Automatic outpost construction

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vanatteveldt
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Automatic outpost construction

Post by vanatteveldt »

Constructing outposts is a pretty boring job after the first couple. For this reason I tend to play with large infrequent ore patches, so most patches are >10M resources. This means that you need quite a lot of miners, belts/bots, etc to setup the whole field.

For this reason I use a (semi-)automatic strategy consisting of two parts:

1) I use FARL (or rail blueprints) to build a rail line to the outpost, and then stamp down a 'starter' blueprint consisting of the outpost station, including a supply train stop, a roboport, and a radar. This stop always has the same name, so as soon as it is built a free supply train will move to the new outpost. I get back in my train and drive back or drive on to the next outpost.

2) I use standard blueprints to stamp down mines. Belts move the ore close to the station and unload to provider chests. Bots do the "last mile" to the train station, which avoids the need for balancing and non-straight belts while needing a limited amount of bots compared to bots-only mining.

Pictures / explanation:
Outpost starter
Supply station logic
train setup
mines and loading
I also use this pattern for other blueprinted base types such as ore2module and ore2science and it works the same way: build starter station manually, set supply train stop name, and blueprint the whole plant and let it be built by the construction bots and supply train without your intervention. Of course, allocate trains and rename train stops as needed.

Blueprint book below. Note I use LHD trains but it should be easy to adapt for RHD.
blueprint book

Dry Hairy Tree
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Re: Automatic outpost construction

Post by Dry Hairy Tree »

Nice work. Outpost construction certainly does get boring. I've got biters all evolved and nasty so I have to include the lasers, walls, repair kits, robots.... Blueprints help but as each outpost varies I do a fair bit of it manually.

Large patches are certainly called for. Unfortunately the game tends to splash < 1M rubbish across the map still.

I can see how going in first with blueprints then sending in the train could alleviate multiple trips/forgetting bits etc for me too. Food for thought.

herkalurk
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Re: Automatic outpost construction

Post by herkalurk »

Do you have some examples of your home setup for the supply train? Also any other examples in regards to the logic used to send the automatic trains out. I've stopped building remote mining sites because I went to an endless resource mod I too was getting annoyed by building and tearing down mining sites.

vanatteveldt
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Re: Automatic outpost construction

Post by vanatteveldt »

Don't have the game handy, but it's really quite simple:

Home site: station with requester chests (one per item) and reserved slots in the train wagon.

Train orders: Home until inactive, outpost supply until inactive.

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