My attempt at making a starter HUB (not a mall)

[pworty]

https://factoriobin.com/post/ktvtqt

Copy blueprint

The original idea for this hub came to mind while trying to achieve "Lazy bastard"
I needed a quick and dirty mall to get me going, but while building said dirty mall, I just couldn't stand the haphazard design choices that I had to make, so I went off on a tangent to build a proper one, and further to build a hub that could transition from early game all the way to launching the rocket, which it is perfectly enough for doing.

I've gone through many iterations and spent about 20 hours total designing it, playing through a full run with it and modifying the parts that I thought were lacking, resulting in the third one in my blueprint book, after a deathworld marathon + keeping your hands clean run (it was torture).

A lot of that time went into the careful considerations of recipe placement relative to the conveyors with resources needed for it, if I'm most proud of anything, it is this part.

I'd like to hear your opinions about it, which parts could be improved (probably a circuit condition to stop it from making 50 boilers) and mostly how you think the items could be arranged in a different way, less undergrounds, crossings and roundabouts.

I am currently at the point of trying to go further than couple of rockets, so I think I will transition to a parameterized bot mall and save myself the trouble of building a belted hub for everything, do you think it is the right choice or should I spend some more time to design the second part of the hub? I am sure as hell not touching this one anymore XD

[Durentis]

Looks like it strikes a fantastic balance between starter base requirements and when you have logistic support. I wouldn't worry about excess units or elaborately wiring it, provided you set sensible restrictions on the boxes. Very nice design!

I always completely ripped up the starter base sometime after getting beacons and logistics, relying on efficient outposts to make various intermediate materials like green/red/blue circuits on site for the trains to bring in. So anything too elaborate or trying to "future-proof" a starting base just stopped making sense to me at some point. If you scroll up on the serial trains link in my sig, you'll see my old thoughts on the large malls and wide busses often seen in streams. It was from 0.18, as I haven't really played in a long while and am just getting back into it, but still likely applicable. (The station blueprints will have to be tweaked due to a rail update, apparently, and it looks like trains got smarter so I'll have to investigate if that solves some of the old problems I had.)

Everyone has their own preferences though, so just comes down to what you like. I think most of the fun is in the design process and working out the kinks. I had put a lot of hours into saturating blue belts with tight beacon designs only to see we have another belt tier and quality components, so I get to do it all over again.