Making a Research 'Factory'

[Sir Cailean]

Admittedly, I'm not sure what I'd call it, a factory, a line, whatever the case, I need help. My biggest road block in this game has been making a line which automatically researches for me. Red research is easy enough to make, but Green research becomes immediately a daunting task, forget the third tier, Teal research.

I know the basics of the game, but my line often comes to a stop because it has too much of /something/ going into the line. Largely thanks to the fact that the stuff at the end doesn't really get the resources it needs to build stuff. My first 'idea' was to simply stuff it with more metal, so much so that metal would reach the end of the line. But at the end of the day, as one might expect, it simply clogged up the line again.

My only other idea thus far has been to make individual lines which stretch all the way to the furnaces themselves, one furnace for maybe one or two for a assembly machine which requires that.. but then that begins to become hella convuluted. To an extent it's a tedious, strainuous task that requires a whole new level of organization that I simply don't think I have within me.

Maybe there's an easier solution, but that's why I'm here. Currently I'm back to making tier 2 potions by hand. I'm pretty desperate.

[radoguy21]

I managed to make a system that automatically made tier one and two research potions and then fed them to the Labs.

my system isn't neat though, its a big ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with belts and lanes going everywhere haha!!

[Sir Cailean]

Originally posted by radoguy21:

I managed to make a system that automatically made tier one and two research potions and then fed them to the Labs.

my system isn't neat though, its a big ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with belts and lanes going everywhere haha!!

Yeah, mine is too. I love this game and I love becoming more efficient, but I've been going in circles around this one constantly. My system only barely worked, and it required me to poke in frequently to fix reoccuring problems.

[[GD] HURRICANE]

I found a main bus system to work best. You make all of your supplies at one end, circuits, gears, copper, iron etc. And ship them down one big line. You the use splitters and underground belts to "feed" off the line. Once you did that automate the science packs heres a couple pictures of my factory i made a couple of days ago.
http://imgur.com/a/edS9Y

[Fel]

I usually put my "research" assembling machines on the side from my main factory line, with red and green along a double line of belts that feed one chest each.

From there, I extract from the chests and make it so that green and red are on the right of the left belt and left of the right belt of the double belt line that goes in the middle of my research labs.

Later on, I add a line of assembling machines for blue research that similarly feed a chest and takes one of the remaining spots of the double belt feeding the labs, the purple ones getting the last eventually.

The main point of this is like everything else in this game: "Make it in a way you can expand easily by replicating it along the resources and products belts", when you are not constrained by space because of the aliens or water.

Ideally, you would want something like 25 research labs and a lot of assembling machines to be able to somewhat keep up, but the chests in the middle let you have a buffer, and alternating between researches that require blue and those that don't let you build those back too, as they are produced way slower and need a lot more to make.

Balancing the lines with the exact amount needed to produce is just a nightmare anyway, so I always try to over-produce everything that's needed (not just the plates, everything else too).
That does mean a lot more pollution than strictly necessary though, so you frequently have to go hunt nests

It is basically feeding off of the "main bus" line and the assemblies there, I just like to put it a bit farther away to make it clearer that it is dedicated to science.

[Ame]

It seems you have just discovered why Factorio is one of those "One more..." games. The battle of ensuring all of your assemblers are fed properly is a never-ending one.

First off, having a backup of material (iron plate, green circuits, etc.) is a good problem to have; it means that you can either expand your production of things later or have less production making whatever is backed up. If something is backed up, it will just shut down w/o much penalty. Having too little material is much more serious. You must then trace the problem back to it's source; is my green circuit factory getting enough copper? How about iron? If the answer to both is yes then more assemblers are needed!

The second thing is that math is your friend. For example, I know that 10 red science assemblers can be run off of one gear wheel assembler. How do I know this? I see that gear wheels take 0.5 seconds to make, while red science takes 5 seconds; ten times longer. Therefore, as long as the assemblers are the same type and they are well fed with ingredients, 10 red science assemblers will run from 1 gear assembler.

You can do the same thing with green science; determine how long it takes to make each ingredient, and then compare to how long it takes to make the product. Using this method, you can figure out how many of what assembler you need before you even fire up the game.

Finally, I would recommend a main buss design. Before I discovered the main buss, all of my factories looked like spageti; with belts going every which way w/o much rhyme or reason. It worked, but output was severely limited and not easily expandable. I would recommend Katherine of Sky's Steam guide on the main buss (just search her name and you'll find it).

Hope this helps. If you're still having issues, post a screenshot of your setup and the friendly people here can provide more specific help.

Edit: stupid autocorrect 😜

[4FCG]

A neat trick is making a circle of belts. One inner one outer, where you put the science items. They keep going around until a lab needs it. Just use one normal inserter and one long one for each lab.

[Nailfoot]

I usually end up with a slightly different green science build everytime I play. Here is one from a few factories ago:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=857714758

The iron is part of the main buss and is feed by 20-30 furnaces.

[Professor Platypus]

No matter what, start with a main bus. I don't know why i didn't think of it, but when I found a screen shot of it I kicked myself, cause it makes life so much easier. I have a screenshot of a really good blue science pack production line, but I'm not sure how to attach a screenshot from my phone, so you'd have to go to my profile. it's worth mentioning that I bus the inserter arms to it from my green science pack production line, and have since updated my copper line to have plates on one side and copper wire on the other, rendering it unnecessary to produce copper wire on the spot.

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by Professor Platypus:

... rendering it unnecessary to produce copper wire on the spot.

You should almost always produce copper wire on-the-spot. Copper plates are more effecient to move on the belt, and direct insertion of copper wire gives you the inserter stack bonues. Also, it is easy to produce copper wire as it only needs one assembly machine.

If you also buss green circuits, then you can easily produce purple inserters on-the-spot for the blue science as well, instead of bussing the yellow inserters. One yellow inserter assembler can feed 10 green science assemblers, and if you buffer the inserters for the bule science production that will give you a place to drop logistic chests in the future.

[Sir Cailean]

Thanks everyone for the information you've given, it's definitely given me a lot of ideas. I think I can start progressing again, which is all I wanted. It all looks really complex, but I'll give it time to sink in to see if I can make anything of it!

[Winkoloss]

If you want a greater challenge, try bob's mods :P

[fractalgem]

Originally posted by Winkoloss:

If you want a greater challenge, try bob's mods :P

Someone who is struggling to automate GREEN reasearch does not need bob's mods.

[radoguy21]

I think you'd all laugh if you saw my factory haha

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by radoguy21:

I think you'd all laugh if you saw my factory haha

Well, lets see it! You can start your own thread if you like. Personally, I like seeing the new players' designs and setups.

Of course, you can always plop any questions you have right here in the forum, and you should get a helpful reply within 24-48 days.

[[GD] HURRICANE]

this dude got a helpful reply from 20 people within 24-48 minutes