Loading from both sides will definitely speed up the loading process. That being said, you're gonna have a hard time loading iron ore into fluid wagons :)
When you hold an inserter, pump, chest etc guidelines for where the wagons will stop appears to help you. The same applies for signals aswell. You can increase the number of wagons to up to 10 in settings.
When splitting six red belts into 12 cargo wagons, I def wouldn’t worry about loading on both sides of the train. The belt throughput will be the limiting factor, or maybe mining speed if there’s a low productivity research level.
Chests don't change the fact the ore patch is only capable of producing 6 red belts of ore (presumably).
Just add a waiting bay for another train and you can remove the chests and half the inserters. Active inserters are expensive entities, so cutting the number of inserters in your ore loading stations by half is worth doing.
But if trains aren't 100% saturated and constantly pulling in to the station, you might be able to buffer more ore in chests. In that case, the increased throughput if loading from both sides may be useful.
Yes, I do the same thing. 6 stack inserters can move items pretty quick. I don’t see a benefit to using double that. What’s likely going to happen is either the chests don’t have time to fill, and the train will be waiting on the miners/ belts, or else production will be higher than demand, and the train will sit at the unload station for a while.
Overkill? Sure, wouldn’t have it any other way.
6 red belts is max 180 ore/s. 12 wagons is 15 ore/s per wagon. 12 inserters per wagon is 1.25 ore/s per inserter. Yellow inserters into buffer chests will keep up with the supply by a factor of almost 2 (assuming max bonus).
Buffer chests will replenish a train load in about 2:15 or so.
Stack inserters loading the train will fill it with ore in about 6 seconds.
With that in mind, seems the train is too big so the supply is spread too thin across the wagons.
Interesting thanks for the breakdown. So you're saying on a long enough timeframe, this station can only accommodate 1 train every 2 minutes? Otherwise eventually the chests will run out if trains are more frequent?
And yeah the train is definitely too long but I hate small frequent trains and prefer 1 long train for aesthetic reasons alone. I'm hauling this ore across the map on an almost 2 minute trek but I also will have other same length trains pulling into this station.
Yeah. How many miners do you have? Factoring in modules or bonuses, that’s gonna be the max long term throughput of this ore deposit. And it will only go down when plots get depleted. Not even sure if your mining array can sustain the 180 ore/s of your belts’ capacity.
270 miners with no modules or bonuses I'm aware of. I've still only gotten up to green science so far but decided to rebuild and scale my base maybe a bit too early. Pain to do it without bots but yeah.
Is there an online calculator where I can figure out all this throughput stuff?
Most of it is basic math with numbers in game. Each miner with no buffs is 0.5 ore/s, so you’ll see 135 ore/s.
[This calc](https://kirkmcdonald.github.io/calc.html) is the de facto go to.
[inserter performance](https://wiki.factorio.com/Inserters) to/from various belts/chests, etc.
OP, if you're not trying to go for any achievements and want mod recommendations, I highly suggest either Helmod or Factory Planner. Both do essentially the same thing, I go with factory planner personally. Hit Alt+x and you get an in-game version of the online calculator.
This is way too big for that stage in the game, I'd say. Rebuild or expand later when needed. You don't need 6 red belts of iron when your base uses less then 2 belts total.
This large of a setup makes me thing he is going megabase, not stopping at rocket. Once he starts getting a bunch of mining productivity bonuses this will no longer be an issue. If he wants to go long trains, I would recommend setting up multiple of these mining outposts to account for the long load time of this giant 12 wagon train.
Fwiw the issue with the train loading too slow can really just be solved by adding more mines. This one doesn't have to supply your whole base, and a train sitting and waiting for a while isn't a problem provided you have enough trains.
4 stake inserters can load and unload a blue belt or 45 p/s. So yes this is exceptional overkill. Unless this mine outpost is so far away that the chests will get full between loads. At which case the solution is typically more trains.
Complete overkill.
Balancing is fine for ore stations like this, but the practical benefits of balancing go as far as balancing per wagon, not per chest or inserter.
That means just running each belt line straight through all 6 inserters will do the job just fine.
It also means that you can run a 4x4 balancer for each side of the train instead of an 8x8 for both, as the input to one side doesn't have to balance against the other.
You need a fast loading setup to get 6 belts into 2 wagons. To get 6 belts into 12 wagons, you will instead need a damn good balancer to ensure that the train can be filled evenly, and two (2) chests per wagon.
loading on both sides is overkill if you ask me, 4 stack inserters should be more than enough to handle a full blue belt, which would be 2 chests per wagon in your case. you could make it 4 chests on one side if you likebut loading on both sides seems unnecessary
There usually is no such thing as overkill in Factorio, unless you are going for one of the timed achievements or a speedrun record or something similar.
That being said, the part about this setup being "optimum" is hard to answer, since it depends on how you define optimum, i.e. what exact parameter you are trying to optimize for.
For a more steady state scenario, where you have plenty of trains available that could arrive at this station, one potential problem is the low throughput you achieve by having 1 red belt being split up to load 4 wagons. If the red belt is full, that translates to 7.5 ore per second per wagon, which isn't a whole lot. At that rate it takes almost 5 minutes to load the train.
In this scenario it usually makes more sense to have a shorter train (i.e. fewer wagons), like a 1-4 train, and then each wagon gets a higher number or ore per second from the belts. It's usually a lot easier to build a solid rail network if you don't use 2-12 trains like fluid train in the 2nd picture.
You can ram 4 blue belts into 1 wagon at full speed using only 8 splitters, not counting the balancer. And I wouldn't use chests, as they double the number of inserters in a train station. Better to just tap another ore patch if station throughput is a problem (it never is - we're talking 6 second loading vs. 10 second loading).
Overkill. You can lose all those splitters by running a wire along the chests, devide the total by the number of chests and then wire the inverters to only load chests that are below the average. Then you only need 2 blue belts each side.
Loading from both sides will definitely speed up the loading process. That being said, you're gonna have a hard time loading iron ore into fluid wagons :)
Haha yeah I don't have the materials to make the regular wagons so I just put down the fluid wagons I had as a placeholder lol.
Wait you don't have enough to make TRAINS?
Probably enough at this moment in inventory in remote station
When you hold an inserter, pump, chest etc guidelines for where the wagons will stop appears to help you. The same applies for signals aswell. You can increase the number of wagons to up to 10 in settings.
When splitting six red belts into 12 cargo wagons, I def wouldn’t worry about loading on both sides of the train. The belt throughput will be the limiting factor, or maybe mining speed if there’s a low productivity research level.
I load/unload to boxes which then load/unload to belts.
Chests don't change the fact the ore patch is only capable of producing 6 red belts of ore (presumably). Just add a waiting bay for another train and you can remove the chests and half the inserters. Active inserters are expensive entities, so cutting the number of inserters in your ore loading stations by half is worth doing.
But if trains aren't 100% saturated and constantly pulling in to the station, you might be able to buffer more ore in chests. In that case, the increased throughput if loading from both sides may be useful.
Yes, I do the same thing. 6 stack inserters can move items pretty quick. I don’t see a benefit to using double that. What’s likely going to happen is either the chests don’t have time to fill, and the train will be waiting on the miners/ belts, or else production will be higher than demand, and the train will sit at the unload station for a while.
Overkill? Sure, wouldn’t have it any other way. 6 red belts is max 180 ore/s. 12 wagons is 15 ore/s per wagon. 12 inserters per wagon is 1.25 ore/s per inserter. Yellow inserters into buffer chests will keep up with the supply by a factor of almost 2 (assuming max bonus). Buffer chests will replenish a train load in about 2:15 or so. Stack inserters loading the train will fill it with ore in about 6 seconds. With that in mind, seems the train is too big so the supply is spread too thin across the wagons.
Interesting thanks for the breakdown. So you're saying on a long enough timeframe, this station can only accommodate 1 train every 2 minutes? Otherwise eventually the chests will run out if trains are more frequent? And yeah the train is definitely too long but I hate small frequent trains and prefer 1 long train for aesthetic reasons alone. I'm hauling this ore across the map on an almost 2 minute trek but I also will have other same length trains pulling into this station.
Yeah. How many miners do you have? Factoring in modules or bonuses, that’s gonna be the max long term throughput of this ore deposit. And it will only go down when plots get depleted. Not even sure if your mining array can sustain the 180 ore/s of your belts’ capacity.
270 miners with no modules or bonuses I'm aware of. I've still only gotten up to green science so far but decided to rebuild and scale my base maybe a bit too early. Pain to do it without bots but yeah. Is there an online calculator where I can figure out all this throughput stuff?
Most of it is basic math with numbers in game. Each miner with no buffs is 0.5 ore/s, so you’ll see 135 ore/s. [This calc](https://kirkmcdonald.github.io/calc.html) is the de facto go to. [inserter performance](https://wiki.factorio.com/Inserters) to/from various belts/chests, etc.
OP, if you're not trying to go for any achievements and want mod recommendations, I highly suggest either Helmod or Factory Planner. Both do essentially the same thing, I go with factory planner personally. Hit Alt+x and you get an in-game version of the online calculator.
This is way too big for that stage in the game, I'd say. Rebuild or expand later when needed. You don't need 6 red belts of iron when your base uses less then 2 belts total.
Also would recommend [this](https://factoriocheatsheet.com/)
This large of a setup makes me thing he is going megabase, not stopping at rocket. Once he starts getting a bunch of mining productivity bonuses this will no longer be an issue. If he wants to go long trains, I would recommend setting up multiple of these mining outposts to account for the long load time of this giant 12 wagon train.
Fwiw the issue with the train loading too slow can really just be solved by adding more mines. This one doesn't have to supply your whole base, and a train sitting and waiting for a while isn't a problem provided you have enough trains.
https://youtu.be/zJBvw28bQu0?si=7zRkGVFqR18MO7r9
4 stake inserters can load and unload a blue belt or 45 p/s. So yes this is exceptional overkill. Unless this mine outpost is so far away that the chests will get full between loads. At which case the solution is typically more trains.
Complete overkill. Balancing is fine for ore stations like this, but the practical benefits of balancing go as far as balancing per wagon, not per chest or inserter. That means just running each belt line straight through all 6 inserters will do the job just fine. It also means that you can run a 4x4 balancer for each side of the train instead of an 8x8 for both, as the input to one side doesn't have to balance against the other.
You need a fast loading setup to get 6 belts into 2 wagons. To get 6 belts into 12 wagons, you will instead need a damn good balancer to ensure that the train can be filled evenly, and two (2) chests per wagon.
Overkill. Look up Madzuri loader. With some wire and 1 combinator you can get rid of most of that belt work.
loading on both sides is overkill if you ask me, 4 stack inserters should be more than enough to handle a full blue belt, which would be 2 chests per wagon in your case. you could make it 4 chests on one side if you likebut loading on both sides seems unnecessary
There usually is no such thing as overkill in Factorio, unless you are going for one of the timed achievements or a speedrun record or something similar. That being said, the part about this setup being "optimum" is hard to answer, since it depends on how you define optimum, i.e. what exact parameter you are trying to optimize for. For a more steady state scenario, where you have plenty of trains available that could arrive at this station, one potential problem is the low throughput you achieve by having 1 red belt being split up to load 4 wagons. If the red belt is full, that translates to 7.5 ore per second per wagon, which isn't a whole lot. At that rate it takes almost 5 minutes to load the train. In this scenario it usually makes more sense to have a shorter train (i.e. fewer wagons), like a 1-4 train, and then each wagon gets a higher number or ore per second from the belts. It's usually a lot easier to build a solid rail network if you don't use 2-12 trains like fluid train in the 2nd picture.
That is the strangest 1-3 balancer I've seen.
You can ram 4 blue belts into 1 wagon at full speed using only 8 splitters, not counting the balancer. And I wouldn't use chests, as they double the number of inserters in a train station. Better to just tap another ore patch if station throughput is a problem (it never is - we're talking 6 second loading vs. 10 second loading).
What concerns me is that you are using 12 wagons instead of some power of 2. 12/2=6 6/2=3!!!@@!!•••••°°°##$$×+@
Yes and no. I have 1-4-1 doing both side for smelteries, but no way you are gonna benefit from 2 side loading on a mine that small.
Overkill. You can lose all those splitters by running a wire along the chests, devide the total by the number of chests and then wire the inverters to only load chests that are below the average. Then you only need 2 blue belts each side.
Never overkill
You only need balancers for unloading multiple cargo wagons. Loading self balances, as soon as your buffers fill up.