Deploying large scale mining operations?

[Boogieman14]

In my games, like many I tend to expand my mining operations to haul (potentially) ridiculous amounts of ore to my base. This of course involves setting up lots of mining operations. Right now, what I usually do is plop down a blueprint for the train loading area, then stamp down a 4x2 miner blueprint all over the deposit, hook the output belts up to the loader and place the defensive perimeter around the entire mining site. Right now, that still involves quite a few manual steps so I'm thinking about ways to have more of this included in a single blueprint.

Options I've been thinking of:
- make a blueprint that contains a 6x6 or 8x8 grid of miners, complete with walls, loader and everything
- build a modular system

The complete blueprint is probably the simplest to just plop down as long as the size of the deposit fits within the grid, but it is of course also the least flexible (especially on my current map, where RSO has giving me a lot of clusters of smaller deposits relatively close to each other). The modular approach is more flexible, but also increases required fiddling (and more flexible automatically means more fiddling).

So I'm inviting everyone to share their methods and ideas for rapid deployment of their large scale mining operations

[Leveller]

I finally got fed up building more and more small bases even with RSO so i made a new game with very large and very rich. Best descision ever.

[Marconos]

I have been having the same issue but have gotten the process down quite efficiently with the new personal roboport.

My Model:

1. LARGE blueprint that has a large amount of miners in it. 50 - 100 miner range. Stamp that down to cover the patch and since the excess don't get placed you just deconstruct the extra power poles / belts in those areas.
2. I then walk over to the side where I want the train line to go and plop down a train outpost.
3 Next is spend 6 hours putting in all the stupid modules (REALLY can't wait for that to be in the blueprints)
4.Route mining lines to balancer / splitter to fit the 12 feeder lines to the train (2 x 6 train both sides).
5. Set the train station name and walk away.

Exception: When you have funky land areas you may have to jigger around with the miner layouts around water and such, train lines that route through the patch etc.

Using this method I can set up most mining outpost in 15 - 45 min with 90% of the time spent balancing the lines to the train stops. The fastest thing you can do is bring a blueprint that you reset. You need to run some belt through trees, Make a 5 - 10 straight piece, blue print it run it. Need to run 4 lines side by side, run a few pieces blue print it. It's one thing I see that many people don't make a lot of use of is resetting their blueprints. It costs 1 green circuit to wipe the blue print so make use of it. Copy / Paste will save you tons of time.

[bigyihsuan]

In my various worlds, I tend to do my gigantic mining operations manually.

1. Get a rail line to the deposit and set up a siding large enough for my 1-2-1 rail-building train.
2. Plop down as many miners as I can onto the deposit with a one-tile space in between rows of miners.
3. Connect all of the belts together and balance it.
4. Build a gigantic smelting setup with electric furnaces. There will be slightly fewer furnaces than miners to ensure that all of the furnaces are working.
5. Group all of the belts from the smelting into a single monstrous belt of plates
6. Set up the loading station. 4 inserters per car, 8 if I need the throughput.
7. Turn all of the things on
8. Send the train off to where ever it needs to go.

I play on Peaceful, so I don't worry about biter attacks.

[Boogieman14]

Did some fiddling in a temporary save (created a 100x100 stone deposit so I could place all the miners I could ever want and then some). This is the monstrosity I came up with:





144 miners, 80 lasers, 3 roboports. Place one of the roboports and feed it all the materials and the outpost pops up.

Blueprint string as an attachment because the forum considers it too big (blueprint uses Smart Train Stops and Equalizer Chests, otherwise it's all stock)

Now to find out if it'll actually work out in a proper game