Mining help

[ChrisR]

Can I have a bit of help please. I’m starting to move from red belts to blue belts. Let’s say I’ve got 4 blue belt smelter arrays, so it needs 180 ore. I’ve got 3 mines that when fully loaded with miners, add up roughly to 200 ore (80, 60 and 60) is it best to have one blue belt coming off each to a train (because 2 blue belts is 90, which is too much for each mine). Even tho 3 belts worth is 135 which is not the 180 I need. Could I just have a load of trains in a stacker ready to unload?

[knighttemplar1960]

There are lots of things to consider. Your miners will produce free ore, more often, the higher your mining productivity (that is an infinite research that can increase beyond the basic level when you start getting space science packs). You can add productivity modules to further increase that (not really cost effective) and you can add speed modules to increase the mining speed (also not really cost effective).

As your patch starts to run out the out put will also decrease over time as some of the miners run out of ore.

The simplest thing is to run all of the output into a balancer so that it is split evenly between all 4 belts.

You can use trains, stackers, and multiple ore patches to keep your ore input to your smelters saturated.

[astrosha]

If you have 3 mines each generating 80, 60, and 60 ore/second, then so long as you have a train running to one mine (whichever one has a full load of ore) and back to the smelter, you *should* be fine, at least until the mines start to run out of ore. While one station is filling, another should reach a full load before the train is done unloading. But, it would take all three mines, so you really should seek out new mines.

[Hedning]

Always round belts up. You don't want the belts to be the bottleneck and as mentioned your miners will produce ore faster and faster as time goes by. On the ore loading side I would have as many belts as you can reasonably fit. Doesn't matter if they are half full.

The length of the train also matters. You can unload a maximum of 3 belts per wagon, so you need at least enough wagons to fill your belts at the unloading side. It is a lot easier if you unload at most 2 belts per wagon.

I don't agree with balancers on the unloading side. Instead of using balancers make the smelting lines equal and if you must; add a balancer after the smelting, unless it is loading onto another train.

[Khagan]

Originally posted by Hedning:

I don't agree with balancers on the unloading side.

Not really on topic for this thread, but I don't see how you guarantee even unloading without a balancer. I really don't want six smelter lines stopped because the other two were using slightly less ore. And why try and squeeze in an eight belt balancer _after_ the smelter when it's much simpler to do it at unloading?

Back on topic, sort of: I wouldn't bother with blue belts for bulk movement of ore anyway. Blue belts are for places where every bit of space matters, or where the speed itself helps, or for JIT movement of valuable things with as few as possible sitting around on the belt. For general use red is the optimally cost-effective choice.

[piper.spirit]

I always balance whenever loading or unloading trains.

The problem with balancing after smelting is that resources can be smelted into more that one product eg Iron ore can be turned into iron plate or steel plate, stone can be used as it is, or smelted into stone brick. Not balancing after unloading leaves the risk of bottlenecks.
For example, steel becomes backlogged, unloading stops, and iron plate runs dry.

[Hedning]

Originally posted by Khagan:

Originally posted by Hedning:

I don't agree with balancers on the unloading side.

I don't see how you guarantee even unloading without a balancer. I really don't want six smelter lines stopped because the other two were using slightly less ore.

That's why I said you build them the same size. If they are the same size they can smelt the same amount of ore. If you load to a train after the smelter you need no balancing at all (as long as your train arrives empty), however even if you are feeding your factory directly the best place to put the balancer is after the furnaces, because that allows all of your furnaces to contribute to your factory even when some part of it stops (as long as your balancer can handle it).

Lets say you are building solar panels and military science. Well if each has its own smelting with balancing before the furnaces you can't smelt for the military science when the panels are done and vice versa. If you balance after the furnaces all furnaces can smelt for solar panels and then all furnaces can smelt for military science.

Unloading is naturally balanced if you load each belt the same way. The only places where you need balancing is:
1) Ore patches because even if you perfectly place the same amount of miners on each belt they are running out unevenly.
2) Before that which is uneven, however even that can sometimes not need balancing. For example if you have one line drawing 0.4 belts and one line drawing 0.7 belts then loading each belt from the same wagon doesn't need balancing.

[ChrisR]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

There are lots of things to consider. Your miners will produce free ore, more often, the higher your mining productivity (that is an infinite research that can increase beyond the basic level when you start getting space science packs). You can add productivity modules to further increase that (not really cost effective) and you can add speed modules to increase the mining speed (also not really cost effective).

As your patch starts to run out the out put will also decrease over time as some of the miners run out of ore.

The simplest thing is to run all of the output into a balancer so that it is split evenly between all 4 belts.

You can use trains, stackers, and multiple ore patches to keep your ore input to your smelters saturated.

Many thanks. Could I ask how you would do it to give me an idea. So at each mine, I’ll have ‘x’ amount of belts coming off the miners into an ‘x’ - 6 balancer going into a wagon. Just one wagon. Back at base I have 4 smelter arrays of 72 furnaces. Each array has an unload station with a 6 -1 balancer on each. So would I then balance the 4 belts coming off each unload station, into the arrays. Then have about 3 spare trains as back up with a stacker.

[ChrisR]

Originally posted by astrosha:

If you have 3 mines each generating 80, 60, and 60 ore/second, then so long as you have a train running to one mine (whichever one has a full load of ore) and back to the smelter, you *should* be fine, at least until the mines start to run out of ore. While one station is filling, another should reach a full load before the train is done unloading. But, it would take all three mines, so you really should seek out new mines.

How would you do it. I just replied to knighttemplar with what set up I’ve got. I’ve got 4 unload stations before each arrays 👍

[ChrisR]

Originally posted by Hedning:

Always round belts up. You don't want the belts to be the bottleneck and as mentioned your miners will produce ore faster and faster as time goes by. On the ore loading side I would have as many belts as you can reasonably fit. Doesn't matter if they are half full.

The length of the train also matters. You can unload a maximum of 3 belts per wagon, so you need at least enough wagons to fill your belts at the unloading side. It is a lot easier if you unload at most 2 belts per wagon.

I don't agree with balancers on the unloading side. Instead of using balancers make the smelting lines equal and if you must; add a balancer after the smelting, unless it is loading onto another train.

So would you have one wagon coming off each mine then back to one of my 4 unload stations before my arrays? Thanks

[ChrisR]

Originally posted by Khagan:

Originally posted by Hedning:

I don't agree with balancers on the unloading side.

Not really on topic for this thread, but I don't see how you guarantee even unloading without a balancer. I really don't want six smelter lines stopped because the other two were using slightly less ore. And why try and squeeze in an eight belt balancer _after_ the smelter when it's much simpler to do it at unloading?

Back on topic, sort of: I wouldn't bother with blue belts for bulk movement of ore anyway. Blue belts are for places where every bit of space matters, or where the speed itself helps, or for JIT movement of valuable things with as few as possible sitting around on the belt. For general use red is the optimally cost-effective choice.

Ok many thanks. So would have just one wagon coming off each mine.

[Hedning]

Originally posted by ChrisR:

So at each mine, I’ll have ‘x’ amount of belts coming off the miners into an ‘x’ - 6 balancer going into a wagon. Just one wagon.

If you have 1-1 trains (1 wagon 1 locomotive) then just drag each belt to the wagon. If two belts are less than half full to begin with combine them into 1. You don't always need splitters neither. If you drag a belt to the side of another the items will load onto the other.

[Hedning]

Originally posted by ChrisR:

So would you have one wagon coming off each mine then back to one of my 4 unload stations before my arrays? Thanks

The number of wagons is something you have to decide and then stick to. It's best if most of your trains are of equal length and doesn't need to be changed as your factory grows. I recommend any power of 2. That is 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32. Some things gets easier then.

[RiO]

Originally posted by Hedning:

Before that which is uneven

In other words: basically, before everything.

Because what you are failing to take note of is that at the unloading station, each inserter unloading from a buffer chest can only unload onto a single lane of the belt.
And you have zero control over the pattern in which inserters on your factory line will grab from those belts running out of the unloading station: they will always favor the near side.

I.e. you will always need to lead with a balancer - more precisely : a lane balancer - to ensure that the buffer chest connected to the far side of the belt running along the factory line, drains just as fast as the buffer chest connected to the near side. Or you will eventually suffer a deficit on one of the lanes of the belt and sink your throughput to half the intended amount.

[Hedning]

Originally posted by RiO:

In other words: basically, before everything.

Well, in the scenario discussed yes, "after furnaces" = "before everything else".

It's not always the case though. For example if you have split off some production where trains arrive with the raw materials and trains leave with the product that's balanced draw as long as your number of production lines is divisible by the number of cargo wagons.

Originally posted by RiO:

Because what you are failing to take note of is that at the unloading station, each inserter unloading from a buffer chest can only unload onto a single lane of the belt.
And you have zero control over the pattern in which inserters on your factory line will grab from those belts running out of the unloading station: they will always favor the near side.

I am surprised. Do you think this is news to me? There are many ways to unload from chests onto belts without balancers. One of the easiest is to have six inserters in a row, then the belt comes out from the middle one so it's 3 on each side. If you are drawing exactly a full belt one thing you can do is limit one inserter in a pair to 8. This will perfectly fill the gap from the first and you'll have a full belt. Many methods exists. The "problem" of inserters only outputting onto one side is generally solved by having more than one inserter per belt, something almost all applications need anyway.

As for only taking from one side there are multiple solutions for this too. First and foremost it might not be a problem at all. As long as you load both sides from the same wagon and for example don't load the left side from one and the right from another, then most of the time it doesn't matter, because transferring off the train to the chest is always a lot quicker than from chest to belt.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by ChrisR:

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

There are lots of things to consider. Your miners will produce free ore, more often, the higher your mining productivity (that is an infinite research that can increase beyond the basic level when you start getting space science packs). You can add productivity modules to further increase that (not really cost effective) and you can add speed modules to increase the mining speed (also not really cost effective).

As your patch starts to run out the out put will also decrease over time as some of the miners run out of ore.

The simplest thing is to run all of the output into a balancer so that it is split evenly between all 4 belts.

You can use trains, stackers, and multiple ore patches to keep your ore input to your smelters saturated.

Many thanks. Could I ask how you would do it to give me an idea. So at each mine, I’ll have ‘x’ amount of belts coming off the miners into an ‘x’ - 6 balancer going into a wagon. Just one wagon. Back at base I have 4 smelter arrays of 72 furnaces. Each array has an unload station with a 6 -1 balancer on each. So would I then balance the 4 belts coming off each unload station, into the arrays. Then have about 3 spare trains as back up with a stacker.

That is certainly one way to do it that will work the way you want. My personal preference when I get to the point where I am moving and smelting that much ore in the late game is to switch to logistic bot based mining arrays and smelting arrays. I use productivity modules in the smelters and beacons to speed up the smelting process. If it is set up correctly you can switch from moving 45 units of ore per second for each array to moving around 250 units of ore per second per array. You can lay out your beacons in such a way that each smelter is affected by 8 beacons. This will increase the smelting speed by 400% and instead of each electric furnace processing 1 ore in .625 seconds each furnace will smelt 2.5 ore per second. If you put 2 productivity module III in each electric furnace it slows the speed down by 30% (down to +370%) but you get 20% more plates for the same amount of ore.

One thing to keep in mind processing ore at this rate is that if you are only going to launch one rocket you don't need to scale up this much. As Khagan mentioned, red belts in your smelting arrays for a one rocket launch game are adequate.

If you are going megabase and 1,000+ science per minute, you will want multiple beaconed smelting arrays and you will be best off going large to start with.