Copper-plate lane in main bus layout

[Avezo]

I'm preparing to build my first serious main-bus-style factory, but after few small attempts I've noticed one thing - it seems you actually need very little copper-plates themselves, what you really need is circuits. Relatively few products (other than circuits) need copper plates. Which is kinda weird, because all layouts I've seen so far were making copper plate belts just as important as iron plate belts.

So the question is - what if I've just made copper-plate lane realtively small, while replacing it with thick circuits lanes? Did anyone actually try this?

Since it's my first serious main bus factoy, I don't want to make big mistake - fixing it would be way too painful.

[Frightning]

I'm preparing to build my first serious main-bus-style factory, but after few small attempts I've noticed one thing - it seems you actually need very little copper-plates themselves, what you really need is circuits. Relatively few products (other than circuits) need copper plates. Which is kinda weird, because all layouts I've seen so far were making copper plate belts just as important as iron plate belts.

So the question is - what if I've just made copper-plate lane realtively small, while replacing it with thick circuits lanes? Did anyone actually try this?

Since it's my first serious main bus factoy, I don't want to make big mistake - fixing it would be way too painful.

You'll still need to feed your Green Circuit factory with tons of Copper Cable, and thus likewise feed the Copper Cable factory with Copper Plates, due to expansion and nice ratios, people often combine the two making a 3-2 cable-circuit block and tiling it until either the copper plate belt is drained or you have enough circuit production. It is a smart idea to belt the green circuits instead of remaking them for the reason you identified: Most recipes use Copper in the form of green circuits (or occasionally more advanced circuits which have green circuits in their recipes). It's even a more space efficient way to move copper around (it moves 1 Iron and 1.5 Copper in a single object, so that's some fairly nice compression). The issues with this: Advanced Circuits also need Copper Cable (and due to expansion problem, you don't wanna belt the cables) so you still need to feed Advanced circuits with copper plates. There are a few other recipes that need copper plates (e.g. All power poles beyond Small, Solar Panels, and Batteries are the most produced ones). So you have a decent number of items that use copper in not-green circuit form. I would consider dividing your copper on belts into some plates and rest circuits (similarly, for iron, some steel, rest iron). Green Circuits are probably the single best non-plate item to belt: Their used in a ton of recipes, offer nice compression over constituent plates, and have a nice easy tileable layout for production.

As a side note: I recommend grouping belts on your bus in groups of 4 with 2 spaces between so that you can easy split off belts to feed your 'racks' (modular group of assembly machines and stuff that make a specific output; usually in a tileable layout). The for 4 w/ 2 spaces is so you can use underground belts to route items under the bus to the rack easily.

[Thegrover]

My iron and copper lines are both two lanes, and I usually take from the bus using two splitters, but for circuits, rather than use them, I just turn one lane away and use a single splitter to go up tovtwi lanes again ( for a bit of storage, since each belt will only ever be half full if the system is flowing)

I do the same when I needto feed green circuits into my red circuit module

[Kelderek]

You don't need to have the same amount of throughput for the entire length of your main bus. You can start with more lanes and then whittle it down to fewer lanes later. Alternatively, you can keep the number of lanes uniform, but change the tier of belt you use. In my largish current factory I have 4 lanes of copper plates entering my main bus on express belts, but once I have gone past the circuit production areas I drop it back down to just fast belts and later on it is only regular transport belts.

You just need to play your layout accordingly. I have circuit production be one of the earliest things I do after smelting the iron and copper plates, this allows me to add circuits to my main bus and also means that I need lower throughput for copper and iron after that point.

[Nsomnia]

Space isnt an issue usually so I do 4 lane iron, 3 or 4 lane copper, (and leave room for a 4th if going for 3 originally), 2 lane steel, 4 lane green circuit, 2 lane plastic, 1 lane battery with room for two, 2 lane red circuit and 2 lane blue circuit, its overkill because by the time you get to logistics bots you dont need the bus, but I like building branches.

Edit: and ALWAYS leave 4 tiles between your bus lines and I like to cover them in brick/conrete for manual pickup and looks. with 4 spacing and putting brick/concrete one tile outside of the bus it leaves a single tile in the middle to seperate each bus lane.

[bobucles]

Replacing copper lanes with circuit lanes is a very good idea. Take the copper directly from your smelters and turn them into circuits, then put those circuits on the main bus. It'll save you plenty of main bus space. Don't be shy about it, because 2 belts of green circuits get used up much more quickly than you might expect.

You can do a similar thing by replacing iron lanes with gears or steel. Gears are used mostly for factory components like belts and assemblers, so you don't need to feed gears past that part of your factory. You probably won't need more than a half belt of steel for most things, but 1 steel lane will replace 5 iron lanes.

[brunzenstein]

Replacing copper lanes with circuit lanes is a very good idea. Take the copper directly from your smelters and turn them into circuits, then put those circuits on the main bus. It'll save you plenty of main bus space. Don't be shy about it, because 2 belts of green circuits get used up much more quickly than you might expect.

You can do a similar thing by replacing iron lanes with gears or steel. Gears are used mostly for factory components like belts and assemblers, so you don't need to feed gears past that part of your factory. You probably won't need more than a half belt of steel for most things, but 1 steel lane will replace 5 iron lanes.

Excellent idea!
Thank's - the most simple, logical and natural ideas are often overlooked

[Qon]

The whole main bus concept is seriously flawed in many ways as it is usually done. I written about it in the past in another thread, but it's a long thread.

The best thing to do for mass production is making a dedicated ratio correct factory for that thing. But you can't do that for everything and not everything needs high production speed. Almost everything you want to use as an ingredient for other things and need several assemblers of because you need so much of it shouldn't be produced on the bus itself. Science, all circuits, steel and gears should get dedicated factories. Since these heavy material users aren't there anymore you can massivly reduce your bus size and make it much easier for yourself to give everything enough materials still.

Pretty much all the things you can place on the ground should be made with 1:1 ratios to the lower tier item even when it's not the correct ratio because your crafting speed will be much higher than you need anyways. If you need higher production then make a dedicated factory for that.

Make things that require the same materials on the same branch. That way your cut down the branching required massivly and can automate production of everything really easily. Things like the inserters can easily be produced together with direct insertion. But even completely different things like assemblers, pipes and belts also use the same ingredients and should be produced together. Almost all the early game things you need require iron plates, gears and green circuits only. Late game things require gears, steel and advanced ciruits mostly.

Advanced and electronic ciruits aren't used together much at all so you can end the green ciruit bus close to where the advanced circuit bus begins. Almost true for iron -> steel too.

With this you are fine with a single belt of each material and your bus will be much shorter. With 10-100 times less belts used blue belts will be a cheap upgrade.

[bobucles]

The whole main bus concept is seriously flawed in many ways as it is usually done.

It's not really FLAWED per se. The big advantage is that it organizes resources and real estate in a very easy to use way. When you need to expand the factory, it's a simple matter of extending the bus. When you don't know what the next recipe is going to do, the resources are on the bus.

It may not be the most efficient of designs, but it is definitely the easiest one to figure out and highly recommended to pop that first rocket cherry.

[Qon]

The whole main bus concept is seriously flawed in many ways as it is usually done.

It's not really FLAWED per se. The big advantage is that it organizes resources and real estate in a very easy to use way. When you need to expand the factory, it's a simple matter of extending the bus. When you don't know what the next recipe is going to do, the resources are on the bus.

It may not be the most efficient of designs, but it is definitely the easiest one to figure out and highly recommended to pop that first rocket cherry.

Yes, it is easy and organised. For efficiency and throughput it's flawed. The fact that it won't challenge you mentally doesn't mean it is not flawed in other ways. It can be flawed and be a good introduction, it doesn't have to be perfect.

The building store is also easy to understand. What should and shouldn't be on the bus is important and typically not something you will figure out by yourself as a novice. The main bus is not definitly the easiest.

[Frightning]

The whole main bus concept is seriously flawed in many ways as it is usually done.

It's not really FLAWED per se. The big advantage is that it organizes resources and real estate in a very easy to use way. When you need to expand the factory, it's a simple matter of extending the bus. When you don't know what the next recipe is going to do, the resources are on the bus.

It may not be the most efficient of designs, but it is definitely the easiest one to figure out and highly recommended to pop that first rocket cherry.

Yes, it is easy and organised. For efficiency and throughput it's flawed. The fact that it won't challenge you mentally doesn't mean it is not flawed in other ways. It can be flawed and be a good introduction, it doesn't have to be perfect.

The building store is also easy to understand. What should and shouldn't be on the bus is important and typically not something you will figure out by yourself as a novice. The main bus is not definitly the easiest.

The simplest to implement and generally most efficient solution would be logistics bots. (Main issue being that they aren't available for a while. Otherwise, the only problem they have is that they lose efficiency as a function of distance fairly sharply compared to belts and trains aren't efficient enough until you're starting to get too far for belts to be reasonable). Belt based systems have tons of potential issues most of which aren't obvious until you've fussed with them quite a bit (and even then, you may not be familiar with just how many issues can crop up, or how best to address them).

[bobucles]

The simplest to implement and generally most efficient solution would be logistics bots.

Logistics bots definitely get rid of base spaghetti completely. The setup is pretty simple too: Blue => assembler => Red. Repeat as needed.

Players don't get logistic bots for the greater part of base building, and they don't get ENOUGH bots to support a high yield factory for a long time after that. They can't be considered a beginner construction option because you already need a pretty advanced base to reach that point.

The main bus setup is great because you can start it from the very beginning of the game. The materials are cheap, the layout is simple, and it solves organization problems before they even happen. That's why it's so highly recommended for players to get their bearings. There should probably even be a campaign level just to show off how useful it is.

[Qon]

The main bus setup is great because you can start it from the very beginning of the game. The materials are cheap, the layout is simple, and it solves organization problems before they even happen. That's why it's so highly recommended for players to get their bearings. There should probably even be a campaign level just to show off how useful it is.

I disagree. To be able to extend and continue building on it in the fashion people do it is expensive to set up and requires way too much effort. If you try for 12 belts (iron, copper, circuits for some reason) wide bus with spaced out factories so you can add more later it requires an extreme amount of belts. I've seen people play with the main bus. They hand craft almost everything because they can't automate things with the main bus because of how much work is required for each thing. Yes it's organised and is easy to learn how to do it. But it's not unique benefits to the main bus and with an alternative with the same benefits and without the drawbacks it should be replaced in guides to new players. And the list of drawbacks of the main bus is longer than what I've written in this post.

[bobucles]

If you try for 12 belts (iron, copper, circuits for some reason) wide bus with spaced out factories so you can add more later it requires an extreme amount of belts.

12 lanes? Holy crap. You do not need a 12 lane bus to launch a rocket. 4-6 lanes will do the job just fine. And yes there are legitimate reasons to put circuits/gears/steel on the main bus. Tons of recipes eat circuits, all the factory growth needs gears, and steel cuts 5 iron lanes down to 1 steel lane. Everything else is a bit too high end for dedicated lanes to work very well, and it's the time where logistic bots can take care of the rest.

Yellow belts are super cheap. A huge corridor of yellow belts is no problem to deal with resource wise.

Anyway you haven't listed any superior starting strategies. The main bus will get useful resources where they need to go. You could grow organically but it becomes a mess very quickly (I.E. belt spaghetti), or have already beaten the game so utterly and completely that you have ratio-complete custom blueprints for every single product. One is no good and the other is absolutely not a starting strat.

[Qon]

12 lanes? Holy crap.

4+4+4=12. Not 12 of each. Sorry for not being clear.

Anyway you haven't listed any superior starting strategies. The main bus will get useful resources where they need to go. You could grow organically but it becomes a mess very quickly (I.E. belt spaghetti), or have already beaten the game so utterly and completely that you have ratio-complete custom blueprints for every single product. One is no good and the other is absolutely not a starting strat.

The building store. More specifically the Bussed Building Stores is the perfect blend of ratio perfect building of high volume items possible (teach the correct way to the new ones from the start), the ease of learning the main bus and having all the things you need available without extreme amounts of branching and also the quick automate all the things feature of the building store, which I did link earlier. Also extremely compact like a bot build and but cheaper than a main bus and works well for early game too. If done right it works for late game too. I will post more about this later somewhere so you don't have to hunt down all my posts on it in several threads with many pages in each q:

And not even a megabase needs ratio correct blueprints for every single item. That's just a waste.

[bobucles]

Um. You realize a building store is something you can branch off a main bus, right? The demand for those materials only goes as far as the player can use them, and they're all final production goods. It's pretty simple to set up compared to the automated demands of research or rocketry.

In fact a building store is the first thing I run off a main bus. Start automating all the hand crafted stuff, then use those goods to expand the main legs of the factory.

[Qon]

Um. You realize a building store is something you can branch off a main bus, right? The demand for those materials only goes as far as the player can use them, and they're all final production goods. It's pretty simple to set up compared to the automated demands of research or rocketry.

In fact a building store is the first thing I run off a main bus. Start automating all the hand crafted stuff, then use those goods to expand the main legs of the factory.

Yes, I realise that. That is exactly what a BBS is. Building stores branching of a bus. But without all the science and circuits and other mass production done on the bus and thus no need for multiple belts per resource. I haven't seen anyone do that before I suggested it though.
So if you also understand the need for a BS, how do you set up the rest of your main bus? I've seen a lot of really bad ones. Maybe since you think it's so great it's because you know how to not make such bad ones? Can you show me what a main bus built by an expert looks like? I realise that you can make it good for high production volumes (or maybe sending your first rocket/other goal) if you really know what you are doing. And maybe also sacrifice some of the flexibility.

[bobucles]

Can you show me what a main bus built by an expert looks like?

An expert setup? That kind of defeats the point. The main bus is made to be an EASY setup. EASY. With an E. As in it is not supposed to be a difficult base setup. It's made to be easy to set up. All you do is take your smelter outputs, belt them all to the same place, and make a long artery line with it. Use splitters to pull resources off the bus, and feed your factory on either side of the line. Easy.

The only things you need on a main bus are your core resources. Copper and iron plates will get you rolling. Most of the copper gets used for green circuits so you can convert a few lanes to simplify things. Later on you need steel. When you've reached the bot age it can take care of everything else.

The hardest thing is knowing how wide to make the artery line so you have no trouble packing on more things. I think 10-15 tiles should be comfortable.

[Qon]

Can you show me what a main bus built by an expert looks like?

An expert setup? That kind of defeats the point. The main bus is made to be an EASY setup. EASY. With an E. As in it is not supposed to be a difficult base setup. It's made to be easy to set up. All you do is take your smelter outputs, belt them all to the same place, and make a long artery line with it. Use splitters to pull resources off the bus, and feed your factory on either side of the line. Easy.

The only things you need on a main bus are your core resources. Copper and iron plates will get you rolling. Most of the copper gets used for green circuits so you can convert a few lanes to simplify things. Later on you need steel. When you've reached the bot age it can take care of everything else.

An expert can design something which is easy to teach,learn, memorise, extend, alter and so on. Just because an expert designed it doesn't mean it can only be used by an expert. I didn't ask for a difficult setup.