Modular Extensible PnP Factory

Clever and beautiful constructions, bigger than two chunks
- Defense: killing biters as an art
- Castles, Throne Rooms, Decorations (comfortable living in the Factorio World)
- Main Bus Concepts
- Modular Systems, Factory Streets, show how all works together
- Megabases
Please provide us with blueprints or saves, if that makes sense of course.
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Clever and beautiful constructions, bigger than two chunks
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dee-
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Re: Modular Extensible PnP Factory

Post by dee- »

S_K_Tiger wrote: ↑Fri Oct 05, 2018 4:38 pm I have been enjoying the modular design, and have been using bp's from these posts, since I started playing.
I decided to use the new features to put some of the ones from these together in one blueprint book.
The idea is that this blueprint book will continue to be updated with improvements, additions, updates and the likes.
I'm happy to hear it gave you some enjoyment :)

As the blueprints are from the 0.12.x-aera, many things have changed, e.g. the ranges of the underground belts or some of the recipes, which throws the balancing of the producing facilities off.
Thus the 3.1 rack rules could be adjusted to incorporate the new range of the blue underground belt, etc.
I wonder if the potentially upcoing changes to the fluid system could make a pumping rack necessary. Exciting times...

For me it's nice to hear the philosophy of the PnP factory still lives on even after all this time and there are still people out there that find it useful and enjoying :happy: :D
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Sargas
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Re: Modular Extensible PnP Factory

Post by Sargas »

Hello,

I'm looking for an easy scalable layout for my factory and found this interesting layout philosophy. But I'm not sure if I understand it correctly. How can I increase the production quantity without many conversions? If I add copies of a production site horizontally to the original production site, at some point I won't have room for belts to supply them with resources. Above or below the current rack, I can't add new racks without tearing down the racks of other products.

Or do I have a thinking error?

Thank you in advance for your feedback.

Sargas
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dee-
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Re: Modular Extensible PnP Factory

Post by dee- »

Sargas wrote: ↑Thu Mar 07, 2019 2:16 pm Hello,

I'm looking for an easy scalable layout for my factory and found this interesting layout philosophy. But I'm not sure if I understand it correctly. How can I increase the production quantity without many conversions? If I add copies of a production site horizontally to the original production site, at some point I won't have room for belts to supply them with resources. Above or below the current rack, I can't add new racks without tearing down the racks of other products.

Or do I have a thinking error?

Thank you in advance for your feedback.

Sargas
Hi Sargas,

if I understood you correctly:

you have the main bus running north-south (vertical) and branch off your production racks west-east (horizontal), then, yes, after you have added more and more production elements to your rack (expanding horizontally), the belts of the rack will trickle off as they are usually of a lower bandwidth than the main bus:

Code: Select all

 |
 |
 +-#-# rack with two production elements
 |
 |
bus
becomes:

Code: Select all

 |
 |
 +-#-#-#-#-# rack with five production elements, the belts in this rack begin to trickle
 |
 |
bus


In this case you simply add another rack of the same type later on in the bus and expand this again:

Code: Select all

 |
 |
 +-#-#-#-#-# rack with five production elements, the belts in this rack begin to trickle
 |
 |
bus
becomes:

Code: Select all

 |
 |
 +-#-#-#     another rack with three production elements
 +-#-#-#-#-# rack with five production elements, the belts in this rack begin to trickle
 |
 |
bus


The racks themselves have no specific position on the bus and you can add them anywhere along it:

Code: Select all

 |
 |
 +-A-A-A
 +-B
 |
 |
bus
is the same as:

Code: Select all

 |
 +-B
 |
 |
 +-A-A-A
 |
bus


If you want to have the same type of rack in one place you can copy-and-paste your racks around and have the construction robots do the work for you.
As all racks ave the same height and th same "interface" to the bus, they are swappable with each other rack.

If you are very dynamic with your racks or want to expand production later, you can always add "do nothing" racks on the bus which simply forward the items on the belts and the fluids in the pipes and reserve this rack for a later replacement with productive racks:
Image



Hoped to help!
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Sargas
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Re: Modular Extensible PnP Factory

Post by Sargas »

Hello dee,

thank you for your answer. Now I know that I understood your philosophy correctly :)

I think I will use placeholder racks for later expansions and / or make the height of the racks bigger so that I have more space for additional belts with incoming resources and outgoing products.

But first I have to define a goal for my factory, otherwise I can't calculate and plan the main bus :D
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Re: Modular Extensible PnP Factory

Post by dee- »

Thank you for 100.000 views!

That's totally incredible and I would never have thought this post would get so much attention by the fellow Factorians.

Many have contributed to this topic and I thank everyone who participated with fresh ideas, interpretations and customizations.

Factorio's gameplay has changed quite a bit since this topic started by adding priority splitters, longer underground belts, etc. so some quirks are not necessary anymore and the attractivity of a bus design itself might have been altered to use it now maybe less or maybe even more.

I wonder if someone still uses the concept of the Extensible Modular PnP Factory?

Whatever, the most important part with Factorio is to:
Have fun!

And thank you, Wube...
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starxplor
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Re: Modular Extensible PnP Factory

Post by starxplor »

I still use it for mid-game. I build a basic early game red science factory, steal belts and iron from it to build this style bus for all red/green, and then add blue on the end of the belt. Once I need more than r/g/b science, I tend to switch to a bot based compact system of assembler rows.
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Sargas
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Re: Modular Extensible PnP Factory

Post by Sargas »

At the moment I plan a megabase with factories along one long rail track. The idea is from zOldBulldog.
Every factory along the rail track will be expandable according to your PnP concept. 😁
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Re: Modular Extensible PnP Factory

Post by S_K_Tiger »

I've updated the blueprint book a bit.

Button:


Raw string:
Raw_string


@dee-
I recently discovered https://factorioprints.com/ and would like to ask you if you would be interested in posting (a modified version of) this book there. If you do, can you provide a link to the created page?


@Sargas
Sargas wrote: ↑Mon Jun 03, 2019 12:41 pm At the moment I plan a megabase with factories along one long rail track. The idea is from zOldBulldog.
Every factory along the rail track will be expandable according to your PnP concept. 😁
Would you like to add relevant bp's to this blueprint book as an rail alternative to the belt one?
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Re: Modular Extensible PnP Factory

Post by dee- »

S_K_Tiger wrote: ↑Thu Oct 17, 2019 10:15 am @dee-
I recently discovered https://factorioprints.com/ and would like to ask you if you would be interested in posting (a modified version of) this book there. If you do, can you provide a link to the created page?
My blueprints are probably pretty outdated because of the game elements improved and modified (e.g. priority splitters, length of underground belts).

If you already have blueprints for that comply with the PnP-Factory design rules (see the first post and the layout for the current v3.1) please feel free to add them to factorioprints. I don't feel like an authority regarding how to exactly do the prints, it's more of a community thing; the blueprints just have to comply the PnP-Interfaces ruleset.

Looking forward to see them :)
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Re: Modular Extensible PnP Factory

Post by S_K_Tiger »

dee- wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2019 8:34 am
S_K_Tiger wrote: ↑Thu Oct 17, 2019 10:15 am @dee-
I recently discovered https://factorioprints.com/ and would like to ask you if you would be interested in posting (a modified version of) this book there. If you do, can you provide a link to the created page?
My blueprints are probably pretty outdated because of the game elements improved and modified (e.g. priority splitters, length of underground belts).

If you already have blueprints for that comply with the PnP-Factory design rules (see the first post and the layout for the current v3.1) please feel free to add them to factorioprints. I don't feel like an authority regarding how to exactly do the prints, it's more of a community thing; the blueprints just have to comply the PnP-Interfaces ruleset.

Looking forward to see them :)
Here is the link: https://factorioprints.com/view/-LrTIKykCYxje4nmWMku
Not all blueprints are up to date and/or following the rules at this point so I'm hoping on getting some feedback soon.
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Re: Modular Extensible PnP Factory

Post by dee- »

S_K_Tiger wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2019 10:04 am
dee- wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2019 8:34 am
S_K_Tiger wrote: ↑Thu Oct 17, 2019 10:15 am @dee-
I recently discovered https://factorioprints.com/ and would like to ask you if you would be interested in posting (a modified version of) this book there. If you do, can you provide a link to the created page?
My blueprints are probably pretty outdated because of the game elements improved and modified (e.g. priority splitters, length of underground belts).

If you already have blueprints for that comply with the PnP-Factory design rules (see the first post and the layout for the current v3.1) please feel free to add them to factorioprints. I don't feel like an authority regarding how to exactly do the prints, it's more of a community thing; the blueprints just have to comply the PnP-Interfaces ruleset.

Looking forward to see them :)
Here is the link: https://factorioprints.com/view/-LrTIKykCYxje4nmWMku
Not all blueprints are up to date and/or following the rules at this point so I'm hoping on getting some feedback soon.
There are some small typos, though
"Modular Extensible PnP Factory V3.3" -> "3.1" probably
"modulair" -> "modular"

The blueprints I provided are just to be thought of as an inspiration, not an "ends it all" solution so it's perfectly valid to have different implementations with different focusses (e.g. resource efficient, beaconed, etc.)

For the "rules" see the opening post and the design-changelog for 3.0:
- Belts and pipes now interleave, which results in a more compact bus footprint. Still, the belts and pipes are as accessible as before because of the wiggle-room the interleaving creates
- It carries power now, too. The pole has to be placed in the column of the iron plates, as low as possible, and can only differ in extreme situations from this rule
- Instead of red belts the faster blue belts are used to increase throughput of the bus
- Iron/copper plates and green circuits now use two instead of one belt each, which doubles their already increased thoughput to help quench even higher demands
- Due to the symmetry of the layout, two belts and one pipe are unused. If and for what they will be used is as of yet undecided
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Re: Modular Extensible PnP Factory

Post by disentius »

My take on green circuits:
Double unit PnP 2 yellow belts green circuits.


PnP green circuits x2.png
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Re: Modular Extensible PnP Factory

Post by Taurondir »

Hello. I have followed this forum topic almost from when it started, and only tried a few things here and there, alas, as I almost 99% of the time go on servers with a lot of mods, and all the recipes use totally different ores and items, working a "vanilla" system for this did not seem that important, but I have recently started playing on a few vanilla OARC scenarios, so this idea came back into my head.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Update: Link to current save game I'm doing testing on, everything is WIP as I test new ideas - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vjQ7ln ... sp=sharing

* Update: Finally moved to Factorio 1.1.1, with the Creative Mod to assist testing. Waiting for a couple of other "helper" Mods to catch up.

I "broke" convention by deciding to go to a 16x16 layout for placing blocks (or at least the main bus) so the whole thing would stay chunk aligned, NOTE however that I'm sticking to the "13 height" (at least for now) within the 1/4 Chunk "factories" part that way there is a 3 blank gap between the blocks, and that then allows to drop Beacons to assist the Factories (hopefully, as in some cases the setup might not allow a Becon to reach, but that's work for later).

* Update Pic. It's almost a complete base, as in, everything can be made and side-fed for boosting, but I'm looking for ways not to make it "less vertical", and have some chunks be more universal, ie the Bus Feeder sections.

There is a bunch of other side things I'm trying out like QC defenses,Kick-Start Base sections, Belted Mall Modules, etc etc, so It's become more of my Zen Garden relaxation save game now, then just a puzzle to solve.

https://i.imgur.com/LzoPmOw.jpg

Image
Last edited by Taurondir on Mon Nov 30, 2020 12:51 am, edited 12 times in total.
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Re: Modular Extensible PnP Factory

Post by dee- »

Thank you Taurondir for your feedback and on insights on your future plans.
I am flattered to hear this "PnP" idea could inspire you and still does.

As I am also very grid-obsessed more than once I have thought about increasing the row height from 13 to 16 for a grid/2 height but that felt to me like it would make things somehow too easy and not rewarding enough; 13 seems to me like a sweet spot between "just enough to be flexible" and "not enough to not try to micro-optimize".

I am glad you keep on experimenting!
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Re: Modular Extensible PnP Factory

Post by Taurondir »

Yea but the "sticking to 13" was the starting constraint back in 'ole 2015. Now the new constraint is "what can I cram in quarter chunks?", and going without sleep because "screw it, have to jam a dual-tile-kinda-sorta-able reactor in there dammit"

Image
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Re: Modular Extensible PnP Factory

Post by orthorix »

Hello and thanks for this inspiring concept!

I'm new in this game, unlocked building robots in my first main save - until I noticed that the biters became too strong - tank-ramming not working.
Next start I finished red/green research and happened upon this thread. I decided to redesign my base modular. Fine idea, again I forgot to defend, wasted too much time … bugs everywhere!
Now I'll start a concept game in peaceful mode to work on blueprints.

I will try to use this concept from early game on. The bus concept and most blueprints are working with tier 1 (yellow) belts. The belt- and inserter-blueprints can be built partially, reflecting my research progress, and expanded later.

With the needs and limitations in early game some products have to be built in order, smelting uses coal (but smaller furnaces, leaving space for a coal belt) and some resources won't show up later.

The original bus scheme has the rightmost belt left free as well as a pipe. This will be probably bricks/coal and crude oil, coal for grenades, bricks for walls, crude oil for flamethrowers (which I didn't test yet, I've read it's OP).
On the other hand, early game, building from bottom up, you need neither advanced circuits nor processors. You even don't know how to make them. These belts will carry coal and stone, coal for the smelters and stone to be processed to bricks, landfills, concrete and railways. Maybe I even misuse the steel belt…

After the stone processing is done this belt might be abandoned, but we need stone later on for railways (production science pack) as well as bricks for production and military science pack. Coal has its half-lane with bricks, while advanced circuits may take over their belt. So coal on the advanced circuit belt, stone on the processor belt.

Iron ore belt 1/2, copper ore belt 3/4, empty 5/6, coal 7/stone 8, empty 9/10
First rack (both sides) smelting iron (left) and copper (right), filling half of belt 10 with iron ore (for concrete)
Second rack smelting steel
3rd rack (or 2nd, to the right, with steel from the left) stone processing, discarding the iron ore lane and the coal belt 7 (filling half of belt 10 with coal instead)
Next green circuit boards, then belts and inserters - this has to be built very early as we need lots of them. Advanced circuits may follow, their belt is free now and is needed by the blue and productivity science pack.
Now the science packs red/green/black/blue, leaving a rack free for productivity (though yet unresearched) to get rid of the stone belt later.
Then blue processors and all belts are neatly filled :-)

This post is longer than intended, but ideas came while writing. We'll see, I have a plan now. I try to record and maybe post as many blueprints as possible.
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Re: Modular Extensible PnP Factory

Post by orthorix »

Ready so far. In the beginning, while the first ingots are made, I made a blueprint (some wooden chests) of the bus size as a placeholder. I also provided space for 2 tiles south (my horizontal layout, east for the vertical layout provided here) plus 6 tiles for a 4x4 roboport and diving belts, radar and elecricity as well as science packs.
The second primary stub with some wooden chests was a roboport grid 50x50.
Then I started tiling the area with a dozen or so ghost chest stubs for the bus plus some roboport dummies.
The ordering of the racks reflects nearly the game/science progress.
I'm currently on tier 2 (red belts) and haven't scaled too much. Enough to win the game, though. I've played very aggressive, deleting biters and placing artillery bases asap. My spidertron ‘Consuela’ is my current favourite, though.
Some ‘Guerilla factories’ are added inside the bus late-game to provide useful items. Maybe I make proper installations later.
From early game on I provided ‘Leecher chests’ for most resources, grabbing a few stacks into wooden chests, becoming later passive provider chests.
As I posted peviously I use the bus belts for other resources first. Stone on the blue chip belt until purple science, coal on the red chip belt for smelting (unbuilt now).
Uranium processing and nuclear power is done elsewhere, I found a nice compact blueprint for kovarex enrichment process on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comme ... blueprint/. Just put your first 40 U-235 into the rightmost centrifuge, the others will fill up automatically later.

The racks (north / south) from west to east:

west/left: primary resource patches, later train stations, feeding in raw materials
#1 iron / copper smelting
#2 steel smelting / stone processing (most recipes not yet available at the beginning)
#3 green circuits / explosives - a guerilla factory added much later bc space available here ;-)
#4 red circuits / plastics - at the beginning simply place a standard bus here
#5 inserters, pipes, modules - note that the inserter blueprint provided here doesn't feature all inserter types
#6 belts
south of #5/#6: late game robot-driven factory site for buildings and other useful stuff I don't need in masses
#7 red science / black science
#8 green science / labs plus guerilla factory for flamethrower fuel
#9 engines / blue science
#10 refineries, liquids input (water, oil) / lube plus guerilla factory for bottling light oil
#11 light oil / heavy oil cracking plus guerilla factory for solid fuel
#12 acid / sulphur
#13 accumulators / purple science plus guerilla factory for solar panels
#14 blue circuits aka processors / yellow science
#15 robot frames / batteries
#16 low density structues / plastics

#17 endgame :-D

Below is a blueprint for red science wit 4 production facilities. It needs medium poles so it is not working early game. I noticed my older version is enough for now.
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