The bentham/arumba train unloader

[cpw]

With some added awesome nixie tubes. For some reason I think this looks and operates really nicely. It's not super speed, but it really does the job well. The wire signals will also soon be holding trains until a "low point" has been determined...

screenshot.png (3.88 MiB) Viewed 17466 times

[ArbitraryHubris]

I'm much too anal to comingle my resources. I'd like to see the screen shot with both sides of the train in the pic as well.

BTW, is the the Iron Chests and FML cpw?

[Gus_Smedstad]

Yeah, my immediate reaction is that you're mixing the output of the train to no good purpose. Not that we can see the train - I gather it only has 4 fast inserters unloading per car? Or maybe 8, if it's double-sided.

I've struggled with train unloading recently, but mostly my struggles were about trying to make sure all the buffer boxes unloaded equally. Which I never quite managed.

[codewarrior]

Why are you unloading onto belts, and then unloading the belts into chests? Just unload the train directly into the chests.

This isn't 0.11 any more - you can put a solid row of chests right next to the train, and every single inserter will unload the train at full speed. It only takes 10 seconds to completely unload the train with maximum inserter stack upgrades.

[MadZuri]

This is perhaps my least favorite unloader design. Unnecessary: mingling of products, buffer system, lane reblancers. Ineffective unloading (if you aren't using 14 inserters loading directly into chests per wagon it isn't optimal), mixed trains... All in all, a really horrible design that I don't think anyone should be bragging about. I've seen some pretty sub-optimal designs, and I give some of those a pass, simply because they adhere to a certain design aesthetic, and I can respect that. This mess... is a cacophony of half-understood mechanics thrown together that is only seen as "good" because of the logical fallacy of "Appeal to Celebrity."

[-root]

What I don't know is how you ended up with a train full of four materials?

This is an extremely strange design.

[LordFedora]

Nah, you guys are reading this wrong, this train only has one resource per wagon, he's just dumping it all onto the same belt

[Gus_Smedstad]

I'm pretty sure I'm seeing two different items on the feeder belt from wagon #1. Coal and some cyan thing, presumably from a mod.

[codewarrior]

What I don't know is how you ended up with a train full of four materials?

It's not unusual for mods where ore patches yield two kinds of ore. He's using Bob's Ores, where patches of Galena give you both Lead and Nickel.

I usually deal with this by unloading the ores into purple chests and letting the bots sort them out.

[Daenor]

i usually sort them before loading. makes it a lot easier in the main base.

[DerivePi]

This is more of a sorter and not so much of a train unloader

First, I like the counter at the bottom. How does it work?

I'd like the designer to consider a few things:
- What control measures are in place (or can be placed) to prevent a material from overloading the temporary storage and then the feeder track? (OK, nevermind - I can read - please post an update when the wiring is done!)
- Consider linking each of the four feeder lines directly onto the inside loops and not to the return loop. The current design limits the sorter to just one fast belt at the beginning.
- To fully load a fast belt, you only need 10 fast inserters

Of course with Bob's Ore Mod you will need to sort through silver, tin, gold, bauxite, zinc, tungsten, rutile, quartz,...whew.

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... ter#p60861
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=8&t=5588

[cpw]

Some clarifications: I'm playing bob's mods and RSO (with a high level of dispersion of resources). Once rolling, I expect to have 14 or so different resources coming in via train. But BM doesn't really need a huge quantity of any of them.

BTW, is the the Iron Chests and FML cpw?

Yes: https://twitter.com/voxcpw/status/633060163352596480

Yeah, my immediate reaction is that you're mixing the output of the train to no good purpose. Not that we can see the train - I gather it only has 4 fast inserters unloading per car? Or maybe 8, if it's double-sided.

It's 8 - the unloading is double sided.

Why are you unloading onto belts, and then unloading the belts into chests? Just unload the train directly into the chests.

This isn't 0.11 any more - you can put a solid row of chests right next to the train, and every single inserter will unload the train at full speed. It only takes 10 seconds to completely unload the train with maximum inserter stack upgrades.

There are chests next to the train line. It's a combination train unloader and material sorter.

This is perhaps my least favorite unloader design. Unnecessary: mingling of products, buffer system, lane reblancers. Ineffective unloading (if you aren't using 14 inserters loading directly into chests per wagon it isn't optimal), mixed trains... All in all, a really horrible design that I don't think anyone should be bragging about. I've seen some pretty sub-optimal designs, and I give some of those a pass, simply because they adhere to a certain design aesthetic, and I can respect that. This mess... is a cacophony of half-understood mechanics thrown together that is only seen as "good" because of the logical fallacy of "Appeal to Celebrity."

Gee, thanks. I didn't realize this was a "Min/Max" only forum. I thought it looked interesting. I don't believe I made claim to being "the best way to unload your trains" anywhere. I especially liked the readout on stored data. Appeal to celebrity? Yes, I saw it on a YT video, and thought it represented an interesting way to do a combo unloader/sorter, which is something you REALLY need when you're playing bob's mods. I tried the 14 stations plan in a previous playthrough. The more efficient design was just to skip the trains entirely and just belt directly from 1000+ tiles away, because that's how far station 14 was anyway. So, kindly go away if you're just gonna min/max everything?

What I don't know is how you ended up with a train full of four materials? This is an extremely strange design.

Bob's mods. You get multipatches of ore courtesy of RSO as well. They're all too small to justify complex field sorting, and as I just said, the 14-odd stations concept is just ridiculous. I want 1 station, where all my ore can be dropped off.

I'm pretty sure I'm seeing two different items on the feeder belt from wagon #1. Coal and some cyan thing, presumably from a mod.

Lead and Nickel, from Bob's mods.

I usually deal with this by unloading the ores into purple chests and letting the bots sort them out.

Done that before. It's pretty dull and boring. Also, I find that once you get all 14 or so resources from Bob's going, you end up with a huge distance for bots to travel, and you need to have segmented bot systems just for your unloader, and a massive fleet of bots. All of which makes it feel a bit crap.

i usually sort them before loading. makes it a lot easier in the main base.

You'd need a station per resource- something I was explicitly trying to avoid with this design.

Here's another screenshot, where you can see more clearly the relationship of the rail to the storage/buffer.

screenshot.png (3.46 MiB) Viewed 14261 times

[cpw]

This is more of a sorter and not so much of a train unloader

First, I like the counter at the bottom. How does it work?

It's nixie tubes. I just have a green wire (almost invisible) running across the top of every chest, and the nixie tube mod lets you specify a resource that it'll count and read out.

I'd like the designer to consider a few things:
- What control measures are in place (or can be placed) to prevent a material from overloading the temporary storage and then the feeder track? (OK, nevermind - I can read - please post an update when the wiring is done!)

It's still manual at the minute. I have FatController, if I see a resource dropping low, I let the train supplying it run a few cycles, and then hold it back at it's origin point. I aim to automate this, but getting a sufficiency of rubber to wire all of my provider stations, yeah, it's a slow job. I have smart trains, so it should be possible to do the hold/send model.

- Consider linking each of the four feeder lines directly onto the inside loops and not to the return loop. The current design limits the sorter to just one fast belt at the beginning.

Interesting modification, but I'm not clear how that might work?

- To fully load a fast belt, you only need 10 fast inserters

Eventually, it'll be upgraded to express inserters. Also, the "depth" of the hats mostly depends on how quick the sorting snake belt is, relative to how quickly smart inserters unload. Also, how much storage capacity I want. I have added on a couple of times.

Of course with Bob's Ore Mod you will need to sort through silver, tin, gold, bauxite, zinc, tungsten, rutile, quartz,...whew.

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... ter#p60861
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=8&t=5588

Interesting. this is very similar to what I have here, but clearly more optimized- the multiple middle hat feeds It's something I've noticed with this design, it favours the front, strongly.

[ratchetfreak]

- Consider linking each of the four feeder lines directly onto the inside loops and not to the return loop. The current design limits the sorter to just one fast belt at the beginning.

Interesting modification, but I'm not clear how that might work?

instead of putting all the inserter onto a single belt and then feeding to the sorter instead merge half of them into the middle of the sorter belt

[DerivePi]

Just for comparisons, this is what the receiving train station for all of the Bobs ores can look like -

RAILROAD%20SHIPPING.jpg (519.5 KiB) Viewed 14246 times

I think the sorter is a more elegant solution. Of course the most efficient design uses bots (especially level 3 bots) to sort the receiving ores.

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =8&t=14704

[Gus_Smedstad]

Just for comparisons, this is what the receiving train station for all of the Bobs ores can look like -

Why such long lead areas for each platform? For future expansion for longer trains?

[DerivePi]

Just for comparisons, this is what the receiving train station for all of the Bobs ores can look like -

Why such long lead areas for each platform? For future expansion for longer trains?

I limit the number of trains for each ore/station to the number of parking spots. This will prevent jamming. Theoretically, all of the trains can be parked at their stations and nothing should be blocked.

[cpw]

Just for comparisons, this is what the receiving train station for all of the Bobs ores can look like -

RAILROAD%20SHIPPING.jpg

I think the sorter is a more elegant solution. Of course the most efficient design uses bots (especially level 3 bots) to sort the receiving ores.

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =8&t=14704

Yeah, that looks similar to my "all the stations" layout. I found it was just way too big. But still, it works pretty well

[Gus_Smedstad]

So, kindly go away if you're just gonna min/max everything?

While Zuri was being Zuri, that doesn't justify dismissing good designs as "min / max" as if doing something well in Factorio were somehow wrong and something at which to sneer. This is particularly true because your own motivation was to improve the efficiency of your previous design:

Also, I find that once you get all 14 or so resources from Bob's going, you end up with a huge distance for bots to travel, and you need to have segmented bot systems just for your unloader, and a massive fleet of bots. All of which makes it feel a bit crap.

Do you want someone chiding you for "min / maxing everything" if you want to avoid the problems you see in using logistics bots for sorting train output?

This tempts me to try Bob's Mod's, just to see how I'd approach the problem. My first thought is that I'd sort things before putting them on the train, but that trains might routinely pull different car types. If lead and nickel always come together, logically that's one platform servicing two car types, not two platforms. But I'd need practical experience to see what worked, and what kind of volumes I could expect.

I personally never have logistics bots carrying raw ore, with the sole exception of stuff dumped from my character's trash slots. Bots are very flexible compared to other transport, but low volume, so I usually only use them for high-end intermediate products like processors and modules.

I did encounter some sorting issues with RSO, which proved to be a real pain when it was copper and coal. Once I've got solar up my coal demand drops to almost nothing, and I was struggling with trying to store lots of excess coal just to let the copper mixed into it at that station flow. It was like the usual oil refining problems, only without any way of converting excess heavy oil into something useful

[Gus_Smedstad]

I limit the number of trains for each ore/station to the number of parking spots.

Last time I had this issue, I went with a unified waiting area. Instead of each platform having 2 waiting stations, I had 5 parallel waiting stations that any type of train could use. Which could theoretically overflow, but in practice was always below 50% capacity.