How do you start out a factory and make it "neat"

[A Pebble]

Im not some "pro" factorio player by any means, but I would imagine by now I would be capable of making a neat factory... But that doesn't seem to be the case. So to those of you who create nice fancy factories with roads and such, how do you plan it out when you first start?

My most recent mess: Link [gyazo.com]

[AngryDragon]

A large part of the trick is to just keep trying new things. Make blueprints of things you like, and keep trying to improve them as you learn more about the game. Don't feel down if it doesn't quite look the way you want immediately, Factorio is a game where there is always something to do. Just keep hammering at it.

[AngryDragon]

A few more comments...

One of the things that bothers me about your base is the fact that sections of your bus are fake / overbuilt. You've got 1 line of gears coming out, and 2 on the bus. Just don't. All those unused gears on the bus are just wasted, and if you ever do end up using everything that your gear factory can produce, those 2 lanes won't magically supply 2 lanes.

Same thing goes for just about everything else. Put ghost of belts to reserve the space, but please don't build those unless they are actively needed. Using ghosts to reserve the space gives you more flexibility in the long run. If you don't end up using them for what you initially planed but need them to run a belt of something else, then that space is available and you don't have to go clean up an entire belt full of something else to make use of that space.

You should output your iron in the center of your furnaces. The simple reason for that is that inserters always place things on the far side of the belt. If you've got 2 inserters facing each other imputing on the same belt, that's a full yellow belt by the time you get to the end of a row of 24 furnaces. Once you upgrade them to steel furnaces, that's a full red belt.

The way that you are merging your plates is less then ideal and will bottleneck once your factory grows big enough. Side loading can be really quirky. Experiment a bit with that. You are only loading onto your bus from one side of the belt, which means that there is only one side of your furnaces producing, which also means that there is only one side of your miners producing. Most peoples don't realize just how far the effect such a small problem will go. As a matter of fact, because theses lines are all tied together, it's going to have a knockdown effect on your entire factory. Use a standard splitter for this purpose.

Side loading does have it's uses. It is mostly used to create dual product belts, to remove the need for longhand inserters, and reduce the footprint of production lines. Your smelters are a great exemple of a place where that can be applied. Put 2 splitters in front of each other which one one section of belt going right and the other going left. Load coal in one splitter, and iron ore in the other and you'll have yourself a pair of smelter ready belt. You'll be able to eliminate all of those longhand inserters, 2 full belts from your setup and you will have 4 units of space available between your smelter lines.

Tip: Splitters never move objects from the right side of the belt to the left side of the belt or from the left to the right. Building symmetrical production lines is highly encouraged and recommended. That green circuit factory should have a matching pair of assemblers in front of it and you could remove that splitter which you are using to fill the other side of your belt. Once again, that's not going to work long term. Btw, the correct ratio of copper cables to green circuit assemblers is 3 for 2. You've got the right idea with the way that you are doing direct insertion, you just need to rearrange it a tiny bit to optimize production. Use 2 inserters to output cables per cable assembler as each cable assembler produces 2 cables for 1 copper for a total of 3 inserters feeding each green circuit factory.

You can get around that problem by using lane balancers, but ideally, they should not be needed. That splitter of yours at the end of the green circuit factory is a very poor example of to balance the 2 sides of a belt. There are far better ways of doing it. It's done by taking one belt, creating 2 belts with it, creating a third belt from one of the 2 resulting belts, taking those 2 belts and side load them onto another belt and then merging those 2 belts back into one. Once again, you should avoid going down that route as much as possible. Now, imagine having to do that repeatedly because your factory isn't using your belts evenly. It's a horror show, and besides, theses contraptions are finicky, don't always behave as expected and take space you could use for other things but they certainly are better then a kick to the rear. Splitters just don't behave as you expect them to do when faced with a single lane of products. They like to have 2 lanes of products on a belt.

You don't need anywhere near that many splitters. Ideally, try to calibrate your production lines so that they consume full belts and output full belts. There's no need to rebalance the bus when you are pulling in an entire line, and again, that leaves empty space on the bus which can be used for something else. Ideally, the only place where you need to balance your bus is at the exit of your smelters. There is obviously some stuff which will be produced in smaller quantities and won't need an entire belt's worth or won't be on all of the time, such as base building suplies and war supplies. Just dedicate one of two belts to that stuff and don't mix them with your main production. You don't want to have a factory which is geared to use an entire belt not getting that full belt because something else is leeching.

[Lunacy]

I've seen some smelting setups that have lots of space intended to be upgraded to electric furnaces with beacons inbetween.
The multiplayer I'm in right now has like 16 columns of 24 furnaces feeding into a 4 belt iron and copper plates each and still isn't enough to be fully satiated with all the stuff we're crafting.

[dinodog1998]

Originally posted by Stylish Purple Hat:

Im not some "pro" factorio player by any means, but I would imagine by now I would be capable of making a neat factory... But that doesn't seem to be the case. So to those of you who create nice fancy factories with roads and such, how do you plan it out when you first start?

My most recent mess: Link [gyazo.com]

simplest thing for me is dont think of what i need to do NOW. Think of what i need to do in 2 hours to speed up end game. your start takes way longer than it should but you get more done later and it doesnt look a mess

[Lunacy]

Here's my first base lol
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1523712038
[Warning, hot spaghetti]
I don't like using a huge wide space for some reason so I try to keep my stuff as compact as possible which doesn't help in the longrun.

[A Pebble]

Originally posted by Lunacy:

Here's my first base lol
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1523712038
[Warning, hot spaghetti]
I don't like using a huge wide space for some reason so I try to keep my stuff as compact as possible which doesn't help in the longrun.

Not gonna lie, I feel better about my factory building style now

[LittleBlueDuneBuggy]

Originally posted by Stylish Purple Hat:

Originally posted by Lunacy:

Here's my first base lol
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1523712038
[Warning, hot spaghetti]
I don't like using a huge wide space for some reason so I try to keep my stuff as compact as possible which doesn't help in the longrun.

Not gonna lie, I feel better about my factory building style now

LOL, that's the spirit.

[Peter]

Originally posted by Stylish Purple Hat:

Not gonna lie, I feel better about my factory building style now

Honestly, you shouldn't. It can take a long time to get the feel for how to lay out a factory, it's just part of playing the game.

[brian_va]

Originally posted by Peter:

Originally posted by Stylish Purple Hat:

Not gonna lie, I feel better about my factory building style now

Honestly, you shouldn't. It can take a long time to get the feel for how to lay out a factory, it's just part of playing the game.

min/maxing isnt what everyone is after. sometimes good enough is good enough.

[Xuhybrid]

I find it a lot easier to keep the factory tidy by running a main bus of materials down the middle and having constructions come off the line. This keeps them in nice little modules and makes sure they all have access to materials they need.

Before using a bus it was a nightmare trying to get materials where they had to go.