Main bus newbie question

[DrOnline]

Hi,

I've played a LOT of Factorio, but never really progressed beyond spaghetti phase WIth lots of manual insertion.

My question is: When you make a main bus - let's say left to right (eastwards), that kind of locks you into expanding ever westwards in search of more resources, doesn't it? Because if I run out of iron, and I need to feed a lot of into into the main bus, it's a lot easier if that iron comes from a source to the west, than a source far to the east. Thoughts?

[MechBFP]

Nah not really. Just might make your trains a bit longer is all. You can also turn your bus whenever you want so you technically could make it go in a spiral if you were so inclined. Although adding resources to the inner factories after the fact would be quite the nightmare if you didn’t plan ahead properly.

[DrOnline]

Nah not really. Just might make your trains a bit longer is all. You can also turn your bus whenever you want so you technically could make it go in a spiral if you were so inclined. Although adding resources to the inner factories after the fact would be quite the nightmare if you didn’t plan ahead properly.

You know, I never got into trains.... I just use belts Man I need to step it up. I tend to plateau.

[shopt]

If anything when I build a bus, I tend to prioritise mining resources that are where the bus is heading, so there's a chance that it's mined out by the time my bus gets there.

Overall I would not worry about where your resources come from. Even if your resources come from the wrong direction, a post-rocket bus base tends to need "top-up" belts feeding in partway along, unless you built it very big from the start.

But yes, once you expand beyond a certain point trains become a lot easier to manage than belts. At some point running a >1000 tile highway of belts just becomes tedious.

[Irrehaare]

The bus base is not an answer to everything and as the factory grows the trains become optimal answer for more and more questions. Also for bigger factories you have to draw resources from further, bigger resource patches, so the size of the base becomes insignificant in any direction.

Additionally it's possible to make a branch going of the bus if particular direction stops being convenient for any reason

[Ranec1]

Also, as my train network gets running I move lower tier things, like green circuits and engines, to their own train stops outside the main factory. You just end up needing too many to centralize.

Others, like copper wires and gears are easier to make right where you need them and results in a fewer number of items floating around. Basically, copper plates equals wires everywhere.

[astroshak]

My general recommendation is to only build on one side of the bus. It DOES make the bus get longer, but so what? It allows you to add more material, whatever type you want, to the other side of the bus. Need more iron? You can add it! Need more Plastic? Just making Advanced Circuits and need to put it on the bus somewhere? You can do it!

My other piece of advice is, don’t build more of the bus than you need at any one time. If you are taking Petroleum Gas from the liquid bus and Coal to make Plastic, until you actually need the Iron Plate, Copper Plate, Green Circuits, etc. down past the Plastic making area, don’t drag those belts down. Dragging them down before needed merely generates more bus storage, and more pollution generating that bus storage.

[shopt]

My general recommendation is to only build on one side of the bus. It DOES make the bus get longer, but so what?

You answered the "so what" in your next paragraph.

... generates more bus storage, and more pollution generating that bus storage.

That, plus longer thinner bases are harder to defend, hurt bot responsiveness, and are more likely to run into an obstacle. I'm not saying a one-sided bus is the wrong choice, just that it's not the obvious correct choice.

[astroshak]

Defense should be something of a moot point. Ideally you sieze chokepoints in the terrain and defend those, sparing the time, effort, and resources needed to make a giant wall. But even if you do need to make that giant wall, you want to do so outside of your pollution cloud, which should mean at some distance from your factory. Putting your walls and defenses right next to the factory, after all, confers no benefit to you and merely confines you.

Similarly, building on both sides of the bus is confining. You cannot then expand the bus’ width to accommodate needed throughput of more, or newer, material.

Building on one side of the bus is not the obvious correct solution. It is, however, the correct decision for people new to the bus idea. Building on both sides of the bus is simultaneously a noob trap, and a pro move. If it is known exactly how many belts of each material will be needed, then by all means build on both sides. But when learning a mod pack, or learning the base game and trying this bus idea, building on only one side is not obvious, though it is the correct decision.

[BlueTemplar]

Putting your walls and defenses right next to the factory, after all, confers no benefit to you and merely confines you.

Depends on the stage of the game, early on it's cheaper and much faster.

But when learning a mod pack

Depending on the mod pack, it might be more practical to build inside the bus... (or sometimes the whole bus idea might be completely unworkable).

[jamiechi1]

Hi,

I've played a LOT of Factorio, but never really progressed beyond spaghetti phase WIth lots of manual insertion.

My question is: When you make a main bus - let's say left to right (eastwards), that kind of locks you into expanding ever westwards in search of more resources, doesn't it? Because if I run out of iron, and I need to feed a lot of into into the main bus, it's a lot easier if that iron comes from a source to the west, than a source far to the east. Thoughts?

The initial direction does not lock you in. Just make a right angle turn to another direction (randomly or not), and keep moving on.

You could even make a spiral bus that expands forever.

Also, it is easy to inject items like Iron Plates and Copper plates into your bus anywhere. You do not have to inject items to the beginning. Maybe start with 1 or 2 lanes of plates at the beginning and just merge a lane or two later as needed.

And it does not hurt to start with Spaghetti. Just spiral out starting with a small bus and make it bigger as you go. A Spaghetti spiral bus would be cool.

And now that I thought about this, it is time to restart a new save game and do what I just suggested. I'll post some pictures as I progress.

[BlueTemplar]

Spiral sounds like you would run into space issues when inevitably trying to expand it.

Not injecting at the beginning kind of loses on what I understand is the biggest advantage of a main bus : simplicity ?

Turning the bus is possible, but a bit fastidious, it's just better to plan in advance so this happens as late as possible (or not at all if you intend to cut down trees, landfill lakes, blow up cliffs, pre-mine ores...)

[HadesSupreme]

You can "inject" at any place in a bus, simply have a splitter send materials down both ways. The only issue is that you can't inject at multiple points well unless you turn your bus into a loop, or you're fine with only one direction getting the full potential throughput. I do this with red/blue circuits, I build them later down the line on the bus when I need them and send them back up to my mall. Malls don't exactly need insane throughput so it works fine.

[BlueTemplar]

Yes, this is exactly the kind of complication that I mean.

[DeadMG]

Hi,

I've played a LOT of Factorio, but never really progressed beyond spaghetti phase WIth lots of manual insertion.

My question is: When you make a main bus - let's say left to right (eastwards), that kind of locks you into expanding ever westwards in search of more resources, doesn't it? Because if I run out of iron, and I need to feed a lot of into into the main bus, it's a lot easier if that iron comes from a source to the west, than a source far to the east. Thoughts?

By the time this becomes a serious problem, you should be training ores anyway so it no longer really matters, or have transitioned to a full train base. Main busses are great for rushing up the tech tree or dealing with content you are unfamiliar with, they are not the most optimal solution for the whole game.

As for one-sided busses, I think one sided is better than two sided for players who are less experienced, because it is more flexible. Two sided busses may have benefits, but those benefits quickly fall away the moment you realise you messed something up and it's much harder to fix than a one-side.

[kpreid]

Similarly, building on both sides of the bus is confining. You cannot then expand the bus’ width to accommodate needed throughput of more, or newer, material.

Building on one side of the bus is not the obvious correct solution. It is, however, the correct decision for people new to the bus idea. Building on both sides of the bus is simultaneously a noob trap, and a pro move. If it is known exactly how many belts of each material will be needed, then by all means build on both sides. But when learning a mod pack, or learning the base game and trying this bus idea, building on only one side is not obvious, though it is the correct decision.

Note that if you’re playing with Space Age, once you have stack inserters, this increases the throughput you can achieve on all belts. I planned out a main bus with multiple lanes of plates, and then found out that I never actually needed them because of stack inserters. My two-sided layout has 40 tiles of space between the machines on the left and the machines on the right, and this has been enough for all my belts and pipes so far. Of course, it’s still a trap, as you say, to plan out some belts, leave room for them, and assume that you’ll never need more belts than that. Take the width you think you’ll need and double it!

[BlueTemplar]

Yeah, though with the additional complication of having to plan to not need them before you're able to unlock them ?

(From what I understand of the bus idea, since I rarely use what seems to be the 'standard' one myself.)