Factory grinding to a hault as i add more machines

[silman]

Hello,

So i am decently into the game right now, i have set up machines to build cogs, copper wire, circuits, conveyor belts, red and green science packs and a couple other things.
But my machines are starting to slow to a crawl, specifically the choke is happening with iron plates and copper wire.

I am wondering how exactly do you set up your machines to future proof your need for things you will build in the future? I have no idea what requirements i am going to need for future items so i have no idea how many assemblers i should build when i make them.

Here is a pic of my factory, as you can see its pretty cluttered....





I had to rerout my extra cog machine into my electric insert machine so it would have enogh, but my copper wire is still too slow.

I just relocated my entire factory from a place that had only a very small amount of copper and moved to a place with a very large copper and iron deposit, i am thinking i should just tear everything down and rebuild in a neater fashion, but i dont know exactly how to do it so that this wont happen again.

[Mangledpork]

The trick is to make scalable production, meaning that you can keep on adding more assemblers and extending conveyors without running into other production areas.
I made a video demonstrating the "tree" method of setting up your production to allow complete scalability limited only by the speed of the conveyor belts you use: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DOHLCCrE_M

[DaveMcW]

Spoiler: In the endgame half of your resources will be spent producing electronic circuits.

You should remove electronic circuits from your factory. Create a new factory with its own iron and copper mines just for producing electronic circuits. Then carry them into your main factory on a belt.

[boro]

- If your machines are literally slowing down to a crawl, check if you're producing enough power.
- You should never have to move your main base unless your starting area is too confined (or there is just not enough water). Just bring resources to your base with belts, pipes or trains.
- Check out your research panel to get an idea what you'll need in the near future. On your screenshots you're not researching anything which halted your factory.
- You produce way too little copper cables. You want a copper cable assembler for each circuit assembler. An assembler 2 copper cable produces enough for one assembler 1 electronic circuit ( or 1 assembler 3 for 1 assembler 2)
- Pro tip: don't use belts for copper cable as it's just too slow. Build a cable assembler next to your circuit assembler and have fast inserters for input and output directly to your circuit assembler.
- You want a mining drill for each 2 basic furnaces or one for each advanced/electronic furnace.
- To future proof your base it's a good idea to leave lots of space for your furnace area. Production areas are easier to just place somewhere where there's space as you just need some belts with the right materials going there.

[doulos05]

- If your machines are literally slowing down to a crawl, check if you're producing enough power.
- You should never have to move your main base unless your starting area is too confined (or there is just not enough water). Just bring resources to your base with belts, pipes or trains.

But you may choose to "outsource" producing certain items and ship them in. That can be challenging, but that's part of the... well, challenge. Setting up a separate base to handle circuit production, with belts or trains to carry the output to your main base, can clean up production a lot. Remember, there's no cost (except time) to picking up a building. None at all. The game practically assumes you're going to rebuild your base several times over the course of a playthrough.

- Check out your research panel to get an idea what you'll need in the near future. On your screenshots you're not researching anything which halted your factory.

Always have something researching (unless you don't know what to research next, in which case you should still do something like bullet damage)

- You produce way too little copper cables. You want a copper cable assembler for each circuit assembler. An assembler 2 copper cable produces enough for one assembler 1 electronic circuit ( or 1 assembler 3 for 1 assembler 2)
- Pro tip: don't use belts for copper cable as it's just too slow. Build a cable assembler next to your circuit assembler and have fast inserters for input and output directly to your circuit assembler.

Yes, then research stack inserter bonuses and watch the efficiency climb.

- You want a mining drill for each 2 basic furnaces or one for each advanced/electronic furnace.
- To future proof your base it's a good idea to leave lots of space for your furnace area. Production areas are easier to just place somewhere where there's space as you just need some belts with the right materials going there.

My current plan for my base is this. Circuits of all kinds will be produced in a separate facility and 'imported' to the edge of my main facility's log net which will produce everything else. Once I have that set up, I'm going to pick something else (probably inserters) and move that production out and do the same. At that point I'll look and see what other production looks like a train wreck and move that out, repeating until the end. I probably won't move these facilities far, just about 50 tiles or so. Close enough that belts remain viable for transport simply to make defense easier. But the next game will have them moving much further away to force myself to do trains.

[darkminaz]

best way is to just let your constuction robots destroy all the old stuff and rebuild at some point.
a lot of my problems were from beeing to stubborn and keeping walls/towers that were in the middle of my base for a long time.

[bosebuck375]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGvXgP6lmLM

This would allow for that future expansion you had in mind. FYI, it takes Steel Plate, Stone Brick, and Advanced Circuit to create electric furnaces, so make sure you have each of these components automated in some way in order to have the material easily.

[Okim]

In my current playthrough I`ve set up a number of 'outsource' mini bases that mine/smelt/produce stuff. Each mini-base has it`s own specialization. Each has a loading/unloading gate for a single car (not train). Driving these cars brings lots of fun to the game - especially at night (all my 'roads' were cut through the massive forestation on my map and upgraded with lamps and wooden chest 'bumpers' for safety of ride). It also helps kill the time while your production facilities do their job. Each base has one loading port and a spare car parked near by just in case. All 'roads' have at least one 'safety zone' with a couple of turrets, a chest with ammo and some coal and a spare car just in case (driving at nights may lead to some nasty, but fun crashes).

One of my 'outsource' base mines coal which I then manually transport where it is needed.
Another base mines and smelts ore on the spot. It has coal, so it is fully automated and fully sufficient.
Third base smelts steel. It was specifically built on a coal deposit to avoid the need of hauling it.
Forth is fully dedicated to production of metal parts - engines, clogs and etc. The base depends on manual deliveries of iron, steel, copper and wirings.
Fifth base is dedicated to everything related with copper and wiring. It depends on manual coal and iron plates delivery runs.
I produce all science packs by myself as I have no manual production for quite some time (due to constantly driving cars here and there).
My main base has just a couple of labs, a large storage area and some factories for wall and ammo production.
I am about to set up a couple of oil wells and a separate oil refinery that will also depend on manual oil deliveries (this is mainly made with a purpose of testing 'fill barrel with crude oil' thing I`ve noticed available in assembly factory.

This way I never over or under produce stuff and do not experience halts and other issues. It also seems to produce much less pollution and allows me to stay clear of biter attacks. I even get a couple of scattered steam plants here and there to ensure that my pollution levels wont agro the near by nests. Of cause I have all my sites pretty well defended and a number of outposts guarding threatening pass.


NOTE: this is just for my personal fun and tastes. It is far from being a 'perfect' set up, but it works pretty fine.