Need tips on building a non-bus factory.

[Thryden]

So I've always built a factory using a main bus. But I always run into space problems and not being able to produce enough materials to supply the belts. On a recent discussion in the Showcase sub forum, I noticed several people say they don't use main buses and I'd kinda like to try that. So does anyone have any tips?
I know the base would have to be train based.
One thing I was thinking is having each train carry only one type of item, with maybe the exception of one train carry several liquids and one for science packs. The way I would set that up is have the train load up with iron plates. It'll have maybe ten different stations to take care of (I'd have several trains with the same ten stations). I'd only have the stations on if they need the iron plates AND there is already no train already there. Before the train goes to the station, I'd have it stop at a waiting station just to verify that there still is no train that has already reached it. If another train already has, the station will have shut off so the train will go to the next available station.

Is that a good setup? Also, how far apart should I have stations? If someone could show me screenshots of their factory, that would be great. Any other tips of what I should/shouldn't do would be awesome as well!

Thanks!

Edit: I already have a base set up with red and green potions with a main bus, so I'm looking to convert it. I also have Angel's Infinite Ores mod on so most ores are unlimited (I do have two ores from another mod not suppored by AIO, so those are limited).

[Kaufbauer]

Well from all of the reddits that I have been reading lately and from personal experience you have several options to choose from:
- modular (modules that produce a specific product that can then be expanded to infinity if so desired)
- city block (which can also be modular)
- towns or districts (mostly train based system that splits the factory into spread out towns, like what Bentham did for one of his let's plays: Factorio Towns)
- spaghetti style (kind of self explanatory)

Then there is my personal favorite style of building the factory that I have been doing lately: building however the heck you want to (sorry for the sass, let me explain). The nice thing about this game is that while you can take a bit of the easy route and follow a plan someone else has come up with, the game is better played when you build how YOU want to build. Factorio is about building a system that you THINK might work, then having to rework or completely rebuild that system as you learn how and why your previous system didn't work the first time.

Now of course building how you want could also mean building using any of the plans and layouts I mentioned earlier. Totally your choice. Whatever you do, just have fun ;)

[Warlord]

Originally posted by Bramblestar:

I know the base would have to be train based.
One thing I was thinking is having each train carry only one type of item, with maybe the exception of one train carry several liquids and one for science packs. The way I would set that up is have the train load up with iron plates. It'll have maybe ten different stations to take care of (I'd have several trains with the same ten stations). I'd only have the stations on if they need the iron plates AND there is already no train already there. Before the train goes to the station, I'd have it stop at a waiting station just to verify that there still is no train that has already reached it. If another train already has, the station will have shut off so the train will go to the next available station.
.

I have one train dedicated to each module. So rather than ahve 10 stations demanding iron all named the same, I actually dedicate a train to supplying that station with iron, and no others. I end up having WAY more stations than you would, but I never need to wire up the station and turn them on or off based on if it needs the plates. If one train isn't fast enough to retreive plates and redeliver them before the first load is used up (Circuits, mostly), then I have 2 trains using the same route, and space before the station for a second train to park.

If you keep organized with the station names, it's not that overwhelming of a station list, as you just need to drill down into what you need:
"This train is to deliver iron ore to circuits, so set up 'Circuits - Iron In' as the first station and 'Furnace - Iron Out' as the other one."

No circuit network, no wiring, no worry about 10 trains servicing one station while ignoring the rest, etc.

[Thryden]

Originally posted by Warlord:

I have one train dedicated to each module. So rather than ahve 10 stations demanding iron all named the same, I actually dedicate a train to supplying that station with iron, and no others.

Ok, but does that train deliver to more than one module? I see what you're saying but I would think if the only module it supported what that one, it would sit idle for most of the time. I think I'd be able to get a train to be able to supply three or so modules without any help.

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by Bramblestar:

Originally posted by Warlord:

I have one train dedicated to each module. So rather than ahve 10 stations demanding iron all named the same, I actually dedicate a train to supplying that station with iron, and no others.

Ok, but does that train deliver to more than one module? I see what you're saying but I would think if the only module it supported what that one ...

I also use only one train per route, except for circuits. Circuits seem to be the only thing that can burn through the components faster than a single train can deliver them. I find it very easy to keep this organized if you simply use a naming convention that works for you.

Iron Load 1, 2, 3, etc
Copper Load 1, 2, 3, etc (I smelt-in-place so every patch of ore gets its own smelters and I only ever haul plates)
Green Circuits Iron Unload
Green Circuits Copper Unload
Etc

Eventually you would be able to use more than one "town" to build green circuits and then I just add letters to the station names. Every town also gets a player access (PAX) station so I can get there easily on a scooter train. I use the hashtag symbol (#) in front of PAX stations so they are always at the top of the station list.

Originally posted by Bramblestar:

...it would sit idle for most of the time. I think I'd be able to get a train to be able to supply three or so modules without any help.

I end up with hundreds of trains, with perhaps only 50 actually working at any one time. The rest are wating to be unloaded.

[Warlord]

Originally posted by Bramblestar:

Ok, but does that train deliver to more than one module? I see what you're saying but I would think if the only module it supported what that one, it would sit idle for most of the time. I think I'd be able to get a train to be able to supply three or so modules without any help.

Yeah, a lot of my trains sit idle, but that's fine. They are dirt cheap to make, and I like the idea of a train full of materials waiting for the chests beside it to empty so it can fully unload. It helps serve as even more of a buffer, by letting their wagons serve as more storage (even if they are less than a single steel chest in capacity for some dumb reason).

Since each delivery station serves a single purpose, there is no problem when a train sits idle at it. Trains don't even waste fuel when standing still, so what's the downside?

[Thryden]

Originally posted by Warlord:

Originally posted by Bramblestar:

Ok, but does that train deliver to more than one module? I see what you're saying but I would think if the only module it supported what that one, it would sit idle for most of the time. I think I'd be able to get a train to be able to supply three or so modules without any help.

Yeah, a lot of my trains sit idle, but that's fine. They are dirt cheap to make, and I like the idea of a train full of materials waiting for the chests beside it to empty so it can fully unload. It helps serve as even more of a buffer, by letting their wagons serve as more storage (even if they are less than a single steel chest in capacity for some dumb reason).

Since each delivery station serves a single purpose, there is no problem when a train sits idle at it. Trains don't even waste fuel when standing still, so what's the downside?

Well, why have two different trains for two stations when one train can easily handle both? Another downside is the setup I have for Iron Plate pickup is I have 5 train stations and 5 backup stations, so I can have a total of 10 trains (two cars each) at the Iron Plate pickup. Going by the one train per drop-off station, that means I can only have 10 other stations that need iron plates before I have to make a whole other iron smelting place. However if each train goes to two or three stations, I've just doubles or tripled the amount of stuff I can build with this one place. Now Green Circuit Production might need a train or two just for that due to the amount of resources it'll use, but other production such as science packs, belts, etc. won't even use probably half a train of resources. I could use that train to deliver iron plates to other stations.

I'm sorry if I sound contradictory. I ask for help then I'm not accepting it, but in this area I just seem like it's a waste of resources if I only use one train per station. But who knows. I've started building the base and maybe I'll find out that works best.

[Warlord]

Hey, no problem. I found what I have works great for what I do, if you like what you got that's fine too. I just try to justify what I use and why.

Originally posted by Bramblestar:

Well, why have two different trains for two stations when one train can easily handle both? Another downside is the setup I have for Iron Plate pickup is I have 5 train stations and 5 backup stations, so I can have a total of 10 trains (two cars each) at the Iron Plate pickup. Going by the one train per drop-off station, that means I can only have 10 other stations that need iron plates before I have to make a whole other iron smelting place.

Uh, why is that? Why not make one pickup spot for iron plates? You can have 10 delivery stations each with their own train, and have all 10 pick up from one smeltery. It's unlikely all 10 trains would be trying to pick up iron all at once, but even if they did you can easily make parking using signals that can accomodate all of them without having to make a whole new smelting area.

I guess this is a result of you having multiple trains servicing one station that moves all over the map (that is what it looks like to the trains when you turn on or off their destination). Then the train needs a place to park when it has no job, which would likely be back at smelting. For me, when a train is idle, it sits at the delivery station where no other train is scheduled to visit.

It helps me, too, to find out what my bottleneck is. Are both of my iron/copper trains sitting waiting to unload at my circuit production module? Maybe I can expand production there. Is a train not at the station, and the chests it delivers into empty? The source of that material must be low, let's go over to that (iron plates/furnace) and see why. etc etc.

Edit: Here's a peek at my current world. I still need to work on Processor production, then it's off to making dedicated bases for the different rocket parts and science packs.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1446983012
See how I have one pickup station for iron? It's bot-based (loading of plates) to maximize even distribution of plates for any train size, as well as to minimize how much time is spent servicing each train. If I want to, I can make another pickup station in parallel without too much effort, or even add a third or fourth. But I haven't had to have more than 1-2 loading stations in any of my worlds.

[tom]

i make "main" stations and "small stations" and each "small" station has a singular name with one dedicated train

for example, every mine is a small station wich has 4 red belts loading the trains, the main station is the one wich gets the raw stuff and raffine it and is as fast as i can make it ( 4 red belts for the mines, 8 blue for the smelter centre)
the main station also has to have some "queue" tracks so that if there are too many trains coming they don't block everything (small stations have only one train so they don't need the queues, wich use lot of space) and also these are the only ones wich load fuel into the trains and i'm plaing on building more with the same name in far places to spread the load

then you can something liek a red circuit factory wich has a main station wich loads trains with red circuits and contains 4-5 small stations to recive copper,iron,plastic,iron,copper

[Name Lips]

Usually you need some sort of bus or bus-like system just to get enough production to build your "real" factory. Some people call this mini-factory, the one making your building supplies, your "seed" factory.

At this point I have a hard time not making a bus. I have to work hard to deliberately make spaghetti, even though I like spaghetti better aesthetically.

[Warlord]

I do only the barebones of a mini-bus just far enough to get blue belts and robots. Then, I slowly change that over to a buffet-style construction core, with individual base intermediate modules spread around via rails.

And I only call it a bus, as I ahve two parallel belts of copper and two of iron feeding into making most of what I need until I get the above sciences. I spaghetti in the additional stuff needed for research, such as oil byproducts, steel, coal, etc.

[Nailfoot]

Before then 0.15, you could easily make a jumble of a base to get to robots, and then make any style base you wanted. It was almost trivial to get to robots.

Now, it is very hard to get to robots without some kind of a buss. Sure, you can force it to work but you will be waiting a while to build up enough robots to really do much. And you will be waiting even longer to get the logistics system so robots can really do their magic.

I don't mind as I use the buss I make to start launching rockets. It will only launch maybe 1 every 5-10 minutes, but at least that old buss is doing something while I build the mega base I can squeeze in to the land areas I have (I play with water to its 2nd highest settings to make some nice chokepoints and a bit of a challenge of where to build).

Trains are the red blood cells of my ultimate design, as with most mega bases.