What does an average main bus contain these days?

[Jethu]

Last time I seriously played Factorio was either .16 or .17, so I'm kind of relearning the game at this point.

Back then I don't remember needing as many engines, robot frames, low density structures, etc... I do remember bussing half a belt of bricks at least, but it seems like I'll need more of them in 2.0/SA.

Are folks bussing those products, or are y'all making them where needed?

[knighttemplar1960]

I like to have at least 4 rocket silos going when I start using the other planets so my bus has 8 belts of copper, 8 belts of iron, 2 belts of steel, 2 belts of each color circuit, and 1 belt each of stone, copper, bricks, and coal.

I keep fluids and pipes off the bus so I can use it as a highway to drive a car or tank on without worrying about running over pipes and pipe to grounds. If I need to send fluids to the other side I use barrels.

When a set of 4 belts get sketchy on product down the line I'll bring fresh material in from the side by train. Plastic, batteries, sulfur, explosives, rocket fuel and all other late game products come in from the side by train.

I make circuits on one side of the bus and every thing else on the other. Later in the game I move circuit production off bus and bring all my circuits in from the side after that and where the circuits were becomes my science mall.

Intermediates not mentioned are produced locally (gears and sticks, etc.) and all items that use them are located where they are produced. Belts get their own private gear production center that are belted locally most every thing else gets gear through direct insertion. Gears and pipes for engines share a belt. Copper wire is always done by direct insertion with an exception for red circuits. The wire for red circuits are made locally and only used for red circuits.

By the time I have yellow science set up I'm pushing 500 science per minute. Once I have sufficient supplies of every thing I expand into a mega base and get up to 5k science/minute.

[Jethu]

Publicado originalmente por knighttemplar1960:

I like to have at least 4 rocket silos going when I start using the other planets so my bus has 8 belts of copper, 8 belts of iron, 2 belts of steel, 2 belts of each color circuit, and 1 belt each of stone, copper, bricks, and coal.

I keep fluids and pipes off the bus so I can use it as a highway to drive a car or tank on without worrying about running over pipes and pipe to grounds. If I need to send fluids to the other side I use barrels.

Interesting. I like your take on this, as well as everyone else in this thread. I appreciate someone who is heading toward a megabase sharing what they'd do in the mid game to reach that point.

I have a lot to think about when it comes to approaching the bus now... I knew the Steam community would be way more helpful than reddit!

[mrxak]

I am finding that basically the game wants us to build nothing but bot bases now. Even on Aquilo. If that wasn't intended, then I don't really know what they were thinking at Wube because their game design definitely is rewarding bot bases a lot and punishing belt bases and especially punishing train bases (although it's possible trains carrying molten metals is worth doing).

However, as you progress through the game initially, just make spaghetti. The game progression basically forces it. And just because you'll want to unlock new tech as quickly as possible, then go back and redesign everything around that new tech because it's so much nicer, every early base you make is going to be very temporary. And it will be also very hard to plan out how much space you will eventually need for each component of your larger factory.

I'm in the process now, with epic quality, figuring out endgame designs for everything, so I can make blueprints and then reverse-design lower level versions of it that will fit in the same space so I have progressive blueprints that will actually work. I might be able to construct a decent belt base out of this final result, to use in my next game. But man when I started this first game in Space Age there was absolutely no way of knowing how I should have been planning anything. I attempted a bus base, and it just became a mess almost immediately.

The biggest revelation I've had so far is that I shouldn't be building purple or yellow science on Nauvis at all. Cutting those from my main Nauvis base just simplifies everything else and certainly will greatly reduce the size of any Nauvis main bus style play. Vulcanus is perfect for purple science. Every ingredient comes straight out of lava for free forever at such large scale. And sending back rockets from Vulcanus is very cheap, getting cheaper and cheaper after Aquilo unlocks to the point where there's no real argument not to do it. Yellow is a bit more complicated, but there's good cases to be made for Fulgora or Vulcanus, especially once you have cryogenic plants.

[knighttemplar1960]

Publicado originalmente por Jethu:

Publicado originalmente por knighttemplar1960:

I like to have at least 4 rocket silos going when I start using the other planets so my bus has 8 belts of copper, 8 belts of iron, 2 belts of steel, 2 belts of each color circuit, and 1 belt each of stone, copper, bricks, and coal.

I keep fluids and pipes off the bus so I can use it as a highway to drive a car or tank on without worrying about running over pipes and pipe to grounds. If I need to send fluids to the other side I use barrels.

Interesting. I like your take on this, as well as everyone else in this thread. I appreciate someone who is heading toward a megabase sharing what they'd do in the mid game to reach that point.

I have a lot to think about when it comes to approaching the bus now... I knew the Steam community would be way more helpful than reddit!

This is what 500 science per minute looked like for me in 1.1
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3291805840

This is what it looked like when I got up to 2,500 science per minute
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3324898767
The main bus from the previous screen shot is just above where I'm standing in this screen shot.

This is closing in on 5k Science per minute.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3080781866
The main bus from the first screen shot is under the solid blue section. The solid blue section is the science mall. I've ripped out the circuit production from the bus and replaced it with this.

My UPS was down to about 55 when I got this big. I had been optimizing it to free up more UPS. I would still be working on optimizations if Space Age hadn't come out.

[Liwet]

This is for Nauvis.

1: 4x Iron Plates
2: 4x Copper Plates
3: 4x Green circuit (don't take from Lines 1 and 2)
4. 1x Steel
1x Gears
1x Batteries
1x Empty (helps with swapping a lane)
5. 1x Stone
1x Stone Brick
1x Explosives
1x Coal/Engine Units
6. 2x Plastic
1x Sulfur into Red Circuit
1x Blue circuits
7. Sulfuric Acid
Lubricant

[bearhiderug]

Publicado originalmente por Jethu:

Publicado originalmente por back_buffer:

When I make a bus it tends to have 4 categories of items:
- Fluids (water, gas, light oil, lubricant, and sulfuric acid)
- Stuff from mines (only coal and stone)
- Stuff made in a furnace (copper, iron, steel, bricks)
- Circuits

This line of thought is great, this is exactly what I was looking for. Never seem someone explain it so simply and logically, so this is good food for thought. I appreciate ya.

why put bricks on main bus though..
steel i get, it creates bottlenecks if you feed from your iron plates on main bus. I just can not jusify stone ore on main bus..
sry
nvr ever would i put wire on main bus eather

[back_buffer]

Publicado originalmente por bearhiderug:

Publicado originalmente por Jethu:

This line of thought is great, this is exactly what I was looking for. Never seem someone explain it so simply and logically, so this is good food for thought. I appreciate ya.

why put bricks on main bus though..
steel i get, it creates bottlenecks if you feed from your iron plates on main bus. I just can not jusify stone ore on main bus..
sry
nvr ever would i put wire on main bus eather

Stone and bricks are on the bus for Military Science (black) and Production Science (purple). You can save a belt on your bus if you want to cut the bricks out, but then you need to make them next to your science instead. I simply prefer to have those furnaces next to the others.

[Liwet]

Publicado originalmente por bearhiderug:

why put bricks on main bus though..

There are things that require bricks to build. 1 brick is worth 2 stone just like 1 gear is worth 2 iron plates.

[Entropy]

Publicado originalmente por Jethu:

Last time I seriously played Factorio was either .16 or .17, so I'm kind of relearning the game at this point.

Back then I don't remember needing as many engines, robot frames, low density structures, etc... I do remember bussing half a belt of bricks at least, but it seems like I'll need more of them in 2.0/SA.

Are folks bussing those products, or are y'all making them where needed?

What people are forgetting is, when u put steel, red chips and blue chips on a main bus, you don't need to put 4 lanes of green chips/copper/iron (1-2 becomes enough). Just produce them somewhere else bring or, carry iron copper green from somewhere else to make room in main bus. For fUlgora manage it bots and only scrap stuff on belts, vulcanus main bus mostly molten liquids, oil stuff, tungsten stuff and rocket ingridients, navius as main as i said. Gleba is different.

[GAMING_Alligator]

Publicado originalmente por mrxak:

However, as you progress through the game initially, just make spaghetti. The game progression basically forces it.

How so? A bus with MK1 belts being fed by brick smelters, which feeds MK1 assemblers, is still a bus. Just a very slow one. As your technology improves you just upgrade it with better belts, etc..

[GAMING_Alligator]

Publicado originalmente por Chastity Belt Enjoyer:

Publicado originalmente por Jethu:

Last time I seriously played Factorio was either .16 or .17, so I'm kind of relearning the game at this point.

Back then I don't remember needing as many engines, robot frames, low density structures, etc... I do remember bussing half a belt of bricks at least, but it seems like I'll need more of them in 2.0/SA.

Are folks bussing those products, or are y'all making them where needed?

What people are forgetting is, when u put steel, red chips and blue chips on a main bus, you don't need to put 4 lanes of green chips/copper/iron (1-2 becomes enough). Just produce them somewhere else bring or, carry iron copper green from somewhere else to make room in main bus. For fUlgora manage it bots and only scrap stuff on belts, vulcanus main bus mostly molten liquids, oil stuff, tungsten stuff and rocket ingridients, navius as main as i said. Gleba is different.

Yeah, I don't really understand why anybody needs multiple belts of the same thing on their bus. Do people just put raw ore straight on there are and smelt it "as needed" in different lanes? Bussing intermediary products like chips, steel, pipes, and plastic is much more efficient, and lets you mostly just use a single lane per item.

[Entropy]

Publicado originalmente por GAMING_Alligator:

Publicado originalmente por Chastity Belt Enjoyer:

What people are forgetting is, when u put steel, red chips and blue chips on a main bus, you don't need to put 4 lanes of green chips/copper/iron (1-2 becomes enough). Just produce them somewhere else bring or, carry iron copper green from somewhere else to make room in main bus. For fUlgora manage it bots and only scrap stuff on belts, vulcanus main bus mostly molten liquids, oil stuff, tungsten stuff and rocket ingridients, navius as main as i said. Gleba is different.

Yeah, I don't really understand why anybody needs multiple belts of the same thing on their bus. Do people just put raw materials on there are and smelt it "as needed" for different lanes? Bussing intermediary products like chips, steel, pipes, and plastic is much more efficient, and lets you mostly just use a single lane per item.

Yeah i was trying to say this. U better explained it .

[Jethu]

Publicado originalmente por GAMING_Alligator:

Publicado originalmente por Chastity Belt Enjoyer:

Do people just put raw ore straight on there are and smelt it "as needed" in different lanes? Bussing intermediary products like chips, steel, pipes, and plastic is much more efficient, and lets you mostly just use a single lane per item.

The only raw mat I've ever bussed is coal.

I run 4 belts of iron and copper, and typically 3, sometimes 4 belts of green circuits since I pull those from the bus to make red and blue circuits, and other items. Of course if I was making the green/red/blue all in one setup, I definitely wouldn't need all of those belts.

What I would have in that case is several smaller busses, making the point of a "main" bus redundant.

[mrxak]

Publicado originalmente por Liwet:

This is for Nauvis.

1: 4x Iron Plates
2: 4x Copper Plates
3: 4x Green circuit (don't take from Lines 1 and 2)
4. 1x Steel
1x Gears
1x Batteries
1x Empty (helps with swapping a lane)
5. 1x Stone
1x Stone Brick
1x Explosives
1x Coal/Engine Units
6. 2x Plastic
1x Sulfur into Red Circuit
1x Blue circuits
7. Sulfuric Acid
Lubricant

Gears shouldn't ever be on a main bus. Just make them from iron plates locally where needed. Same with explosives, make them local.

[GAMING_Alligator]

Publicado originalmente por mrxak:

Publicado originalmente por Liwet:

This is for Nauvis.

1: 4x Iron Plates
2: 4x Copper Plates
3: 4x Green circuit (don't take from Lines 1 and 2)
4. 1x Steel
1x Gears
1x Batteries
1x Empty (helps with swapping a lane)
5. 1x Stone
1x Stone Brick
1x Explosives
1x Coal/Engine Units
6. 2x Plastic
1x Sulfur into Red Circuit
1x Blue circuits
7. Sulfuric Acid
Lubricant

Gears shouldn't ever be on a main bus. Just make them from iron plates locally where needed. Same with explosives, make them local.

No, that's both inefficient and ineffective.

Having gears as a separate bus item means you can increase back pressure on them independently from iron plates, and benefit from economies of scale, since you can rail them in from dedicated gear mini-factories. That's important because:

(a) one iron gear wheel needs 2 plates to produce, so you can do in a single lane what would otherwise require two.

(b) Those 2 lanes would be in addition to what iron plates are also used for other things. So by having them separate you don't impact other things requiring iron plates when demand for gears spikes.

(c) The ratio of gears to end products tends to be exponential. So if you're only ever making them "just in time", it can be hard to scale them up along with inevitable demand increases.