Almost everything on one line

[Phssthpok]

Almost everything can be produced with access to iron, copper, plastic, and batteries.

A row of factories between those main resources can produce intermediate components on short transport belts and store final products in passive provider chests. (Products that don't require oil can be built on a second row that can only reach the iron, copper, and circuits.)

This is a very low-tech solution. The only technology it requires is Automation 1 for long-handled inserters. Since it mostly uses belts instead of chests (to minimize vertical space usage), it does not benefit from inserter stack size bonus.

Screenshot of entire assembly line: http://i.imgur.com/gHolORW.jpg
Higher-res screenshot (6MB): https://s3.amazonaws.com/collusiongames/factorio.jpg

Having both plastic and advanced circuits on the main line is redundant, so if I were to do it again I would put advanced circuits and batteries on the same belt.

[Artman40]

Great work! Is it possible to have more different products on one conveyor belt to save space?

[Phssthpok]

Great work! Is it possible to have more different products on one conveyor belt to save space?

It's possible. This guy did it: http://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/commen ... t_modular/

But I think you would need smart inserters with filters to monitor the belt if items are not produced in perfect balance. The nice thing about using one row per item is that you can visually see which rows are being used up, and adjust the balance with modules or more assemblers.

[GewaltSam]

Hmmm... To be honest, I fail to see the advantage of this design.

[starxplor]

Hmmm... To be honest, I fail to see the advantage of this design.

Exercise running from top to bottom and back.

[Phssthpok]

Hmmm... To be honest, I fail to see the advantage of this design.

The main appeal is that it allows you to express constraints like "first make x factories worth of science, then fill one wood chest full of weapons, then spend extra resources on solar panels" without depending on smart inserters or logistic drones. Since all products are flowing the same direction, the density of the input belts shows you exactly where resource contention is occurring.

Within that constraint system, it's easy to express recipes by assuming they always have access to metals and circuits, and focusing only on other components. For example: gears + pipes + steel -> engines -> electric engines -> flying robot frames.

[therapist]

Hmm, interesting idea to implement production prioritization, but I think you can accomplish this in any system that uses a single line of input materials. The higher on the belt that feeds input materials, the higher the priority.

Another drawback i foresee is you have a big choice to make as to the speed of the input materials belt. If you choose to use a slow belt, you will not have the capability to put more than say 10 circuit assemblers without eating up a full belt's worth of resources.
If you choose to use a high-speed belt, some resources will slip by to the later machines on the line, and degrade the performance of the original machines while slowly breaking the functionality of the prioritization aspects of this setup.

Have you observed these issues and if so how are you dealing with them? I think I might actually implement this design in my militaries factory after my chem plant is done.

[Phssthpok]

I only experienced bandwidth problems with plain circuitboards. Eventually I had to import more circuitboards by train and send them directly to the processing unit assembler by drone. The other large consumers of circuitboards were also limited by processing units, so that one drone chest kept circuits flowing well enough to let a small amount of copper trickle through for ammunition and solar panels.

[ssilk]

I found some links:

Some Basic idea:
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... ?f=8&t=918

Oscillating bus:
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... ?f=8&t=973

Blue circle:
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... cle#p11913

I hope, that there will be some belt with v0.12 or so, which can count the items on it, because that would really enable such stuff.

[ssilk]

It's possible. This guy did it: http://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/commen ... t_modular/

But I think you would need smart inserters with filters to monitor the belt if items are not produced in perfect balance. The nice thing about using one row per item is that you can visually see which rows are being used up, and adjust the balance with modules or more assemblers.

He added these pics:
http://m.imgur.com/a/lgTfd

I think, that this will not work in all situations, too, but it's much better than the example I found in this forum.

[tralala]

Hmmm... To be honest, I fail to see the advantage of this design.

I think it's an achievement in itself. I have not studied it in detail but find it amazing that you can do such a thing. The throughput probably sucks bit time: With two adv. cirucit assemblers your production of modules will be _very_ slow. Adv. circuits are needed for distractor capsules as well and for procs and for science packs 3 - so if you turn this factory on those adv. circuits won't reach the later module assemblers or accumulater assembler as long as you produce science and capsules.

[Phssthpok]

Ok, I've done it again, with batteries and advanced circuits on the central line. That leaves more room available on the fluids side of the track. It is a real struggle to keep electric circuits flowing fast enough, but it helps to allocate more space to iron and copper until the circuit assemblers thin them out enough to combine.

https://collusiongames.s3.amazonaws.com/factorio2.jpg

[starxplor]

In my latest world I have adapted this to my style of spreading out... Every machine has a space between them. In many case, I have inserters directly feeding, such as copper cable to circuits and upgrades from first to second to highest tier. I also do two of each tier 1-3 research pack, too slow with only one.

I put all the petro based stuff in a different area, and route the batteries to the line and the plastic directly to the circuit assembler.

I am still working on figuring out the best power pole placement though, nothing structured seems to be enough, and I hate pole/wire messes.

[GewaltSam]

I am still working on figuring out the best power pole placement though, nothing structured seems to be enough, and I hate pole/wire messes.

I would recommend saying your goodbyes to small poles as soon as possible and only using medium poles for distribution in an area (later, you can use a lot of substations for that) and big ones for getting the power where you need it.

For powering assemblers, I came up with this setup at one point: X.XX.XX.XX.X

where X is an assembler and . is a power pole (which should be in the mid, of course). With that setup you get the power to everywhere and don't need too much space for it. I use it a lot before i get to substations. But do yourself a favor and don't even try to find a system that works perfectly (i.e. no overlapping, power on every tile, symmetry etc.). I was much happier after I abandoned that and just build in a way that worked and looked not too bad. If the latter is of any importance for you, then you should notice that you can remove the wiring of a pole with shift+leftclick and do the wiring yourself anew (simply click the poles with copper wire in hand). This way you don't have that many useless connections between poles that don't need to be connected. Helps a lot against the cluttering.

[starxplor]

I did not know you could remake connections between poles, that should help a lot!

Thanks.