Robomalls/Robohubs

[ExoneratedPhoenix]

Hi all,

So I have tried making my own malls/hubs with belts and undergrounds and using all sorts of weird spaghetti and trains etc and jesus christ it is just boring and frustrating. So I took some templates online, and TBH, even with blue belts, the last items lag where cogs etc are coming in 1 every 10 seconds as all the other stuff hoovers it up.

I'm sure I'm not breaking new boundaries here, but decided to make a robohub of sorts where I simply split off from the bus and put in an absolute ♥♥♥♥-ton of storage chests and fast inserters which grab thousands of the main belted resources/minute. I then just have 150 requester chests and 50 or so assemblies and smartly placed inserters and away the hub goes - and no section has bottlenecks, I have 20 robotports and over 2500 logibots taking care of all requester chests no issues, with enough overhead for charging them etc. It takes a lot more energy, it is likely less efficient technically when all the maths is said and done, but it is ridiculously easy to setup, ridiculously easy to expand, and can be modulated where needed for a quick extra step up. Better yet, it isn't tedious trying to find a smart workaround to try and get that extra inserter at a particular belt with assemblies and undergrounds everywhere.

Mad props to people with super high IQ's who made those hubs/malls, but robos seem so much easier, nicer, and fun to play with. The only downside is you have to have a half-assed hub early-game and can only make it fairly late-game.

Anyone else end up going down this route during their 2nd/3rd playthrough?

[Fel]

Robots are "easier" because you don't need to properly plan things and can just use brute force but they become less and less effective when distance increases and when their number increases (since each roboport can only charge 4 at the same time.

If that's how you enjoy playing then go for it, there are plenty of players that will build a massive amount of logistics robots and plaster their whole base with logistics robots, having fun with it.
There is definitely something to be said about the looks of a base with thousands of little robots going everywhere.

Usually you tend to start to branch out from that kind of build later on when you figure out the full extent of belts and trains as well as the pros and cons of each (belts, robots and trains), eventually going towards solutions that take full advantage of all three.

[ExoneratedPhoenix]

Originally posted by Fel:

Robots are "easier" because you don't need to properly plan things and can just use brute force but they become less and less effective when distance increases and when their number increases (since each roboport can only charge 4 at the same time.

If that's how you enjoy playing then go for it, there are plenty of players that will build a massive amount of logistics robots and plaster their whole base with logistics robots, having fun with it.
There is definitely something to be said about the looks of a base with thousands of little robots going everywhere.

Usually you tend to start to branch out from that kind of build later on when you figure out the full extent of belts and trains as well as the pros and cons of each (belts, robots and trains), eventually going towards solutions that take full advantage of all three.

I use belts etc for everything else, and I can make fairly decent hubs etc, but boy, do they take a lot of planning when you have 20 assemblers downstream all vying for the same resource but different ones also, and requiring some weird spaghetti and undergrounds. For all other systems I use belts etc, as most other parts are easier with belts as you say, but for the hub which just mass produces stuff for further expansion, the robots are, as you say, a lot easier.

[Fel]

The answer for your 20 assemblers is to produce enough of what they need, and if a single yellow belt is not enough to transport that (15 items per second is quite a bit but it's not that hard to go beyond that with quick recipes) you can have higher tier and/or several belts for it.

The game gives you all of the data you need to do some quick math and know exactly how much of everything your mall would need.
When you are more experienced with the game, you tend to go towards more efficient uses of your machines, closer to the perfect ratios (some are very easy to get to, others not so much).
Most of what you will find online is based on those ratios.

[ExoneratedPhoenix]

Originally posted by Fel:

The answer for your 20 assemblers is to produce enough of what they need, and if a single yellow belt is not enough to transport that (15 items per second is quite a bit but it's not that hard to go beyond that with quick recipes) you can have higher tier and/or several belts for it.

The game gives you all of the data you need to do some quick math and know exactly how much of everything your mall would need.
When you are more experienced with the game, you tend to go towards more efficient uses of your machines, closer to the perfect ratios (some are very easy to get to, others not so much).
Most of what you will find online is based on those ratios.

Even with blue belts it isn't enough, even the online ones.

The issue is the hubs usually have loads of stuff early on which mops up all the resources, and starves the later assemblers. Once the other stuff is mass manufactured it picks up, but it's annoying when you go collect some stuff and the whole starving the later lined stuff occurs again. With robos everything linearly gets produced.

[Hurkyl]

It's not a bug, it's a feature. To some extent, at least.

The things up front are the things you need in large quantities and need to be refilled quickly; e.g. belts, inserters, rails, power poles. The things in the back are things that you eventually will want a few of, and if you empty the chests it will be a while before you want more.

You just have to make sure that you actually limit the things in the front so that they stop hogging everything when you have enough.

[Fel]

Sending more is also an option, using splitters to have more control over the share of resources each machine gets also works, there are always multiple answers to each problem, especially when it comes to throughput.

[Hurkyl]

Originally posted by Fel:

Sending more is also an option,

It's surprising how much you can put in. IIRC, KoS's mall is set up to accept something like 4 separate belts of iron, and has 9 gear machines feeding just the belt assemblers (and the things behind them).

[Nailfoot]

Yes, the belts at the end of the mall will starve. At first. But, a mall is designed to run for your entire playthrough (or a good portion of it). You don't NEED to have great through put.

Hook up all of the inputs. I have a mall design I built years ago. All of the inputs are marked using combinators. I feed it several belts of iron plates, a belt of red circuits, a belt of green circuits, copper plates, steel, stone bricks, and stone ore.

And, then I just let it run forever. Sure, it might take it 5 hours to finally fill up, but then its done. When I need 1000 blue belts, I grab them and go off to do my thing while it builds 1000 more. I always have a constructor train that carries all of my little bits and bobs. The mall fills it up, too.

You don't need the mall to fill up instantly, not usually. If you notice that you need a certain item faster than the mall makes it, then you can dedicate a build for that item.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2222682551

[Fel]

Most things in a standard mall require a high amount of iron so it's not weird to need a lot belts for it.
On the plus side a mall should make it much easier to expand so unless you have a lot of nests in the way it shouldn't be a problem to get a lot more iron from outposts.

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

Originally posted by Fel:

Sending more is also an option,

It's surprising how much you can put in. IIRC, KoS's mall is set up to accept something like 4 separate belts of iron, and has 9 gear machines feeding just the belt assemblers (and the things behind them).

See my mall screenshot above. Lots of gear assemblers are needed!

[knighttemplar1960]

I usually have a spaghetti start up just to get production up and running. I morph that into a main bus where I build every thing that I need to launch the first rocket. That main bus has 8 belts of iron plate, 8 belts of copper plate, 2 belts of steel, 1 belt each of coal, stone, bricks, and walls with room left for 2 belts of low density structures and 2 belts of each type circuit. One side of the bus produces all my circuits and the other side produces every thing else.

I set my circuit production up in banks. It takes 2 banks of green circuit machines to keep the bus filled with green circuits and it takes another bank of green circuits for 2 banks of red circuits I set up and it takes 4 banks of red circuits to keep the belts holding red circuits filled up. 2 banks of blue circuits keep the belts reserved for blue circuits filled but it takes 1 bank of red circuits for 2 banks of blue circuits and 8 banks of green circuits to feed those blue circuit banks at that rate of consumption all the material on the bus is being converted to circuits and there isn't material for anything else. At that point I use trains to bring in copper plate, iron plate, plastic, and sulfuric acid on the other side of the banks of circuit machines and disconnect the inputs of those banks of machines from the main bus.

Surplus plastic flows perpendicular to the main bus and across it to the other side where its fed into my banks of machines that make low density structures.

I set up a train hub on the opposite side of the banks of machines that produce every thing else and it brings in sulfur for blue science, water and iron ore for concrete, explosives for rockets and artillery shells, lubricant for blue belts and electric engines, batteries, U 238 for green bullets, U 235 for atom bombs, and crude oil. on the other side of that is another train hub that is set up to keep my building train topped off, automated supply trains that deliver repair packs, spare robots, extra ammo, walls and gates to my main defenses and also to top off artillery bunkers that I use to clear new territory. It also houses artillery trains that supply the outposts and my clearing bunkers.

Once I'm at this point I can't expand that area any more even blue belts don't hold enough to keep every thing supplied. That's the point that I start expanding into a mega base and set up dedicated production centers that are bot fed because belts just don't cut it anymore. The goods produced at the dedicated production centers are hauled by train to the various other production centers where the products are used and finished goods are then brought to the main bus area which is eventually cleared out and converted into a train supply hub.

That's my typical factory progression.