Beginners Guide to Buses and Effective Factory Development

[piper.spirit]

A guide with some information that would help new players.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2843094265

[Quillithe]

I don't have helpful feedback, but it looks very nice!

[Drakonaris]

As first, nice work but I can say some things can be build better and more effective, but for a beginner is it good (8belts of iron/copper have I never needed)

[「๖Vɪɴʏʟ」]

Originally posted by Drakonaris:

As first, nice work but I can say some things can be build better and more effective, but for a beginner is it good (8belts of iron/copper have I never needed)

I had to do a makeshift refilling point on my bus because 8 belts of copper wasn't enough lol

[piper.spirit]

Always better to allocate extra lanes on the bus, and not need them, than to be short in the later stages of the game and restricted by a bus that is too small.

A complete beginner might not be able to fully utilise 8 belts of iron/copper, but allocating the space for it, atleast gives them the option in the future. Once semi decent builds start getting used, especially with modules, resources tend to get used up pretty quick.

[astrosha]

A couple of points about this guide ...

Balancers do not belong on the bus. All they do is guarantee that you do not have a full belt going downstream.

Balancers do have their uses - but those involve train stops. When dealing with trains you want the fastest loading and fastest unloading that you can have, you do not want a train to sit there because three cargo wagons are full but the last one is waiting on another 500 ore. A balancer, sending an even amount of ore to each cargo wagon, ensures the fastest loading time. Similarly, at the unloading station, you don't want a train waiting because the last cargo wagon still has 200 electronic circuits on it; a balancer after the unloading station ensures an even draw from all the cargo wagons (or their chest groupings, grouped by cargo wagon) to get the train on its way faster.

The other point I would raise is a simple, yet powerful, one.

Only Build On One Side Of The Bus.

Doing this allows you to widen the bus as needed. Build 4 Copper smelting columns, and find that you need two more belts of Copper Plate? No problem, simply add them to the far side of the bus. Need more Plastic, but you're making it locally, and you need more Coal? Add it on the far side of the bus! Whatever you want to put on the bus, for whatever reason, for however long you want it on the bus, you always have room on the far side if you only build on one side of the bus.

[shadain597]

Originally posted by astrosha:

The other point I would raise is a simple, yet powerful, one.

Only Build On One Side Of The Bus.

Doing this allows you to widen the bus as needed. Build 4 Copper smelting columns, and find that you need two more belts of Copper Plate? No problem, simply add them to the far side of the bus. Need more Plastic, but you're making it locally, and you need more Coal? Add it on the far side of the bus! Whatever you want to put on the bus, for whatever reason, for however long you want it on the bus, you always have room on the far side if you only build on one side of the bus.

While I see the advantages you are talking about, it also means your bus would need to be roughly twice as long as a two-sided bus. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, though I've been in situations where that would be less-than-desirable, such as trying to stay within natural terrain barriers. But, at the very least, its an alternate strategy worth considering.

[astrosha]

For experienced Factorio engineers, who know what all they are putting on the bus and how many belts of it, then building on both sides of the bus is perfectly fine.

For new players, who don't have the experience to know how much of each material they are going to want on the bus, then building on both sides is a trap. Better to advise them building on only one side of the bus.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by 「๖Vɪɴʏʟ」:

Originally posted by Drakonaris:

As first, nice work but I can say some things can be build better and more effective, but for a beginner is it good (8belts of iron/copper have I never needed)

I had to do a makeshift refilling point on my bus because 8 belts of copper wasn't enough lol

I do the same thing but I've designed one that's not make shift (and I do that same thing with Iron plates) I'll bring in more resources from the side and merge it with the bus.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2854509262

Originally posted by astrosha:

For experienced Factorio engineers, who know what all they are putting on the bus and how many belts of it, then building on both sides of the bus is perfectly fine.

For new players, who don't have the experience to know how much of each material they are going to want on the bus, then building on both sides is a trap. Better to advise them building on only one side of the bus.

I build on both sides. I produce only circuits on one side (and they feed either into other banks of circuits machines or into the bus) and every thing else on the other side.

[piper.spirit]

Balancers can be useful for connecting offsite production back onto the main bus. The bus is also a buffer, so having more resources on all the belts is helpful, though i agree it is not entirely essential.

On a default game, building on both sides of the bus is probably the more practical way of playing. For example, each map is different, available land/resources/biters etc. Having the flexibility to build both sides is extremely useful. In a deathworld map, space might be limited and building on both sides may be the only option.

Building only on one side of the bus does solve space problems in the future and yes it should be considered. In my opinion, it is a one size fits all option, but can easily work. However, in my opinion, the benefits of it are really in the late game, and by that point I tend to produce offsite anyway. Cheers for the input everyone!

[Hedning]

In my opinion a bus is not good for new nor advanced players. Factorio is a 2d game and restricting yourself to a line has many drawbacks. A bus is only good in some mods where you are not ever going to produce "spm" and need 1 or fewer belts of each resource in total while very few resources are being consumed constantly by any specific thing.

In vanilla factorio recipes don't change further in the tech tree, so you should set your stuff up for a constant production. In vanilla factorio 2 out of 3 iron plate belts go to green circuits (not including steel). It makes little sense adding those belts on a shared line like a bus is just to be taken off to a constant production of green circuits. Similarly half of green circuits go to blue circuits. Again it makes little sense to put all those belts on a shared multi-line because nothing else is going to share the belts that are fully consumed by your blue.

When you start building modules that's even worse, because you probably want about half your entire factory production to be going to modules and they need a lot of stuff from the very start of the bus. Lots of full belts. It makes little sense to share lines with the rest of your factory, because when do you ever want to starve either your science or module production in favor of the other?

I think the less guides and the less that is talked about busses the better, because if everyone is talking about it new players will think it is the way to go when it's not.

I don't hate you for writing a guide though. Everyone can play how they want and I'm sure a guide will make the game more fun for some new players. I just wish other base structures had higher popularity.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Hedning:

In my opinion a bus is not good for new nor advanced players. Factorio is a 2d game and restricting yourself to a line has many drawbacks. A bus is only good in some mods where you are not ever going to produce "spm" and need 1 or fewer belts of each resource in total while very few resources are being consumed constantly by any specific thing.

In vanilla factorio recipes don't change further in the tech tree, so you should set your stuff up for a constant production. In vanilla factorio 2 out of 3 iron plate belts go to green circuits (not including steel). It makes little sense adding those belts on a shared line like a bus is just to be taken off to a constant production of green circuits. Similarly half of green circuits go to blue circuits. Again it makes little sense to put all those belts on a shared multi-line because nothing else is going to share the belts that are fully consumed by your blue.

When you start building modules that's even worse, because you probably want about half your entire factory production to be going to modules and they need a lot of stuff from the very start of the bus. Lots of full belts. It makes little sense to share lines with the rest of your factory, because when do you ever want to starve either your science or module production in favor of the other?

I think the less guides and the less that is talked about busses the better, because if everyone is talking about it new players will think it is the way to go when it's not.

I don't hate you for writing a guide though. Everyone can play how they want and I'm sure a guide will make the game more fun for some new players. I just wish other base structures had higher popularity.

Busses might not be space-efficient, but they offer an organizational simplicity by centralizing inputs and products that's very helpful especially for new players.

That way they can feed all the iron to the same place instead of having to know exactly how much iron to send to each particular task, carefully allocating it, and needing to construct entirely new pathways when they upscale their factory or add later products.

Instead they can just take off some resources for circuits, without removing more than they need. And when they discover later on that they need more circuits (as they will) it's easy to upscale by filling out the circuit production module or adding another one down the bus, without needing to reroute resources. And then when they realize they need more iron, they can simply add some feeding into the belt.

[knighttemplar1960]

A bus may not be good for a brand new player that is just beginning. It may be confusing for them and they are probably best off with spaghetti until they learn how the production chains work.

A bus is a very good organizational tool for an intermediate or even advanced player. I've seen people comment that 4 lanes for one product is a waste but after you split off you can put another splitter to take input from the inside lanes and move it to the outside lanes where you can take the product off again.

Its also very one dimensional to think that product can only be added at the beginning of the bus. When you get to the point where material is getting thin down stream you can bring in more product from the side and merge it with what is left on the bus.

This is another reason that I build circuits on one side of the bus and every thing else on the other. Instead of taking material off the bus to make the circuits I can bring in material from the other side of the banks of circuit machines to produce the circuits and have those banks feed the circuits into the bus. In the beginning I can take material off the bus to make circuits when demand for every thing is low and when I start consuming too much material from the bus to make the circuits I can bring the plates in from the other side and just change the direction of the belts that feed the circuit machines once I get trains and can bring plates in from an early outpost.

Once I expand further I move chip production completely off bus and just use trains to bring in the circuits to the bus (After I have personal roboports and construction bots.)

I leave production of things that are cheap or that I rarely use taking materials off the bus, add roboports and logistic bots to the main assembly area, and then deconstruct the circuit machines from the other side of the bus and turn that area into my main research center and a logistic mall for myself and my spidertron building and deconstruction crews.

[Purpleganja]

It looks like I had onsite and offsite inverted. I was calling smelting near the mine onsite and anywhere else offsite.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

A bus may not be good for a brand new player that is just beginning. It may be confusing for them and they are probably best off with spaghetti until they learn how the production chains work.

Agreed - to be clear when I said new players I mean ones that have played a game or two with terrible spaghetti and are either getting stuck or barely making it through and start wondering about better options.

I think it's best for absolutely new players to not really look up anything about design and to mess around with the problems of expanding an ad hoc system to more and more complicated products.

[Hedning]

Originally posted by Quillithe:

Busses might not be space-efficient, but they offer an organizational simplicity by centralizing inputs and products that's very helpful especially for new players.

Any structure is better than no structure, but bus structure is particularly unhelpful because how limiting it is to expand. You need to preplan both the number of belts of each type on the bus and how much space each production line will take, unless you are fine with drawing belts backwards because you built too little production.

Originally posted by Quillithe:

And when they discover later on that they need more circuits (as they will) it's easy to upscale by filling out the circuit production module or adding another one down the bus, without needing to reroute resources.

But it's not easier to upscale, because if you're adding another green later on the bus to fill the demand of your now expanded production you will have to start drawing belts backwards and it's going to be a whole mess.

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

When you get to the point where material is getting thin down stream you can bring in more product from the side and merge it with what is left on the bus.

I support doing this, because it is moving away from the idea of the bus. Now you have a whole chain off to the side with dedicated lines of copper and iron instead of burdening the bus with it.

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

I leave production of things that are cheap or that I rarely use taking materials off the bus

This is exactly what I said a bus was fine to use for although I used mods as an example. Of course there are such things in vanilla as well. However instead of moving to this system later in the game why not do it from the beginning? Build a small bus for your inserters, belts and stuff like that, and keep main production of circuits and science packs in a more smartly organized structure.