It still surprises me this isn't a core part of the game yet.

Taking advantage of the two-lane belt system is as easy as feeding belts onto the sides, yet trying to split them requires arcane mechanics exploits with, of all unrelated things, tunnels.

When it comes to lane balancing a double-lane belt that's transporting a single item type, the simplest solution is best. Resource back-up will inevitably throttle production to meet demand anyway, so it doesn't particularly matter what goes on what side of the belt, as long as you're utilizing as m...

Awesome and tight knit, but I like to condense the number of inputs a bit so that it's easier to ship via train. That said, Usually my electronics section brings in copper, iron, sulfur (with locally supplied water), and plastics from the refineries. I do this because this saves the trouble of havin...

I remember hearing somewhere that electric pumps may have a lower 'push' rate than the offshore pumps. This was back in a thread where I mentioned that it appeared as though pumps attached to the steam cycle caused a 'blowout' and the whole system failed. If it was a matter of flow restriction, I wo...

I think the problem is with the inadequacy of regular turrets, which require routine resupply and are only effective against small biters, better than nothing for mediums, and completely inneffectual against large biters. Laser turrets are tough to obtain, but once hooked up require zero maintenance...

It's a pretty clean in-line design. The first thing I would want to do is splitter-conjoin two or four of these lines to increase the throughput and take advantage of the narrow profile, and make it easier to dual-lane these for processing or train shipment. I find transporting ore via train is less...

You want more red and blue packs early because the research timers are shorter during those tech phases. Ten labs is usually a conservatively sane amount to work with. You want those five redpack factories early, since 15-sec cycle projects will eat a pack every 1.5 seconds (with ten labs). Same wit...

trains enable a multipurpose solution over long distances. The longer the distance, the more efficient they are. Items are not 'left' on the tracks, nor take ages to reach a production line any longer than it takes for the train to run its course. Belts are for high throughput needs over short dista...

why does it look like there's water in one of your output pipes?

My profile pic has mine.

All you really have to do is set up a small 'smart' train station to cycle fresh oil barrels as a part of the fuel run. Generally, you should plan your needs around depleted splats, rather than having to always run around looking for fresh surplus. The supply is always front-loaded, and doesn't last...

It's up to the player to balance solar vs steam. I almost always start out initially with a full 36 steam engine, coal-powered plant, and that forms my core power backbone for quite a while. I eventually wean off to nearly full solar, but that's a long, ongoing process. I reserve accumulators for po...

Staying clean costs space, yeah. It's good to have 'green zones' that don't attract biter attention, IMO. When dealing with laser turrets, I usually prefer to run them on their own power network (accumulator bank and steam plant). That steam plant is also coupled to the primary grid, but you can't b...

Very intressting usage of the cargo wagons :idea: Huh, you didn't know that? With the "inserter stack size bonus" tech, chests are becoming much more important for moving items in bulks, as opposed to belts. But the chest is only 1x1, and the amount of inserters you can place for it is al...

The right way is to produce exactly so much and perhaps a little bit more, that it fits the needs. :) This rule is the more valid, the more advanced the produced item is. The difference in game progression is gigantic, if you follow that rule. There's only one real exception, and that's when it com...

It's a hard concept to explain, but pretty straightforward once you get a grip on it. SIgnals force trains to acknowledge which direction a section of track can be traveled. One signal, one-way only. Two signals (directly across from one another), two way track. Signals placed next to different tile...

there are a few good applications. Pumps can be used after long sections of pipe to force-fill a tank at the end. Otherwise, fluid will proportionately fill the tank and every section of pipe. If you have an un-barreling plant connected to the pipeline, using pumps can ensure you aren't back-filling...

Nifty, but I don't really see where this is better than a multisplitter setup (thinking practically). Normally the only reason to use a disjointed belt-inserter system would be if you've got a 'garbage belt sorter' problem. Simple load-balancing is usually best done with splitters and varying the be...

this is one way of doing it. Sorry, but it's a small peeve of mine. There is NO reason to use anything other than standard (yellow) or Long-arm inserters for smelting processes. Smelters operate at sufficiently low frequency that these are sufficient to input/output effectively. In fact, there are ...

The car is only functionally useful in areas almost fully devoid of trees. Since the recent updates, this has limited car usefulness to desert regions only. The steering is 'bad', so you're going to run into just about everything unless you slow to a crawl or keep a ten-square channel clear. Trees w...