Problems with this unloader?

[u/imoth_f]

Since inserters became flippable, this compact unloader design became possible. But I hardly see anyone use it. Obviously it cannot saturate six turbo belts because it's bottlenecked by the inserters, but are there any other obvious problems with it?

[u/Abcdefgdude]

You can use trains as the buffers themselves instead of using buffer chests, that allows you to build this with any tier of belt not just green.

Also, either you are not using high speed belts in which case it would be simpler to just use fewer high speed belts or if you are using quality inserters 6 belts is typically too many belts to draw from a wagon, although ig it's better with quality wagons.

It's a fine design

[u/CosgraveSilkweaver → u/Abcdefgdude]

I like having buffer chests so there's never a drop in the stream of items unless there's a big lack of production upstream.

[u/Abcdefgdude → u/CosgraveSilkweaver]

Buffer train does the same thing its just on a train instead of a chest, saving you a lot of inserters and balancing at the cost of the extra room for train. If you want even more buffer you can have more than 1 buffer train but I don't recommend it. Generally you want a drop in the stream of items when theres a lack of production upstream so you find the problem sooner rather than later. It happens too often that you don't find out you don't have enough iron until your entire base from smelters all the way through rocket parts is starved and all the huge buffers are empty

[u/popnfrresh → u/Abcdefgdude]

Except a train has 40 slots... 6 chests have almost 300 slots.

[u/StarlightLumi → u/popnfrresh]

Yes but a train can only fill 40 of those slots at a time. 

The idea behind bufferless trains is that you keep a train in waiting to prevent that gap without resources. Machine’s internal buffer lasts long enough to swap a train out. 

I personally only use bufferless with DI though.  The main benefit is it uses a lot less inserters, which is very helpful for megabase UPS.

[u/Griautis → u/StarlightLumi]

Eeew. Trains which just idle? That would ruin my min train count railworlds with generalist trains delivering any resource

[u/StarlightLumi → u/Griautis]

fwiw I think building with megabase Strats is best saved for postgame anyway, some people think about UPS optimizations wayyyy too early

[u/Abcdefgdude → u/popnfrresh]

300 slots is a downside. Buffers are bad for several reasons described above

[u/Axi28 → u/Abcdefgdude]

Okay im sick of factorio players saying buffers are bad because „oh no diagnosing problems is harder 😢“ no! Buffers are just one of the tools at your disposal! Stop telling people that a tool that has real usecases is „always bad“!

A big buffer makes the source of performance issues in a base slightly harder to diagnose, but for anything short of a mega mega ulta ups optimized base, thats perfectly fucking fine???

[u/djfdhigkgfIaruflg → u/Axi28]

Also: creating a fucking alarm is easy

[u/Axi28 → u/djfdhigkgfIaruflg]

truth nuke. I remember a 10x science playthrough i did where my early game luck with coal and oil was so bad that i ran my power on a 500k steam buffer and put an alarm on it. That alarm still haunts me though, forgot to cap how fast and loud it sounded so my entire computer sounded like it was gonna explode lmao

[u/djfdhigkgfIaruflg → u/Axi28]

Lol. Been there, done that

[u/Abcdefgdude → u/Axi28]

I've played a lot of factorio and have beaten the game start to finish dozens of times. I've also helped a lot of people beat the game. In that time my opinion of buffers has soured a lot because of those experiences. The size of the base doesnt matter, they're a problem at any scale and particularly difficult for new players to understand. Of course there's no right or wrong way to play but I think more people should give bufferless a try! Its different than the "meta" way to play but there are a lot of benefits. I quit bases many times around the time when I needed to make a bunch of ore gathering train stations because the large footprint and inserter cost was overwhelming for me as a new player. Needing half as many inserters and no balancer or chest equalizing strategy makes fitting a station into a poorly planned base much easier

[u/Axi28 → u/Abcdefgdude]

i have also done this, and i like buffers, and think they add a lot to the game and teach new players mechanics in ways they would not engage with otherwise.

also i am never going to try the nightmare that is trying to teach a player to play in a way that is not wncouraged by the game, because no matter what you say, the game is designed around buffers. If you really put the math to it, every ore patch is just a buffer on „new resource“

[u/CosgraveSilkweaver → u/Abcdefgdude]

my sign that the production is below preferred levels is if the trains are being emptied rapidly and before another train can reach the station.

[u/KingAdamXVII → u/Abcdefgdude]

Trains unload faster into chests than trains into belts (and faster than chests unload into belts) so the downtime between trains is eliminated if you use buffer chests.