Starved via Throughput

[Didact04]

Every run it happens to me at least once, generally two or three times: my system's run thin and my factory has ground to a crawl. Stuff I need isn't showing up, things that are getting priority resources really shouldn't, research stops, the system struggles for balance. It's frustrating when I'm trying to do something and want to make do with what I have because I can't very well expand yet, but the factory just can't run. It's agonizing and I feel like I'm kicking a starving, dehydrated horse, trying to milk out that extra mile before he keels over.



This is the latest resource starvation. Normally it's iron but this time it was copper. Everything needs circuits but they take so much later on and the system couldn't keep up.

I tried to add a stockpile just north of it but that didn't work so well. I get the feeling that the bots didn't do me any favors with their darting about, but conveyors wouldn't have helped much either. I'm not sure how I could have handled that particular incident.

My mistake, I think, was positioning the furnaces where they were. It made lengthening the chain impossible, but I think moving over instead of up/down would have helped more. Trouble is I'm not sure how exactly to get the most into the fires and then get the plates onto the belts faster and everything feels like a bottleneck. Meanwhile my factories are grinding metal and the research facilities are dead silent.

I hate having to deal with that. It's late game anyway so I'm really only missing out on module production and like, 2 or 3 levels of robot followers, but I've had it hit mid-game too, right when i'm on the verge of running out of things and I need need NEED to get more or I'm done. Several moments it felt like I was scraping the bottom of the barrel and I wasn't sure I was going to make it. Thank god I didn't have that issue with fuel and got to solar as fast as I could; all my defenses are laser. Very fortunate power was never a problem.

But anyway, the point of this is, I suppose, I'm never sure how to cope with this. I inevitably just dump mines on everything till I get what I need again but that feels crude and kind of sidestepping the issue.

Any suggestions on how to optimize? Or maybe just how to prepare for situations like this?

[Pipebomb]

I avoid using splitters on the lines of ore. Here's a pic of my smelting facility.


And keeping my production in a straight line so I can re-saturate with copper or iron bars if needed. It's hard to see, but there's some random smelters along the line of production.


Mostly though I think your problem as you stated is running out of room to add more smelters.

[Mangledpork]

Don't forget that Factorio worlds are infinite. We always get obsessed with keeping everything compressed and super space efficient, but in reality you can have a mile-wide gap between things so that if you every need to expand something, you have the room for it.
I have my ore go into and out of my smeltery at the same end too, so that I can keep adding more and more smelters until the belts can't handle it, and then add more belts.
You can apply the same basic system to a lot of production.

[Didact04]

In the games I play, I tend to have fewer bases that are generally much larger and thus expansion at any point other than end game is extremely taxing and dangerous. I don't tend to have much room to work with until later on, and then I'm trying to wrestle with those blasted logistics bots. I've always thought they were good but I'm starting to realize they don't always serve as a valid belt replacement.

I suppose my problem is that I keep trying to shoehorn the output into a single belt, to funnel down a lane of assemblers that neatly pick off it as the product rushes by.

Bleh. Hate being forced into different things. I just want one belt and have a pretty factory and have it be all orderly.

[The Phoenixian]

I've been in your place a few times and I have some tips on keeping your factory running even when low on supplies.

Firstly, when it comes to using belts I've evolved into using a four tile wide main feed for iron and copper. At any point I need metal plates I'll siphon off the outer lines with splitters, while the inner two layers are generally used only to resupply the outer layers

This helps keep the distribution even so I'm not sending 1/16th of the total materials to the points at the end of the line. Which helps recover and survive low supply volume pretty well.

I don't have any truly great pics at the moment but here's a picture of the lines themselves.

And one of the smelter system I use to feed it.


As far as bots vs belts go I agree with you, Bots are nice and super versatile but the more control you need over an item the better an option belts are.

[Mangledpork]

It's a very good idea to have a huge trunk of belts going through the middle of your factory with production coming off the sides like The Phoenixian. It allows for huge expansion of your production capacity limited only by how fast the materials can travel along the belts (and based on what you want you can add more belts at the start).
I did a video on a variant of that design that has more limited production but also has belts for steel, circuits etc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DOHLCCrE_M
I called it the tree method but a more technical name would be parallel processing.

[ssilk]

My experience: The resource flow should look like a funnel/horn and storages in between.

- The mines can produce 100%
- The furnaces can handle only 90% of that. The rest is eventually stored.
- pre-production (wheels, electric circuits) can take only 40% each, in sum 80%.
- The production uses only 70% of all the former stuff. The rest is stored.

Why by the hell? Cause it is easier to see, when the storage lowers, then when the belts are empty. With that you are able to see the shortage long before. And it is much more like in reality, where it would be a big stupidity to assume, that when 100% goes in also 100% can be used.

[BinaryMan]

Normally I have some inserters stocking to chests so that I can flip them if I suddenly have a resource shortage. This is pretty critical for coal esp. for power for lazer turrets during an attack, but only because it's hard to be mindful of all mine depletions esp. at a longer distance when you are busy with other stuff. I would tend to agree with the above, store 10-20% in buffers. Worst case, you can manual craft specific things from that stock if it comes to that.

[Didact04]

I never thought about it before but up until now I've almost never even considered storage. I pump out materials and use them as soon as I get the chance, creating less a factory and more one massive assembly line. Which is definitely not practical at all. That'd never work in a real scenario.

Gosh, now I've got to re-think how I want to organize all my future factories. Having one perpetually moving line of resources is fun but it's so hard to maintain, and resource deprivation is potentially fatal almost immediately.

[Align]

I always run the belts for ore and smelted product in opposite directions, so I can ex. expand smelting westward indefinitely while expanding factories eastward. Takes a bit more underground belts but it's not like those slow down the flow.

[User_Name]

The fundamental flaw of your design is making centralized smelting facility.

I know, it sounds like heresy, but if you'd think about it you'll realize that after you get electric furnaces, there is nothing that your main base have that justifies centralized smelting.
Include smelters to your standard outpost blueprint and smelt on-site, supplying your main base with metals, not ores.

That way, if you starving on copper, you can just build more copper outposts.