Is it possible to use only red/yellow logistic chests to replace transport belts?

[Buon Tia]

I am not getting this logistics thing, it seems like something that might be beneficial almost only in end-game and not really something to waste my resources on when you first unlock it.
I noticed from the wiki that the only useful one would be the blue chest, which gets unlocked incredibly far into the game...
So should I just abandon logistics for now, like I abandoned nuclear because they require too big of a hassle to actually be beneficial at the moment you unlock it?
Or should I just start a new save at this point? In my world biters are insanely powerful, I didn't know they'd get so aggressive, I can't make any progress because I can't expand, so I'm trying to make everything more efficient with the space I have but it's pretty much impossible now, since logistics are not what I thought they would be and I don't have any space to start producing grey potions.
I'm stuck at blue potions. I have no way of fighting the biters actively, only defense, which sometimes fails.

[Jupiter3927]

Logistics is meant to help you build your factory early on.
Construction bots can use the red and yellow chests and Logistics bots can pull items out and give them to you.

Blue requester chests will replace belts if you let them.

[Baphnedia]

You can use red and blue chests to fully replace transport belts. Yellow chests are good for more general storage. ^_^ The yellow chests only get filled if there's extra material available, whereas the blue chests request material from the network directly.

[Buon Tia]

Originally posted by Baphnedia:

You can use red and blue chests to fully replace transport belts. Yellow chests are good for more general storage. ^_^ The yellow chests only get filled if there's extra material available, whereas the blue chests request material from the network directly.

It takes a loooong time to unlock blue chests though...

[Jupiter3927]

It takes a long time to unlock Factorio easy mode*

[Warlord]

I doesn't take as long as you'd expect to unlock the various sciences if you use a bus system. I tend to not use them, and either rush for logistics to make a mall, or rush towards my train setup. Either way, a bus is still vastly superior to the methods I use. This last game I tried to do a bus-style system, and it worked out surprisingly well. I just need to take however much space I think I'll need for a bus, double that space. Then double it again for good measure.

Of course, this game I'm on I also multiplied all science costs by 10. That.... forces you to do a bus.

[Purpleganja]

I don't think you will solve the biters problem by adding bots and the energy consumption they come with unless its all solar and that is why you don't have any more space ;)
Work on advancing you def lines to clear up space; the further nests are from pollution sources, the less they will spawn attack groups.
You can also slow down research if its not directly for military and craft as much as possible by hand to lower pollution production until they get less aggressive and you can clear up some space.

[zOldBulldog]

@Buon Tia.

1) Yellow chests are extremely powerful if used well. And yet, they are the most under-appreciated, because its best use is not obvious:

--- Setup Roboports on a regular grid in the area where you spend the most time.

--- Use them as exit chests from your production assemblers (like those in your mall). This will make their contents available to both logistics and construction bots.

--- Set a wire from chest to the inserter that feeds them. Use a condition on that inserter to limit how much you want to put into the chest. For example, 100 blue inserters. This way you will not produce blue inserters if there are already 100 in the chest (no matter how they get there).

--- Set the chest's filter to request blue inserters. This will make logistics bots return your logistic trash to that specific chest (so long as there is space available).

--- Setup a grid of about 4x4 yellow chests *without filter* somewhere, so that they can collect trash of items that you didn't account for yet.

With the above you can use construction and logistic bots quite effectively as early as green science. Not bad.

Blue chests are very useful to load trains (and if you mess up and can't feed a belt to some assembly, but we will never admit to that :) ).

Combat bots... are not the best. I ignore them.



2) 0.17 Biters are nasty. Your best bet is to study the New Game settings in detail, then pick whatever *you* want to make your game more enjoyable. There are no clear answers there because everyone prefers something different... some easy, some tough, some as realistic as possible, some want to be ecologically conscious. Only you will know what you want.

But there are some techniques to push them back:

--- 6-7 personal lasers are very effective, especially if you do a drive-by in a tank.

--- Explosive shells are also quite effective from a tank.

--- Uranium ammo shreds the enemy pretty quickly. Flamethrower burns them nicely. Lasers are pretty decent.

--- If you can belt-feed uranium ammo around your base... it will serve you well.

--- For pushes outward I find that 3 solid rows of lasers plus flamethrower turrets at max distance on the front row of lasers will stop just about any evolved enemies before they do much damage.

--- Of course, you will need bots with repair packs along your defenses to repair what spitters manage to damage.


3) You didn't ask, but managing bots manually is a pain. Google for some automated setups that produce bots "as needed" and stop producing them when there is no demand.


4) Finally, for more "logical" biter behavior/expansion/evolution you might want to try the Railworld preset or turn off Biter Expansion, use the Next Gen Evolution mod (by default it makes evolution happen when the pollution cloud *touches* the enemy nests) and set Time factor and Pollution factor both to 0, to let Next Gen Evolution do its thing. Once you are happy with the behavior from those settings and you learn more about settings, then you can tweak settings to make it harder. Again, it is all your decision.

I hope this helps you.

[AlexMBrennan]

And yet, they are the most under-appreciated, because its best use is not obvious:
[...]
With the above you can use construction and logistic bots quite effectively as early as green science. Not bad.

They are underrated because they cannot be used for any useful *logistics* - they enable the use of construction bots which is nice but they do not allow you to move stuff around your factory (that is what "logistics" means).

Topping up the player's inventory doesn't count unless you are handcrafting all your science packs.

--- Use them as exit chests from your production assemblers (like those in your mall). This will make their contents available to both logistics and construction bots.

--- Set a wire from chest to the inserter that feeds them. Use a condition on that inserter to limit how much you want to put into the chest. For example, 100 blue inserters. This way you will not produce blue inserters if there are already 100 in the chest (no matter how they get there).

Or use a passive provider, limit the inserter by logistic network connection, and allow bots to store excess wherever is convenient instead of taking everything back to the factory for no reason.

[Purpleganja]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

--- Use them as exit chests from your production assemblers (like those in your mall). This will make their contents available to both logistics and construction bots.

--- Set a wire from chest to the inserter that feeds them. Use a condition on that inserter to limit how much you want to put into the chest. For example, 100 blue inserters. This way you will not produce blue inserters if there are already 100 in the chest (no matter how they get there).

Or use a passive provider, limit the inserter by logistic network connection, and allow bots to store excess wherever is convenient instead of taking everything back to the factory for no reason.

It's a bit off topic, but i found it interresting to read about that way of using them. I always used red chest on factory exits and didnt care much about where bot were putting trashed items, but a friend of mine is totally OCD and does filter and order all of his yellow chests neatly and we argued a bit about that subject in our multiplayer game where he didn't like my messy storage.
That way of using them as providers and storing returns is a good inbetween.

Sometimes i use purple chests as factory exits with inserter limited by network connection to have more room in nearby filtered yellow chests or any yellow chest.

[Warlord]

Originally posted by Purpleganja:

Sometimes i use purple chests as factory exits with inserter limited by network connection to have more room in nearby filtered yellow chests or any yellow chest.

Isn't that more like green buffer chests? You can use them to request a material, while it also provides said material to requesters.

[zOldBulldog]

Originally posted by Purpleganja:

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

Or use a passive provider, limit the inserter by logistic network connection, and allow bots to store excess wherever is convenient instead of taking everything back to the factory for no reason.

It's a bit off topic, but i found it interresting to read about that way of using them. I always used red chest on factory exits and didnt care much about where bot were putting trashed items, but a friend of mine is totally OCD and does filter and order all of his yellow chests neatly and we argued a bit about that subject in our multiplayer game where he didn't like my messy storage.
That way of using them as providers and storing returns is a good inbetween.

Sometimes i use purple chests as factory exits with inserter limited by network connection to have more room in nearby filtered yellow chests or any yellow chest.

I am a bit OCD, but the main reason I use the yellow chests is both to have items return to the source point so that I can predict how they will be distributed (especially important for smelted materials and products that get used in further production) and to reduce my trash storage size... I now rarely need more than half a dozen trash chests.

Of course, once I get the yellow research done I use Buffer chests to get materials closer to my construction supply train stations, and Active Providers to redistribute materials returned by trash trains. I also use requester chests as a convenient way to supply my many trains with rocket fuel.

[Purpleganja]

Originally posted by Warlord:

Originally posted by Purpleganja:

Sometimes i use purple chests as factory exits with inserter limited by network connection to have more room in nearby filtered yellow chests or any yellow chest.

Isn't that more like green buffer chests? You can use them to request a material, while it also provides said material to requesters.

This method looks closer to the yellow filtered output of factory. The purple chest is more like multiple output chests on the same factory; ie having lots of room to output artillery shells that take a lot of place.