn a lot of things here.
My wish is that you would now move on to focus on heavy oil processing, cracking, lossless and economic use and transport of the resulting products.
Start a new subject on the matter of oil processing and transport (barrel or line) please -
Thats a problem for many as the fine- tuning of the output of the refinery site is not a so easy matter - at least for newbies like me..

You could also start a new topic yourself and ask for advice/pictures/help (optional with your current build/idea/problems). ;)
I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people who would love to help you improve your factory or teach you new things. And people who want to show their crazy builds are everywhere in this forum :D

Re: Yet another green cells build :)

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 9:56 am
by brunzenstein
I though about this too - but - as the level in this very thread is very high (at least for me) I abstained from posting my laymen's products not to spoil the quality.

Re: Yet another green cells build :)

Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 11:13 pm
by zytukin
I don't like those long handed inserters either. Too slow for most things. But they are easy to avoid with liberal use of underground belts.

I also don't like the thought of inserters moving things building to building.
If something somewhere backs up and green circuits aren't as high in demand, then the wire assemblers would also shut down, with a conveyor, the wires could still be moved to other buildings or a passive storage could be implemented in between the wires and circuits.

So, my solution:
It is kinda crazy, but I was squeezing it all into some empty space.
It's not the *entire* setup as wires also come in from a few other areas.
wires.jpg
wires.jpg (280.47 KiB) Viewed 50960 times

Re: Yet another green cells build :)

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2016 12:36 am
by vanatteveldt
brunzenstein wrote:
BlakeMW wrote:I sometimes use a "linear" design, something like this:
Very clever indeed!
I was inspired by this design to try to "linearize" all production, ie have units that are as narrow as possible, and ideally can be "infinitely copied" (chained) to the side, that is, until the input belts are depleted.

This is two units of green circuit production.

Image

Since you need 1.5 copper per circuit, the two lanes of copper won't saturate a blue belt output belt completely (but probably good enough for me). However, you can easily untangle copper and iron if you add another belt above and below, and use an underground on the copper to allow the iron to reach the assmbler without long inserters.

In the same vein, this is my red+green science:

Image

You can't chain the green science as is, but you could merge the iron with the output lane (just as I did with the gears for the red science) and that would make it chainable. As one green science requires 5.5 iron, a single blue lane would supper 20 green science assembly plants (at 1x speed), which is probably enough for most people :)

Edit: and finally red circuit production:

Inspired by the "space efficient red circuit" thread (viewtopic.php?f=8&t=18770#p122155), with as only "innovation" that I run the cable+output belt backwards so I don't need the return belt. The copper belt can be shared by a second units above the current one as you need copper, plastic, and green in equal proportions. Each circuit assembler needs 2 from each lane per 8 seconds, so I guess a blue lane of each input can support 80 assemblers at single speed, so you can chain 5 units horizontally.

Re: Yet another green cells build :)

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2016 6:08 pm
by SJCubed
This is my green cell build.

Image

Re: Yet another green cells build :)

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2016 6:49 pm
by mooklepticon
SJCubed wrote:This is my green cell build.
Why go from assembler->steel chest->provider chest->bus?

Re: Yet another green cells build :)

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2016 7:56 pm
by SJCubed
mooklepticon wrote:
SJCubed wrote:This is my green cell build.
Why go from assembler->steel chest->provider chest->bus?
It's mostly for buffer storage. I could technically change the provider chest to just steel chest but it's in my blueprint so oh wells :P

Re: Yet another green cells build :)

Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2016 4:50 pm
by grouchysmurf
A necro, I know, but I wanted to brag about my approach nonetheless, hope you don't mind.

Like other people here I also don't like long inserters. What I also don't like is the asymmetry in the green circuit production -- 3/2 ratio renders unappealing pattern. While YMMV, I personally don't like the spacing it imposes.

Hence following layout:

Image

I assume use of level 2 assemblers with no modules:
  • nine fast inserters starve out half-full compressed belt of copper so it needs to be fed in
  • you need ~20 green circuit factories to saturize red belt.
blueprint string