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I went through the usual I guess. Starting organically, then trying some minor designs, then going for the main bus... In my second game I tried a single belt system and it failed horribly of course so I abandoned the idea. However then I noticed something similar called 3-belt system around here, see here or here. Basically one uses a circular belt that is being sorted into chests on one end and those chests are connected via circuit network to the production inserters so things are only made when under the threshold in the chest.

One problem that was being discussed is how to deal with high demand stuff (e.g. plates, gears, green circuits...) vs low demand stuff (e.g. pretty much everything else). The answer was the 3 belt system that tiered it into 3 categories so instead of one belt there are 3 going through all the production lines supplying stuff. However I really disliked that part of this idea because it meant first more belts and the hassle of placing them (and long handed inserters...) and more importantly off site production of basic stuff and offsite smelting. So I wondered foolishly what would happen if I put literally everything but ores into this system (feeding ores as necessary using the same logic).

Well, much to my surprise it actually worked quite well. Having furnaces in there and tons of ore circulating along other things did not seem to hinder the performance much (on red fast belt). Granted I only had red and green science set up in there but either way I was impressed how well it was handling itself plus the automated balancing is godlike.

So I guess my question is this: Is actual "Single Belt System" in theory viable for producing everything or will it inevitably have too little throughput to keep most of the important stuff running. I am not talking about efficiency, that is naturally not the greatest here, although not bad either. For example perhaps placing things "strategically" so that they are in some coherent order and thus able to supply the next assemblers even though some previous ones are not working at full capacity. I already did that with the furnaces (mixing them in rather than having them all at start) and it seemed like a really good strategy. But is that enough?

Resurrection wrote:will it inevitably have too little throughput to keep most of the important stuff running. I am not talking about efficiency

In theory it can work. You can always reduce excess production until everything fits on the belt.

But efficiency and speed is a problem. One red belt is limited to 26 items per second. As you add more complex recipes that require more items, production will slow to a crawl.

DaveMcW wrote:

Resurrection wrote:will it inevitably have too little throughput to keep most of the important stuff running. I am not talking about efficiency

In theory it can work. You can always reduce excess production until everything fits on the belt.

But efficiency and speed is a problem. One red belt is limited to 26 items per second. As you add more complex recipes that require more items, production will slow to a crawl.

I would agree but doing some preliminary calculations I still think it could work in a reasonable way. There are ~50 intermediary items/ores that are used in more complex recipes but many of them are often used on their own as well. But even if one wanted to circulate permanently all those 50 it could still work even though red belt can only fit 26 items per second. How? I have some ideas.

1) By placing related production assemblies after each other. That way lots of those items will rarely be going full circle and will actually be mostly used up right away freeing up the belt. This includes furnaces. It will not be the fastest system in the world but it will not be unbearably slow either I think.

2) If all final products (there are ~60 I think) were removed as soon as possible (i.e. in the next "bend") and not only at the end then it will further free the capacity of the belt for the remaining line.

3) One could also tinker with the redeployment of the intermediary items as well in a way that not only the production starts when the item falls under certain threshold but it is not redeployed until it reaches certain stock level as well. That way not all items will be constantly circulating.

4) Manual control could also help as you mention. By manually stopping redeployment of certain items it could further free up the capacity when something else is in more need.

When all of these failed I guess some productions could be moved off the main line. However not the intermediaries but rather more specialised or high-demand end products - science and stuff for the rocket.

I am not sure if express (blue) belt would help or make it worse actually...

You don´t need the chests anymore now when the belt scanners is added.
Gathering a lot of/all production around 1-3+lanes is possible, I do it sometimes when the throughput isn´t important.
I currently use a one belt system to distribute the science packs to my labs, and have used it to produce them as well. Everything is controlled by the long chain belt scanners connected to the inserters.

Random crazy idea, does the belt needs to be circular? If you only put the direct demand on the belt, and it's always picked up by the required machine, then there is nothing going full circle anymore. Inserter bonus might cause some problems...

Certainly that kind of factory will work, if you make it correctly, but it will be very slow in late game. When you are in the rocket launching phase, one rocket need more than 100000 items feed in assembling machines and other entities. It takes tens of hours to transport everything in one belt, but if you are patient, it works and I guess (without exact calculations) that you can launch a rocket in couple of hundreds of hours from beginning.