Best option for mass storage?

[Carryonnaire]

I'm trying to build my production with a massive storage as buffer between resource gathering and processing. However I now experience this trouble: I have transfered only a little bit of one resource (about 100k) to this storage and there is already a heap of steel chests and fast inserters that is hard and expensive to extend.
Is there some better way of doing this with the ability to significantly increase storage volumes cheap and easily (exponentially ideally)?

[Termak]

Warehouse mods unless you want to have loads and loads of steel/logistic chests. Theres also different types of compressing / cheating mods.

[Hedning]

You aren't meant to build mass storage as it is inefficient, so there isn't really an option to do that in vanilla.

Why do you want that much storage anyway? Just let your assemblers idle until they are needed.

[AlexMBrennan]

Well, you could look into logistic chests for storage instead - that way your bots will do all the work and you won't have to connect thousands of chests via belts. You'll still need mountains of chests obviously.

[Nailfoot]

The iron and copper patches ARE mass storage

Just leave the ore in the ground. If you need storage to allow for "burst" consumption, then you actually need more supply in the first place.

Buffer storage just delays the problem.

[AlexMBrennan]

If you need storage to allow for "burst" consumption, then you actually need more supply in the first place.

Sounds like your trains are too short.

[Ryan]

I like the Warehouse mod. One giant warehouse can store 80k plates. It's fabulous.

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

If you need storage to allow for "burst" consumption, then you actually need more supply in the first place.

Sounds like your trains are too short.

Not mine! I use 1-4-0 trains. If I find supply lacking, I add more trains and a train stacker.

Maybe you misquoted and meant to quote the OP?

[BlueRock]

big buffers tend to hide problems. I actually limit chest sizes often so I can quickly see where I am short on supply or where I have enough supply that I can expand production.

[Overeagerdragon]

Originally posted by BlueRock:

big buffers tend to hide problems. I actually limit chest sizes often so I can quickly see where I am short on supply or where I have enough supply that I can expand production.

Not the case if you also implement mods like Angel's as you don't really have a choice on overflow when drilling for ore and the problem becomes even worse if you add a mod like Yuoki's. Needing Sapherite AND stiratite because they hydro-refine into one of either Yuoki ores means you end up with massive surplusses of copper for example.
True enough that you need those surplusses later on again but when you just discover hydro-refining the surpluss of copper become a problem you can't solve at that time.

[fractalgem]

Originally posted by overeagerdragon:

Originally posted by BlueRock:

big buffers tend to hide problems. I actually limit chest sizes often so I can quickly see where I am short on supply or where I have enough supply that I can expand production.

Not the case if you also implement mods like Angel's as you don't really have a choice on overflow when drilling for ore and the problem becomes even worse if you add a mod like Yuoki's. Needing Sapherite AND stiratite because they hydro-refine into one of either Yuoki ores means you end up with massive surplusses of copper for example.
True enough that you need those surplusses later on again but when you just discover hydro-refining the surpluss of copper become a problem you can't solve at that time.

Yeah, but that's with MODS. As everyone knows, advice that's good in vanilla can get thrown out the window with mods.


...to be fair, there are a couple things that sometimes make sense to buffer even in vanilla, like reactor-related buildings, as you don't need those very often but you do need a big burst of them when you DO need them, and it takes an enormous amount of work to produce them quickly.

[SonicTitan]

For Vanilla games train stations usually act as very good buffers for me. A green circuits production facility connected by rail might store up to 230k circuits (for 1-4 trains) with the station at your base storing the same.

For modded games Warehouses are almost a must, but that is a different topic.

[MisterSpock]

Originally posted by Nailfoot:

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

Sounds like your trains are too short.

Not mine! I use 1-4-0 trains. If I find supply lacking, I add more trains and a train stacker.

Maybe you misquoted and meant to quote the OP?

i also jumped to 1-4-0 trains atm.

[Coffee Daemon]

I'm worried about the number of people using single-header trains XD. But trains are a good buffer. If you are set on the idea of buffer chests, I reccomend making a logistic chest/robot blueprint, and have all the parts needed automated and brought to the area. Running low on space? Blueprint a new area and let it be constructed.

As plenty of people have said this is not the "optimal" way of playing. But to hell with that. If you want to do it, do it. Before I learnt how to optimise everything personally I made a power buffer design that, if there were enough fuel coming in, it would buffer loads into storage. If the fuel went low it would start pulling it out. Efficient? No. But one of my proudest builds considering I didnt know WTF I was doing at the time :D

[Xilo The Odd]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

If you need storage to allow for "burst" consumption, then you actually need more supply in the first place.

Sounds like your trains are too short.

i can picture a train track, lined with stops and its just an endless circle of storage cars set to wait at each stop until a certain number of cars are empty.

[Calisthra]

The only buffered storage I tend to use is at the train stations and stackers.

The inbound stations for the furnace lines only buffer 115k ore, plates run straight to production without buffer (unless you count the furnaces' internal buffer when the line isn't at full draw. The steel production area is a bit different at 330k per inbound but those trains are 3-8-3 configuration where the others are only 1-4-1.

I've done plastics and rocket fuel at outposts so they also come into production through train stations made to about the same specs. 4 chests wide per car x 3 chests deep. Since I use a low profile unloading belt system, each car can produce 1 fully compressed blue belt this way.

The mine sites have an outbound buffer with twin loading so while the bots are refilling one platform, the second platform is loading the next train. I use a circuit network to ensure only one platform is open at any given time. At any given time there are up to 5 more ore trains than unloading platforms for any given ore. This helps reduce the stress during bursts but I agree that it does mask supply inefficiency. Learning this nifty little lesson the hard way as I build up to 1 rpm.

edit: The one thing I do kinda buffer is refined uranium but that to only 3k. Helps when I come busting into that area low on atomic bombs after clearing a new area.