Factorio Forums

What's your mining outpost design?

Do bring electricity from your main base to them?
Do you connect them to your logistic network?

How do you do it?

connect to main electricity network. have extra station with supply train that delivers repair packs/lazer towers/construction robots, so it can defend itself... and then have a seperate robot network there. I'd love to hear other ways to do it

edit: supply train also comes with artillery to get rid of any intruders close by

In my last game, the first one where I seriously got into trains, I made a set of blueprints with two rails and large electric poles in between them. So that way I can do the rails and more or less power takes care of itself. Plus high power lines along railroad tracks are a common sight IRL, so it looks pretty good too, IMHO. I don't connect them to the logistic network, because A) that would require a huge number of roboports, and B) bots "don't like" long windy logistic networks. They try to fly over the empty parts and run out of power. Thus far I haven't tried connecting mining outpost to the circuit network either.

I actually tried bringing in steam by train on my last game. And use steam engines on the spot to power the mining outpost. With 1 solar panel to boot-strap the pump.
Actually worked pretty good, and prevented problems of biters destroying powerpoles.

Technically I don't build remote outposts since I build guarded train tracks with a dedicated bot network.
I include in my train track design walls, turrets and flamethrower turrets, fueled with crude oil.

It is a good way to claim more land easily. I often build two parallel lines with several hundret tiles in between and everything in the middle is mine.

I do not do anything fancy.

1. I expand my whole terrain by walling it off by walls of lasers so I do not defend mining outpost separately.
2. I do junction from the main two rail tracks by blueprints (using personal robots) then place rails with loop at the end in the middle of few ore patches (it depends on how much ore is in those patches, for 0.16 patches probably 1 train station for each patch).
3. I place station infrastructure from my blueprint and bring power from the nearest source.
4. I claim ore patches one by one by:
a) bringing electricity;
b) placing mines using combination of 1x2 and 4x2 mines blueprints to cover the whole patch (mines are spaced for maximum longevity not maximum output), power poles and belts are included in the blueprints; after that steps I have a few yellow belt lines outputting ore;
c) combining those few yellow belts into one faster belt and connecting it to the station.
5. At the end I place 1-2 train at the station and set the simple schedule (leave this station when full, go to 1-2 -> 1-8 repacking station input and leave when empty, earlier when I didn't consume as much ore and didn't have such big distances it would go directly to the main station).

I did not use logistic network outside my very core base before artillery, however now I use it to bring ammo to the guns (and I have some construction robots for laser repairs since I have range at my defense). It sometimes makes nasty surprises when construction robots from the network instead of personal ones want to build stuff or clear trees - it would take ages before those arrive so I have to do it manually then.

dog80 wrote:connect to main electricity network. have extra station with supply train that delivers repair packs/lazer towers/construction robots, so it can defend itself... and then have a seperate robot network there. I'd love to hear other ways to do it

edit: supply train also comes with artillery to get rid of any intruders close by

Wow, I never thought of that!

You could limit 1 wagon with dedictated spot for Laser/Bots/Repair/Wall/Electric Pole.
Then you can connect the train stop to the circuit network so the inserter only load 2 inside the wagon
Then you can use circuit network again to unload only if there's some missing in the mining station.

The only problem now is if one of the biter attack the main power line and cut the power (or if the mining outpost get completely wiped out of course).

make sure you have some solar cells especially in your coal mine if you still need coal for power.
a few solar cells just to make sure everything WILL WORK (even if slowly) if you have a power outage.

since the mining outpost are connected to the main electricity grid you might as well use any solar cells you have to place them out of sight

shachar2 wrote:make sure you have some solar cells especially in your coal mine if you still need coal for power.
a few solar cells just to make sure everything WILL WORK (even if slowly) if you have a power outage.

since the mining outpost are connected to the main electricity grid you might as well use any solar cells you have to place them out of sight

Yeah I used that strategy at first too.

But if you use laser defence to protect that mining outpost, in Endgame you need so many laser turrent and you receive so many attack with Behemoth that you need a pretty large solar/accumulator grid to protect your base.

It doesn't seem too optimal.

Daid wrote:I actually tried bringing in steam by train on my last game. And use steam engines on the spot to power the mining outpost. With 1 solar panel to boot-strap the pump.
Actually worked pretty good, and prevented problems of biters destroying powerpoles.

thx for the idea will try

Elok wrote:

dog80 wrote:connect to main electricity network. have extra station with supply train that delivers repair packs/lazer towers/construction robots, so it can defend itself... and then have a seperate robot network there. I'd love to hear other ways to do it

edit: supply train also comes with artillery to get rid of any intruders close by

Wow, I never thought of that!

You could limit 1 wagon with dedictated spot for Laser/Bots/Repair/Wall/Electric Pole.
Then you can connect the train stop to the circuit network so the inserter only load 2 inside the wagon
Then you can use circuit network again to unload only if there's some missing in the mining station.

The only problem now is if one of the biter attack the main power line and cut the power (or if the mining outpost get completely wiped out of course).

correct, now awesome hot water delivery comes into place

dog80 wrote:

Elok wrote:

dog80 wrote:connect to main electricity network. have extra station with supply train that delivers repair packs/lazer towers/construction robots, so it can defend itself... and then have a seperate robot network there. I'd love to hear other ways to do it

edit: supply train also comes with artillery to get rid of any intruders close by

Wow, I never thought of that!

You could limit 1 wagon with dedictated spot for Laser/Bots/Repair/Wall/Electric Pole.
Then you can connect the train stop to the circuit network so the inserter only load 2 inside the wagon
Then you can use circuit network again to unload only if there's some missing in the mining station.

The only problem now is if one of the biter attack the main power line and cut the power (or if the mining outpost get completely wiped out of course).

correct, now awesome hot water delivery comes into place

Hot water delivery for Steam Engine is an interesting idea, but I'm guessing you'll lose a lot of space to power them. I guess rocket fuel for boiler + Steam Engine could also be an aternative.

I'm still wondering if a better alternative with Power Lines is possible.

I use logistic train Network mod when ever possible

3 Stops:
1) Ore pick up
2) supply drop (bullets, spare parts)
3) parking spot for my private express, so i dont block the main lines, and artillery trains

In my coal fields I like to set up back up generators, wired to accumulator switches

Elok wrote:Yeah I used that strategy at first too.

But if you use laser defence to protect that mining outpost, in Endgame you need so many laser turrent and you receive so many attack with Behemoth that you need a pretty large solar/accumulator grid to protect your base.

It doesn't seem too optimal.

Defenses:
Gun turrets are fantastic throughout the game, and should be your go-to turret, and the turret type you should have the most of.
Lasers are not the most optimal at anything (well, they are good at once thing... convenience.) They pull electricity directly, and lasers are the worst damaging turrets you can place.
Flamethrower turrets are the literal end-game turret, they do require some logistics; with fluid management. But once you pipe them in, they require no power/lognet.

Post-endgame gun turrets (with equivalent upgrades) will one-shot behemoths way before lasers can.


As for power...
You can wire up your outposts, but I really hate laying wire across the landscape. Especially since if biters path into a pole, and get blocked in... the biters eat the pole to get out.
Solar is rather large for any reasonable power output. And may not be feasible for any outpost that uses any number of lasers or roboports.
That leaves shipping in energy via superheated steam or solid fuels. Superheated steam is probably more space efficient, since you just need a few steam tanks and turbines. Boilers require a source of water and quite a bit of space per 1.8MW.


If you ship in energy via a supply train, you might as well ship in crude for flamethrowers/ammo for turrets; and incidentals like replacement drills, power poles, turrets, walls, belts, and repair packs.
You will ultimately up with a PAX(passenger) stop, an outpost resupply stop, and the main high-traffic outpost export stop. Then when it comes time for the tear down... you can easily reverse some inserters; and have a deconstruction train which feeds some active providers in your main factory.

A car, submachine gun, some ammo, fuel and a couple of steel axes.

At first its a couple of gun turrets loaded with a stack of ammo in support of each other.

Then it's a large power pole with a ring of laser turrets.

Final solution is walking off a choke point and supplying it by train. With a mix of gun and laser turrets.

Mining itself is standard rows and belts, or bot-mining later.

Short ways? Run power.

Long ways? Solar + efficiency modules.

nobody uses http://autotorio.com/outpost ?

tobycar wrote:nobody uses http://autotorio.com/outpost ?

Yes, Used it some towards the end of my last game. Very useful tool.

tobycar wrote:nobody uses http://autotorio.com/outpost ?

How does it work?