I am SO fed up trying to learn the setup for Blue Science (first time attempt)

[BenieTheDragon]

As much as Foreman (the mod I'm using) is telling me what I need, it's not telling me the ideal setup for it. I'm sure a lot feel Blue Science is a breeze. Please understand it took me two days just to figure out a good setup for Green Science, and the video I watched on how to do it, I was given a stern warning that Blue would be a hell of a lot more complicated to setup.

But here. This is the part of my sub-base(south of my main base) I've dedicated to making Blue Science (as I don't know how to set it up in my main base without doing a complete redesign of it (that I have no idea where to even start for that).
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=700855520

As you can see on the left, is where I got (I think) the first stages of making Blue Science. And to the right (and up), is where I got Oil going (using the Tanker mod to haul Oil from an Oil Reserve far to the Southwest).
I have the Iron/Copper/Steel Plates being belted in from my main factory.
My problem is I don't know how to get the Smart Inserters and the Electronic Circuits over to where I have the Sulfur with the Plastic. Plus, no idea how I'm going to belt all of THIS over to make Sulfuric Acid (and then the Battery, I think.. or is that backwards? Hell if I know).

There's no good video out there explaining step-by-step (without "be right back"(shows HUGE change from the break and doesn't fully explain it) or "now we need this. Thankfully, I already have some right here" instead of explaining how you got said thing).

I'm willing to co-op in hopes to at least get an idea on how to do this. Note that I use mods and I don't know how Multiplayer in this game works (other than hearing it's done via LAN or something like that).

TL:DR.. I need help setting up Blue Science. I don't know how to do the entire setup (and make it work). :P

[NimrodAbsolution⁧⁧98]

My advice
Just wing it

I do this each and every time (well I have a semi specific oil layout but that doesn't matter much)
And each time I manage to tweak a decent blue setup into existence
Also, as I previously mentioned, once you get bots making a new setup faster and vastly more efficient becomes possible

You might find once you get drones that you want to redo the whole thing with the new drone system in place (that's what I do)

[BenieTheDragon]

I thank you for the advice, but I can't just wing it. It doesn't give me an idea in my head of what to put where (and how many). I need a solid plan.
Without a plan; an idea, I feel lost and confused. I don't like feeling that from something that is supposed to feel fun.

[The_Mell]

Quite new player here, too, still on my first playthrough, but the thing i noticed about your build in progress is that you started at the bottom of products.
That's odd to me because i usually go the other way around.

It's definetly not an example of an optimized build but it's working and i can show what i mean with my top-down-view.
Here's a pic of my messy inefficient science assembly:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=673323560
Startetd with blue science factories which needs 4 components, so 2 belts which should carry 2 components.
One belt goes south to space things out (more or less) and is fed by 2 other belts throwing things on its left&right. One of these 2 supply belts goes further south to the steel production which of course needs basic iron plates.

So this is one path from root, blue science, to a leaf, iron plates, of my production tree - and yes, that was the easiest one.



I think even before owning Factorio i stumbled across a build on internet and i was impressed by its clean and sleek design.
Now i'm even more impressed by it.
http://i.imgur.com/pYSFjSN.png
https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/302vhb/natures_harmonic_simultaneous_4flask_compact/

[Kuro Maii]

the best advice one can give anybody regarding factorio is to "build it backwards"

so you start by placing the assembler that is going to make your blue science
next you look at what it needs to make that and place the assemblers/chemical plants for that and connect them with belts.
now you take a look at what you need to feed the assembles for one of the items you just build an assembler for.
keep working your way back up the line in till you are left with crude oil and the plates

that way you can see what you need to build to make something work, and this does not only go for bleu science it works for everything in the game.

if you realy want to look at some youtube videos I would like to suggest "negetive root" and "steejo"

[KatherineOfSky]

Benie, the easiest way to build blue science is this:
Build Smart Inserters locally, but take ALL THE REST OF the ingredients from the main bus.

An easy way to set this up is as follows:

Create Steel near your Iron Smelting. Instead of recycling iron plates around to another set of furnaces, I place down a furnace, then directly feed (via inserter), to a second furnace. The crafting times line up perfectly.

Run Steel through your Main Bus.


Plastic -- easiset made in the Oil area. Put it on your Main Bus.

Advanced Circuits -- take all materials off the Main Bus to create them. Then put the Red Circuits on the Main Bus.

(Seeing a pattern here? ;-)


Batteries -- Create Sulfur & Sulfuric Acid in your Oil Area. Then, pipe it over to your Main Bus Area where you will create Batteries.
(If you leave a couple of "lanes" above or below your Main Bus, you can pipe in Sulfuric Acid and Lubricant easily -- be sure to use underground pipes).
Put Batteries on the Main Bus.

So now, you have three incredients right on your main bus. All that's left is Smart Inserters. Make those local to your Blue Science setup.

Add them all together, and you have Blue Science.

I have a screenshot here. (This is a double-sized setup. You really only need one each of the inserter machines. Here, I've put two of each for extra production).

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=700958221

[Mazian]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=701290114

Not quite as awesome as Katharine's setup... but I recently revised from my 1.0 main bus design to improve throughput of copper and iron the downstream chcains-- and to reduce bot usage where belts would be more efficient (to increase production throughput.)

Here's the older 1.0 approach.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=687804804


Basically-- I feed each of the four materials required in on two belts, and then use a 3rd belt (and long inserters) to move the Blue Science Packs to the research facilities.


Since Science Pack Production is low, I use bots to ferry the Packs from production to a Requestor Chest which feeds the Labs. (At this point, I'm finalizing research on all of the last, end-game items... like Robot Limit 19... I'm at a robot limit of 124 at present.. or Limit 18.)

[BenieTheDragon]

Thanks everyone for your advice and help, but I want to give a shoutout to Rethok for helping me set up for Blue Science.

[KatherineOfSky]

@Mazian -- I really like your train unloading approach. Seems like a fun way to design a factory: making different products at differing locations and then shipping them in.

[BenieTheDragon]

Originally posted by KatherineOfSky:

@Mazian -- I really like your train unloading approach. Seems like a fun way to design a factory: making different products at differing locations and then shipping them in.

Indeed. It's like they have multiple factories (one for nearly each type of resource). Quite nice.

I actually have a similar idea to increase my Copper plate intake (instead of sending the ores back to base, smelt them at the site and them send the plates to base).

[Mazian]

Originally posted by KatherineOfSky:

@Mazian -- I really like your train unloading approach. Seems like a fun way to design a factory: making different products at differing locations and then shipping them in.

I really only have three at present-- the Smeltorium which smelts Ore to Plates, the Machinarium that converts plates to everything else (that does not require Oil), including converting Stone to Bricks, and converting Plates to Steel (I will be moving the steel production and stone production to the Smeltorium eventually... and then shipping the resources in.) And lastly the Oleumium for processing all Oil products and constructing anything that requires Oil. Everything that is needed for the Oil product assembly is shipped in by train, the final products are all shipped back to the Machinarium for 'storage.' All intakes are Circuit Logic controlled to prevent over production.



The Machinarium suffers from issues when I am consuming resources massively... this happens primarily when I start a long research (like Follower Robot Count 18)... the trains move massive amounts of resources over great distances great-- but what happens with my design is the trains arrive, unload enough to keep the factory busy for a minute, and then the factory shuts down because it is starving for iron (at present, iron is my shortage point-- I have run into copper shortages, but it happens less frequently since I built out my Smeltorium and train network.)


I presently feed the Smeltorium and Machinarium with four trains-- and because of stack doubling (ore stacks at 50, plates stack at 100), I could probably reduce the number of trains that feed the Machinarium but that would require a redesign of the Smeltorium to have separate input output depots--- one stop for ore intake and another for plate output.

And it wouldn't hurt to increase the plate delivery from a single iron wagon and single copper wagon to multiple wagons.


I spend a lot of time playing around with finicky efficiency 'tricks'-- trying to better my understanding of trains and circuit networks... only occasionally redesigning my existing factories or clearing out biter nests and reaching new ore deposits.

Since I'm basically running near max research, and since research is really the only point at which I am starving for resources-- I don't really care too much about fixing it when I have other interesting things to play with within the game architecture.