Leaving supplies on the belts

[Nailfoot]

So my first couple of factories, I was really bothered by materials sitting on the betls. So, I would loop my belts, or put chests at the end with an inserter chucking everything inside.

Now, I am just leaving everything on the belt. Obviously, at a certain point, the electric factories stop producing because there is simply no more room on the belt to dump ore. However, it is MUCH more efficient to have all of the material sitting there ready to be grabbed the second it is needed.

So, now I have belt a single belt with copper and iron plates, a belt with steel plates and copper wire, a belt with green circuits and gears. Those three belts run through the main factory and using a combination of short and long inserters, everything can be produced and I don't have to be concerned with anything else.

And I am sure it can be even more efficient. WHERE DOES IT END!? My brain is cramping.

[ОВЧАРКА]

Leaving things on the belts is the main concept of factory autoregulation — the machines will produce only the amount of stuff that is needed, avoiding uncontrollable resource wasting ("oh, I have 9283 inserters in that chest! what for?..."). As for efficiency — at a certain point in the late game, even the blue express belt 100% filled with iron plates becomes insufficient for your needs. This is freaking scary. lol

[GepardenK]

Haha that's what makes this game so insanely addictive. Have you tried a storage option between the ore miners and the main belt? So that the miners can keep producing even if the belt is full? If you set it up right it gives tons of options for expanding later without the ore miners lagging behind because of increased demand

[Fetchbunny]

Originally posted by dw-nw:

Leaving things on the belts is the main concept of factory autoregulation — the machines will produce only the amount of stuff that is needed, avoiding uncontrollable resource wasting ("oh, I have 9283 inserters in that chest! what for?..."). As for efficiency — at a certain point in the late game, even the blue express belt 100% filled with iron plates becomes insufficient for your needs. This is freaking scary. lol

Limiting chests storage was created for this. Also building chest loops for iron and copper plate is a good idea. You can always unload while when production sets up or when you run low on ore.

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by GepardenK:

... Have you tried a storage option between the ore miners and the main belt? So that the miners can keep producing even if the belt is full?...

I thought about a chest to store some ore, but then the electric miners would be running all the time, using a lot more power than I am currently using. Leading to more attacks due to polution.

[Lightbringer]

When it comes effiecent working there is no need in extra strong besides the things on the belt. Maybe you can store overproduction at day to use at night to minimze the need for steam generators.

Makeing a 100% effiecent production where everything is used as it is produced is not going to happen.

[ОВЧАРКА]

Originally posted by Plzbanme:

Originally posted by dw-nw:

Leaving things on the belts is the main concept of factory autoregulation — the machines will produce only the amount of stuff that is needed, avoiding uncontrollable resource wasting ("oh, I have 9283 inserters in that chest! what for?..."). As for efficiency — at a certain point in the late game, even the blue express belt 100% filled with iron plates becomes insufficient for your needs. This is freaking scary. lol

Limiting chests storage was created for this. Also building chest loops for iron and copper plate is a good idea. You can always unload while when production sets up or when you run low on ore.

I don't know if the buffer thing for iron and copper plates would work for me. If your production power is higher than your consuming power, the buffer will be full all the time. Otherwise, it will be empty all the time. The only chance for this thing to work is if you have huge consuming spikes, which I personally do not.

[Half Phased]

A chest on the lines leaving the furnaces for manual collection and then a line off into the factory is how I play the game. Means I always have materials for crafting close to hand and efficient routing of material. The logistics system really helps automation of the things you need rarely but take a long time to craft (like modules).

[Spack Jarrow]

What I do most of the time is this. I put a chest on the end of the line and set it's size to 2-4 stack depending on how much that certain resource I use on person. For example I don't use copper wires ever so the box has only 1-2 stacks while I use much more Electric circuits hence the box holds 4-6 stacks always.
Everything else is lying on the belts...Personally I hate runing up and down a belt to get the resources. I run a lot as it is already.

Another trick you can do with your logistick system is the same as above, set up active chests on production lines and storage chests in centralized location. Manually set up content and size of storage chests. Then you end up running to the center of town to grab some resources. One downside tho, you have to get into a practice of leaving 1 unit of each type item so that the same item is replaced instead of other in its place.

[332Balu]

You know you can lock specific inventories with the middle mouse click. If you set a chest up this way, it will only accept the item specified. As soon as i got my logistic network up and running, i just use the character logistic slots. (Center of my inventory). These can be set up like requester chests. If set up, logistic robots will bring you the amount of requested materials. So no more running around getting all the materials yourself

[Twice Baked]

I personally try to have a chest on every production line i make ( i know it lowers efficiency) but later on when I have logistic bots I can simply replace the crappy chests with provider chests, making things incredibly easy imho.

Heck with some things I'll have assembly buildings placing things directly into provider chests and then have a chain of provider chests coming off the original chest. That way I can fill a huge amount of chests with things that get a large amount of use (circuits, rails, oil drums COPPER WIRE etc.) Especially if I have 4 assembly buildings all building out of 1 requester chest.


Of course by this time I am tapping many different sources of resources and just hosing any opposition as quickly as I can...

[Twice Baked]

of course I do not store things like research vials etc.