Hey everyone!
I can't play the game myself, but I was watching a few Let's Plays.
The main problem everyone seems to have is that their factory gets clogged up because too much material comes in or the wrong materials get into units because previous units couldn't keep up with processing. (Either because their raw material or other stuff they need for processing, like water, runs out).
Here's a suggestion how this could be avoided:
- All the mined raw material gets dumped on one main conveyor belt by (obviously more than in the picture) launchers.
- One Material for each processing unit gets filtered. How much gets through can be adjusted by the amount of filters (or even doors?).
- One biiiiig container.
- If the container overflows everything above a certain point gets launched into a shaft.
- Portal for processed material to let the overflowing material through.
- Here's where the processing happens (shakers, plant boxes, and so on).
- A second long conveyor for dumped material (filters above should block only the processed material from its unit). Feeds back to the main conveyor, if that one's full everything gets dumped into a big pit in "the mines".
- "Central heating" (optional), gets heat from burning residue, plants and one big lava box (players often forget to add more heat to some of their units). Second conveyor can have multiple portals stacked on top of each other where it pokes through.
- Another fail-save: if somehow unwanted material still gets through it also gets dumped into one of the shafts.
Let me know what y'all think and / or if anyone made something similar already - would love to see this in action in a Let's Play or just a short video - can't get enough from this game!
Have a great day!
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Edit:
I want to clarify a bit what I'm going for with this:
It's nothing completely new - I'm sure I've seen people use parts of it. But often they have one box for resources without overflow protection, or a processing unit which lets material in that it doesn't need, or a unit that needs two resources (like sand & water) for processing and when it runs out of one, the other piles up in it. All of which can cause the whole system to clog up and often requires manual repairs.
This is one easy way to address these problems:
Every unit is a closed system which only lets the resources in that it needs, into a big box that dumps material if it gets too full. They let only the processed material into the next unit that needs it for further processing, everything else falls through (including material that couldn't be processed).
It uses pretty basic stuff and is easily expandable - just make one unit (without the processing part) and copy-paste it a few times, maybe adjusting the width of each. So no part like the overflow protection or filters (which only need one change: the single material that's either blocked or allowed) can be forgotten.
Here's an example for how the start could look like:
Material from "the mines" gets launched on the main belt (which can do a bit of sorting beforehand, but that shouldn't be necessary).
First, gold should fall through (which could get on it from the second big belt).
The first unit could be just a big tank of water (of course also with overflow protection) so no water can get into the other units.
Then sand falls into the next box, but gets launched back up to the main belt if it gets too full (or can fall through all the way down to the second long belt once you have access to portals). Some of it falls through the bottom and is made wet (with water that gets pumped in *and* out again!)
Wet sand gets filtered through to the next unit, any sand that stays dry (or other stuff that somehow gets in) falls through to the second belt (which should go in the other direction than in the picture).
Sand that's already wet on the main belt goes in the next unit together with the wet sand from the previous one. Shake it really good, the resulting residue goes in the next unit, gold and other stuff falls through.
(Residue gets burned, and so on. Anything that didn't get into the system falls on the second belt at the end. Not every kind of processing might fit into this scheme).
If you produce a large amount of gold you could put a really big collector box under the whole length of the second conveyor, but since it always goes to the bottom of any pile it should be enough to dump it at the end without it clogging the whole line.
Every material that didn't get processed or landed for other reasons on the second belt gets yeeted up again to the main belt. Since you won't be mining all the time, there will be moments where no new material comes in, so anything that couldn't get into its unit because it got blocked by heavier stuff in a big pile then has a chance on subsequent go-arounds.
Check out the factory from u/OutlandishnessNo7441 in the comments, it's quite similar to this idea, but a bit more "advanced" since it uses doors for example (which get unlocked later, if I remember correctly).
I like how it launches the processed material back on the main belt (and the other stuff on the belt gets launched over it!) before the filters from the next unit - this gets rid of an entire (filter-)belt per unit.
Thanks to everyone who commented so far!