Handling 7 Science Paks

[5thHorseman]

8.
long handed inserters can be place directly adjacent to the lab and one tile away, so you can insert direct from t[h]ree rows of belts.

This is all I ever do. Except that time I tried sushi and while it was fun, it was a bit finicky and time consuming.

[Adamo]

8.
long handed inserters can be place directly adjacent to the lab and one tile away, so you can insert direct from t[h]ree rows of belts.

This is all I ever do. Except that time I tried sushi and while it was fun, it was a bit finicky and time consuming.

Do you guys know about belt snakes?

[5thHorseman]

Do you guys know about belt snakes?

I do. I don't like them.

[steinio]

Do you guys know about daisy chaining labs?

https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comme ... b_complex/

Edit: lol yes you do... didn't saw it's page 2 already :shrug:

[Haladon]

Or mix all of them in a belt and use circuitry to control not too much of one kind of science pack fills it.

Scimix1.jpg (349.51 KiB) Viewed 3777 times

Scimix2.jpg (354.42 KiB) Viewed 3777 times

[Koub]

Or mix all of them in a belt and use circuitry to control not too much of one kind of science pack fills it.

[...]
There is also the sushi belt option, I find very elegant, but it has limited throughput.

That's the sushi belt I was referring to (don't ask me why it's called sushi belt).

[BlueTemplar]

This is why :

(Sadly, Factorio is quite lacking in theFish diversity... we should have to import, rather than export fish species !)

[Nosferatu]

So we got to the Sushi solutions.. Here is the double Sushi none circuit version:

And here we have Science Sushi:
Science

Science Sushi.png (1.61 MiB) Viewed 3715 times

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Copy blueprint

Sorry for using stone. I don't have space science yet on my new map.
Take care when connecting the inputs - the sushi is lane sensitive...
And thanks xaetral for the idea on how to make this sushi.
This science build is visual more pleasing for me than using the filter inserter trick.

[mrvn]

Or mix all of them in a belt and use circuitry to control not too much of one kind of science pack fills it.
Scimix1.jpg
Scimix2.jpg

As you mention a problem with a mixed belt is getting too much of one thing leaving no space for others.

But in your top picture you can avoid that problem. Instead of filling a closed loop you seem to drive the mixed belt once around the labs. Then you split it again and mix a fresh batch. The problem is the buffer chests. If they ever overflow the mixed belt stops. That's where you need the circuit control. But if you use a priority splitter instead of the chest that goes away. Set the input priority of the splitter to the belt coming from the mixed belt and you are golden.

I really like that design though. Going to try that in my current game.

[Skeletpiece]

Personally, I don't like belts for labs. An inserter can transfer items from 1 lab to another, so you can build an array using this technique and having the first lab to pick items from a chest.
I have built a big lab (square) array in the past and it worked very well. You will have some bottleneck if you do not use circuits

Circuit and 1st lab overview:

Labs.png (3.89 MiB) Viewed 3673 times

Labs in action (Not all labs are working because its a 0.16 game and there is no blue science in production)

LabArray.gif (17.6 MiB) Viewed 3673 times

[slippycheeze]

Personally, I don't like belts for labs. An inserter can transfer items from 1 lab to another, so you can build an array using this technique and having the first lab to pick items from a chest.

I said it before, but this gif nicely demonstrates the issue with lab chaining: observe in the demonstration of operation that the labs flicker off briefly as science packs are transferred. This is the issue that once your inserters move two or more items (ie, obtained inserter stack bonus 1, or used a stack inserter) you will interrupt operation every single time a transfer is made.

It absolutely works, it just gets less and less efficient the longer each individual chain of labs is, and the faster they work. Both of those -- and especially ironically for improving the processing speed of science -- mean that the more labs you have the less efficient each one is, in this design.

So, yeah, if you prefer that, it'll more or less work. If you find efficiency to low simply reduce the chain length that inserts follow, so that you have less time spent pulling out science packs and interrupting work. It certainly isn't a killer problem, but it does mean more labs make less work.

The simplest possible design is the sushi belt with a few wires between belts to control feed-in appropriately, or a line of labs with belts on three sides. Both are trivial to construct, and 100 percent efficient, so your performance increases linearly with the number of labs right up to the transport limit of the belt(s).

Since this is discussion mostly focuses on "compact", for whatever reason, I'd recommend a layout with two horizontal belts, up and down from each lab, that carry 2 x science, and then a third belt between every second lab that carries military science and whatever you are having the most trouble feeding efficiently, so your layout is roughly:

Blueprint.png (83.61 KiB) Viewed 3631 times

[eradicator]

Personally, I don't like belts for labs. An inserter can transfer items from 1 lab to another, so you can build an array using this technique and having the first lab to pick items from a chest.

I said it before, but this gif nicely demonstrates the issue with lab chaining: observe in the demonstration of operation that the labs flicker off briefly as science packs are transferred. This is the issue that once your inserters move two or more items (ie, obtained inserter stack bonus 1, or used a stack inserter) you will interrupt operation every single time a transfer is made.

This is solvable with stack size override. Just don't take more packs out per operation than there is buffer in each lab.
But...if you're going for "maximum compact" then (as boring as they are) beacon sandwiches are again the most efficient layout.

Edit: (mfw this is exactly what i said last time)

[slippycheeze]

Personally, I don't like belts for labs. An inserter can transfer items from 1 lab to another, so you can build an array using this technique and having the first lab to pick items from a chest.

I said it before, but this gif nicely demonstrates the issue with lab chaining: observe in the demonstration of operation that the labs flicker off briefly as science packs are transferred. This is the issue that once your inserters move two or more items (ie, obtained inserter stack bonus 1, or used a stack inserter) you will interrupt operation every single time a transfer is made.

This is solvable with stack size override. Just don't take more packs out per operation than there is buffer in each lab.
But...if you're going for "maximum compact" then (as boring as they are) beacon sandwiches are again the most efficient layout.

Edit: (mfw this is exactly what i said last time)

Mmmm. You are right: I should have remembered to say that forcing a stack size of one means that you only interrupt work when you get an input stall long enough that both packs are removed from a lab -- so as long as your belt is densely packed enough, this isn't so much an issue. I'll try and do better next time.

[Adamo]

This setup works without stuttering, as long as there are enough packs to keep up...

labs.png (6.2 MiB) Viewed 3612 times

[evopwr]

I prefer belts...

This is tileable, simple, moduled, and beaconed.

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Copy blueprint

[mrvn]

Personally, I don't like belts for labs. An inserter can transfer items from 1 lab to another, so you can build an array using this technique and having the first lab to pick items from a chest.

I said it before, but this gif nicely demonstrates the issue with lab chaining: observe in the demonstration of operation that the labs flicker off briefly as science packs are transferred. This is the issue that once your inserters move two or more items (ie, obtained inserter stack bonus 1, or used a stack inserter) you will interrupt operation every single time a transfer is made.

This is solvable with stack size override. Just don't take more packs out per operation than there is buffer in each lab.
But...if you're going for "maximum compact" then (as boring as they are) beacon sandwiches are again the most efficient layout.

Edit: (mfw this is exactly what i said last time)

Mmmm. You are right: I should have remembered to say that forcing a stack size of one means that you only interrupt work when you get an input stall long enough that both packs are removed from a lab -- so as long as your belt is densely packed enough, this isn't so much an issue. I'll try and do better next time.

Not totally true. An inserter only moves N items per minute. If your chain of labs is long enough to consume more then N items per minute then labs will run dry. So there is an upper limit to the number of labs you can have chained and it depends on the research speed and research time and flask count for the research. If you have a research needing 4 red flasks every 10 seconds then your chain must be real short. 1 red flask every 120 seconds not so much. On the other hand a belt also has a limited capacity. So the number of science labs per belt (chained or not chained) is limited anyway.

My setup uses 2 belts going N/S and 2 belts going W/E crossing the others. Then in each quadrant have 5x5 science labs chained in both directions. That makes a nice round 100 science labs complex. If you need/want more science labs then don't go bigger. Build a second such complex. And a third, fourth, ... No need to make longer chains, make more chains.

[BlueTemplar]

Belts too, can only move X items per minute...