Single line of Iron On Main Bus, Zisteau

[jasonwhitener]

...this was a url to zisteau's vidoes on youtube, but the forum said I couldn't post a url:(

I have about 70 hours tinkering with Factorio and love it so far. This weekend I watched most of the zisteau videos where he created a single main bus that had on it about every useful item in the game.

He used a single line of iron until the end of the game, splitting it off to build sub-parts along the way (gears, inserters, etc.). I just now tried it after upgrading to 0.15 beta and am seriously low on iron. All I'm building along the main bus are gears, inserters, green circuits, etc.. which feed red and green potions, as well as making ammo. I also have a line of forges producing steel, which feeds a red ammo factory line.

That said, that single line of iron is not keeping up, no matter the number of furnaces and electric mining drills I add. I think at last check I had something like 20 mining drills of iron and at least that many furnaces.

Is something different with 0.15 in terms of iron use? I really want to completely saturate the main bus with iron, but can't seem to.

I can get some screenshots of my early game layout if that would help, but the general questions I have are:
1. How was zisteau able to power an entire game start to finish on one iron line?
2. Has something changed in terms of iron use for 0.15?
3. Should I switch to multiple dedicated iron forge lines with dedicated iron ore lines?

Some of the tutorials about main buses I've read show 4+ lines of iron coming down the main bus. That is all well and good, but at this rate, 4 wouldn't even come close to power the main bus to the end game. I'm literally just researching, building ammo, and producing steel, and a single line with 20+ iron drills isn't enough.

[kingarthur]

was the belt completely saturated with iron? also later tiers of belt move more items per second than the yellow belt so that allow more splits before the belt is empty. without know what video it was you saw i cant be certain what he was doing. if you cant post the url add some spaces or delete the youtube.com part and just post everything after the /

[DaveMcW]

You need to limit your outputs. Open your ammo chest and click the red X. Drag it so most of the slots are blocked off. Do the same for every other chest.

After you have everything limited to a reasonable amount, 1 belt of iron is still very slow. I recommend adding more iron belts, including a dedicated one for steel.

[brunzenstein]

just have a look at the brand new 0.15 fantastic Catherine of Sky videos and your questions are answered:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... JwUr61IRaw

[Hannu]

I do not know if something has changed. But it is completely possible to launch a rocket with one line of iron (at least in peaceful mode or very easy biter settings). I had one red line of iron in my first base when I launched my first rocket. Of course it takes several hours and you have to wait things to happen. But there is not much reason to have more than 2 or 3 red belts if you stop game after first rocket. 4 or 8 (or some insane number) blue belts are needed to achieve certain number of rockets per hour.

[t-lor]

It should be possible, not sure why you would want to. it would just take hours waiting on just the conversion to steel and then to LDS.
Much more fun to just try to cram in a new steelbelt into a already build factory

[GodricSeer]

Most people use more than one line to solve the problem you are talking about. I have watched many of Zisteau's series, and interpreting the way he does things as normal or efficient is the wrong approach.

Launching a rocket on 1 yellow belt of iron is (or was in 0.14) very possible. There is a guide here on the forums for getting the "There is no spoon" achievement that shows a base you can build in 3-4 hours and will produce a rocket plus all related research in another 4 hours in 0.14.

[Artentus]

Zisteaus mainbus is - and as much as I like him, I have to say this - shit. His Meiosis series is way better in terms of factory design.

Personally I have found four fully saturated belts of iron to be enough for a decent belt based factory (once you go bots + productivity + speed beacons you can't possibly transport all the iron you need by belt).
But even with all that belts (I do the same for copper, too) my bus is still way smaller than Zisteaus becuase you don't need all those crap items like assmblers or inserters on the bus at all.

[jasonwhitener]

Thanks everyone. My line is initially balanced and saturated, but after splitting off for a couple items, it is no longer saturated. I'll look into limiting some of the items, but some items I seem to be using just as fast as I can use them, like the things involved in potion making. I have 15 or so research labs, maybe I'll also try lowering the amount of labs. My research is so fast it is almost annoying how often the completed sound dings.

I'll watch that other youtube series that someone posted above.

And it sounds like multiple lines is better usually.

As to the Zisteau main line being inefficient, he said as much. I just thought it looked fun to try out.

[jasonwhitener]

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... JwUr61IRaw

That helped quite a bit. Things I learned that I believe will help newer players:

1. She struggled with iron early on also, even with a few lines of iron. So it is basically a struggle early on if you build big. So by design.
2. Using load balancers properly is a must.
3. Upgrading to steel furnaces early. I didn't realize how much better they are in terms of coal savings and output. In previous versions I just plodded along until electric furnaces, and that isn't ideal.
4. Upgrading to red belts/splitters can help bottlenecks a lot.
5. Be careful to limit chests that are filling with building items like inserters.
6. Count what resources are required instead of just attempting to saturate lines to factories. For instance, surrounding a green potion factory with the appropriate amount of gear factories is way better than trying to fill a whole line with gears.