"Omni" Builds, infinitely scalable designs!

[Riph]

My designs are very different from most of what I see on this board. So different in fact that I was compelled to post. They're intended to grow with the player, from early game to late game, getting as large as necessary without ever needing a teardown. Case in point:

Infinitely Scalable Refinery

This refinery gets as small or as large as you need it. Just stack more refineries or more chemical plants northward. Start small, then just add more throughput as you need it.



Storage also scales infinitely, add more tanks on the south side.

OmniLines

These chains of assemblers are designed to flexibly change output on the fly. Because they have access to every resource type, they're ready to produce the new good immediately.

This design also scales infinitely, in this case to the east.

Output sockets

Where to put finished goods that don't get taken in by another factory was a puzzle I solved with these output sockets. Once you have the technology for it, take out these steel chests and replace them with logistics chests.

Research Omniline

Here's an Omniline taking care of all my research needs. If you need more of a given science pack, just scale it further east.

I really enjoy seeing the huge, symmetrical, professional looking designs players post. But to me, nothing matches the ease of plopping down stacking layers of OmniLines.

[Qon]

Intresting idea. But could be improved a lot.
Plastics are used for red circuirts and low density structures. If you are not making LDS then having a half belt reserved for something that will only be used in 1 recipe is kinda weird. Copper is almost only used for coils (which are almost only used for electronic and advanced circuits) while circuits, iron plates and steel plates are used a lot everyhwere.

Capsules don't really need to be scaled with the rest of the factory. The amount you need depends on the amount of players you have hunting natives. If you play alone then your capsule production can be alone too.

What is the purpose of your factory? If you have no real goal then scaling everything together is pretty weird since you waste a lot of time and space when you scale up the production of things you don't need if you scale up eveything to get more of X.

Creative at least. If you had a production goal and improved it where it lacks and balanced it accoring to your goal then it could even be great.

[Frightning]

I spent a lot of time with this same basic concept, and you are right that, space providing the oil setup is pretty scalable, but it is not infinitely scalable, because Pipes have a throughput limit (600 units/sec, and that's only with frequent pumps). That said, you would have to have a pretty massive factory to saturate the pipe throughput.

Where are going to have issues far sooner is with belt throughput, belts can only move some many items per second (about 40 items/sec for an express belt with both lanes saturated). There is also the fact that inserters always place onto the far side of a horizontally placed belt (corners and vertical belts can differ), so you also have to come up with a way of switching incoming output onto the other lane, which is easily done with a 3 belt tile T-junction (I might go snag a pic of one of mine). Even with the T-junction, you can still only hit a maximum of about 40 items/sec on the fastest belts.

You can get higher throughput with the use of logistics bots (though this is energy intensive, and also requires a lot of research, so you're early setup won't be like this). Yet another issue with belt based design is inserter throughput (this is especially a problem for items that consume components or produce finished products at very high rates). Logistic bot based setups have the advantage of using both inserter stack size bonuses (because materials and products are moved to logistics chests which means movements are container to container and hence benefit from stack size), and logistic bot stack size (greatly reducing number of bots needed and improves energy efficiency for the same reason).

[Riph]

Where are going to have issues far sooner is with belt throughput, belts can only move some many items per second

Yup. And I've actually made lines so long horizontally that, even sending them fully compressed express belts full of iron plate, they still run out.

When this happens, it's time to create another omniline to the south or north. Since they're all exactly the same width, you can slot an endless number of them north/south of each other in predictable patterns.

[Riph]

What is the purpose of your factory?

The purpose is to build absolutely anything I need. When power runs low, I can get a set of solar panels/accumulators building quickly. Ammo, robots, rocket parts, modules of any size, all these things are easily slotted in and begin building immediately.

Robots are actually tricky, because they need lubricant. Depending on where the refinery is relative to the lines, this is either easy or hard.

Capsules don't really need to be scaled with the rest of the factory.

This line in particular made me concerned that I'm not communicating the design well. Capsules wouldn't be scaled with the rest of the factory. The first screenshot shows the "prep" part of the lines. To see the part that scales eastward, look at the research omniline picture. The assemblers to the east are set to assemble whatever you need, based on what items you need at the time.

Here's an example of what you might install on the eastern part. In making this line I realized I was out of Efficiency 2 modules, so I threw this together.

Image

[Shokubai]

I like what you are going for but the ratios look off at a glance and I think there is more optimizing that could be done. Also, I feel like intentionally limiting yourself to two belts down line is a mistake when there is obviously room for additional belts of materials which could be threaded in as needed. Also, Also, I'm not sure why you have steel outside your lines. Doesn't seem a point to it when it could be between your plastic and batteries.

Nice work overall.

[Koub]

You might want to look at this topic : viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8377

[Riph]

You might want to look at this topic : viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8377

dee's design is really cool, and cool looking. I feel like it takes up even more space than mine does though ;D

Also, Also, I'm not sure why you have steel outside your lines. Doesn't seem a point to it when it could be between your plastic and batteries.

In truth, the only reason the steel production is slung on the south side of the line is so that when my inserters move them north, they're conveniently on the north side of the belt. The whole design could be condensed vertically if I was willing to solve the side-of-belt problem differently.

[Koub]

You might want to look at this topic : viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8377

dee's design is really cool, and cool looking. I feel like it takes up even more space than mine does though ;D

It surely does, but it is also infinitely stackable