GC "The Fish": Compact tileable beaconed belt-based green circuits
Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2020 6:33 am
by selplacei
This is a belt-based factory that produces green circuits from iron and copper plates. One segment ( = one fully compressed blue belt of GC) takes 6 assemblers, 21 inserters, no splitters, and 23 beacons, with each additional tiled segment costing 13 beacons. The actual blueprint consists of two symmetrical segments in order to make it easy to tile - if you need an odd number of output belts, just remove the extra segment. The power lines looks like a fish from the map view, hence the name.
The compression of the output is guaranteed given enough input, but takes a while from the moment the factory is started. If you let the output back up first, it should remain compressed.
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Re: GC "The Fish": Compact tileable beaconed belt-based green circuits
Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2020 4:21 pm
by blazespinnaker
Very cool. I'll try this out sometime soon. I was building something like this, but this is much better. Have you measured it for "in use %". Ie, how often are the the assemblers waiting on input / output? Are there ever any gaps in the compressed belts?
Also, are the medium electric poles between the beacons best? A substation outside the build would work as well. Might be able to squeeze in another beacon effect.
Re: GC "The Fish": Compact tileable beaconed belt-based green circuits
Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2020 10:48 pm
by foamy
blazespinnaker wrote: ↑Sat Dec 19, 2020 4:21 pm
Very cool. I'll try this out sometime soon. I was building something like this, but this is much better. Have you measured it for "in use %". Ie, how often are the the assemblers waiting on input / output? Are there ever any gaps in the compressed belts?
Also, are the medium electric poles between the beacons best? A substation outside the build would work as well. Might be able to squeeze in another beacon effect.
I don't think more beacons are needed to achieve the goal of one belt of compressed output; if I'm checking this correctly, it's at the exact number of effects on the assemblers to get 1:1 wire/circuit ratio, and you can't reduce beyond three chip assemblers for anything short of a full beacon box with only three prod mods & one speed in the assembler itself. And if you're doing that, direct insertion of wire becomes difficult; you cannot get a 1:1 ratio of wire:chip assemblers any more, nor can you reach the chip assemblers directly from the wire assemblers even if you could. Also, you'd need two inserters per wire assembler just to output fast enough if you did a 3:2 layout, since you'd need to move ~34.6 wires per second and a stack inserter's max throughput is around 27.7 items/sec.
I have a question about the middle wire assembler, though: It looks like it's only fed by one stack inserter, instead of the two stack inserters used on the ends. Does it wind up input limited as a result?
Re: GC "The Fish": Compact tileable beaconed belt-based green circuits
Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2020 7:16 am
by selplacei
foamy wrote: ↑Sat Dec 19, 2020 10:48 pm
I have a question about the middle wire assembler, though: It looks like it's only fed by one stack inserter, instead of the two stack inserters used on the ends. Does it wind up input limited as a result?
It seems so, but I tested the build for quite some time and the output is always compressed regardless. Keep in mind that the underground belt makes it so that the inserter picks up copper faster than it would from a regular belt; if I replace the undergrounds with anything else, the output starts having gaps.
Re: GC "The Fish": Compact tileable beaconed belt-based green circuits
Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2021 3:51 am
by Belter
Edit: I liked this challenge really, spent some time on it.. It proved how good the fish is!
The 3+3 assembler setup
I've created - a for me - bit more straighforward version inspired by the fish:
- 2 tiles shorter but 1 tile higher
- only blue belts
- 24 inserters (same # as the fish, but not filter)
- 23 beacons (same # as the fish)
You've nailed really nice the necessary beacons for a 3+3 assembler setup (calc).
Simply there is no reason doing this (calc). I've failed miserably to create a usable/compact verion of 2+3... the best I was able to do still looks painful:
- more than 2x the area
- 49 inserters vs 24
- 40 beacons vs 23
I put it here just for fun:
