Factorio Forums

Simple I need to get high loads of copper ore from point A to point B where my smelters are, in your "expert" opinion do I use a 4 lane bus or a train?




Comrade, copper production is down
I said comrade, you must sleep on the ground
I said comrade, cause you're in new gulag
There's no need to be capitalist

Build new furnaces at the patch, and belt copper plates up your main bus from the south.

When the point A copper patch runs out, replace it with a train station to keep copper ore flowing to the new furnaces.

As you are mainly belt-based for now, I would say:

If the distance is short enough, stick to belts, especially if you already have bots. When it runs dry, recycle the belts. Mainly because it is easier, and you want to clear some space.

Then (like Dave said) find a nice spot, planning space for later rail, inbound and outbound stations and place your smelter lines, initially feeding them by belt from 4-8 nearby mines. The smelter output send it to your bus by train.

When nearby deposits run dry, build the smelters inbound station, make a mining loading depot further out (again, fed by 4-8 mines via belts) and send the ore to your smelter by train.

NOTES:

- Design so that you can add unlimited smelting lanes next to each other, in at least one direction.
- Design so that you can add unlimited smelting inbound and outbound stations, in at least one direction.
- Design your mine outpost so that you can start the outpost for just one ore, but able to keep expanding it as needed.
- If you have a main train line, make your ore line simple and separate.
- 1-2 trains are easy to learn with. 1-4-1 (both locos pointing the same way) are better. 1-4-2-4-1 and bigger trains you will need quite a bit later. Whatever size train (and stations) you choose, plan your main rail so that it can support at least the next size up (meaning distance between intersections/merges/splits fits at least one full train of the bigger size).

As above mentioned.

i would build onsite a train-station which will get the ore from the patch and feed it to the smelter array. by 1-4-1.

if sometime you don't know what to do or the need for ore will expand open additional ore patches and feed them similar to the smelter.
So in this way you only need to open up new patches when one patch runs dry or don't can follow up with the needed ore.
Thouse no need for belts to place/remove, just add more feeder trains from the same mining or new mining sites.

don't forget to plan a fairly sized stacker for the trains you will feed the smelters. Otherwise it could be that a waiting train is blocking traffic.
Or - wait just add more smelter to gulp the ores

Eventually the first patch will run dry so then i would add a bigger feeder station to the first station which will act then as a local distribution hub.
you then can feed this distribution hub with even bigger train from far more outside patches, with no need for a change of the train-system, except you will need a enough sized storage.

so this will need no rebuild of belts - its just growing in size.

As far as i can tell this works out nice, as i planed my factory in this manner.

BTW: i would plan also a feeder station for the smelter which can feed plates just in case you run out of space for smelters so that you can open up additional smelter bases.
Of course in the end there is always limited space in the end

If you can build a mining site which fairly different ores you can mine one type of ore (and some nearby patches) with just one mining station.
If eventually one ore type is empty you can still use the station for other ore-types with just an adjusted arrangement of trains without much of a change (obviously the mines need to be replaced).

So in this case i would add all the other small copper patches to the trainstation.
after the copper ore is gone you have 80% of the infrastructure for the following iron ore.