Train Hub Advice

[Acarin]

I've been playing a while now (er... 600+ hours, but a lot of that is spent sitting and watching my Main Bus and smiling at my inner OCD demon), but I am still very much learning and trying out new stuff. So, I have been poking around the forums & Reddit to look at designs for anything and everything, but I couldn't find a train hub that I really liked and that matched what I needed.

I came up with this (similar to other designs, but I don't think it is identical), but now I just want to check that someone else agrees that it is elegant. It certainly works (with my current 2 oil trains, 6 ore trains, FARL and PAX (FARL Mod train and Passenger train - basically my own transport around the map)), but is there something I could do better? Can anyone else see a glaring error which is going to bite me in the butt if I double my furnace capacity?

BTW, for reference, I use a 2-rail one-way system (driving on the left)

EDIT: Oh and yes, there is room for further expansion and adding more unloading bays to the north. I should be able to fit up to another 4 or 5 if required.

[kingarthur]

looks good. i do have a few suggestions though. on the left side i would remove or reroute the southbound train line as trains crossing the entrance to the station can cause a bottleneck to form reducing the ability for trains going into the station to arrive quickly. the flow is best if you can keep them all moving the same direction

[Acarin]

Thank you for taking the time to reply . I did think about that, but I would need to reroute the southern line to squeeze between the furnace loader and the unloading bays which would be tight. However, a more telling point is that I have no trains which go _past_ the hub - they all stop. To be honest, I could probably rip up that section of main line, but then I wouldn't have a direct path for my PAX or FARL should I need it (in case of Biter assault, for example).

My main concern is the bottleneck between the stackers and the unloading bays. However, that acts to offset the arrival of simultaneous trains by a few seconds, which not only affords my logistics bots more time to clear one before tackling the next, but also allows the trains to be staggered on exit as they would otherwise be delayed leaving anyway.

[kingarthur]

ya if the southbound line is a low traffic area and most for you then i wouldn't worry about. i wasnt sure on traffic flow from the one picture. the only reason i mention it is because trains can be dumb. i had a similer setup to yours with belts and i had all my incoming delivery trains backed up waiting on other trains heading south to line up and trains suck at bumper to bumper driving

the stacker looks good. one question i do have is your furnace area part of the rest of your robo network or seperate?

[Acarin]

Hah! I tried a full logistics setup and decided that 1) it wasn't visually pleasing for me, and 2) the power requirements were starting to climb through the roof. Plus I had to keep my train unloading and production logistics networks separate.

When I upgraded to my current setup, therefore, I went back to a belt-based Main Bus. I use the bots for unloading trains (I can transfer 16k ore in about 20s), which then moves through the belt-based 192 smart furnace array (iron/copper only at the moment, until I can get my head around XKnight's new design) and onto the Main Bus (4 express belts each of iron and copper, with room to expand to 6 if I absolutely have to, although I would probably rebuild from scratch if that were needed). The nice thing about a belt bus is that you can immediately spot any bottlenecks in production and take appropriate action. Much harder with a logistics network

This version of the base (which may or may not end up as the final iteration for this map) is still being used as a "test bed" for various concepts, as it is the first time that I have used RSO & FARL(therefore needing long distance/higher volume rail transport), and because of that also has the highest number of deployed laser turrets to date (because you can never have too much firepower, right?). I am also starting to try out various (simple) circuit networks for visual indication of assorted stock states (crude, lube, gas, copper ore, iron ore), and to trigger the trains for reload runs.

The basics of the bus design are fine, but I am learning how to leave space for expansion, and how best to upgrade capacity when it is needed - and I haven't even started on optimised rocket builds yet. Getting a base that can happily produce 2 x Module 3s per minute without stuttering was hard enough, lol. The more I think about it, however, the more I am coming to the conclusion that a new game will be required at some point with 4-lane train network and a double-sized furnace array, as I would like to be able to push 19200 plates per minute through it. That's my goal at the moment!

[Acarin]

To actually address your comment about the stackers, however, there are currently 4 in each direction. This should be enough for the immediate future, and I do have (limited) expansion area for those as well (eg ensuring that each stacker can hold 2 trains). However, see above for my expansion plans

[kingarthur]

nice. would love to see how it looks when you get father along.