Reorganising tips for growing factory?

[ColaBB]

Probably a classic mistake/problem but the need for different stuff assembled from a bunch of standard stuff is outgrowing my messy factory.
I probably have to rebuild but it'd be quite the undertaking and I don't know where to begin really.
Anyone have tips on how to deal with this?

[Kage Goomba]

You have tons of space - and more than enough resources.

Generally the only time you rebuild is to make what you have more efficient and to optimize what you have.

Short of removing what isn't needed anymore in terms of resulting above mentioned tactic - you shouldn't need to tear down anything really.

Build what you need - and think long term to fill your needs - unless your still early game (pre-coal power) - you should consider keeping things consistent unless its to make things more efficient.

At least that's how I handle it.

[Jack-o-Lantern]

never dismantle old factory, doesn't matter if it's messy, slow, inefficient.
make a new one and dismantle ONLY after new one is running well and some time has passed to prove that new one is good enough.

better a bad factory than no factory at all

[Shahadem]

Old factories are great for manufacturing the items that get thrown into the DImensional Depot.

[Vryce]

Originally posted by Jack-o-Lantern:

never dismantle old factory, doesn't matter if it's messy, slow, inefficient.
make a new one and dismantle ONLY after new one is running well and some time has passed to prove that new one is good enough.

better a bad factory than no factory at all

Could not agree more. I learned more from building satellite "new" factories as i went, using the now obsolete factory to modify at my leisure to look better, become more efficient, testing new ideas. For me, the game changes every time for i truly work from where I am dropped and just see what happens.

[molovian]

I would take the advice to build a new one to make the old one obsolete and then tear down the mess as necessary or make some use of it while updating it or keep it around for nostalgia.

[nfgman]

My starter factory became the general purpose construction factory. Adequate for the task. Later, I was able to expand and optimise there with improved techniques. Specialised remote factories became main production. My big step out into the world was with rail headed to bauxite. Others prefer hypertube cannons.

[kLuns]

Build an extra splitter near the output of your miner. When you get faster belts you can upgrade the belt from the miner to the splitter and from there split of another belt to a new factory.

[Schlappspaten]

Start thinking about blueprints. You might want to create them in way, that you can scale up production by adding blueprinted units instead of building everything from scratch.

[The Colgate King]

If you are doing a mega factory, the amount of planning that goes in to do it successfully is immense. While challenges might arise, you really shouldn't have to do any major restructuring of your factory unless it was planned to occur at a certain milestone/unlock.

If you aren't doing a mega factory, might just want to leave it alone and source new materials to sustain your end product target. You will always need plates/rods/pipes/concrete/beams/etc. as an end product and the consumption tends to go up as you progress further in the game with more complex parts requiring more belts/foundations/equipment. As an example, branching off end point iron plate production to make nitric acid can blow up in your face as further down the line you can find that you have potentially starved yourself of iron plates or your production chain calling for nitric acid may be poorly supplied.

You have more than enough logistical tools to circumvent the distance between raw materials.

[Grollwerk]

I usually do not re-organize. I freshly start all over.

Delete all builds and restart so you can keep your progress or start a new save game.

The amount of work is always the same.

[twifight]

I'll add a vote to the suggestion of rebuilding in a new location first.
- no stress of running out of materials while redoing your existing one
- easy comparing when your new factory doesn't work right or you're not sure what to do. Just go back to the old one and see how you did it there
- when the new one is running and better than ever you are completely free to do with the old one what you like. For instance, if you have new alternative recipes you can change entirely how you produce things, or even what you produce.

[dwizar]

My first factories had to be redesigned from scratch, several times; I think it's somewhat inevitable at first. The way I design now, besides knowing in advance which parts are bottlenecks, is to build my factory as lanes, with containers at every steps.

Every lane starts with a miner, a container, a belt split into several smelters, and the output merged into a single container - from which I belt and split onto the next lanes. I build more machines that a lane need, and build the lanes in the same direction, so that any lane can grow indefinitely without crossing, and handle any machine being Somerslooped.

Anything needed for a new part gets belted from the output containers - and if a container runs low, I just find a new node and make a new lane, which I belt back into the container. Containers that are constantly full can be overflowed into a sink. Every part just becomes a container and a bus that I can monitor, pull from, or dump into.

It is not a perfect design, but this works best for me.

[Dirtyshadow]

Tip to reorganise is invest time at the blueprint designer and create some standardise 4x4 modules that make it easier to create connection flows.

If they use the same manifold layout or logistic floor design, you will create a build that is easier to expand or charge

It makes it easier to create rows of machines and section off the builds.

[curtyuiop]

Build big, long, and high.

[Cian]

Make blueprints for what you want, then you can quickly place down your factory after clearing out space.

I like making modular blueprints that do specific things with specially placed conveyor holes that combine inputs and outputs. It takes a bit to design the parts, but once made I can plop them down anywhere and it's really convenient.

Like I have a stackable one that takes 140 copper ingots, 100 iron ingots, 100 coal and spits out 10 motors. The three inputs and output have holes in the top lined up to connect to the next level, if desired. So if I build a second one on top of it, I can quickly add the connectors and it will bring double the input up and bring the extra output down. So if I want to provide the input to my turbo motor factory (which takes 30 motors a minute) I can quickly stack up 3 of them and make the connections. Then pipe in 420 copper, 300 iron, 300 coal and connect the output to my motor input on my turbo motor factory.

I have one that generates 400 fuel and 100 resin from 150 oil and 400 water (using the heavy oil residue and diluted fuel alt recipes). I made them so they can be connected both top and bottom separately, so I can stack them up 3 layers and have the center one dumping half to the pipes below and half pumped up above so that it has two full mark 2 pipes leaving the two factories. One pure oil deposit can accommodate four generators making 1600 fuel and it takes longer to pipe in the needed 1600 water than it does to build and connect the pieces. I also have a stackable fuel generator that can be quickly stacked to 5 levels and consumes 600 fuel each, so each full pipe can be sent to one of those for power generation. I made them specifically for the big wet oil field on the west side of the map that's a long way from coal and sulfur, but all total over there I have 12 of the fuel producers (4 towers of 3) and 40 levels of the generators (8 towers of 5 stacks) generating like 60 gigawatts of power from the two pure and two normal deposits over there.

It would have taken ages to build all that manually heh.