Mass storage -mega base

[Rylant]

Hey all,

So I am in the process of transitioning from a fairly large base to a mega base. I have launched several satellites and have like 15 thousand of each bot. I was wondering what mass storage looks like for most people and their mega base? I still have a fairly large main bus and several of my production areas are still belt based. I am looking to convert these production areas to bot based production. I happen to realize that if you keep your storage spread out over a long way, it makes it harder to get moved around with bots.

Oh, I am mining several ore patches and moving back to my base by train, and storing the ore. From the storage, I run with belts to my smelting area, and then to my main bus. I am looking to change my smelting to being bot based. The thing is, that right now I have around 50 million iron ore, 25 million copper ore, 12 million stone and 12 million coal in storage, all in thousands of steel chests. So, I obviously need to smelt a lot of that product, and I am also very well aware that may be excessive. The thing is, I don’t want to store that many plates on the network. If I put them in thousands of network storage chests available for bots, I feel as though it will be too big a storage area and inefficient to move around by bot.

I see a lot of prints where they just take a bunch of ore by train to a smelt and then take the plates to the store to be used. I don’t want the smelt to be inactive when waiting for ore, so I was wondering how much of a buffer to use to ensure constant activity? Also, how many plates do you store for your network? I want it to be enough so there are no shortages, and not too much so it isn’t spread out too far. What kind of storage do people use for smelted plates?

Rylant

[Jap2.0]

In 0.16, the logistics buffer chest will help with resouurces not being where you need them It can also work as a sort of 'filtered storage'. (See this.) As for the rest, I haven't created any large bot-based bases.

[leitk]

I don’t want the smelt to be inactive when waiting for ore, so I was wondering how much of a buffer to use to ensure constant activity?

I haven't made a mega base (ever) but normally I just use the chest I unload into as a buffer. If that's not enough for the amount of smelting you're doing, solve it the factorio way: build more (in this case train unloading stations).

[Engimage]

Even in megabase there is not really much need for mass storage. You might opt into having some storage for the purpose of redistributing resources but its size does not have to be big.
Usually this ends up with active providers on incoming stations, storage chests in between and requester chests on exit stations. However in this design you should control incoming trains via prestacker so that the storage is not filled by a single resource (in case you share this say for 2 types of ore).

Many experienced players just hate buffers as they generally delay the detection of a problem instead of helping to negate it. But you can still use programmable speaker to trigger alarm if your storage drops below certain level for you to have time to fix it before storage runs out. However when reaching real megabase size it will chew through almost any buffer in no time so there is not much real use from it.

[Koub]

In my opinion, storage should only be used as buffer to be able to detect mismatch between offer and demand without suffering from it. So that when you lack of a particular ressource, you have the time to address the problem before the mismatch halts your production.
So small storage, and mechanism to warn you that when it starts to empty itself, you should asap add some of that ressource production capacity.

[Frightning]

In my opinion, storage should only be used as buffer to be able to detect mismatch between offer and demand without suffering from it. So that when you lack of a particular ressource, you have the time to address the problem before the mismatch halts your production.
So small storage, and mechanism to warn you that when it starts to empty itself, you should asap add some of that ressource production capacity.

Indeed, this is really the only reason to build storage, otherwise, it's just going to hold onto a large resource value worth of items for no real reason. Having a buffer is useful if it buys you enough time to identify and then address the problem (if it comes up short, than at least your 'down time' was reduced).

With this in mind, the main thing I'd consider setting up storage for would be ores (and crude oil). Use the circuit network to monitor levels in storage and alert you in some way when things get too low (you want this threshold low enough that it won't trigger during the wait between train deliveries, but otherwise fairly sensitive, so that it will be set off as soon as you're really experiencing a shortage of that resource).

For purely bot based factories, because of how the computational complexity of the logistics network scales with size (roughly cubic iirc), it is beneficial from a performance standpoint to modularize your base to some extent. Instead of building a single monolithic logistics network that does everything, and thus require a large number of robots all in one network (slow(er) from CPU performance standpoint), and this will also make less efficient use of those robots because average travel distances are likely to be longer than in a modular design. Build modules that are responsible for specific parts of the production chain.

Example: Having a dedicated circuit production block is a good idea, not only are circuits a mass produced group of items, but the higher tier circuits use the lower tier circuits as components, hence you can reduce the number of times materials are moved from one place to another by grouping those processes into a single module, fed by trains, and whose products are taken wherever needed by trains as well. Likewise, grouping Iron and steel plate production can also be a good idea. Additionally, logistic bot based designs are naturally well suited to the use of ideal beaconized setups (alternating rows of beacons and assemblers, positioned so that each machine is affected by 8 beacons, being the optimal layout).

[Rylant]

Thanks for your ideas, everyone. I think I have decided. First of all, I am going to start smelting that mass of ore I have. I have then decided to have dedicated production areas for every significant thing that needs production: Steel, Iron and Copper Plates, Green, Red and Blue Circuits, Plastic, Maybe modules? Am I missing something here? I think that each will be on its own separate logistic network so that it can be worked easily by bots. I will have a small storage area of each on site which will act as a buffer. Then I will move each item from site to site by train. Thoughts?

Thanks,

Rylant

[Frightning]

Thanks for your ideas, everyone. I think I have decided. First of all, I am going to start smelting that mass of ore I have. I have then decided to have dedicated production areas for every significant thing that needs production: Steel, Iron and Copper Plates, Green, Red and Blue Circuits, Plastic, Maybe modules? Am I missing something here? I think that each will be on its own separate logistic network so that it can be worked easily by bots. I will have a small storage area of each on site which will act as a buffer. Then I will move each item from site to site by train. Thoughts?

Thanks,

Rylant

Just let the (un)loading chests be your buffer, easily enough buffer capacity there. I'd still suggest grouping a few major items with related recipes together as this decreases the number of movement steps those items have to go through between each stage of the process (to becoming a high-tier item), which makes things more efficient overall. The real art of course, is deciding which items to group together and what to keep separate.