Conveyors vs vehicles

[Yourkungfuisnogood!]

I've only just started building a second base and just unlocked nuclear power on my first play through. So perhaps its just early days but conveyors have served me so well, what am i missing? Is there some advantage to using a tractor/truck or even train over over running conveyors belts everywhere? Or is there some other purpose for these vehicles?

[Vectorspace]

With trains, you can set up one railway line, and have multiple trains share it. So when you want to transport a new resource and origin/destination are both near the railway, you just need to build a new station at each end. No need to build a whole new railway line from A to B. Whereas with belts, you'd have to add a new belt all the way from A to B.

It's also less effort for the CPU.

And personally, I enjoy setting up trains and signalling.

[Sonic Titan]

Conveyors don't have a horn, and are less fun than vehicles.

[Fenix]

I use trucks for temporary transports, where I don't wanna run a belt all the way out somewhere. It's just easier to record a route.
Trains win vs Conveyor belts, as I run one railway vs multiple belts.
I mean you still have to run belts to/from the Stations but it's less work overall.

[Dailao]

It's a mixture between transporting things efficiently and having something cool in your world. It might also be less taxing for weaker PCs than having a lot of long conveyor lines, and it gives you something to use your power on.

If you just want to transport your resources though, maybe even hidden behind blocks, just use conveyor lines. They always work and don't need power.

Personally I really like having trains, but when considering the logistics of complex factories, starting with aluminium and later on nuclear stuff or batteries, it really takes a lot to do it with mainly trains. In the end I have caught myself several times asking if it really was worth the time to build the whole train network instead of just having belts, because it usually takes me several days.

In short, you really need to like having them in the world, otherwise it's probably not worth the time it takes to build and tune it. The same probably goes for vehicles to be honest.

[XistenZ]

Belts are always the most reliable way, but you as the player will have to make the decision of infrastructure depending on the time and effort you want to put in.

Setting up 50 belts across the whole map, which would take a few actual weeks vs. Setting up 2 stations and one track in between, taking 15 minutes to set up.

The headache with using (any)vehicles is how to calculate throughput to/from each station in/output and it can get overwhelming and confusing.

So no you didn't miss any purpose, all they do both belts and vehicles is shuffle items around.

[Dailao]

Originally posted by XistenZ:

one track in between, taking 15 minutes to set up

I don't know what kind of tracks you usually build, but if you have any mountains or even bigger slopes in-between then it will take you WAY longer than 15mins.

[Wolfgang]

Belts with mixed items and smart splitters are a thing people. You don't need to keep your item belts clean if you don't want to do that.
Also, with belt transport you don't need to worry about throughput issues nor buffers.

[Kage Goomba]

Everything starts and ends with a belt.

Logistics is just an alternative option to transporting goods - it's up to you how you want to do it.

Belts will always win - every time - but the problem with belts running 100 if not 1000's of meters - tends to be tedious and may choke your system out if you get carried away.

Trains tends to be a popular solution and if done right can just about make up for it and be a nice solution - sometimes quicker.

You lay track once - set up stations once - and if you plan ahead - you can use the same rail line and add cars as needed.

That's just one option - there's trucks - drones...all have pro's and con's.

Just a matter of how you do it.

There's no "correct option" - it comes down to how you want to handle it.

[Obz3hL33t]

A wall double-sided with conveyors can move a lot of different products.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2876135638
A train can move a lot of a single product. If one coal car isn't enough add more. Nothing moves bulk product like a train.

[Kage Goomba]

Originally posted by Obz3hL33t:

A wall double-sided with conveyors can move a lot of different products.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2876135638
A train can move a lot of a single product. If one coal car isn't enough add more. Nothing moves bulk product like a train.

Doesn't have to be a "single product" as far as trains are concerned.
I have mixed freight on my trains and its quite effective.

[Obz3hL33t]

True, but the one thing trains can do better than anything else is bulk transport of a single product. That's what I was getting at.

[Kage Goomba]

Originally posted by Obz3hL33t:

True, but the one thing trains can do better than anything else is bulk transport of a single product. That's what I was getting at.

Didn't say it couldn't - only that it doesn't have to be a "single product" - unless its a fluid car.

[Eiko]

"Everything starts and ends with a belt" is exactly right. Belts are optimal in Satisfactory because you need belts to load and unload vehicles and the game doesn't care if a belt is 5m long or 5km, they work exactly the same. In-game they never break down or stop and require no power. If that's how it worked IRL you'd see cities with millions of giant conveyor belts everywhere.

But: vehicles are cool, fun to set up, look better, and have much lower upfront costs (but they have ongoing costs).

[jvjd]

Initial build time for the train is high, but once built it much easier to expand than conveyors that is if planing to send resources all the way back to your base.

[randyeischer]

Originally posted by Wolfgang:

Belts with mixed items and smart splitters are a thing people. You don't need to keep your item belts clean if you don't want to do that.
Also, with belt transport you don't need to worry about throughput issues nor buffers.

Unfortunately, smart switches come fairly late in the game.

So I have a couple miles of belts five or six stacks high because I couldn't mix anything.

But belts are far more reliable than anything else, and I eventually trashed a few drone ports and put in long conveyor lines instead because I got so frustrated with how easily shipments got mixed up. If you're using drones, you need a pickup port and a dropoff port AND THAT'S IT (and one must have fuel).

Triangular routes just don't work.