Optimal factory layout.

[~* BiZZ Keryear *~]

The thing I currently wondering about the "optimal" factory layout for a while.
It should minimize the empty space while avoiding obstacles (thinks that would slow down workers movement). But also minimize movement.
The optimal room size should be* 110m² or 163m² (the latter would have be the penalty of being a big room, but the -25 mood shouldn't be that hard to counteract with the extra space available).
Going for the max size reduces the space taken up by doors.

If I go with a square room I end up with much unused space in middle. (not enough to put storage in, tho), but if I go for a long slender room instead I increase the walking distances considerably.

It also seems like a good idea to put storage everywhere. "normal storage" as well as storage assigned to machines (would not mind dropping the other storage, but it seems worker which finished building something are not putting it into the storage for the machine to the next step but rather in the "nearest" *² general storage instead. They ignore walls by looking for one ... had one worker taking a huge detour for each finished product cause the storage he was going to was just on the other side of the wall of the machine he was working on, instead of the many storages that were along the way ... or even the one in same room.

*= from what I read in this guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1893251174

*² = as in the bird flies, not actual walking distance.

[Jaguar]

For me, and I am pretty new at the game, I've found that three centralized storage rooms, each specialized, works best. I have one large room with three areas actually.

You then link the Work Station input area to all your billboards and everything flows smoothly in between each room type. I then have one room with two storages near the loading docks (one for shipping and one general) just to handle overflow. That way everything on all 3 sides of your building flows to one area and makes the trip to the next station the shortest average possible.

I also have a few coffee rooms spread out after mistakenly starting with an expanding main coffee room and seeing people falling down after I got past 20 workers.



https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1932337422

Maybe this isn't the most efficient way to do it, but so far it's working for me and allowing me to keep making money and expand.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1932350292

[Saint Landwalker]

As a point of clarification, those are not the correct optimal room sizes, because the game's measurement displays are wrong.

A better way to think about room sizes is by tiles. Penalty-free rooms cap out at 400 tiles, and Large (–25 Mood) rooms cap out at 600 tiles. Each tile is 0.5m on a side, or 0.25m².

The game's measurements are all off by 0.5m, because they count one "end" of the wall but not the other "end". So a wall that the game says is 10.5m long is actually 11m long. But a room the game says is 10.5×10.5m is actually 11×11m if you measure from the outsides of each wall, or 10×10m (100m², 400 tiles) if you measure from the inside of each wall.

The optimal room layout is honestly dependent on what you plan to put in it, but I think a decent guideline is probably square-ish. For a 4×4 workstation like a circular saw, a small foundry, a wood bending machine, a glue station, a wood lathe, etc., I can fit 12 machines in a 10×10m (actual interior measurement) room, plus three Large Shelves (two for inputs and one for general storage), plus two 2×2-tile decorations (like the trophies or the candy machine) and two 2×4-tile decorations (like the arcade machine or the end table).

The decoration should be more than enough to yield positive mood in the in-game, you get twelve 4×4 workstations with little obstruction, a good pile of storage space, and minimal walking distances.

Obviously this would have to be tweaked based on the size of the workstations you're using, whether or not you plan for them to input or output "oversized" materials (like the catapult frame) that won't fit on shelves, and so forth. But you get the general idea.

Example blueprint for such a room.[i.imgur.com]

Another thing I've toyed around with has been putting storage spaces outside of the room, in order to fit more workstations inside the room. You might try this with a "storage hallway" running a good length with multiple workrooms along its sides, or you might have a dedicated "storage room" between each workroom and... whatever is on the other side (in my case, a general hallway).

If you don't mind the long and slender approach to rooms (and the walking distance that can entail), a 10×40-tile room (5×20m interior measurements) can pack even more workstations and storage into the space without much obstruction. I have a blueprint for such a room that has six advanced circular saws, four wood bending machines, six sticksaws, two large shelves of general storage, and four large shelves of input storage, plus decoration to keep things happy.

Edit: Here's a decent screenshot of my first late-game factory. It's heinously suboptimal from an ideal standpoint, but despite that it works excellently and can crank through just about any order I throw at it.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1912932684

[~* BiZZ Keryear *~]

Originally posted by Jaguar:

[snip]

I can see what you where going for. But it is ... suboptimal to say the least.
It not only creates long walking distances, but also deliberately areas where workers have to go through places where they are slowed down. Namely where stuff is placed on the ground and the area around it (each item slows workers down on the tiles the occupy and 0.5m around them + 0.5m where the workers are a little bit slowed down ... same is true for walls, machines and decorations) and where machines are packed too tight together.
I dare to say this is worse than what I had.

[~* BiZZ Keryear *~]

Originally posted by Saint Landwalker:

As a point of clarification, those are not the correct optimal room sizes, because the game's measurement displays are wrong.

A better way to think about room sizes is by tiles. Penalty-free rooms cap out at 400 tiles, and Large (–25 Mood) rooms cap out at 600 tiles.

Thanks for the clarification. This helps a lot with my calculations. But the m² size was the best I had before.

Originally posted by Saint Landwalker:

The game's measurements are all off by 0.5m, because they count one "end" of the wall but not the other "end". So a wall that the game says is 10.5m long is actually 11m long. But a room the game says is 10.5×10.5m is actually 11×11m if you measure from the outsides of each wall, or 10×10m (100m², 400 tiles) if you measure from the inside of each wall.

I reported that as a bug earlier ... but it was already known and on the list.

Originally posted by Saint Landwalker:

The optimal room [...], but I think a decent guideline is probably square-ish.

I am not so sure about that, tho. Decorations have 0.5 obstruction radius on them. So I plan to chuck them behind my machines, or in corners between machines. I also think I might put all machines on one side of the room and storage on the other. Which takes up 4 tiles (raw storage / with that I mean without shelf only 2 tiles deep) + 1 tile as a path (same size as doors have unobstructed) = 11 deep
Means I can make it 36 or 54 tiles long that even gives me the space required for heavy machines from which most of them use a 5 tile depth instead of 4 tiles.

I think I put input loading bay(s) on one side and the output bay(s) on the other side of the factory.

I might link the rooms with break rooms. That way no worker has to go far to reach one. And I save space for a hallway And only need one door for each production room. Are workers content with their break room if they have to stand / no place to sit?

And half finished products still need to go from one station to the next anyways.
While in same room they can go in the different storage areas. (which I plan to have plenty different in each room ... unless you can't link more than one to one machine ... then I might have a problem)

Originally posted by Saint Landwalker:

If you don't mind the long and slender approach to rooms (and the walking distance that can entail), a 10×40-tile room (5×20m interior measurements) can pack even more workstations and storage into the space without much obstruction. I have a blueprint for such a room that has six advanced circular saws, four wood bending machines, six sticksaws, two large shelves of general storage, and four large shelves of input storage, plus decoration to keep things happy.

Now we're talking.

Side note: I figure those things out while writing these posts. Also looking at what different people do (and discuss with them) helps me to find my own way.

[Jaguar]

I see lots of theory, but not one screen shot.

Back up your words with some real action guys!

[~* BiZZ Keryear *~]

Originally posted by Jaguar:

I see lots of theory, but not one screen shot.
Back up your words with some real action guys!

Working on it ...
But turns out I was wrong. My thesis was good ... I think ... but it falls short because it doesn't have enough storage in each room causes the products to be placed all over the place and because of that long ways ... and therefore only little throughput.
Back to the drawing board, I guess.

[Jaguar]

Bummer. Was looking for some better ideas for layouts.

[Saint Landwalker]

Originally posted by Jaguar:

I see lots of theory, but not one screen shot.

Back up your words with some real action guys!

Not sure what you mean. I posted a screenshot of my 100% Achievement factory that is averaging, all the way back to when it was a wee baby workshop, over $5,000 positive cash flow per day (and if the game had a proper lifetime income statement, I suspect its average daily net income is above $10,000).

That workshops has examples of both broad room types I mentioned: it has the more squarish rooms (e.g. for the assembly rooms) and the long, thin rooms (e.g. most production machinery), so both are in action here.

Is it 100% optimal? Definitely not. But it also very clearly works very well in spite of that.

[Saint Landwalker]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1932679476

Threw together this test room for my current young factory just to show the "storage entry room" idea.

This room (100m², 400 tiles) contains two small foundries, two sheet rollers, two form presses, two extruders, two metal lathes, two metal benders, and two plasma cutters. That's 14 total workstations. It has only light obstruction in the walking areas to eliminate slow-down. The travel time to the storage area is relatively low. The net mood in the room is +72.

Just some food for thought. I haven't put it into action yet, but it doesn't seem like there's any reason it shouldn't work.

As an aside, this is about the second-worst kind of room to do this with, because it has a bunch of machines of different sizes in it, which makes putting it into action more difficult (not helped by the fact that I did all of this off the cuff this morning with no planning whatsoever, just made it up as I went). My current factory is a smol baby, so it needed a "general metal" room to handle smaller metal-related jobs as the workshop grows up into an angsty teenage factory. Actual advance planning would probably make this even better.

The worst room to do this with would be assembly. The reason is that assembly jobs always need at least two different inputs, and sometimes many more, so they require many more trips between the workstation and the input storage zone. I would not recommend this setup for "multiple-input" rooms (if you have a dedicated glue room, this could probably work, but might not be ideal).

One thing I would advise anyone is this: Don't be locked into hitting that 400-tile (or 600-tile) mark exactly, if a 10x10 or 20x5 room doesn't work best for what you need. Can you fit things better in an 11x9 room (99m² / 396 tiles)? What about 12x8 (96m² / 384 tiles)? Build that instead!