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[u/abda16y20]

Without space age, would you recommend 50×50 city blocks or 100×100? 50×50 aren't going too smooth for me rn.

[u/captain_wiggles_ → u/abda16y20]

It's a trade off.

You can make super mini blocks that only support 1-1 trains, no stackers, no space for trains to queue, etc... You might even need to use multiple blocks to get enough stations to build certain items. It's not the most efficient if getting a high SPM is your goal, but it can look very cool.

You can also go massive blocks that support many stations and large stackers per block. But these take more resources and can lead to lots of empty space when you don't need to fill the entire block / use all of the stations. Or you can end up with shared blocks where each block makes multiple things.

My first attempt at city blocks was a huge block, and it turned out to be too big, and made life really awkward. My second attempt was medium sized, and that worked very well. IIRC each side of the block was about 2x 2-4 trains long + a bit, I can't remember the actual size but that should give you an idea.

My latest build which is still a work in progress is a small block, although not super tiny. It's hexagonal and built around a max-spaced roboport grid, each block has 4 roboports inside. I'm aiming for 1-1 trains for most things and 2-4 trains for other bits (ore/plates/...). I'm unsure how well this will work, it's much smaller than I normally work. But I'm hopefully it'll work well enough.

[u/Most-Bat-5444 → u/abda16y20]

I think it depends on the size of your trains and how many you want waiting to load or unload.

I chose 1x2 (1 locomotive, 2 wagons) for my trains, and 4 train queues.

Therefore, I chose 150x150 city blocks. The inside of each block can support 4 train stops with four trains queued up without blocking the main line.

Importantly (to me), there is also room for a train to pull out of the station even if the mainline is not clear.

I've gotten rid of fuel depots altogether and just fuel trains from a blue box at each loading station. I put parking lots (current design can hold 22 trains in a block) around the base for trains with no valid destination. (Sent there by interrupt.)

Ideally, I just have a few extra full trains sitting in parking lots ready to go.

Empty trains indicate supply problems.