Resource "outposts" or "ALL YOUR LAND R BELONG TO US"?

[Cougarific]

My initial supply of coal is running low, starting to think about hooking up a new source but wondering which experienced players find more effective - should I make a walled, defended "outpost" at the new source or should I try to clear and control all the intervening territory and wall in/defend the whole shebang?

[Koub]

As you advance, you'll come to the conclusion that only the first is really viable. As the distance of the next ressource patch grows over time, you won't be able to endlessly defend the huge portions of territory between your main factory and the ressource patches.

[DaveMcW]

Actually, territory grows equal to radius², but wall length grows equal to radius. Meaning the more territory you clear, the more efficient walling the whole thing is.

[Cougarific]

Thanks for the input - do I have to worry about them attacking stuff like undefended power poles, belts and tracks or will they only go after the machinery at the outpost?

[Koub]

They are mostly attracted by pollution, and neither power poles nor transport belts pollute. I have never had any power pole or transport belt between my outposts and my main base attacked so far (after a few hundred hours of gameplay).

[GlassDeviant]

Three tile thick walls defended by 1 tile thick of lasers, the ultimate expression of the word "MINE!"

[Cougarific]

Yah I just recently discovered you could make the walls double-thickness. Not only tougher - looks cooler too!

I'll have to try triple-thick for the points of most frequent attack.

[NotABiter]

should I make a walled, defended "outpost" at the new source or should I try to clear and control all the intervening territory and wall in/defend the whole shebang?

I think outposts are cooler for role-playing purposes. (Hey, I'm making an outpost just for my solar. Chew on that for a while.) Besides, how else do you "justify" (er, "rationalize"?) doing something like in the attached pic - a totally redundant self-defending rail system with not only its own walls/gates/lasers, but also solar panels, accumulators, lights, the occasional radar (in place of one of the solar panels), and of course dual one-way rails with a gratuitous amount of rail signals. It's designed so even if biters chomped all the way through at two different places, the then cut-off-from-everyone-else section of rail would still have enough power to fire its lasers. (And now I'm looking at those single thick walls and thinking "Hmmmm".)

But I kind of wish I could actually add "biter bypasses" so there would be some way for the natural fauna to get past my rails (e.g., go through a tunnel under the rails {I guess with entry/exit out of laser range}, or occasionally put the rails and everything else on a bridge). Without that, if I make any loops in my rail system, it encloses an area and then no biters can get in or out of the area. (And then they don't spread and make new spawners and I don't have easy local access to more purple stuff. Er, I meant to say it's for ecological reasons... that's it.)

BTW in this play my goals are: Productivity (as in productivity modules) is #1, pollution control is #2, don't worry about total (solar) energy use. So one of the decisions I made was that I would keep my base (which is off to the east) far away from my solar array (which is being made off to the west). Why? Trees. You have to clear-cut an area for easy solar installation, and I don't want to chop down all the trees near my pollution-generating stuff. So I will do my clear-cutting so far away that the pollution never gets there anyways. (And I'm using so many beacons I really need to get lots of solar.)

EDIT: And yes, I am driving that train the wrong way down that track.

[Xterminator]

I think it depends really just on your play style, resource limitations and how efficient you want to be. Personally, I prefer to just do defended outposts, because trying to build an entire defended wall between my main base and outpost(s) requires a lot of resources and time. Usually the biter shouldn't go for power poles or belts/train tracks, but it is possible. I just recently had some biters destroy a good chunk of my train tracks and belts down by one of my outposts, along with the polluting buildings as well of course.

One thing you could do that is kind of a nice half-way point between the two options you mentioned, is to build little defended laser "bunkers" every so often along the way. I like to use the big power poles (the ones with a really long reach), and surround it in turrets, and then surround the whole thing with a double thick wall. And just place them every so often along the way.

[DoctorWho?]

I just get tons of stone, make LITERALLY 10 wagons of walls, and then run along the track placing 4 layers of walls around my empire.

I also mix in spots for biters to enter because I think it's fun to have a reason to place turrets in my curcuit factories while having a wall.

[Cougarific]

NotABiter is talking logarithmic functions to somebody who just learned how to add and subtract - and I love it because it makes me realize that I've only just scratched the surface of this amazing game.

Fascinating stuff guys, thanks for all the input.

[Zourin]

Outposts simplify the logic needed to do something without having to turn an area into a spaghetti monster by providing more uninterrupted space. The drawback is in setting up the logistic links needed to do so. Setting up a rail line is a resource, time, space, and logistic nightmare that winds up well worth the factory simplicity.

One of my first outposts winds up being a chip factory. Bring in materials, ship out green/red/blue chips. It's a VERY nasty setup to run because of the productivity modules making tons of pollution, but I'm glad that it's not being piled on top of my home base, which winds up becoming more of a resource switching and research station than anything.

Good 'outposts' to have, other than a mine:
- Solar plant - Cheap power, low attack risk, and high space requirement make it a good candidate for sticking out in the boonies.
- Personal Support Factory- A base dedicated to items specifically for you, such as ammo, drones, and vehicles
- Refinery - Oil, iron, and coal in, and all sorts of valuable exports. If you can locate it near Coal/Iron, you should easily be able to make a myriad of engines, explosies, and plastics. It also helps control your exports so you don't overproduce.
- Chip Factory - The reverse of the solar plant, I load mine up with production/speed modules and make it into a high-tech blight that requires a lot of extra attention.

Also, I find it useful to directly smelt on-site. Ore stacks to 50, but iron stacks to 100. There's ease in 'mainframe' smelting, but there's something to be said for spreading out the workloads and making the logistic space more efficient (especially if you have electric smelters and good Efficiency modules)

[Cougarific]

Wow - "themed" outposts - I love the idea. Gonna explore this...

[GewaltSam]

[...]
Also, I find it useful to directly smelt on-site. Ore stacks to 50, but iron stacks to 100. There's ease in 'mainframe' smelting, but there's something to be said for spreading out the workloads and making the logistic space more efficient (especially if you have electric smelters and good Efficiency modules)

While I agree with the first part (which I snipped), I don't share your opinion on smelt on-site. Of course it's personal flavor, I like to make an argument for a big smelting area anyway though:

If you set up your furnaces at every mine, you need additional space there, it's a lot of extra pollution (and ore fields tend to be more and more in enemy territory later on), and you need to set it up / tear it down every time a mine is exploited. That is reason enough for me to build a specialized part where ore goes in and bars come out.
It doesn't really matter that ore doesn't stack as high: In my setup, a train gets the ore at the mine, rides it to the smelter station where it is put onto belts and driven right into the fiery pits of my factory. The finished bars are loaded into buffer chests, so my furnaces can produce on full capacity all the time (except for when the buffers should run full, but they are dimensioned big enough to last a while). Now, the big cargo wagons virtually never run full at my mining stations and take everything with them, so I got no real bottleneck through transporting it. And ore is only stored when the furnaces are already running on full capacity - and that changes if I don't connect new mines for a while.

The best argument I didn't even mention so far:
Ever saw twelve express belts full of ore running right into the busiest place on earth, and another twelve filled to the brim running back out again? Now imagine you start this system up for the first time. That is even worth the little framerate drop


Outpost building is great though. I once started to build a circuit outpost a two minute train ride away from my main base, just as proof-of-concept. It created the need to put a supply train on the tracks, plus a construction train to build the outpost itself - quick trips to the base to get a few more inserters or chests simply weren't possible, so I had to deliver everything I needed. And don't mention to set up the Input-/Output train stations built for trains with 8 cargo wagons on them for that monster... Totally worth it, learned a lot

My plans are to have
- a sophisticated main factory for personal purposes, with very flexible production which can spill out everything that is needed in reasonable numbers, plus research (no need to outsource that)
- solar and battery outpost
- smeltery (furnaces and a big train station to handle input and output)
- refinery (rail tanker mod...)
- circuit production outpost
- module production outpost (good connection to the circuit outpost, maybe directly connected)

I am playing around with Bob's Mods right now and I guess there are a lot of other needed parts I forgot in that list...

EDIT:

Three tile thick walls defended by 1 tile thick of lasers, the ultimate expression of the word "MINE!"

I lol'd

[Zourin]

I won't argue the on-site smelting vs not. It's something I'm on the fence with as it is. I just tend to not leave myself much room in my primary base for a proper logistic link.

That said, I can't stress enough the need for logistic bots for train loading/unloading. They make life so much easier. The trouble is either holding out for them or allocating enough space for all the belts and splitters.

The other thing is giving yourself enough train cars. It's easy to short-change and have only 1-3 wagons and build stations for them, then realize that, to support more/varied outposts, you can't expand it to 10 wagons. This means needing to build a second line and more station logistics.