Logistic Storage strategy

[Hedning1390]

Maybe I should replace one of my many electric furnaces with a Steel one fired by wood poles and wood. That should ensure a slow but steady wood burn, and if I ever run out of wood then losing a single furnace's productivity won't be a big deal.

Replacing furnaces is pointless busy work. Even if you have full solar you can keep your early game steam setup to burn wood every night. Steam can also be nice to have for other things.

[zOldBulldog]

Maybe I should replace one of my many electric furnaces with a Steel one fired by wood poles and wood. That should ensure a slow but steady wood burn, and if I ever run out of wood then losing a single furnace's productivity won't be a big deal.

Replacing furnaces is pointless busy work. Even if you have full solar you can keep your early game steam setup to burn wood every night. Steam can also be nice to have for other things.

My solar is quite well balanced with its accumulators. I don't run out of power at night and in reality hardly ever.

What other things is it nice for? Am I missing some important use of steam?

[Aeternus]

My personal strategy:
- Single large central storage area. ~ 64 chests just to be on the safe side (8x8, equal in size to 2x2 roboports).
- Storage area on the same logistics grid as the "mall" / structure factory, and a small science producing plant (including a spaceport). This ensures that this logistics grid can consume any resource that is produced in bulk elsewhere
- Buffer chests are used at the structure mall. Typically I request 90% of the buffer chest capacity to be filled from the logistics grid, and turn off the inserters feeding the chests if the chest is 20% full. Exact values per structure vary based on stack size. This will cause the bulk of materials going to the storage area to be returned to the structure mall and prevents overproduction of structures.
- Requestor chests at various parts of the factory for intermediate goods like electric engines, copper wire etc, with the "request from buffer" flag not set. This will cause the storage buffer to be emptied into those.
- A small auxiliary smelter and incinerator (4 boilers + 6 steam engines + 4 storage tanks) for handling ores, wood, old power poles, excess coal, solid fuel and wooden chests.
- Construction materials trains will be filled from requestor chests with the "request from buffer" flag set. Even if this prioritizes getting goods from the structure mall over getting goods from the storage area - the buffer chests will be refilled from the storage area and no overproduction will happen.
- Active provider chests used only for trains bringing in incidental goods (deconstructed mines, garbage wood from construction/clearing projects). For other supply trains that bring goods that should be available but not immediately pushed into storage, use Passive Provider chests.

Doing this will cause your storage buffer to be used only when you have a bulk of goods incoming, which your factory will slowly consume. You'll have minor amounts of stuff that won't be re-used - old armors, handgun, iron chests, burner mines and steel furnaces. If those bother you, stuff them all in a wooden chest and flatten it with your tank.

[Tricorius]

.Doing this will cause your storage buffer to be used only when you have a bulk of goods incoming, which your factory will slowly consume. You'll have minor amounts of stuff that won't be re-used - old armors, handgun, iron chests, burner mines and steel furnaces. If those bother you, stuff them all in a wooden chest and flatten it with your tank.

Good summary. A more succinct summary than I conveyed. I do very similar things.

I like having a buffer or requester configured for junk I have to manually destroy in a wooden chest. If you have a box set to grab “currently obsolete” guns, armor, etc they will always be pulled out of storage and collected together where you can quickly destroy them.

[Hedning1390]

What other things is it nice for? Am I missing some important use of steam?

I wouldn't say important. Steam can be used as backup power as a steam (from boiler) tank holds the same power as 150 accumulators. You can use it to transport power without electric poles and it can be used in coal liquefaction.

My personal strategy...

My personal strategy is pretty similar to yours, as it turns out:
- Single small central storage area. ~ 9 chests just to be on the safe side (3x3, equal in size to 1 assembler).
- Storage area on the same logistics grid as the "mall" / structure factory, and the science producing plant.
- Provider and buffer chests are used at the structure mall. Buffers only for upgradable items. Typically I request 100% of the buffer chest capacity to be filled from the logistics grid, and turn off the inserters at different amounts depending on the specific item. This means some trashed items will stay in storage until they are used, but it's not a problem, because 9 chests is plenty and storage is always used first.
- Buffer chests at various parts of the "mall" / structure factory for intermediate goods like electric engines, green circuits etc.
- A small auxiliary smelter for handling ores.
- Construction materials trains will be filled from requestor chests with the "request from buffer" flag set.
- Active provider chests used only for trains and personal inventory management bringing in incidental goods (deconstructed mines, garbage wood from construction/clearing projects). For other supply trains that bring goods that should be available but not immediately pushed into storage, use Passive Provider chests.

[Aeternus]

For the garbage incinerator folks who seem to have problems getting their wood burned:
If you are using solar then steam will still be used before tapping Accumulator energy. Simply have a small steam plant directly connected to your main power grid instead of behind the power latch. I use 4 boilers + 6 steamengines + 4 tanks - this design buffers steam and kicks 150% of boiler capacity off at night, ensuring a steady stream of incineration. If you want a continuous burning, simply put 2 boilers, 4 steamengines and 3 radars on a power grid. The radars ensure that the steamengines stay active, but the power is wasted.

[mrvn]

For the garbage incinerator folks who seem to have problems getting their wood burned:
If you are using solar then steam will still be used before tapping Accumulator energy. Simply have a small steam plant directly connected to your main power grid instead of behind the power latch. I use 4 boilers + 6 steamengines + 4 tanks - this design buffers steam and kicks 150% of boiler capacity off at night, ensuring a steady stream of incineration. If you want a continuous burning, simply put 2 boilers, 4 steamengines and 3 radars on a power grid. The radars ensure that the steamengines stay active, but the power is wasted.

But that is just stupid waste and creates pollution for no reason.

The simplest way is to just not upgrade some stone/steel furnaces to electrical furnaces and let them burn stuff. It's more work to update them than to repurpose them as incinerator.

[Aeternus]

That's only an option if you don't want to use modules in your smelters. It's actually less polluting to burn the wood in boilers/steamengines and use 2 eff2 mods in your smelter then it is to use a steel furnace. Or if you go full production mod - well, then steel furnaces are a no-go alltogether.

[Hedning1390]

If pollution is a problem for you then you are at a stage where you can just let the wood accumulate in chests. If you want to keep it sorted place 9 requesters in a square formation. It will take a very long time for them to fill up and once they do you probably don't care about pollution any more, but if you still do you can just shoot them and start over.

[bobucles]

But that is just stupid waste and creates pollution for no reason.

The simplest way is to just not upgrade some stone/steel furnaces to electrical furnaces and let them burn stuff. It's more work to update them than to repurpose them as incinerator.

That ALSO creates pollution for no reason!

The cleanest way to automatically dispose of wood is a burner inserter loop. Clean and effective.

[dood]

But that is just stupid waste and creates pollution for no reason.

The simplest way is to just not upgrade some stone/steel furnaces to electrical furnaces and let them burn stuff. It's more work to update them than to repurpose them as incinerator.

That ALSO creates pollution for no reason!

The cleanest way to automatically dispose of wood is a burner inserter loop. Clean and effective.

The cleanest way that actually does something is stuffing it into trains, though all that becomes irrelevant once you get to nuclear fuel and have more power than god.
Then, you use steam engines simply because you can build them right next to your build train stop.

[Tricorius]

The cleanest way to automatically dispose of wood is a burner inserter loop. Clean and effective.

I prefer to scatter them behind me randomly while going out to kill biters. They serve as a breadcrumb trail to get back to the base and might slowly compost to avoid burning it ... clean, environmentally friendly.

[mrvn]

The cleanest way to automatically dispose of wood is a burner inserter loop. Clean and effective.

I prefer to scatter them behind me randomly while going out to kill biters. They serve as a breadcrumb trail to get back to the base and might slowly compost to avoid burning it ... clean, environmentally friendly.

While I like the breadcrumb trail items lying around slow down the game.