How to make a base to avoid any future spaghetti?

[Hoppled]

I just finished my first rocket launch, after I believe the save was 61 hours long.

Toward the end red chips and many other materials would always bottle neck. I had to make room in such clutter that it became a nightmare.

I know people speak of using a main bus and mall, etc. I already figured that I should have some sort of main supply line running around the base. But having that include which materials and the spacing to avoid any issues in the future is the question.

I still have my save post rocket launch, so I can always go back in there and tinker with the end game stuff. I think a new start would be great though, as I can make my oil set up much cleaner.

[オルゴール]

One thing that helped me get over the spaghetti mess is to design modular perfect builds.
You know, that you will need a lane of greens? Make a build that takes as an input exactly the amount of iron and copper, and produces exactly one line of greens - and then only use that lane of iron/copper for that build.
A main Bus (imo) is somewhat worse than spaghetti as you have to know in advance how much you really need and if you miscalculated you're pretty much screwed. Im not saying that its bad, just that it really needs practice "to get a feeling for it"

[UncleBod]

Don't be afraid to move your base...

[gereforte]

and when you lunch the first rocket is the moment you realize that in order to have 10.000 science pack you have to redesign everything.

ther isn't a real ansewer to your question, this game is endless, what you design is good for now bad for now+30hrs in an infinite loop.

[knighttemplar1960]

Make blue prints at each stage of the game and save them for later reuse or tweaking.

You can use a Main bus, a train hub, or robot networks to avoid spaghetti but your starter base is still typically going to be spaghettified unless you take the time to plan and blueprint a full startup base and then just lay down the bits and connect up the resources.

It also depends on how much of a perfectionist you are and if you are planning on playing the same base after a rocket launch and converting it to a megabase and playing the same base for months.

For my base buildings I have several sets of blue prints that I use that I have calculated production rates with. They are all different.

There is yellow belts/stone furnace smelting. Those upgrade to red belt/steel furnace smelting without making changes to size or shape but once you get electric smelters you need to either deconstruct and rebuild with the new technology or build new in a different area and ship in by rail what you have produced elsewhere.

When you add beacons and modules your lay out can change again. Production modules let you produce more midrange products with less inputs and speed modules and beacons speed up your production rates. If your production lines are set up to produces more than a blue belt can move (45 items/sec) you'll have to switch to logistic bots to move it all quickly enough. Logistic bots are best used to move large amounts of items small distances at great speed so typically you use the robots to move the goods to a train hub. Trains are used to move lots of material quickly over long distances.

The perfectionist part comes in on desigining a mid-long term base that uses exactly the same amount of space and lay out pre-beacon and post-beacon without causing production bottle necks at any one stage and then using the upgrade planner to change the components around when you develop the tech and have produced the materials. It can take you multiple play throughs to get an upgradeable set of blue prints that you like and fits your play style if you want to make those blueprints for yourself.

[Leeux]

I'm my experience (albeit a bit short than most other people in here) there's always belt spaghetti hidden somewhere, even in an end game base (unless you go for direct train to train insertion, or something like that.)

What I mean is, for end-game builds you have to use every trick in the book to get them the materials they need in the quantities they need, and that means some heavy belt wrangling in most cases.

But yeah, it's mostly contained within modular builds that you can stamp individually many times as you have mats for feeding them.

EDIT: As for your question, I found out that once you research and implement bots, the game changes a lot... i.e. it becomes a different game almost, and once you reach that stage you can plan and play the game from the map view almost in its entirety.

That means that it's very easy to say, delete this, copy that, cut this other thing, and put it there, move that 3 tiles to the left, or stamp some blueprints here and there, etc. and then let the bots handle it over time, as long as the place is inside your roboport construction range.

Once you start using that effectively, rearranging your base, moving around stuff, and redesigning entire builds, and tearing down your old stuff is a matter of a day to day routine in the game.

The only worry is the power and to have enough space in the logistics storage in case it gets filled with all the crap the bots pick up from the stuff they delete (i.e. mats lying on belts, inside chests or machines.)

And take care of your power since roboports in full use can and will bring your power network down, if you aren't careful! They consume a lot of energy when there's a lot of robot activity going on.

EDIT2: Whoops... wrong word :/

[jagholin]

There are a couple rules I usually follow:

- always leave space for expansion - space is basically free in factorio, so leave enough breathing room around your structures.

- build in a way that makes upscaling easy. Make stuff out of small chunks that can be tiled endlessly if you need more of its products.

- don't be afraid of spaghetti, it's almost inevitable to some degree in the early game anyway. There are advantages to anything and sometimes quick and dirty build is enough to do some task in a short time.

- learn common ingredient ratios or use calculators like https://kirkmcdonald.github.io/ or factory planner/helmod if you are playing with mods.

[Nonotorious]

Originally posted by Leeux:

EDIT: As for your question, I found out that once you research and implement bots, the game changes a lot... i.e. it becomes a different game almost, and once you reach that stage you can plan and play the game from the map view almost in its entirety.

Haha, there have been times i have not moved my character for hours, a drone network, a full mall with all the things you need and some radars, altho you don't really need the radar anymore since you can place blueprints down now on parts of the map that you've already explored.

[Leeux]

Originally posted by Nonotorious:

Haha, there have been times i have not moved my character for hours, a drone network, a full mall with all the things you need and some radars, altho you don't really need the radar anymore since you can place blueprints down now on parts of the map that you've already explored.

Yeah... love robots :P Yesterday I was going overboard with beacons and modules with some of the new builds I'm doing in my current Krastorio 2 base (and also some of the late game machines have crazy power requirements! I'm just almost reaching end-game atm...) and when I looked at the power it was already past half on the satisfaction bar, so just in case I forget, I decided to stamp a new nuclear plant, so I had to clean a square, remove some things that were in the way of the new stuff, and after that stamp the blueprint, all from the map view while I was on the other side of the base.

And then went to do other stuff and forgot about it... then after awhile I looked back and the new plant was already working!** Yeah, robots are a game changer!

** Thanks to Waterfill I could integrate the waterholes and pumps in the blueprint :D