compact research facility

[torham]

Hello to everyone. I have bought Factorio about a week ago, and since than I have been having great time with automation

I need some input on a factory I have designed. I have been working on something compact and lightweight.

this is the setup:



As you can see I was preferring factory > factory transport of resources .
My question is :
What is more effective, production belts for sub-assemblies (electronics, copper wiring), or direct factory > factory movement of sub-assemblies?
The first one produces excess products, and hence consumes more raw materials but it introduces a buffer for all products.
The latter is more efficient in raw materials, but has no buffer, since all items are produced only when needed.

PS: Also I wanted to ask what is the official word on paving/road/surface alteration for the future? It would be great if we could put down some basic stone factory floors. It would make navigating your complex much easier, If you could pave walkways with some stone...

[ssilk]

To your question: for copper wire inter assembly transport is the only way to keep up with the throughput (prerequisites inserter stack size bonus). Most other are ok with belt transport only. Having buffer on belt is ok, if it is short and depends on the complexity of items: for iron plates I would say the only possible way (some parallel belts), for for science pack 3 (the blue one) not so good. The other advantage is, that the belts make immediately visible, if you have still enough.

Ps: My "official" word for that is "schlendering".

[torham]

Thanks for the opinion. The problem I have with this one is that it is very hard to scale up, it only functions well as a stand alone unit. I will try belt fed sub-assemblies for my next game, and compare the results.

PS: even google drew a blank for the word "schlendering"... I have no idea what that means, unless you meant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Schlender

[ssilk]

The German version of "to stroll" .