Let's see your clever builds

Post pictures and videos of your factories.
If possible, please post also the blueprints/maps of your creations!
For art/design etc. you can go to Fan Art.

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hansinator
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Re: Let's see your clever builds

Post by hansinator »

Yoyobuae wrote:@hansinator: Someone posted this on reddit a while back:
http://i.imgur.com/HbAiEjw.png
Nice link. I've adapted socket's design to fix that problem. I've stretched the design a little to fit in two input belts. It's the same height but wider while still retaining beacon count, beacon effects on furnaces and efficiency. Two input belts means you can have the upper and lower furnace row smelt two different materials. Another thing is, that with two input belts you can achieve full efficiency when smelting stone, as stone requires twice the input material for the same output. It exhibits exactly the same properties as socket's build in all other aspects, including that 2 furnaces will buffer up material if you don't have two output belts after the last splitter (except for steel). I needed to replace the fast inserters on the furnace input side with stack inserters, because the fast ones sometimes suffer from something like a seizure and continuously fail to pick up stuff. Oh one more additional feature: one furnace block powers all beacons that affect it, so you can use a power switch to turn off a a block without needing logic to keep it powered when the neighboring furnace block is still active. If you want to do that you must strip the copper wires from all wooden poles after placing a neighboring block (to remove the inter-block wiring) and re-wire them.

Image
Blueprint variant A
The double-splitters on the output side are needed to fully compress the belt. If you want to smelt stone you should remove the input splitter thingy and instead input two full belts of stone.

Here's a variant that is two tiles shorter but requires 4 output splitters (and blue splitters need quite a few precious circuits to build them).
variant B
Blueprint variant B
Now, on to the real fun :D If you're like me and you think "well if I can get more output than one blue belt and if I don't use two output belts the furnaces will buffer up, which wastes energy put into the beacons", then you'll maybe find the next two builds interesting. I've added more beacons to get the maximum out of one block: ~2707 iron/copper plates or stone per minute. For steel it is less and can fit onto one output belt, of course. My calculations show that I can put the output of 6 furnaces on one side of a blue belt, so I thought I just need to output the last two ones onto a separate belt. That however does not work, because if the 2nd last inserter of the upper or lower row is fast and outputs continously without pausing then the minute stalls (which are wanted and caused by inserting onto underground belts) that propagate along the input direction will make the 3rd last inserters fail to output stuff fast enough. This in turn causes the furnaces to buffer up. It sometimes works and sometimes not, depending on how the motion of the inserters is synced (or out of sync, if you want to see it that way; what actually matters is the phase shift between the waveforms that describe the inserter rotation angle over time). It is influenced by how full the input belts are when the furnace starts up. I have solved that by only activating the 2nd last inserters on the upper & lower side when the 3rd last ones are not holding anything in their hand. No combinators required. Took me some hours to analyze the problem properly..

Here's the result with two output belts where each belt has the same material on both sides/lanes:
two outputs variant A
Blueprint two outputs variant A
And another variant with two outputs where each belt carries both materials on different lanes:
two outputs variant B
Blueprint two outputs variant B
Depending on how you may want to join belts with splitters one or the other variant may be more or less handy.
For variant B I suggest using an overflow-splitter to make one fully compressed and one sparse output belt per furnace block and join a couple of sparse belts together until you get another compressed belt. This way you can economize on belt usage. Given that blue belts can carry 2400 items/min and the furnace block has a theoretical output of ~2707 items/min a properly overflow-splitted sparse belt should carry 307 items/min. 2400 / 307 amounts to ~7.8, so it should be fine to join 7 sparse belts into one. It gets a little more tricky with variant A, because it carries around 1353.5 items/min which is less than a blue belt. If you join two of them you've again got 2707 items/min which makes the situation the same as for variant B in terms of throughput considerations. Another idea is to use lower-tier output belts. For variant A for example it is enough to output to two red belts.
While speaking about lower tier belts... if you only smelt iron, copper or steel with the variants seen so far, then you can also replace the input belts by red ones and use both sides of the belts. For stone however you need the full capacity.

Here's a very, very basic overflow splitting and sparse belt joining example. To make it work under all conditions you'd need a different overflow splitter, but it works as an example.
sparse belt joining
If you smelt steel you can remove the complicated output section, feed two full input belts, extend the whole thing to 30 furnaces and ride on the bright side of efficiency:
extra wide steel setup
Blueprint extra wide steel setup
If you don't like extra-wide steel smelting then I got the steel-double-whopper for you. It is two "normal" blocks stacked vertically with shared input/output belts. It's only got 28 furnaces and thus makes less efficient use of the beacons in comparison to the wide setup, but therefore it fits the width of the other variants.
steel-double-whopper
Blueprint steel-double-whopper
Finally there's a screenshot of my test map where I've literally built dozens of different furnace blocks each with subtle variations to test if they work properly over longer periods of time:
test map
If you want to individually confirm my claims or like to see more variations (where lots of them do fail) then you are invited to play my test map which can be downloaded via the following link: http://wikisend.com/download/776676/bigfurntest.zip

Finally you might ask "Why? It is no real improvement over socket's design which smelts iron & copper just fine". For me it is an improvement, because now I can do count-perfect smelting, which wasn't possible with the other compact design.

Let me know what you think about these designs!

Juggla
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Re: Let's see your clever builds

Post by Juggla »

Here is a clean Steel smelting setup. Not original, I'm sure. But, I haven't seen something like this. I like to start new games all the time. So, I'm consistently looking for early/mid game setups. I know using filter inserters is expensive. I used to use a similar setup with underground belt winding in and out of the line and I found that was almost just as expensive. Plus this looks a lot cleaner and is MUCH easier to expand.

It's not currently set up to upgrade to electric smelting but could be easily adapted to do so. Though, I like to use robots to smelt steel late game.
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vanatteveldt
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Re: Let's see your clever builds

Post by vanatteveldt »

@juggla: I normally setup something like this:

Image

The power lines are annoying to setup until you get medium poles, but it only requires 'normal' components and can be easily expanded.

If you want to output to the bottom you can also divert the coal from the top, although that makes it a bit annoying if you want to make it longer

Juggla
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Re: Let's see your clever builds

Post by Juggla »

Yah I used something similar for a long time. It's perfectly viable and kind of the standard way to smelt early steel.

But I was aiming for something where I don't have to have 2 coal lines. As well as my personal preference to have a single line of smelters. It looks cleaner to me that way imo. And as far as "normal components", the filter inserters only requires electronics (30 science 1 packs) which is an easy early research to do. By the time i need a steel smelting line I want electronics done anyways so i can start making bigger poles. And at the low cost of 2 extra iron plates and 6 extra green circuits per steel smelter, well I'll take it :)

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Deadly-Bagel
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Re: Let's see your clever builds

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

Hmm, if I was looking for something compact I would probably have a coal belt and an iron belt next to each other, furnaces either side all pulling from the coal belt (using long handles where necessary). Every second furnace pulls from the iron belt and the rest pull from the adjacent furnace.

Personally I just draw from my main iron feed, so if steel backs up my factory gets the extra iron.
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Aldimosh
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Re: Let's see your clever builds

Post by Aldimosh »

May not be the most efficient or compact, or smart, so really its not that good, but it works and I'm proud of it.

Image

For something created in the middle of the night, barely keeping my eyes open, i think its worth showing. Man i should become a plumber! A 2-Dimensional pixel block plumber? yeah that'll work.

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Deadly-Bagel
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Re: Let's see your clever builds

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

Aldimosh wrote:A 2-Dimensional pixel block plumber? yeah that'll work.
Well the only competition is that one guy, he used to be rather popular but is getting on a bit now =P
Money might be the root of all evil, but ignorance is the heart.

mophydeen
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Re: Let's see your clever builds

Post by mophydeen »

vanatteveldt wrote:@juggla: I normally setup something like this:

Image

The power lines are annoying to setup until you get medium poles, but it only requires 'normal' components and can be easily expanded.

If you want to output to the bottom you can also divert the coal from the top, although that makes it a bit annoying if you want to make it longer

You could use 1 underground in the middle to separate steel from the coal.

MKNZ
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Re: Let's see your clever builds

Post by MKNZ »

I try to design my bases with an internal road for cars, I don't see many people do this, but I'm sure I'm not the first

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Re: Let's see your clever builds

Post by MKNZ »

MKNZ wrote:I try to design my bases with an internal road for cars, I don't see many people do this, but I'm sure I'm not the first
http://plays.tv/video/58a3c50abe826860f4/my-road-

My first post couldn't be a URL :)

vanatteveldt
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Re: Let's see your clever builds

Post by vanatteveldt »

MKNZ wrote:
MKNZ wrote:I try to design my bases with an internal road for cars, I don't see many people do this, but I'm sure I'm not the first
http://plays.tv/video/58a3c50abe826860f4/my-road-

My first post couldn't be a URL :)
Cars. Because trains are just Too Easy.

dinodod
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Re: Let's see your clever builds

Post by dinodod »

Variant 1 of the steel smelter
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DOSorDIE
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Re: Let's see your clever builds

Post by DOSorDIE »

Iron Smelting without extra Coal Line

HowTo:
Timed Inserter send 1 Coal all 2,5 second (150 Ticks)
The Bottom Inserter take the coal when more than 2 on the belt
Iron Smelting with included Coal.jpg
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EDIT: Change Picture for a better one

js1
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Re: Let's see your clever builds

Post by js1 »

Juggla wrote:Here is a clean Steel smelting setup.
Hm, this got me thinking..
steel-setup.jpg
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And a more compact, but little funky variation:
steel-setup-funky.jpg
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vanatteveldt
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Re: Let's see your clever builds

Post by vanatteveldt »

I think we should make a "early steel smelting" competition and thread :)

What about this design (that I'm sure has been posted earlier, since it's fairly obvious):

Image

It avoids filters and splitters and uses 0.5 underground belt and 1 long-handed inserter per steel smelter, which is cheaper than a filter inserters plus long handed per smelter

edit: or an alternative to Juggla's setup:

Image

This uses a long-handed inserter instead of a filter inserter, cheaper and easier to setup, at the cost of separating the coal and iron belt. If you want the ore belt in the middle you need 1.5 long handed inserters per steel smelter, which is still cheaper (and imho easier) than a filter inserter:

Image

Mehve
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Re: Let's see your clever builds

Post by Mehve »

This was the pattern I used on my last startup.

It gives a full belt to the ore, and only gives a single lane to the much lower volume coal and steel, no filter inserters or splitters needed, and just 1 UG needed at the end, with an optional splitter for lane balancing. Fairly compact, since the inserters only extend towards the middle, and it has a common input/output end, so extending it is simple. The coal/steel belt has enough throughput to support a fast ore belt upgrade in the future, although an express upgrade would theoretically bottleneck, not to mention give trouble to the long inserters for picking up.

Edit: Or for maximum cost effectiveness and to avoid using fast belts, it's dead simple to double the input belts.

Image...Image

iceman_1212
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Re: Let's see your clever builds

Post by iceman_1212 »

My non-electric steel smelting build of choice. 5 lanes iron for 1 lane coal. I put this together past the point where I carried yellow inserters (for inventory efficiency) - the blues are ofc not necessary.

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Mehve
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Re: Let's see your clever builds

Post by Mehve »

Looking forwards to a new slew of balancer options :)

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js1
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Re: Let's see your clever builds

Post by js1 »

vanatteveldt wrote: What about this design (that I'm sure has been posted earlier, since it's fairly obvious):
I like this one very much, thanks! What I like the most is that it is easy to upgrade to electric furnaces, if you space your smelters by 1.

teenusa
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Re: Let's see your clever builds

Post by teenusa »

My new 16 to 16 Balancer:
It is 16 by 23.
The only things wich is really annoying, is that only one undergroundbelt is in the way of getting a 16 by 22 balancer.
The stats of the Balancer:
16to16_result.PNG
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And the Balancer:
16to16_picture.PNG
16to16_picture.PNG (394.07 KiB) Viewed 17033 times
BlueprintString

Is there a better and smaller 16 by 16 Balancer out there? because i did not found one yet.

The first art of the splitter, the 8 by 8 Balancer is really similar to the Balancer of Mehve.
So Credit to you, Mehve.
aka Chaftalie

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