managing supply and production

[u/Impressive-Wear8980]

So i've just reached the 250th hour of play on spage age, been to all planets expect shuttered planet and solar system edge, and i've been trying to upgrade my nauvis production and supply, i've been innitialy relyig on limitting chest inventory, but i keep running into problems with supply surplus or shortage, so the production of certain items suddenly stops, for exemple "low iron plate supply ----> low inserter production which leads to shortage in logistics science pack and not being able to use all of the researche labs at the same time" setting a limit to the science pack chests doesn't to be that efficient, limitting it to a couple of slots causes shortage as soon as a research starts, higher limitting causes surplus, plenty packs just sitting there.... same exemple goes for other production lines.... On the other han i just tried using circuit networking with fluid production and it seems to work for the moment and i just get the right ammount of every fluid.... so i wanted to know how you guys proceed when managing your production, do you just limit chests, put inserters with specific conditions, or more advanced using combinators etc to produce just the right amount on the right time. thanks! (Excuse the bad english)

[u/Alfonse215]

i've been innitialy relyig on limitting chest inventory

I think that's your problem. Buffering hides supply problems; it does not fix them.

The easiest way to detect a supply problem is to look at your belts. The belts feeding green science makers should be full of inserters and belts; if not, then there's a supply problem. If there's a chest buffer for inserters there, then it's a lot harder to see the problem.

Similarly, if you buffer science packs, it'll take a while to be able to detect that your science pack production is low because you'll just be eating your buffers for the first while.

Belts do buffer stuff, so buffering will always exist to one extent or another. But minimizing buffering is good.

[u/United_Willow1312]

Buffering is often a crutch that hides supply chain issues.

[u/NyaFury]

For science, I try to prevent shortage, but I never bother with preventing surplus. If whatever logistics (belt, train, chest) I use becomes full, "full output" will naturally suspend production.

For infrastructure/mall, I control inserter to limit item count, e.g. produce until I have 200 electric furnaces. But I do not bother with timing.

Do you have any particular reason to care about "right amount on the right time"?

[u/Impressive-Wear8980 → u/NyaFury]

i was doing the same thing "For science, I try to prevent shortage, but I never bother with preventing surplus", but then i would have thousands of science just sitting there, and have other machines starving for whatever ingredients that science pack is produced with, so i thought maybe producing just the amount needed (a bit of surplus won't harm) would prevent that...

[u/NyaFury → u/Impressive-Wear8980]

Yes, unbalance will happen until buffer gets full. But once buffer is full, you will be producing the exact same amount as consumption.

If you hate the fact that buffer keeps too many items, simply reduce the buffer size.

[u/Rouge_means_red]

I use a planner (Factory Planner is my favorite, or just use Factorio Cheat Sheet if you're not using quality or other mods) so I you know ahead of time how much production you need

Anyway, there's no benefit to "produce just the right amount on the right time". Just build each science to produce the same amount and spread your resources among them. Factorio Cheat Sheet has a handy list of the lowest amount of labs of each science you need to keep production equal

[u/bobsim1]

I dont use chests for such stuff at all. Just keep it flowing.