single or double belt lines between furnaces?

[starxplor]

To save some horizontal space, if using any mod that has near/far inserters, you could output both plates to one side. This would allow horizontal expantion where each vertical set only needs a vertical output line on one side. This allow removing the two inserters and chest on one side of the smelter, cutting 3 spaces out of the footprint per vertical set.

I will probably experiment with this in my next game.

[MeduSalem]

Interesting layout there. Possible for some pretty extreme buffering. Good fix for the conflicting ores problem.
Entirely wasteful, as far as resource efficiency goes, but I imagine the number of beacons is a sign of a purely post rocket defense setup.

Yepp, resource waste all the way... but what else to do with 3 million plates per type if not experimenting around a little bit?

To save some horizontal space, if using any mod that has near/far inserters, you could output both plates to one side. This would allow horizontal expantion where each vertical set only needs a vertical output line on one side. This allow removing the two inserters and chest on one side of the smelter, cutting 3 spaces out of the footprint per vertical set.

I will probably experiment with this in my next game.

Yeah with mods nearly everything is solveable... but I tend to play Vanilla Factorio for various reasons because I'm always afraid to break compatibility for my maps when the game gets updated but the mods are no longer maintained by their creators.



I extended my experiment to logistic bots as well, which is super-wasteful on the energy side but funny since this way I can manage all 4 resource types with the same furnaces.

I basically used the same layout but sqished down. I could place even more beacons... Up to 6 effecting 4 furnaces... but well I think 4 is already enough... ^^

So I left the space empty... maybe for future ores that get added into the main game. The system is quite expandable this way, as it would be possible to smelt 10 different ore types in the same facility.

A little bit of care has to be taken that Steel Plates and Stone Bricks don't eat exactly only one Iron Plate or one Stone. Basically this means that the inserter might insert not enough ingredients to fully finish crafting an item and there's no real way to control that without fiddling around on how much Steel Plates/Stone Bricks are allowed in the output chest, which takes some time to find "good" numbers because it will heavily depend on how fast the furnace is working (modules and stuff). The furnace might get stuck that way, especially with Inserter Stacksizes Bonuses that are not 5.

With Inserter Stacksize Bonus of 5 as well as using 170% crafting speed (Productivity Module 3s in all Furnaces and Speed Module 3s in all Beacons) - I've experienced no problems though, so I could leave the input inserters to only take in when the output chest is empty, because once the output chest signals the input inserter to stop then it will surprisingly only end up with a maximum of 10 excess ingredients in the furnace. Which basically means that if it is 10 Iron Plates it works to produce 2 Steel Plates and the furnace is empty again, with Stone it produces 5 stone bricks and it is also empty. It's a funny coincidence that it works because they share the same multiple.

No matter what it will get unstuck eventually if the output chest gets emptied by Bots. Eventually the inserter will put exactly enough ingredients into the furnace to reach the multiple that's needed to fully empty the furnace and thereby enabling the "context switch".

Note: I'm currently not using the facility to it's maximum potential that's why some of them are idling... as I'm only taking 2 full belts of copper plates and 2 full belts of iron plates from it... which is pretty much capping the production speed to 4800-5200 plates/min per type, which is below what the facility would be hypothetically be able to. Once I'm moving my steel production inside there as well the furnaces will be much fuller since they will have to keep up with steel plate production and the therefore increased iron plate production as well.

The estimated throughput of the facility is about ~12400 copper or iron plates. Don't know about Steel plates since they take longer to craft and more ingredients.

Update: Ran a small test with one Requester Chest outputting on a belt with a fast inserter... the production of steel plates is heavily varying between 180-200 plates/min plates per minute (probably due to unexpteced bot travel time)... the iron plates are up to 6500-7000 plates/min while 4800-5000 go onto the belts into my storage system and the rest probably going into steel plate production. The copper plates are remaining capped on 4800-5000 due to belt limitations, they are not experiencing any suffering due to the additional steel plate load. Seems pretty solid numbers... especially nearly matching what I estimated.

I guess the preemptive multitasking works the better the more "tasks" the furnace can choose from and the longer it takes for the bots to pick up all the items from the output chests. The longer it takes... the more time there is to smelt something else until it can return to the previous ore.


... my final thoughts on that thing is that it would be a vast improvement if we could connect a furnace/assembler to the red/green wire to look how much ingredients are already loaded into it. It would simplify everything.

[n9103]

mmmm... Automation-porn. :p

Just a small note, but it sounds more like you mean the stacksize bonus of 4, for a total of 5 items grabbed.

[MeduSalem]

mmmm... Automation-porn. :p

Just a small note, but it sounds more like you mean the stacksize bonus of 4, for a total of 5 items grabbed.

You are right... I mean stacksize Bonus 4 for a total of 5 items grabbed. ^^

[rk84]

I got so exited about this, shall I call it multitask furnaces, that I had to try it too. I made belt vesion and I tried to add some circuit logic in it.

Logic block
Logistic storage limits are set in logic block on right. Signal value rises as storega gets emptier.
-Request chest below provide signal items and provider chest above is used to give them back to bots.
-Fast inserter place item to ground to make stacksize 1
-Below smart inserter adds one item to increase signal value if itemcount in storage is below sertain value and signal value is below also.
-Above smart inserter removes items as storage gets fuller.


Furnaces
I divided furnaces into 4 columns (or phases). Column 1 favors iron and works when iron ore signal >= 1 or copper = 4. Column 4 is opposite and favors copper.
yea this foundry is too small to support the factory so both signals are 4 => all inserters try to use furnaces and ironside have to wait for copperside to recover. (FIFO)
As side note: I offset beacon 1 tile so it covers 6 furnaces.

furnaces.JPG (198.87 KiB) Viewed 6420 times

I will try beltless version next and try to add steel and stone. I wonder how it would work if I make "matrix" so that every corner of foundry favors one ore type?

[MeduSalem]

I got so exited about this, shall I call it multitask furnaces, that I had to try it too. I made belt vesion and I tried to add some circuit logic in it.

[...]

Looks quite nice!

I thought about using external circuit logic as well to provide conditional signals but then I got a bit too lazy to hook it all up and because I hate wiremess ... Therefore I favor simplistic selfcontained solutions (easier to blueprinting as well) where each furnace is able to work on it's own not caring about what the others next to it do... because if I accidently tear down an electric pole it won't shut down the entire production line which renders maintenance much easier. I learned that the hard way since I'm somebody who's changing layouts quite often because of new ideas and not to forget also because I lack driving skills eventually driving into something that's crucial for my factory. xD

I will try beltless version next and try to add steel and stone. I wonder how it would work if I make "matrix" so that every corner of foundry favors one ore type?

Since I've run my multitasking furnaces quite some time now I can only say that it should favor Iron plates the most (because of some of them being redistributed for the Steel Bars), followed by Copper Plates, followed by Steel Bars and the Stone is the least important.

My furnaces nearly never smelt Stone to Bricks because there's near to no consumer for Bricks. Since I've walled myself already in the only situation where I need more Bricks is when I create a new mining outpost and only when I decide that tearing down another mining outpost isn't worth the trouble. It's the only way to consume them. Most of the stone I will never consume... probably shouldn't have set stone to rich during map creation but it was one of my first maps back when I started out and the first one where I made it to rocket defense so I did not know what to expect back then. xD

Steel Plates on the other hand I need a little bit more often, but since I've overproduced nearly every finished product already over the course of the game I'm actually using less Steel plates then earlier in the game. So most of the stuff eventually goes into destroyer capsules.

Whatever you do... the fact that Stone Bricks and Steel Bars use more than 1 ingredient makes it quite a challenge to find adequate numbers for the logic & logistic system... otherwise the furnace might end up with 1-2 ore left in the slot but not being able to finish up because the inserter inputing more ore doesn't work because the output is still blocked, thereby locking the entire furnace for quite a long time in idle mode until the output becomes freed once again.

I'm currently thinking about a version that allows 6 beacons to effect 6 furnaces... making the thing a little bit more power efficient than my previous 4x4 iterations but haven't begun constructing it yet. I'm mostly using this approach in my considerations:

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=5&t=5711

[DerivePi]

OK. Here is a belt fed system with red/green wire system that will work with steel furnaces. It will balance between iron, copper, steel and brick production and has a storage limit to halt overproduced items. You can also add beacons if desired.