Factorio Forums

I'm trying to combine the ideas of MeduSalem and Dr.Who, by making a beltless factory consisting of subfactories linked by rail line.

So every factory will have a station, where goods are loaded from/to trains into logistic chests. Then, the factory makes a certain class of goods, and the materials are transported between the subfactories by train.

One things which I'm not quite sure how to handle is inventory management. How do you control how much of a good needs to be produced, and how much should be shipped where?

I'm thinking the best solution is probably to give every factory dedicated delivery trains for each input good, which are unloaded using smart inserters set to a logistic condition, e.g. green circuits < 5k.
The trains are set to wait indefinately until empty (using smart trains), so they will only activate when the stocks are low.

Output of a (sub)factory is then controlled by filling up the requester chests at the train stop, plus smart inserters inserting into the provider chests with a logistic condition, e.g. green circuits < 10k. If the station has 14 requester chests set to request 1k circuits, total output buffer would then be 10+14x1=24k circuits, plus the input buffers for each factory the circuits are delivered to, plus the train contents (non-trivial for circuits at 48x200=10k each).

(I guess it is also possible to have a single "circuit train" servicing all factories that need circuits, which would use fewer trains but wastes more fuel if the stock is not depleted quickly, and has less throughput if stock is depleted very quickly)

Does that make sense? Is there a better way to control inventory and inter-factory logistics?

Hm...Took me a minute to understand what you meant, but I get what you're trying to do. What I would do for inventory/backlog management is this: Do what you've suggested, except instead of do backlog for the entire sub-factory, limit how much is in the output chests using a curcuit network. If you need I can post a picture tomorrow.

Right. Why not just "cross out" some of the capacity of the output chests?

Also, do you centralize goods that the player would want (e.g. weapons, outpost building stuff) in a sort of "reloading" station?

Yep, works best that way. I still have PAX station(s) at every subfactory just in case I need ridiculous amounts of stuff, but most of the time I have a centralized storage/pickup station.

(see viewtopic.php?f=8&t=20663&p=131435#p131435 for some screenshots of a more "compartmentalized" factory with lots of trains )

I love to play withouth making a pre-organized main bus. Or planned assembly machine placement. So it's a belt maze everywhere. Also, no Logi bots, tunnels as short as possible and the belt that was built previously stays as it is, the new ones that should go below it with a tunnel. Only destroy and redo an old belt if its the only way to get trough.