Early Building Store

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Belts this early... Setting up the rest just got much easier.

Edit* This is not quite right. The gears should be picking up from 2 smelters output, not one. Move the assemblers to the left a little to allow for this.

[Breith]

And there is the long post I was talking about.

So, just to start: this is the early smelting area I used. Really simple: 2 irons lines, 1 copper line, iron + copper on one yellow belt and iron only on the second one. It did the job for 1 block of green circuit, 2 gear assembly machines, a couple of Red Science assembly machine and 1 early assembly machine making yellow belts. It was perfect for the beginning but I had to unlock filter inserters first... and thus wait for them like an idiot. Annoying, I need to get rid of the filter inserter in that design.

Then I finished the whole design. It's basically more smelting columns and the addition of Green Science. The main difference with the old design from my tests it the order of the assembly machines. If you pay attention to the bottom of the line (that goes from south to north). I now have 2 yellow belt side by side one for my personal usage (goes to a chest) and one combined with a insterter production. Half of the inseter production is used for my personal use (goes to a chest) while the second half goes to green science. I could have done the same with the belts and save an assembly machine, but I wanted to be sure that I'll always has enough.
Is noted that at this point my second issue appears: I didn't unlock the blue assembly machine fast enough. Again, I had to wait like a idiot.

After this point, I just continued the designed, like we discussed previously, increasing the number of electric mining drill / smelting columns when I needed it until the moment I did the screenshot. It took me approximativeley 2h to reach this point which is my fastest begining so far.

Then, I had a choice: what to do? I had unlocked the red belt and the local fauna started to be a little bit aggressive, should I start my main bus with yellow belts or should I upgrade this design? I decided to be sure that my factory won't be destroyed because of a stupid decision. So I developed my wall production and updated my main bus with red belts. The iron outflow is awfully too low but it doesn't really matter at this point. I have what I wanted: an area that I'll use as a smelting area to the north, and I'll push my bus southward west to my main store. It took me an additional hour to do that. I realized too late that trying to solve the iron supply issue was a waste of time: there is just no way that this design can sustain a fluid red belt production.

So there is were I am right now. I think it is going to be the end of this experiment for me at this point. This design is really efficient in the early game but now it does not permit to have a acceptable output for anything beyond early tech. It's time to move to a more classical bus system.

[Qon]

I realized too late that trying to solve the iron supply issue was a waste of time: there is just no way that this design can sustain a fluid red belt production.

So there is were I am right now. I think it is going to be the end of this experiment for me at this point. This design is really efficient in the early game but now it does not permit to have a acceptable output for anything beyond early tech. It's time to move to a more classical bus system.

I disagree. If you expand your everything before the bus starts (red + green circuits, gears, smelting, mining) and use at least 2 red belts of iron (merged into one when going into building store line) then this does work for producing red belts and red circuits. Starting with double iron means that you still have 1 full belt left after you have tapped it for gears, circuits and science. And you don't even need that many belts anyways when using this design.

Looks like a great start. With proper planning you can keep going without falling back to the inferior main bus ;]

[Dry Hairy Tree]

You have your science coupled with the building store Breith. Looks good in many respects otherwise.

Science imo should have its own dedicated resources. Without doing that early game every time I try to build and research simultaneously the resources start to get stretched thin. The proximity of production and science doesn't matter so much except for cost of belts. Production feeding science makes production weak. Science feeding production gives lots of boost to your 'main bus (production)' via upgrades. Building store is always useful if it evolves. Adding trains is fairly crucial to my model, it allows large production facilities to be added on, just load up with assemblers etc and make them.

When I hit red circuits I like to send a train to a new area close-by and make a circuit factory for red and green circuits to come out of. The train is loaded with iron and copper plates, and plastic. All the iron and copper pour through the system churning out green circuits and copper cable to join the plastic for red circuit production. The excess plates carry on and make more green circuits. Red and green circuits go back to the train station to be delivered where needed.

I swim in the darn things. Trainloads of plate ramp production up really well and my train (stations) are rough as guts... I just ramp production up via mining outposts and deliver where I want it.

Here's a circuit factory. I've toned it down though as I had too many red circuits. It's rough as hell prototype but serves the purpose well. Trains were dropping half to science and half to blue circuits. Excess from blue and science bled off to modules.

What does your heart desire from the game - fluid red belt production? - would trains make it happen?

I find trains a lot more useful than building a main bus - as I don't feel so restricted, but that's me.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Here's the early gear->belt assemblers in the right position, then I expand the iron, grab some copper and make red sci. These resources are for science only. Note a new lot of ore starting to be mined in the centre, I'll send it and some coal above the science area to start a building store.

Love the new patch. You can hand mine those pesky rocks that used to get in the way for 20 stone a pop.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Here's the 'set up'. Ready to build both the building store and green science - separately! The smelters will all fill up while I do this so there will be good backup to kick the store off when I get to it.

It's time to get green science running as am almost out of red research.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Now the green Sci is in. I can start on the building store and think about what I want for Christmas. I see rail in my future. And though I haven't struck it yet - oil!

I shall build engines and pipes, inserters belts and assemblers. I've no decent real estate on the starting iron patch to ramp up any decent steel production. I'll also need to build some ammo/turrets and 'deter' some aliens from surrounding the iron to the west.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

To do all of the above, I do need a lot of circuits and gears so I make a shared line of the two now. This type of design seems a lot more practical and easy than my first post - thanks people. The ratio of cable/circuit assemblers is widely seen as it is more 'correct'. I've held back the copper as advised - but split the line, just in case I want it for more circuits or something else. Laser turrets rule but gun turrets have greater flexibility, I might use some copper for armor piercing rounds when I get a steel supply running.

I hope this blow by blow is helping newer players/making sense

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Look what I found under a forest

So much Stonage!

(user may/may not have had too many ciders/stonage celebrating 6 months in advance of work expectations)

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Make the game serve you, don't get sucked into the machine.

The fact is, unless you're lucky, you got forests to clear and rocks to shotgun/pickaxe. Water to get around, aliens to alienate.... It's a brave new world out there.

The building store chest slots of what you want fill up while you're out there doing what you gotta do. This aint about big production baby, it's about what you need, now.

I said earlier to put assemblers late, but I'm always saying stupid shit. Crafting the damn things waiting for the building store phase. What about first on the line, but no crate so you can grab em from the assembler itself two at a time, that works too.

It's all a rock and roll swindle folks, Factorio is the only escape. *

* Transmission will return to normal upon finishing optic research.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

So I went off to sort out another line of boilers etc for power and started mining the stone and whatever iron I could finangle from the starting patch for steel production. I needed inserters to finish the steel area and returned to full stacks in my crates of the pictured items (4 stacks of belts, two of pipes). I only take half stacks of some larger items i don't use them that fast.

Hope y'all had a great Friday night. I did.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Finally - steel! I could have taken some out of the science resources or the building store lines but it weakens them. The science will get taxed soon enough when blue sci rolls around.

Steel brings smelting upgrades, armor piercing rounds, engines, and rail. Steel is good.

I think the first thing I'll do with my steel is upgrade my steel production - has a nice flow to it.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

For the doubters who think this playstyle won't land me in mid-late game in good condition...

This seems reasonable to me.

[keleios]

I love this thread, I just built one of these. It is quite a bit different. I think I prefer the poster's version as it is simpler. Logistically.

[Qon]

I love this thread, I just built one of these. It is quite a bit different. I think I prefer the poster's version as it is simpler. Logistically.

Worst of both worlds

You are belting copper everywhere even though nothing uses it (except red science which shouldn't even be on the building store, and turrets which can be placed close to circuits instead).
Your setup looks more like a main bus than a building store and with all it's complexities and limitations but none of its pros.

Sorry but it does not look like a building store at all and I can't say I like it. How are you going to get red circuits, stone bricks, pipes and batteries to it? It won't last. :/

[Dry Hairy Tree]

When I see factories like that which produces the 1 minute rocket defense, I am completely blown away. The thing with Factorio is, if you really want to do a thing - the only thing stopping you is your imagination (and possibly life commitments)

I have no idea how fast 1k red circuits per hour is in relation to anything really. I'm pretty sure i was making a lot more n that... Anyways, I'm open to suggestions for what people think is a reasonable rate of red circuit production for the game to progress without undue delays. Then I'll try produce that with a train fed circuit factory.

Back in the new game, I've got those engines and rails started. I switched position of my pipe assemblers as straight pipes are only for feeding other assemblers, I'll use them to produce engines too, they take ages to make so it'll barely be noticed by the underground pipe production (I have more than I need right now so they're not hooked up to a new crate yet).

[Dry Hairy Tree]

See I've taken on a fair bit of your feedback too Qon. Don't think I aint reading. It's evolution!

Thanks Keleios. Yes that does look a bit complex but are you having fun? Sometimes the belts etc can look really good, that's why I liked my original (impractical) smelt pic I posted, it looked cool.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

There's still not enough steel, but not enough is better than none. I grabbed a couple of stacks for myself then split it like this so that ammo only gets 1/4.

I'm doing this in sandbox so military is not much of a priority. When aliens are hostile things aren't much different just a few turrets thrown into the mix. I got turrets they're just in my inventory instead of at choke points. My pollution has not touched any aliens yet regardless. Start with the larger base settings when you generate a map - if you want a chance to get well settled in before being attacked.

Here's my messy steel division

[Dry Hairy Tree]

And for a look at how this meshed together....

It resembles one factory in some aspects but is three lines really with sci, production, and steel all having their own respective mining/smelting. This division of labor greatly reduces the need for things like belt upgrades and smelting upgrades. But the potential to implement them is of course still there. So far only the steel operation is upgraded as there's not enough.

I was thinking of getting a train to bring steel directly in, but I'm going to need more plate too, it'll be simpler to just ship in plate and apportion it when it gets here.

Haven't even thought about preliminary train layout, should give it some pause.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Just hit a major problem with the patch. There is no curved rail option. I found some coal under a forest closeby to the Northwest and plenty of iron close to that. Unfortunately I can't hook the rail up.

I even tried shut game down, open up game with curved rail - it's not there