Main Bus Limitations - help a newb

[Sanguine_Survivor]

Hi y'all, recently bought this game and fell in love....Time flies by when you're optimizing and automating everything!

I was overwhelmed until I learned about the main-bus strategy and that has really helped! Managed to launch my first rocket in peaceful mode and got tired of that base so restarted....

Now in my current playthrough, I'm trying to produce yellow science but my red/blue circuits seem to be produced too slowly.... My smelter throughput seems OK, it just seems like I'm running out of space or my red/blue factories are not efficient enough....Anyone have any ideas/suggestions?

I'm trying to produce yellow science but my bus/base has turned to spaghetti and I kind of want to migrate in the same map...does anyone have any examples of how to expand outwards (past all the biters) and start anew?

Also any other ideas on how to set up a base / megabase ? Most of the essential research is done....I don't want to restart my game and re-research everything again

[Amarula]

Ah I remember the feeling first playing the game and falling in love!

Here is what I would do to diagnose the problem:
Start with red circuits:
- Red circuits need green circuits, cables and plastic. Are the red circuit factories short of inputs, the belts delivering the inputs empty? I find I need at least 5 sets of green circuit factories (where a set has 3 cables feeding 2 green circuits) for a modest base with 20 labs. Every six or seven red circuit factories need a dedicated cable factory. I have 5 oil refineries, with advanced oil production: all excess heavy oil is cracked to light, light oil is cracked to petroleum and the remainder to solid fuel. Once one tank of sulfuric acid is full, all petroleum goes to plastic. Depending on how much plastic I can stockpile, I have 4 to 8 plastic factories.
- If you have all the inputs you need, you may need more red circuit factories. I find 20 red circuit factories for my 20 lab base.
Once I have 5 sets of green circuits and 20 red circuit factories, I don't run into problems with blue circuits (or blue SP and electric furnace production). I use 4 speed module factories and 6 to 8 blue circuit factories.
And once this is set up, I find I can support yellow SP (science pack) production for advanced research AND rocket control unit production for automatic rocket launch every half hour.

As for base spaghetti, a main bus is a great start. My mantra is "leave more room." When you set up say red circuit factories, reserve the space so you can extend the line of factories as needed (at some point you exceed the ability of the belts to provide enough inputs but that is a lot of factories). A belt serving 20 red circuit factories, 10 on each side, is quite achievable.

Finally, check out the section of these forums on megabase constructs - you will find a ton of ideas on how to organize big bases. There is a current discussion on optimizing train layouts to support megabases, you may find that interesting. Also, DryHairyTree has several interesting posts where he walks through the development of his bases, including one where he doesn't use a main bus for a very compact layout.

I hope this helps, good luck and have fun!

[evopwr]

If you're wanting to try megabase - did you minimize the amount of water, and turn off cliffs when you generated the map?
You'll find water and cliffs get realy annoying when trying to make such a large base.
Most people also turn off the biters, so they can just focus on megabase.
You'll probably want to use mods like RSO and/or Angels Infinite Ores if looking at a megabase, otherwise you'll just spend most of your time building new mining outposts.

As for yellow science,
Make sure everything is max Productivity 3 modules, and use beacons where possible around the Green/Red circuits, with Speed3 modules.
You'll need a good green circuit setup just to feed the red circuits, and then another setup to feed green circuits to the blue circuits.
To make things worse, creating all your modules require the same stuff as yellow science, creating an even bigger drain on the same resources.
You should be able to see where there are bottlenecks. If an assembler isn't running, is it because its full, or not getting the inputs it needs.
If your belt supplying those inputs is full at the source, but being depleted before reaching the end, then you need faster belts, or more belts.

I tend to stop researching once I get to the point your at, so I can pour all resources in to making T3 modules. A couple hundred T3 productivity modules plus a hundred Speed3 modules is really expensive!

[nosports]

Also any other ideas on how to set up a base / megabase ? Most of the essential research is done....I don't want to restart my game and re-research everything again

So my general idea / hint is just play along, try things out optimize, learn and play.
It's a game and the focus should be on fun, with learning side effect.

--> so why take the direct route and build something according to a manual - make up your own mess

I have changed my starter base to a soley research base.
side bases are dedicated to some group of items and as i have secured much enough space they could be expanded
If not i will build additional bases, and build it maybe in some hopfully better concepts
So i waltzing along with my first map and around 540h into and nowhere near to a megabase, but for now i can supply 4 rocketsilos for some time.

on the way i tested some mods, which will only add something and change not the base-game, the best and usefull i integrated as singular purpose bases, so no intermixing with the base game bases.

[Zavian]

If you're wanting to try megabase - did you minimize the amount of water, and turn off cliffs when you generated the map?
You'll find water and cliffs get realy annoying when trying to make such a large base.

Personally I like lots of water, even on my megabase maps.

In general I think that advising new players to play with water only in the starting area (ie minimum water settings) means that they will have trouble providing water to refineries and nuclear plants. Sure it can be done, but in my opinion, it is easier for new players to landfill annoying bits of water that they feel are in the way, than to carefully plan how they will get water to their refineries and power plants.

[zOldBulldog]

For learning the bus and things that go on it watch in YouTube the series Base in a Book. Nilaus does an excellent job of teaching you how to think to balance your production. The series does it by focusing on making a well balanced 2 science per second base.

He also gives you the blueprints but I recommend building by hand the first time. You will learn more.

[Mr. Tact]

It helps to off-site green and red circuits. You need so many that the area needed to produce them needs it's own feeder bus. Here is a screen shot of just my green circuit area:

green circuits.jpg (945.96 KiB) Viewed 3544 times

[zOldBulldog]

So true Mr Tact.

I usually feed 6 belts of copper plate and 4 belts of iron plate to my green circuits, from their dedicated smelters.

That produces 4 belts of green circuits that I dump on the bus.

I also place the green circuits in such a way that I can build only a tiny fraction at first (fed from a single each iron and copper smelters) but saving space for the inevitable expansion. Of course once you have robots that expansion is so much easier.

Another approach I am using more and more is with 2 very compact jumpstart bases. One to get me out of burner tech, and one to get me robots and nuclear power. Only then do I start looking at niceties like real smelter lines, bus, etc. I just hate building the same thing over and over by hand

[evopwr]

If you're wanting to try megabase - did you minimize the amount of water, and turn off cliffs when you generated the map?
You'll find water and cliffs get realy annoying when trying to make such a large base.

Personally I like lots of water, even on my megabase maps.

In general I think that advising new players to play with water only in the starting area (ie minimum water settings) means that they will have trouble providing water to refineries and nuclear plants. Sure it can be done, but in my opinion, it is easier for new players to landfill annoying bits of water that they feel are in the way, than to carefully plan how they will get water to their refineries and power plants.

Fair point, although I didn't say starting area only. But I would suggest turning the water down, perhaps the frequency to low, and size to low. Having huge waterways everywhere can be too much "to simply fill in".