How do YOU use mining drills?

[mmmPI]

The problem with automatically closing an outpost is that there now too many trains. You need to decommission the trains associated with that mining outpost as well. At least that's the case in my current train design: completely static. I have exactly as many trains as there are slots in the mining outposts. If I remove an outpost, I need to remove its trains as well. Otherwise I risk a deadlock.

I'm not using such systems personnaly because my outposts opens when there is enough for a full trains now that there is the limit. So they "close themselves" all the time, by defaut. It is making me "waste" in the worse case 1 train minus 1 ore worth of ressources. But before the problem was the reverse for me, i could have 20 trains but 30 outposts, and if 15 of them were depleted, then i would only have 5 trains available for service and 15 waiting forever that their cargo become "full" hopelessly. I suppose you don't use (only) condition like "full" and "empty" and don't risk losing trains to forever idle this way.

My plan is to create a new mining outpost first when my custom "outpost depleted" alert appears. Afterwards, I drive to the depleted outpost, send the trains waiting there away to a different mine (will probably drive to the new outpost), then deconstruct the old outpost. Without mods, I don't see potential for more automation.

About detecting mine depletion by reading belts: Yes, that's an option that can be better tested. However, it requires 2 or 3 more combinators. Too much for only that one situation that happens only once in the lifetime of a mining outpost. I try to keep outposts stripped to the bare minimum. In the past, I created the most sophisticated outposts, with supply to build the outpost itself, automated train limit, wall defense, laser turrets, even artillery, bots and more bells and whistles, but I realized it's all not necessary. One combinator for balanced chest loading, one for depletion detection, everything else is purely mechanical and protected by a single huge rectangular perimeter defense.

I don't often go deconstructing depleted outpost, i play with settings and playstyle to avoid it. I'm lazy and slow, i had trouble with trains sticking in empty outpost while i was trying to figure out how combinator works or making malls or things that i try to do ingame. I don't often do sophisticated outpost, it's rather bare-bone outpost, or bare-bone subfactory, when i go for real game with no fancy goals. I will very often build some furnaces near my outpost, since my miners are spread out it sort of make sense. They deplete slower. That i would count as bare-bone subfactory.

The coupling mining/defense perimeter is not always happening for me. In rail worlds there is no biter expansion, so you can "clear" some territory ahead easily, and wall choke point without need for much material , more water the better . Then there will be several ore patches available without the need for immediate protection. Other game with less water and more biter, the mining "oupost" are also militarized as they are the front lane. I don't like those when you have to do both at the same time because it increases the risk of me forgetting something. (wall, inserter, repair pack, turret ammo ... ) I'd rather go full on fighting first, then don't think about it and build until i have a new weapon that would make me want to do some fighting again, when i'm not playing peaceful which is most of the time.

[Nosferatu]

I explicitly tested the case (in map editor) where I created a very sparse resource field that soon got defragmented into many distinct resource fields during mining. However, as long as the one miner stayed in place and I didn't change anything with its configuration, it reported for the original resource field that included all the defragmented small fields. It seems the miner takes a snapshot of all tiles of a resource field at construction or at connection time of the circuit network and reports the numbers for these tiles.

Thanks, I'll retest that. I used a miner that had lost it's connection to the field and wired it...
My current detection has 6 combinators total. It's used to call in the ore train one last time when the field is depleted.
I hate it when the chests are still partially full...

[coppercoil]

If I remove an outpost, I need to remove its trains as well. Otherwise I risk a deadlock.

I have a parking depot for temporarily unused trains.

[Illiander42]

Resource patches more far away are 60x60 tiles at maximum, so I created a blueprint in map editor that covers this area in a manner similar to your screenshot (miners next to each other, 1 tile space for power poles). At one end, there is a station in the blueprint including a waiting area for 2 additional trains.

So whenever I create a new mine, I put the blueprint over the resource patch, so it is most near to the station and every single tile of ore is covered. The only thing left now is to connect the dangling rail to my rail network. One miner is wired and reads the amount of resources of the whole field, so a programmable speaker will raise an alert if the resource field has 0 resources and therefore is depleted, so I can deconstruct it.

Uranium ore patches are slightly different. They cover only 40x40 tiles at max and need sulfuric acid supply, so my uranium ore trains have 1 additional wagon that brings sulfuric acid out and brings uranium ore in return.

Are those sizes accurate with patch size turned up to full?

The problem with automatically closing an outpost is that there now too many trains. You need to decommission the trains associated with that mining outpost as well. At least that's the case in my current train design: completely static. I have exactly as many trains as there are slots in the mining outposts. If I remove an outpost, I need to remove its trains as well. Otherwise I risk a deadlock.

Why not switch to a pull system, and have your trains assosiated with your unloaders, instead of your loaders?

[Tertius]

[resource patch size 60x60 / 40x40]

Are those sizes accurate with patch size turned up to full?

They are slightly larger. They have a few small branches or extensions extending the 60x60 area, but the general ore area is still within 60x60. If you want to know it exactly, create a map in creative mode with maximum patch size and see yourself. Since in creative mode there is no character, scrolling to the bigger ore patches outside is super fast. My numbers were gathered for the default game settings.

Why not switch to a pull system, and have your trains assosiated with your unloaders, instead of your loaders?

Because it is more complex, if you solve the problem that trains need some time to drive from one station to the other. If there is not enough buffer, it might happen a train doesn't arrive in time to prevent an unloader running empty, or it might happen the station chests of a loader gets full but a train didn't arrive yet to take this load.

The solution I worked out for my current base is completely static, so it is very simple. No circuits, no depots. Only stackers and hardcoded train limits. It has a maximum allowed number of trains, and operates with maximum efficiency if you use exactly the maximum allowed amount of trains. The only caveat is that you need to reduce the number of trains if you reduce the number of loading stations, because the maximum allowed number of trains depends on the number of loading stations. Not a big issue. You just build a new outpost before you remove a depleted outpost.

[Illiander42]

Why not switch to a pull system, and have your trains assosiated with your unloaders, instead of your loaders?

Because it is more complex, if you solve the problem that trains need some time to drive from one station to the other. If there is not enough buffer, it might happen a train doesn't arrive in time to prevent an unloader running empty, or it might happen the station chests of a loader gets full but a train didn't arrive yet to take this load.

The solution I worked out for my current base is completely static, so it is very simple. No circuits, no depots. Only stackers and hardcoded train limits. It has a maximum allowed number of trains, and operates with maximum efficiency if you use exactly the maximum allowed amount of trains. The only caveat is that you need to reduce the number of trains if you reduce the number of loading stations, because the maximum allowed number of trains depends on the number of loading stations. Not a big issue. You just build a new outpost before you remove a depleted outpost.

You could be describing a pull system there. You just move the stackers to the unloaders.

[Tertius]

I don't pull or push anything. Trains just flow between loading and unloading stations according to their schedule and free slots. The ore unloading stations have a static train limit of 4, so there is enough for a longer distance from the ore loading stations, and the ore loading stations have a static train limit of 3, since there need to be more ore loading stations, because one mine produces less output than one smelter will consume. And since there are more loading stations, their individual train limit can be lower. Each station has a stacker in front of it.

So whenever a full train gets a slot at an unloading station, it flows there. Since there is a stacker and ore overproduction, actually some train already in the stacker will drive into the station, while the newly started train will end up in the stacker.
And whenever there is an empty train at an unloading station, there is a guaranteed free slot at some loading station, so the empty train immediately leaves the station and flows to whatever loading station provides that slot. This train will also probably end up in a stacker, while the loading station will be immediately occupied by some train already in the stacker.

It's not an active demand driven design to avoid the latency between raising a train request and the requested train actually arriving at the station.

[GregoriusT]

I don't pull or push anything.

What you described is most likely a Push System, as it is pushing full Ore Trains into the Smelting Stops. This would indeed not work well with Train Stop priorities.

Simple way to describe pull and push is:

PUSH: Ore Trains wait at the Outpost Stops (train limit > 1) for a free Slot at the Smelter Stops (train limit > 1).
PULL: Ore Trains wait at the Smelter Stops (no train limit) until unloaded to then go for the the outpost Stops (train limit = 1). The Priority Train Stop System will work with this just fine.

The difference between those is actually quite minute, as its basically only where the parking stacker for the trains is.

Stacker at Smelter, preferably with all the related trains? -> Pull
works with priority outpost stops, which is relevant for this debate of selecting which ore outpost is to be depleted first.

Stacker at each outpost, even if its like 2 or 3 trains? -> Push
works with priority smelter stops, which might be relevant for other more advanced base building stuff like dedicated Steel Smelter Stops compared to Iron Smelter Stops.

Please correct me if I am interpreting Push and Pull wrong according to what the community understands it as. ^^

[Illiander42]

You're getting a few things wrong.

First off, all stations in both systems should have train limits and stackers. All stations should never have their train limit be above their stacker size.

The main practical difference is in which station "owns" the trains.

In a push system, the mines own the trains, so you have X trains per mine. Conceptually, the mines are sending trains to the smelters.

In a pull system, the smelters own the trains, so you have X trains per smelter. Conceptually, the smelters are calling trains from the mines. In this setup you probably want to have dynamic train limits on the mines, so you don't send trains to empty mines.

It's the difference between a logi network with just active providers (push) and just passive providers (pull).

[GregoriusT]

You're getting a few things wrong.

Ah thank you, I had it right in my brain but my explanation was quite a bit shoddy and too specific to my own Setups, not to mention me only explaining half of the details of my Setups. ^^

unrelated to this topic

It's the difference between a logi network with just active providers (push) and just passive providers (pull).

What if I told you there is crazy maniacs that use Buffer Chests instead of Passive Providers? Not me though, I use filtered Storage Chests instead of Passive Providers, my Friend is the maniac using Buffer Chests and "Request from Buffer Chests" for no damn reason. There is like four or five different ways to use Logistics Bots in this Game. XD

[mrvn]

At the start you probably want the resources of a single ore patch as fast as possible. On the other hand you only have yellow belts. Building miners with overlap makes no sense if the belt is full and half the miners will just idle. So build miners close if the patch is really small and the belt can't be filled. Otherwise building miners without overlap makes more sense.

Well, this reasoning works along the belt. You can place rows of miners with overlap to get more belts out of a mine patch. This will increase your ore per second. Or have half the belt go left and the other belt go right so ore comes out both sides of the ore patch.

Researching faster belts and modules can change the number of miners it makes sense to place on an ore patch making all ore patches smaller. So yeah, you might want overlapping miners to fill the belt so you can dump it onto a furnace blueprint for smelting that expects a full belt. For a finite game this easily makes sense. The (further out) ore patches won't be exhausted before you launch the rocket and win the game.



But if launching a rocket and ending the game isn't your goal then it probably makes no sense to overlap the miners past the starting patch. The amount of ore you get out of a patch is the same with and without overlapping miners. The ore produced per second per miner is the same too. The amount of aliens you have to kill and mining outposts you have to build for N ore is also the same. But if you overlap the miners that means the miners will exhaust their ore patch sooner and you then have to move it to a new ore patch. Don't overlap miners and you have to move them less often giving you more time to do other things.

So you have to pick one of two choices:

1) do you want to spend time now to kill aliens so you can open up more mining outposts?

or

2) do you want to spend a bit more time placing and later moving miners now and kill aliens later?

In a death world scenario it might well be that you have to take option 1 so you can keep producing bullets, turrets, walls and research better ways of killing aliens fast enough. Otherwise, or if you can stay ahead of the aliens, then building miners without overlap will always be more efficient.

It also spreads the pollution over a larger area so you get more absorption from water, grass and trees. So fewer alien spawns.

[mmmPI]

One can also research mining productivity, which makes the patch "bigger" in that you need less miner to output a full belt, especially in long game.

[mrvn]

One can also research mining productivity, which makes the patch "bigger" in that you need less miner to output a full belt, especially in long game.

Yeah, fewer miner needed per belt. But more importantly imho: Don't go using totally oversized warehouses that buffer a few million ores per mining outpost and you won't loose much when mining productivity increases. (Hint: warehouses can be limited to 1-2 cargo wagons if you don't want to use 6 chests). Ore in the ground becomes worth more every time you increase the mining productivity while you get nothing for buffered ore (or any other buffered items).

[GregoriusT]

On the topic of spreading out Miners to always have two spaces inbetween versus putting as many Miners as possible:

Spreading Miners:
(+) Less Maximum Pollution per Second, so the Environment can make your Mining Pollution Cloud much smaller.
(-) You will need a LOT more Outposts to ensure enough Income, and therefore way too much Biter clearing.
(-) if you dont build those needed extra Outposts you will waste a shitload of time by starving your Factory of Resources.

Packing Miners:
(-) Pollution will be released in bursts that the Environment cant take all at once, making the range of Nests you need to clear slightly bigger.
(+) Less Outposts you need to build and defend to ensure a stable Economy.
(+) You get the Resources much sooner since even one Outpost produces a lot with the densely packed Miners.
(+) Once you factor Mining Productivity and Drill Quality into the mix, Ore Spots are basically infinite, so the more Miners the better.

Trying to prevent yourself from building more Outposts? That is a fake time saver, as since you dont build Outposts you dont ensure Resource flow and therefore your overall Factory is slower, wasting you lots and lots of time in the long run.

The only toll that building an Outpost ever causes, is the mental exhaustion to build them all the time and clear out the Biters needed for that, neither of those reasons are based on how densely you pack the Miners.

So it is always advisable to take the objectively better option, which should be densely packing the Miners, since Pollution is not that bad of difference between the approaches, and building two Outposts is worse than building one good Outpost.

[mmmPI]

The only toll that building an Outpost ever causes, is the mental exhaustion to build them all the time and clear out the Biters needed for that, neither of those reasons are based on how densely you pack the Miners.

I agree this is the toll. But i see it as a densely pack outpost depleting faster. I know it's the same amount of ressources inside.

So it is always advisable to take the objectively better option, which should be densely packing the Miners, since Pollution is not that bad of difference between the approaches, and building two Outposts is worse than building one good Outpost.

If you want 20 million iron and there are only 10 million ore patches everywhere, wether or not you pack the miner doesn't change much, you will have to build 2 outposts.
I'm not convinced by your arguments

[GregoriusT]

But i see it as a densely pack outpost depleting faster. I know it's the same amount of resources inside.

Lol yeah it depletes faster, but you will need twice the outposts for the same resource rate, so you're forcing yourself to pay the toll of making a second outpost right the eff away as opposed to later, resulting in you potentially creating more outposts total than you otherwise would have had, before the game you're playing got boring and you start over, which is a lose lose situation. XD

If you want 20 million iron and there are only 10 million ore patches everywhere, whether or not you pack the miner doesn't change much, you will have to build 2 outposts.

Interesting way to think of it as "I want this much total" instead of "I want this much per second", because if you want a total amount you so definitely want to mine it as fast as frikkin possible to be done with the goal. And considering a one Million patch (of iron, others need less) is enough to launch a Rocket from scratch, you could just research Mining Productivity like ten times and suddenly you got the same total as the 20M patch that does not exist in your range.

Honestly, I played this game so much I learned to just ignore the amount of Ore per Patch because what matters more is the amount of Area per Patch to place Miners on, as well as the total amount of Patches clustered closeby, so I can build one big Outpost that does two or more Ores at once, as opposed to sprinkling a ton of Outposts everywhere.
This ofcourse often nets me the predicament of mixed Patches, but I can deal with that just fine.
And if I draw a Defense Rectangle around the set of Ore Patches, I might even have enough empty space inside of it to just smelt it on Site, or even make things like Green Circuits on Site for more compact transport.

[Illiander42]

The amount of aliens you have to kill and mining outposts you have to build for N ore is also the same.

But not the ore per second.

Ore per second per outpost is the metric to use, since it gets you the most full belts with the fewest outposts.

Ore in the ground is ore you aren't using.

[mmmPI]

Lol yeah it depletes faster, but you will need twice the outposts for the same resource rate, so you're forcing yourself to pay the toll of making a second outpost right the eff away as opposed to later, resulting in you potentially creating more outposts total than you otherwise would have had, before the game you're playing got boring and you start over, which is a lose lose situation. XD

About the fact that all ore covered by mining drill at the time of end of the game is representing lost time by players because they didn't need to have made so many outpost, that is something i agree with the fact there is a potential "loss" here.

However, when you say "forcing you to make a second outpost right the eff away as opposted to later". That's another way to say : i'd rather have more time between the moment i add outposts and make 2 or 3 maybe 4 now, and then be done for an hour, rather than making one now, which suffice in ore per second, but then 15 min later another one because the first is depleted, and then another one 15 minutes later and again 15 minutes later.

Sure there will be a higher descrepancy if you add outposts 5 by 5 say because they are not dense, instead of 2 by 2, at the end of the game on average there will be more of that "lost" time refered earlier. But it's not a lose lose situation. You invest time now, to be free to have to do it later, it's a way to be proactive and not reactive, which may help with the feeling of pressure to run after ore before the current deplete. This is something i don't experience at all and value this.

Honestly, I played this game so much I learned to just ignore the amount of Ore per Patch because what matters more is the amount of Area per Patch to place Miners on, as well as the total amount of Patches clustered closeby, so I can build one big Outpost that does two or more Ores at once, as opposed to sprinkling a ton of Outposts everywhere.
This ofcourse often nets me the predicament of mixed Patches, but I can deal with that just fine.
And if I draw a Defense Rectangle around the set of Ore Patches, I might even have enough empty space inside of it to just smelt it on Site, or even make things like Green Circuits on Site for more compact transport.

That's interesting because to me it's diferent, i do care about the amount of ore per patch, my reasonning is that if it's "large enough" and there's "few enough" miner, then at some point i know "it will last for the rest of the game" and i can build furnaces next to it. I have a general knowledge of the goal i fix to my current game based on time available, computing power available and complexity of settings or mods. I generally know if i'm going for a 20 hours 100hours or 250+hours game, that's roughly how i see them. And i will plan accordingly while looking at the quantity of the outpost.

That is also something i do when i try to outsource green circuit, i will try to look on the map a region that has the same ratio of iron copper than the circuit, say 15 million iron and 45 million copper, in some eyeball circle on a region of the minimap that's close enough for me to consider placing a subfactory in that region the reverse i wouldn't have.

If i know i expect 1 or 2 full belt of iron ore from a region that has x millions of ore patch covered, i can estimate the time before completion in tens of minutes or hours or hundred of hours and eyeball for less and less margin as i'm getting closer and closer to stated goal or limit of my computer.

[GregoriusT]

I generally know if i'm going for a 20 hours 100hours or 250+hours game, that's roughly how i see them. And i will plan accordingly while looking at the quantity of the outpost.

Interesting, so at the end of your games, are your first Outposts running out or is more than half of the original Ore still left?

I am a "slowly" progressing player who often meanders about, sometimes paying more attention to some random video on the second screen than the game, designing random new blueprints, while researching all Sciences of the current Tier before even starting to build the next Tier. This typically makes my Games last way over a hundred hours, and I do not end up fully depleting anything in Default Settings. Sure the Patches do shrink but they still exist by the time the only useful Research is Mining Productivity.
.

why mining productivity

All weapon upgrades have a cutoff in usefulness after a few levels.
Artillery Automatic Range beyond the pollution cloud is a massive lag source. The Big Bertha Mod taught me that.
Lategame robot speed doesn't matter if you setup your base right, also fast Conbots can be a liability for Landmine usage.
And Follower Robot Count is overkill even if you go for the Achievement.

Leaves only Mining Productivity as a permanent Research Option. I REALLY hope Wube wont forget to make the 300% Productivity Limit NOT apply to Mining Drills, lol.

.
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Now all of this might mainly be because when I look at the Map Preview I look for a cluster of Iron, Copper and Coal in a corner of the Map, and then run straight to that Patch Cluster, destroying as many Trupens Rocks as possible, and build a Base in Biter infested Territory right away. This nets me with "Starting" Ore Patches that are in the 3 to 5 millions, while at the same time getting me closer to good Outposts (also Uranium and Oil are likely closer to there).

Doing this sorta stuff feels like I am breaking reality itself at times, just like a cool Speedrun or a TAS do. Once you realize there is no practical difference between your Starting Area and some random ass Ore Cluster on the Map, except for the extra richness/size of the Ores, it becomes the trivial best choice as long as you're not scared of Small Biters and start researching Turrets and Grenades quickly.

[mmmPI]

I generally know if i'm going for a 20 hours 100hours or 250+hours game, that's roughly how i see them. And i will plan accordingly while looking at the quantity of the outpost.

Interesting, so at the end of your games, are your first Outposts running out or is more than half of the original Ore still left?

Highly depend on games,the last i played were with space exploration or nullius or exotic industries and some seablocks . All of which include some sort of alternative to mining ore patch, so i had many patches not depleting as soon as i could transition to sustainable production they had lower priority. I don't have the older on this computer that is at least 2 years worth of Factorio. I have joined random multiplayer games during that timeframe where things are not personnal choice but more like "happening one way or another" sometimes. The differences between "my" games and those i'm not responsible but only joining as a sidekick sometimes are that i feel less forced to run after ressources when i dimension the consumer/producer of ore myself.

I try to make sure some of them do not deplete by undersizing the number of belt that can be extracted regarding the number of mining drill and the ore they cover, for things like mall,or things that have the highest priority that i dont want science to accidentally deplete. Otherwise some of the early deplete when games are long, under 4 5 millions doesn't last 250 hours even with only 2 red belts of output i think despite the productivity research , i haven't done precise math for this particular numbers, i did generic spreadsheets some time ago though and from habits of playing. It may be impacted by (higher) richness, meaning a 4-5 million ore patch has lower footprint and one could fit less mining drill, so it would be capped with a lower ore per second but for a longer time than if it was 4-5 million in a less rich ore patch, as it would be bigger and fit more drill and so on. Considering a rough average on very different settings, 15-20 million ore is generally going to last me "the rest of the game", because i don't have access to those too early, and when i do it's generally already 100 hours in or more, spreading miners , undersizing number of output belt ... and i don't do game that last more than 1000 hours or so of "active playing" i would either run out of computing power, or be frustrated that i can't build and expand without tedious handcrafting because the mod forces you to. I hate that.

I am a "slowly" progressing player who often meanders about, sometimes paying more attention to some random video on the second screen than the game, designing random new blueprints, while researching all Sciences of the current Tier before even starting to build the next Tier. This typically makes my Games last way over a hundred hours, and I do not end up fully depleting anything in Default Settings. Sure the Patches do shrink but they still exist by the time the only useful Research is Mining Productivity.

Well i was considering active playtime. some game in 20 hours of active playtime are over, when playing multiplayer you can join 3 or 4 hours per day a whole week and then the server is reset. I would not finish a game in solo in 20 hours, i could play 100 hour game of active playtime over no more than twice that time if there are biters counting alt-tabbing and other distractions. For 250+ hour game, those i do the same as you describe, i'm slow and doing other thing, but usually without biters, those game i could experiment with combinators or wanky system for the sake of it, more "creative" than "goal-oriented". Most of my solo games aren't default settings, most multiplayers game i join are.

I do mining productivity research usually before i start over, when i have researched everything else, but it doesn't always make sense with mods that adds sustainable production of ressources so in case i go for robot speed. I usually play with scarcer ressources than default, but "better" individual ore patch, railworld causing them to be very far away from each other but a bigger reward when they are connected. I often reduce size and increase richness.

Also i'd rather have 10 labs running 100% of time than 20 labs only 50%. The harder the modpack the lower the number of lab so i can keep them running despite the complexity of adding the next science pack. I'd like to think of my outpost as doing the same slow and steady rather than super reactive. I "manage" that with extra buffer of material in the mall and at train station.

Doing this sorta stuff feels like I am breaking reality itself at times, just like a cool Speedrun or a TAS do. Once you realize there is no practical difference between your Starting Area and some random ass Ore Cluster on the Map, except for the extra richness/size of the Ores, it becomes the trivial best choice as long as you're not scared of Small Biters and start researching Turrets and Grenades quickly.

I do not deny that x) i think you could somehow synergize even more by spreading miners because outsourced factory can be made without stations for input of material if they are next to ressources that won't deplete until the end of the game, (or for the next 250 hours) i wouldn't build green circuit around 3-5 million ore patches, but as you say if a region has around 50 million worth or ore combined with proper ration, my mind would go as : should i output 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 belts of green circuit from this region ? given my current progression toward the goal of that particular game so that they will last long enough to spare me the trouble of extra stations for input in the event that one or the other deplete because i underestimated the time i would continue playing the save. I know i'm probably over-thinking all this but i find it entertaining