More ore throughput

[Kriegherr]

So I've gone through the trouble of building a dedicated tube line for each ore plus crystal and biomass. I've got a 5x5 shaft for this and a few others like I've got a line for coal and a line next to it for infused coal and a whole floor dedicated to converting. Also I've got a line going down for cutter heads and one going to the surface for missiles. Anyway getting off topic, I've got all these ore lines going to a smelter level at -20 all running full out 150 ore a min or whatever into 3 smelters each which are waiting for ore most of the time. It's been working really really well so far but I'm getting to the point where I'm using more bars than I can make mainly tin and nickel and looking at my miners they are idle most of the time too. I haven't done the math but I'm sure it could handle several times what I can suck out of them.

So here's the question, what is some advice how I can increase that ore throughput? The rest of the infrastructure is there but the bottleneck is just getting the ore to the smelters. And I feel like I still have a long long way to go to get to what anyone would call "late" game so I don't want to just put a band-aid on the problem I want to do it right. I'd also like to build a quarry soon, I've got a place picked out. I've started a beginner ore sorter at the surface to prepare that feeds down my ore shaft to meet the tubes coming up to the smelter level.

I've got two cargo shafts but I'm not really using them now that I have the tubes placed. Even if I could bring up 1k ore at a time unless I place smelter right next to it I don't think it'll increase my throughput much. If I did this I suppose the ultimate would be a dedicated cargo shaft for each ore unloading right into the smelters probably.

I've looked into matter movers but I don't think I can produce even a fraction of the power I would need to put a line of matter movers all the way to nickel, not to mention the other ores and such. I really can't figure out where they fit in anyway. I did an experiment with tin because I had some on the same level as my smelters and it took 4 MMs to get across the room and sucked my power line dry. I have a 3x3 power shaft through my base with 3x3 mk2 lasers shooting down to each floor. I'm in the process to upgrading to mk3 but it's gonna take time.

I could use minecarts maybe but how would it work best? A dedicated cart line for each ore unloaded straight to the smelter input? That sounds like a good way to increase throughput because you can just add more carts and it's my favorite idea so far but I'm going to have to do some major excavating over the next several days of game time to do that. Even if I use a shared line and sort it somewhere right before I smelt it then wouldn't I be back to square one unless I sort into multiple tubes to each smelter line?

Or I could just expand my tube shaft for multiple tube lines per ore. I have the tubes, I made a tube factory as soon as I could so I've got at least 2k right now and could make more easily.

I've done a ton of searches for peoples smelter setups and I've seen a lot of different ways, though a lot of them are sadly out of date. That's the tricky part of a game like this that changes so much, a lot of guides and pictures etc are way out of date. What am I missing?

[Kalsius]

Cargo lifts. Start with 3 smelters on one side. Put 3 hoppers set to remove only on the ground with the smelters in front with PSBs underneath. 3 hoppers in front set to add only with conveyors to transport to storage. Above the 3 remove only put a down pointing conveyor belt an another hopper so you can take 600 out a a time. When you upgrade your lift just another side of smelters/hoppers

[Demerzel]

If you want to build the absolult fastest transportation system then you need to use the matter movers and you need a LOT of power. Each mattermover need 64power per sec. A mattermover can do 300 item per min.

I would stick with cargolifts tho.

[Jonathan]

Cargo lifts.
1 cargo lift per ore type.
It's the key.

Fill 2-3 tubes per ore type to go from extractor to cargo lift(to fill it waster).

At the top, empty into as many hoppers as required (up to 3x3 hoppers o each side, allowing to unload 2700 ores at once).

Use as many tubes/conveyor belts as requriered to send the content of those hoppers to a dedicated smelthing station. You should have at least 2 dedicated smelther per ore with a purple (mk3?) Induction upgrade. Or more. I'd say, aim to manage to get 4 to 6 dedicated smelthers per ore, all upgraded to mk3 induction(the purple one), to work constantly.

Output to mass storage.


Many setups are possible. But for gold/titanium/nickel, for which you will need a huge flow through the whole game, i would say that 6 smelthers working constantly for each of thkse ore is not overkill. (2 per ore is probably enough for coper, iron and lithium. 4 for tin).

To be optimal for titanium/gold/nickel, you mihgt need 2-3 t1 cargo lifts or 1 t2 lift.

[Kriegherr]

@Jonathan That's basically what I was thinking exactly, but also what I was afraid of. That kind of setup is completely incompatible with my base as is, I'll have to essentially scrap it all and rebuild it one piece at a time.

The smelters themselves are trivial. It's 7 lifts plus room for plenty of hoppers on all sides and tubes. I stress that I'll get down the road and wish I had put them a little further apart or something lol. Probaly at least 9 spaces between lifts.

Level -30 right below there is where I make research pods and my lab. That's not too hard to move. But level -40 is my mass storage and various assembly lines all around and refineries etc. Hmmm.

I could move way over some direction I suppose as long as I don't get too far from my power area. I may have to break out the graph paper again. I have a notebook just for fortresscraft and factorio sketches.

[Kriegherr]

I just found this article: http://steamcommunity.com/app/254200/discussions/0/359543951705739756/

I kind of had a revelation moment with what someone said: use cargo lifts for vertical movement and minecarts for horizontal. I could punch the 7 holes a good ways away and use 7 minecarts lines to truck it closer where I can smelt it. I won't have to redesign near as much that way. I could put it over by where the quarry is going to go.

[Jonathan]

You might be making it more complicated then it needs to be.

Your base NEEDS to be big. As big as possible. Stretch as much as you can. It'll pay on the long run.

Minecarts are good for hozirontal very-high efficiency on long distances. So much that it is over-power for T1-2-3 ores. Go with tubes or belts. Minecarts would be a waste. Probably. Unless you have some very long distances to cover : it'll save some of your CPU. (road = 1 machine per cube. Minecarts will be smoother for your CPU...)

So I would say : make new lifts to go fetch T2 ores away from your base.

Forget about "centralised power generation". Bring a line of coal by your lift. Enrich it. Feed a hopper. Put 5 PTGs around it. Use this to feed the elevator, the extractors downstairs AND the smelthers for this ore-type.

REpeat for each ore type.

Bring the processed ores (bars) to you base. Keep it clean. (excavate and smelth away, bring bars to base.

Build a 20,000 - 30,000 capacity masse storage per ore-type. (or a huge 200,000+ masse storagee for everything)


Go huge.



Go over kill.


It'll pay.

[CMH]

Don't listen to Jonathan. Your base is what you want it to be.

I have a centralized power production, and on scarce power generates 40k pps with turbines. The organization of it is a bit of a headache at first (everything runs 100% all the time, excess power gets drained to go into the Orbital charger at first, now just drains into mk5 batteries for storage).

Power goes down shafts and branches off from there. Multiple shafts were needed, but if you put a bit of thought beforehand it all works like clockwork. (bear in mind you need some space to move as you mine out veins).

But yeah, leave lots of space in between. What looks like a long way at the start becomes a tight squeeze later in the game. As it is, the space between -100 and 100 in my base is getting pretty filled up.

I did plan all this with DJ's threat of making turbines "surface only", so if that ever eventually hits, I wouldn't even blink.

[The Valeyard]

For large-scale operations, centralised power generation (power stations, energy farms, etc.) are an optimal choice; supplemented with PSBs, they minimise power wastage.

This is typical practice in the real world (ie. power stations), and even for houses with solar panels; it's not as if they're running each room of the house on it's own discreet power source & storage. ...Having stated that, there's nothing wrong with a discreet power source for remote operations.

[Kriegherr]

Thanks everybody. I do think I am going to stick with centralized power, it just comes toI naturally to me. I stick a 3x3 array of batteries at floor level and cut a stairway next to it to access the underside where I place 9 lets. I obviously have to upgrade them as I need to but it has only ever worked perfectly. I do however run my defenses off an entirely seperate system. I never want either system to rob from the other.

On my other issue with ore I think I have an idea. It came to me while driving earlier lol. I'll post back later how it works.

Keep the ideas coming though, I love different ideas bouncing around

[Jonathan]

Originally posted by CMH:

Don't listen to Jonathan. Your base is what you want it to be.

lol. Aw !

[Kriegherr]

So my idea is going well so far. I scrapped my whole research pod setup but thats ok the only thing I can research right now is frozen factory and I don't have the expansion anyway. Then I scrapped my whole smelter input setup. That hurt a bit lol. Then I setup 7 auto excavators, one even with each smelter array which are 5 blocks apart. Now I'm working on laying multiple tube lines from each ore extractor instead of just one. Right now probably two but there's room for 9.

That will get me to the next stage which is to move the excavators over a few blocks and punch another set to eventually run cargo lifts. I know it's hard to visualize but my Internet is used up till like the 4th lol so no pics. Anyway, I was able to turn the array sideways and fit it in where the tubes were running along the floor to the smelters before.

Oh and I had to scrap nearly all my assembly floor especially my mass storage so it's in total shambles except for my tube production in case I need more. I'm not sure I'm going to put the mass storage back down, I just can't bring myself to take stuff that I went through so much to keep sorted and throw it all together again. I might do mass storage seperate for each bar but at that point why bother? I also can't stand how you don't even know if you don't have any of something in there. It was probably half full with copper which I wasn't hardly using and so I was just expanding the storage so it could keep adding what I needed even further away from where I needed it. That's Just Stupid.

I think it would be awesome if the input ports had a setting to stop adding if the storage contained more than like 10% of what it is adding. That might not work it just came to mind quickly. That would ensure there was always room to add the needed things.

Anyway I've rambled on too long as usual haven't I? Thanks again everyone

[syro]

Originally posted by Kriegherr:

I think it would be awesome if the input ports had a setting to stop adding if the storage contained more than like 10% of what it is adding. That might not work it just came to mind quickly. That would ensure there was always room to add the needed things.

I have been mentioning this every chance I get. Mass storage desperately needs input limiting as basic functionality.

It looks like our pleas have been heard. The next patch is supposed to have "stockpiler" input ports that allow you set limits.

[Yual]

Tubes and storage hoppers are my current bottlenecks. Storage hoppers only "supply" things 50 times/min, conveyors transport things at 100/min, and tubes run @ max 150/min. So you need 3 separate hoppers to saturate a tube and 2 for a conveyor line.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=867213632

This was my basic setup for any ore extractor with a final remove only storage hopper on top for drill heads. It is important not to have any "extractor" tubes touching more than one hopper, and because items are moved two spaces per "tick" the merge points need to be spread out for better effeciency. That is something you'll have to play with yourself =)

However! There is a better solution before you get to minecarts or matter movers, and that is the Motorised Conveyor. This is an expensive item, but instead of relying on the storage hoppers push(50/min), it pulls items out of the hopper fast enough to "saturate any transport system". It DOES require power, but not much, and will allow you to run multiple tube networks off one extractor.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=867221217

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=867221324

So you can get up to ~450 ore/min from one extractor with antimatter motor and plasma cutter head(because of the 5x speed from the plasma).

Hope this helps.

Edit: BTW for vertical movement, Cargo Lifts, Cargo Lifts, Cargo Lifts! Only one type per lift is suggested. My progression skipped doing multiple lines from the extractor to the lift with a lot of afk automation running. I found myself with 70k of each bar and just went nuts building minecart lines to saturate my cargolifts. My improved lift (1000 capacity), is feeding 4 smelters each and the smelters are the bottleneck but I don't want to deal with more per ore type because that would take me ripping everything out and rebuilding all my smelting areas.

[Kriegherr]

Originally posted by syro:

It looks like our pleas have been heard. The next patch is supposed to have "stockpiler" input ports that allow you set limits.

That would help a lot. Do you know where you saw that?

[Bunny]

An Idea mentioned on an older thread that is a good idea for mass storage is to layer it. each bar gets a layer that is 1 high. no more worry about overloading on less used bars.