How do YOU plan?

[mackster]

So after 300+ hours in game, I have got a couple of saves to oil. Then, I start to think about building interesting factories, interconnecting them with trucks (trains soon). Then I get stuck.

I lack an overall plan. It sounds simple, plan your base, but I just cant seem to get a plan going that I like.

How do you plan your factories, from when automation is a true possibility (i.e. minimum of coal power)?

This may help me work out my planning block I seem to have. I almost feel like going on calculator and removing everything (but keeping all my current milestones and research and 'starting again'. Tho I feel like I have done this so many times

[kLuns]

design a production layer for every item. Stack all the production layers for this item to make a tower factory which is easy to expand when you get better belts/ miners. You will progress a given amount of resource per floor. Now you can measure the height and calculate the layers.

Decide wether you proces at the node or gather multiple raw resources in a central location. Personally i don't like the look of ore/limestone on a belt so I always do the first step on the node.

Im stuck in a new save in tier 4 for 2 weeks now because i want all makeables automated.

Plan extra space for transport from production line to either other transport(truck/train/drone) or a central storage system.

Also plan how much items you need. I use 30 copper to make the basic items and 30 iron,

Keep answering a row of basic questions. How much items do you need and what for?
Every item has a purpose, if not either give the item a purpose or sink it. Not sinkable?
Try to make it sinkable.

Reanswering these questions drives you either crazy, to a plan or both :)

[WhamyKaBlamy]

Depends if I'm doing one factory that makes lots of things or if I'm going modular.

For the former, I'll figure out how many products I'll need to make the most advanced item, then I'll figure out which part of the production chain will take up the most space. I'll lay out what that will look like as a floor factory to figure out the size and so I can get an idea of how the belts would come in as well as how I'd make it easy to navigate with catwalks and access to different floors.

Once I know my footprint I'll start building upwards from Smelters -> Constructors -> Assemblers, etc. If I can fit multiple products on a floor and it's not annoying to navigate, I'll do that, otherwise just throw another floor on it.

For modular it's pretty simple; I build a floor plan for how many machines I'd need for that product from MK4 belts, as I tend to take the time to really expand before going past tier 6. A floor per belt.

Generally I'll build 3 factories at the start of the game, 1 for all the products up to smart plating that use only iron, have a bit of an excess going off to storages outside. The second factory will have a truck delivering coal, maybe 2, and it'll produce steel products, modular frames, stators, versatile framework and automated wiring. I'll usually have a third factory nearby for copper products and just belt them in where they're needed.

That's the point where I'll decide if I want to build a mega factory or something very modular, as I'll have access to rails. I'm enjoying playing with trains at the moment, so I've been going pretty modular.

[HuMaNgUtAn]

I like to get all basic parts up to the end of T6 (at least) automated in small amounts at my start location just for the purposes of storage / building with. Nothing is exported from this location.

Then I pick areas on the map that are most suited for my "proper" factories (closest to the resources needed) which will export their final products to my final factory which builds the endgame parts for the space elevator.

For Example - A big computer factory at the golden coast. You can make Computers, supercomputers, Ai limiters, high speed connectors, and circuit boards (for export) from scratch at one location needing an input of only Oil, Caterium and Copper.

But if you really want to plan ahead fully you need to work out in advance how many of the final space elevator parts you want to produce per minute, so you know in advance how many Supercomputers, cooling systems, fused modular frames and turbo motors etc you need to import per minute.

But if you want a simple answer - with a pen and paper.

[Wolfgang]

I personally don't plan very much ahead but do it in the small parts of "ok, time to build fused modular frames" and then I just calculate it for one line of these from the end product back to the beginning. If I can use stuff from certain lines (or change these lines) to get the stuff I need then I do this. After that comes the search for the location where I have all the needed resources close by (in general). Then I built that part where the resources are to get to the final product and I send this back to base in my storage.
Pretty much all of my planning is on paper and just numbers. I have the needed resources listed and where they are coming from and how many buildings each need. The downside of this is of course that upgrading later is likely going to be a pain to do (the Turbomotors will be painfull for me and I am scared).

[mackster]

Sounds like I just need to get my act together

I must admit to being a pantser, little planning involved. I think I will stick with modular, but I am always unsure how to make my central storage work. Do I grab everything and store centrally or do I just grab what I need. Then when they are stored, how do I deal with that?

I think I just need to carry on and get past tier 6, play the game and hope the real important questions I need to ask come clear. I am currently isolating myself to the dunes at this point, more or less everything there I need for mid game, just a little light on sulphur I think.

[nfgman]

First factory, first playthrough, there is no plan except adapt and rebuild as plans change.

After that, the only plan is a goal. For example, if you want to make 6 heavy frames per minute, it might take 960 iron ingots, depending on recipes used.

Even without a goal, planning for maximum extraction of any resources, even if you don't need them or have mk3 miners and pure recipes. Underclock if necessary. Makes a substantial foundation to work from. Eventually, you'll find a use. An example of this was while I was waiting for upgrade 4 and built a large iron, steel and copper factory in the dune desert. Thousands per minute. Sat for months until upgrade 4 came out and ended up using every ingot of it and more. In other words: Think BIG.

[umop-apisdn]

When I'm planning out a new factory, I like to think "backwards".

I decide what the output product will be, and how many of that item per minute I want to produce.

I then build a temporary copy of the building that produces it, so I can see how many of that building I will need to meet my target output, and what materials are needed to make the things. Verify you have the required resources available, either from local resource nodes or logistics (ie, supply lines)... Then the rest of the factory kind of "plans itself".

If I want 60 Reinforced Iron Plates per minute, then I need 12 Assemblers making Reinforced Iron Plate, each of which wants 6 Iron Plates and 12 Screws per minute. Section those into 4 groups of 3 Assemblers (or 3 groups of 4), to avoid needing more than 60 items per minute on the input belts...

Build the Constructors making the Iron Plates, and the beltwork to feed them into the Assemblers, making sure to leave room for the Screws to come in.

Build the Constructors making the Screws, and the Constructors making the Rods to turn into the Screws...

Feed in the Iron Ingots, or the Smelters (and Miners), if the Ingots aren't already available.

Attach to the main power grid, preferably via a Switch.

Et voila! New factory.

Now I just need to run around checking that all the status lights are green.

[WhamyKaBlamy]

Originally posted by mackster:

I must admit to being a pantser, little planning involved. I think I will stick with modular, but I am always unsure how to make my central storage work. Do I grab everything and store centrally or do I just grab what I need. Then when they are stored, how do I deal with that?

If you do a central storage it's really down to what you want and how you're doing your modular, and really, what you enjoy building.

On this save I'm building little modular workshops with a 3-platform train station on each side, and I have dedicated trains for each material. Sometimes multiple trains. I just have those trains do a drop off on their route at some point, and I have an overflow sinking set up so it feeds into a storage, and if not off to the sink.

It's not hugely efficient in how long it takes for each dropoff, but I'm not going to use a freight car's worth of materials by hand by the time they've been restocked.

You could just do a massive conveyor bus if you wanted.

[HuMaNgUtAn]

Originally posted by mackster:

I think I will stick with modular, but I am always unsure how to make my central storage work. Do I grab everything and store centrally or do I just grab what I need. Then when they are stored, how do I deal with that?

The advantage of my method of making SMALL amounts of nearly everything at your start base (and not exporting any of it) just for the purposes of building with, is that you need no proper central storage location to bus everything back to which cuts down on logistics massively. My current starting location is the blue crater which with the exception of 1 short train line for quartz / bauxite / caterium and 1 short truck route for sulphur has everything
else you need very locally to produce every product up to turbo motors.

All my other specialist factories on the map have no storage as they only produce the exact numbers of what needs to be exported (by drone) to my endgame elevator parts factory - which itself has no storage as it feeds into the elevator until its full and then straight into the awesome sink.

So if you can obsessively plan everything beforehand there is no need to ever store anything for the purposes of exporting.

[stealthXG]

I feel your pain. I feel like things would go a lot smoother if they reworked truck stations. If they operated the same way as train stations it'd help a lot. Vehicles should be able to load/unload specific items from the station. I want to make use of vehicles but the way it currently works is just discouraging and tends to get me stuck.

[Jinassi]

1st factory will always be a mess, not a problem there, a massive amount of building mats is needed to make anything cohesive. I always tear it down afterwards. since with better recipes the nodes can be of better use.

HUB, I feel there needs to be a HUB. Many a times when I play MP, we're going about and looking for this and that all over the place. Especially when we reach oil.

Fragmented production versus 1 factory makes everything.
I tried and tried to have everything in 1 place, from ore to finished product. It was a mess and heavily taxing on my computer, I do not advise that.

I did sent you a friend invite and you are more than welcome to hop on my save and I will be more than welcome to explain the why and hows.

[Man's Best Friend]

I'm unfamiliar with this concept of "planning."

Nah. First playthrough I tried to maximize connections to splitters. Sure, it's nice to get 9 buildings on one belt using only 4 splitters (and 4 mergers to combine the output) it's absolute murder to expand. I also tried to get input on one side, and output on the other side of a building. Also a pain to expand in certain situations. Now I'm just lining machines up in a row, each one getting its own splitter. Wasteful for materials, but those are infinite, so who cares? Input and output are still on opposite sides, but perpendicular to the direction of expansion.

Buildings now always go on pylons, because I got fed up with uneven terrain. Usually one floor per product. Smelters in one building, first stage constructors in another building, eventually assemblers in a third, and factories in a fourth. Maybe. That's gonna be a lot of parts to move around. But that's what smart splitters are for. Just load up a giant pile of assorted stuff into a train, and sort it at the end.

[BossmanSlim]

My plan is the following:

1) Biomass production
2) Chainsaw
3) Coal power
4) Blade runners and basher
5) T3 belt
6) Hypertubes and hard drives until I get all the recipes I want; mainly exclusion of screws
7) First major factory build, anything I do prior to this is done in a manner to support this factory build based on T3 belts (240 items as input or output if output is more)
8) Plastic & rubber
9) Trains
10) Aluminum
11) I typically stop here and will do so until 1.0 is released.

Basically, automation of power, player movement speed and then building out factory once belt speed is high enough to gets some reasonable throughput.

[Zefnoly]

I've made a calc on google drive where I store all ingame recipes I've discovered. I also aim for the "best" recipes. Like trying to get all pure ones.

Then I make another page where I combine it all to calculate what is required to be export/imported to various facilities, and how much of each machine I need in each to reach my goal.

That way I dont have to bother worrying about calculating during game and I can focus on just "placing" down the stuff. I just look at the calc for the numbers. It everything from expected needed resources to expected power consumption. It has worked well so far.

It also lets me focus more on the look of my build as I build stuff.

[bhaalspawn]

er, I just make it up as I go.