Home > Factory Layout
Factory Layout[]
This page gives some ideas for methods to make factories that are easier to build and maintain.
Early game[]
Mining setup[]
The first factories you are likely to build will be simple mining setups consisting of
Mining Drill and
Smelter. For the first two tiers of PT Lima you will not have any logistics and so cannot connect machines together, but once you have reached Lima.T3.Basic Logistics you will obtain
Conveyor Belt,
Inserter and
Container and can link machines together. You can also obtain
Long Inserter (logistics.Lima.T3.Long Inserter) which then allows you to largely automate your
Iron Ingot and
Copper Ingot production on level 1.
This can be done by having a pair of parallel belts running between the
Mining Drill and the associated
Smelter. The belt nearest the drills can handle the ore and the one nearer the
Smelter can handle the Fuels. An
Inserter can output the ore to the belt and the
Long Inserter can input the Fuels. For the
Smelter the Fuels can be handled by the
Inserter and the ore by the
Long Inserter. The fuel you use can be supplied from a
Container and the completed ore can go to another
Container or to the Freight Elevator.
The order of the belts doesn't really matter that much but if you use
Plantmatter Fiber as your fuel of choice then the rate of consumption for the
Smelter may require the higher rate that the
Inserter (20/min) can manage vs. the
Long Inserter (15/min).
Fuel setup[]
When you reach L3 (Storage) and obtain the
Planter,
Thresher and unlock the farming technologies (Lima.T4.Planter, Lima.T4.Thresher, Lima.T4.Kindlevine Threshing and Lima.T4.Stem Threshing) you can automate the fuel supply to the mining setup. This requires one or more
Planter machines as well as enough
Kindlevine Seeds to fill them. The
Kindlevine (Item) then feeds into a
Thresher producing
Kindlevine Seeds recycling back to the
Planters, and the
Kindlevine Stemss feeding out as [[Fuels|fuel] to the mining setup.
You can further thresh the
Kindlevine Stems to make
Plantmatter Fiber but it is an inferior fuel source and so is better used for making
Plantmatter Frames. Note that for both
Thresher machine they will require
Filter Inserters to ensure the two outputs that are produced by both are sent down separate
Conveyor Belts. These can be found around the base of the Freight Elevator on L2 and researched with logistics.Lima.T4.Filter Inserter.
Mid-game[]
Vertical belts[]
As the game progresses and machines need more than two input and outputs you can use vertical belts which allows you to pack and stack belts. If you leave a gap of 5 squares between the "working" side of machines you can have a layout consisting of machine - inserter - vertical belt - stacked belt - vertical belt - inserter - machine. This allows you to stack as many belts as you wish in this same width and so supply many different combinations of materials without costing you lots of horizontal space.
Vertical machines[]
You can also stack machines on multiple Floors of a factory. Depending on the purpose and your own preference you may prefer to have all the machine on a floor dedicated to a specific recipe or all the machines in a single production-line, producing the final output and stack multiple production-lines.
Grouping machines[]
Sometimes a recipe will require the combined output from many machines as an input, other times the recipe may require only part of the output from a single machine. In these cases you may want to combine all the production of an input onto a single belt and supply all the next machines from that belt. Another method is to group the machines in sets that fully supply all the items to a single output machine. Yet another method is to have a single machine feeding a single machine all the way along the production-line. This last option is the least efficient on machines but can produce nice lines of production that are easier to duplicate.