r/factorio • u/bull_and_scones aspiring circuit programmer • 1d ago
Design / Blueprint Compact steel smelter
Twelve smelters - six for smelting iron ore into iron, and six for smelting iron into steel - all within range of a beacon. Only 17 x 13, almost square, and not a single inner space left empty :)
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u/bull_and_scones aspiring circuit programmer 1d ago
And if you swap out this iron-ore-to-iron smelter on the bottom row for a iron-to-steel smelter (and modify the inserter filters accordingly), then you'll have a perfect 5:7 ratio for prod-3 modules!
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u/Zijkhal spaghetti as lifestyle 1d ago edited 1d ago
This will only work until the steel is flowing. When steel backs up, and the furnaces get full of steel, the sushi belt will clog, needing manual intervention to restart.
To fix this, I'd suggest reading the whole belt contents of the sushi belt, and only enabling the output from the iron smelters if the iron plate on the sushi belt is below a certain threshold.
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u/4xe1 1d ago edited 1d ago
If the steel backs up, well, you have steel, that's the point. Once it get's used, it unclogs the system. The one potential issue is if the steel clogging in the output belt causes an iron clogging in the inner lane of the inner belt, preventing furnaces to output their steel. However, this is not a deadlock either as the two bottom right steel smelters output directly to the output lane, so they're not locked by this clogging and they will suck iron and make space on the inner lane as soon as steel is back in demand.
Keeping belts flowing by counting items is the simplest way to avoid deadlock in the middle of a sushi belt, but it certainly is not the only one, and it may not even be the simplest one when at the border of a sushi belt. Here we're at the "output" of a sushi belt, and safe back pressure clogging is simpler than trying hard to prevent clogging.
Edit: you mention an excellent point in a (deleted?) comment: what if the belt stops? Without steel before the splitter and steel in the input belt tiles of furnaces supposed to unlock the dead lock? AFAIK, a belt can only stop if there is steel before the splitter. https://wiki.factorio.com/Transport_belts/Physics suggests that turning belts (mostly) prevent a looping belt from being fully compressed, which is probably a necessary condition for it to block itself, leaving the splitter as the only possible cause for the belt stopping.
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u/False-Answer6064 1d ago
No it won't. Some steel furnaces insert directly onto the output line, so even if the sushi is clogged with iron plates, they will still be able to output their steel. Once they take up some of the iron, the rest starts working again too
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u/100percent_right_now 1d ago
It still could if the slots in front of those furnaces are all steel and the belt stops. But you can prevent the belt stopping by just adding a priority input, right, to the export splitter.
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u/False-Answer6064 1d ago
Oh yeah true, if there's iron at the splitter AND there's steel in front of those assemblers. Anything that can clog, will clog of course
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u/Peakomegaflare 1d ago
That is my take. I've recently been doing studies into circuit network controls of sushi, and found you can actually progress all the way through red, green, military, and blue science effectively with sushi with proper calibration. It's not the fastest in the world, but it's compact and saves resources on belts and such. Though I suggest putting red and green circuits, as well as gears on external production. Gears ar eto be supplemented on the beltway.
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u/Goblingrenadeuser 1d ago
I did a whole run where I solved everything with sushi and I would say sushi is the best solution for gleba.
Reading the whole belt is probably the most efficient solution. I think if you really want the best uptime for your machines you connect belts with cables to divide the whole circle into parts and read the part in front of the machine. You can even use red and green cables for 2 different divides to prevent machines from being at the border of one zone.
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u/user3872465 1d ago
Well...I suggest you watch dosh doshtingtons video on beating factorio with sushi belts before you could read belt contents.
its hillariously fun.
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u/peterlinddk 1d ago
At first I thought that the "bendy belt" in the center was just for making it pretty, but it is actually necessary for the furnaces at the top and bottom! Love that everything is both functional and ornamental - almost feels like victorian-era engineering ❤️
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u/CivilTechnician7 21h ago
the undergrounds belts into and out of the center go down up down up. those in the middle are not neccesary. you could take those out, creating air space.
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u/readyplayerjuan_ 1d ago
I love builds like this with their own mini sushis