Main Bus Design

Post all other topics which do not belong to any other category.
Post Reply
rcp27
Long Handed Inserter
Long Handed Inserter
Posts: 61
Joined: Wed Apr 26, 2017 3:34 pm
Contact:

Main Bus Design

Post by rcp27 »

I've watched a load of youtube playthroughs and built some half decent factories myself. I've noticed a fairly standard concept for a main bus for most of the youtubers I've watched. At one end of the main bus you have smelters to feed 4 lanes each of iron plates and copper plates, a couple of lanes of iron and one of stone bricks. Those lanes run the full length of the bus. Next to the smelters is a green circuit array, feeding 4 lanes of green circuits, with a build-everything, a red and a blue circuit factory, a 1-per-second science build and a 1-per-second robot factory in the middle, with a module factory and rocket parts factory at the far end. The bus, almost always, is built to have 4 lanes each of iron plates, copper plates and green circuits all the way along, with other lanes for other ingredients in much smaller quantities.

To me this seems to be a bad design. You certainly need lots of copper smelting, but the overwhelming majority of that copper goes to one place only: green circuits. You need a load of green circuits, but again most of that goes into red and blue circuits. If you put your green, red and blue circuit builders at the start of your bus, just next to the smelters, there really is no need for 4 whole lanes of either copper or green circuits to go any further than that. People don't bus four lanes of copper ore along their bus because it only gets used in one place: smelting. So why do people persist in carrying 4 whole lanes of copper on past green circuits? Why four whole lanes of green circuits past red and blue? Your smelter needs 4 lanes of iron ore and 4 lanes of copper ore, but do you bus those through your whole factory? Of course not. After the smelter, there is no demand (apart from concrete).

I have a rail-world map I'm building out to something bigger than just a starter base. I now have separate rail served hubs for copper smelting, iron and steel smelting, RGB circuits and all things petroleum (with mining outposts feeding to the smelters), with a "main base" for the science, build everything, robot builder, module maker and rocket builder (the modules will probably get relocated to the RGB factory next). It's obvious from train movements that the residual "main base" does not have a demand for iron plate, copper plate and green circuits that is equal. It seems to me, therefore, that the "standard" concept of 4x iron, 4x copper, 4x GC bus is really unbalanced. I also find that the notion that I have to build a robot factory for "1 per second" seems really overkill. It seems to me that there is a pattern that a lot of the community simply does out of habit. Material sitting unmoving on the bus is "not that bad" because it's supply and demand that matters, and a bit of "buffering" is fine.

Consider this. How much effort do people put into getting their builds to have production of something or other to be in just the right ratio? How much effort do people put into designing the ratio of their main bus throughput to be in a ratio that is just right (or even approximately right)?

Koub
Global Moderator
Global Moderator
Posts: 7175
Joined: Fri May 30, 2014 8:54 am
Contact:

Re: Main Bus Design

Post by Koub »

There are as many ways to play Factorio as there are people. There are even people who have several ways to play depending on the mood.
Main busses have their uses, and their limits.
A main bus is usually an improvement over spaghetti
Specialized mini-factories that produce as much as possible on site are an improvement over main bus past a certain factory size.
and so on.
Koub - Please consider English is not my native language.

Xtrafresh
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 103
Joined: Mon Jun 12, 2017 4:57 pm
Contact:

Re: Main Bus Design

Post by Xtrafresh »

The main bus, in my opinion is a bit of a startup tool for people to escape the crazy first-base spaghetti setups, and useful only to get you thinking about the exact question you ask yourself now. Once that question is asked, the main bus kind of goes the way of the dodo, it becomes obsolete real fast, as every high-throughput item gets it's own "village", connected by trains. How many effort do people invest in getting things "just right"? There's a range starting from "zero fucks given" all the way to "oh crap, it's august already?"
You'll find where you are on the scale soon enough.

It's VERY difficult to get everything running in lock-step. The best I've seen so far is this stunning Dual Core on reddit, but even that has stuff that can be optimized. Good luck, this rabbithole is deep!

Patashu
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 130
Joined: Mon May 08, 2017 11:57 pm
Contact:

Re: Main Bus Design

Post by Patashu »

The main bus is basically a tool to stop you from screwing yourself over if you haven't figured out in advanced the exact ratios and amounts of each assembler you'll need. By making it so by default you are leaving room to expand throughput of materials, added assemblers and new assembly areas to arbitrary amounts, you never have to re-design your base if you underestimated how much of something you needed - and if you do have to tear something down, it's a very systemic process, you just have to remove branches from the main bus and put it elsewhere. This also reduces energy expended on having to untangle and retangle spaghetti like designs.

What it ISN'T is the optimal, most efficient layout. A main bus should be considered a tool to bootstrap yourself to the late game. By the time you have megabase requirements for throughput and production, you should change to decentralized, train linked, bot powered factories.

LazyLoneLion
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 183
Joined: Sun Mar 20, 2016 11:49 pm
Contact:

Re: Main Bus Design

Post by LazyLoneLion »

rcp27 wrote:... It seems to me, therefore, that the "standard" concept of 4x iron, 4x copper, 4x GC bus is really unbalanced. It seems to me that there is a pattern that a lot of the community simply does out of habit.
This:
rcp27 wrote:... It seems to me that there is a pattern that a lot of the community simply does out of habit.
:)

I, personally, started from "4 iron, 4 copper" because later on I (periodically) take from that copper to produce more green circuits (of which I rarely had more than two basic yellow belts).
Now I build 4 red belts of GC from the start. And have separate iron and copper feeds exceptionally for those GC.
So, probably I don't need 4 red belts of copper anymore (and you are right). Just plain habit - that's all. But I don't really know how much copper do I need now. I just know that 4 is more than enough.
rcp27 wrote:... I also find that the notion that I have to build a robot factory for "1 per second" seems really overkill.
Yes, maybe that's not necessary... but why not? If they like it...
I, personally, usually don't care much about having a lot of bots fast.

Nich
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 171
Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2017 2:33 am
Contact:

Re: Main Bus Design

Post by Nich »

This is what I aspire too but I would have to rebuild it 50 times to get me endgame base to look like this.

viewtopic.php?f=204&t=40605

Nasabot
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 102
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2015 11:16 am
Contact:

Re: Main Bus Design

Post by Nasabot »

I agree. The 4/4 iron/copper lanes make no sense.

If you have a gear/green ciruit belt each, 1 iron/copper lane is sufficient.

ChoMar
Long Handed Inserter
Long Handed Inserter
Posts: 96
Joined: Sun Aug 07, 2016 2:00 am
Contact:

Re: Main Bus Design

Post by ChoMar »

Last big game we played, we used the Bus-Design to get us pretty far in the game, it worked and wasnt too difficult.
Then we switched to a Rail-Network, were Copper, Iron, Coal, Stone and the Liquids were transported to specialized Factories.
Each of these Ressources had a central hub, were it got delivered to and taken from.
That, of course, worked as well. It worked better. BUT: The Stations, the Network and everything is HUGE. And COMPLEX.
So, yes, the Train Network / Specialized Factory system is very good. But its a Lategame - option.
Of Course you could improve the Bus, like suggested.
But the Thing about the Bus is: Its easy to expand. So, of course, its not the optimal System. But it helps you getting started. It helps you a long time in the Game.
And rebuilding everything later just to improve stuff a bit? Well, you can do that, some people do it, but i prefer to expand.
The Green Circuits are on the Bus because you need them Early, and until late game.
ANd people really carry Ore on the Busses? Thats new.
Mytronix Entertainment

LazyLoneLion
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 183
Joined: Sun Mar 20, 2016 11:49 pm
Contact:

Re: Main Bus Design

Post by LazyLoneLion »

Nasabot wrote:If you have a gear/green ciruit belt each, 1 iron/copper lane is sufficient.
Are you sure? Any calculations?
Just to be on the safe side I'd use 2 belts for Iron.
All those belt productions, weaponry productions, etc., need quite a lot of iron, aren't they?
And red circuits need copper.

Gotta check on my base.

Ace_W
Long Handed Inserter
Long Handed Inserter
Posts: 50
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2016 12:13 am
Contact:

Re: Main Bus Design

Post by Ace_W »

I've been playing the expensive recipes in.15+

Gotta say that while my iron needs are fairly well served by one 4-lane red bus, the copper kills me around purple and yellow science. I ended up with 8lanes of copper to feed the maw of science.
"No! This one goes there! That one goes There! Right?!"

rcp27
Long Handed Inserter
Long Handed Inserter
Posts: 61
Joined: Wed Apr 26, 2017 3:34 pm
Contact:

Re: Main Bus Design

Post by rcp27 »

Ace_W wrote:I've been playing the expensive recipes in.15+

Gotta say that while my iron needs are fairly well served by one 4-lane red bus, the copper kills me around purple and yellow science. I ended up with 8lanes of copper to feed the maw of science.
In terms of raw smelting capacity, yellow science certainly eats copper in huge volume, but the vast majority of that is down to the demand for circuits in the blue circuits and speed modules. In terms of copper required for manufacturing not involving circuits, the copper requirement for purple science is zero and for yellow science is modest. So when considering a factory that has centralized RGB circuit production, the need for copper outside of the circuit area is not that great.

Hannu
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 850
Joined: Thu Apr 28, 2016 6:27 am
Contact:

Re: Main Bus Design

Post by Hannu »

LazyLoneLion wrote:
Nasabot wrote:If you have a gear/green ciruit belt each, 1 iron/copper lane is sufficient.
Are you sure? Any calculations?
It depends on objectives. It is certainly enough to get few rockets launched in reasonable time, but of course not massive megabases.

But that traditional 4 belts for every high volume item is not very good from engineering point of view. It may be clear, aesthetic and easy to build and expand but if you have 4 belts of iron you can put one direct to green circuits, two to produce one line of gears and one for other needs. If you have 4 belts of copper two of them goes to green circuits and 2 can go through the base (if low density structures are at other end). I replace raw material lines with intermediate lines and can build more compact buses and nicer production plants (in my opinion, of course). Trade off is more laborious expansions. It is OK because I know what I need to build what I want but I can not recommend it for beginner.

PunkSkeleton
Long Handed Inserter
Long Handed Inserter
Posts: 82
Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2016 2:10 pm
Contact:

Re: Main Bus Design

Post by PunkSkeleton »

I have a different approach to the main bus: I don't run fixed amount of belts - it makes no sense. I just use as much as I need at a given place leaving empty space for more belts. The "bus" also gets wider after every item producing section. If something needs a vast quantity of items I either inject another belt of the ingredient from the side or make a specialized factory section somewhere else (like for green circuits).
4 belts might be enough for a small base, but I'm running death world I have 10+ blue belts of copper/iron.

Post Reply

Return to “General discussion”