Robot Based Designs & Layouts (And Pros/Cons To Each)

Things Might Get A Bit Crazy

The Most Highly Optimized

A More Simple Method

Earlier Game Bot Design

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Robot Based smelting designs can come in all shapes and sizes, have many different levels of optimizations and levels of production. I can't show every possible design because they can be almost endless. There will be a couple showed below that have some distinct differences from one another.Now I know it is a bit hard to see, but the sheer size of some of these designs makes it difficult to get a good screenshot that still shows the whole thing. This design is probably one of the most highly optimized and game performance efficient setups out there. I use it in one of my YouTube series and so far it hasn't failed me. I suppose I should define what I mean by "optimized". In this case, optimized designs are built to try and be the most game performance efficient as possible, so taking the least amount of processing possible in-game and therefore allowing you to build even bigger.There are many different tricks utilized here to make this so well optimized.- The whole design is tapered, with each row being shorter. This greatly helps reduce bot travel.- The train unload/load chests are interwoven together to save space and therefore bot travel.- Only the minimum amount of Inserters are used on the trains to reduce Inserter counts.- The higher throughput Logistic Chests in the smelters are towards the center of the train area so minimize bot ravel.I know that was probably a lot to take in. This build is really only something you would use in a megabase where the game performance has a big impact on your play. One of these designs will produce roughly 24.7k plates per minute. This particular version if the build is setup to support 3-10-3 ore train and 3-6-3 plate trains, it could be reduced to support smaller trains though.There actually isn't much to list for Pros/Cons of this one... The "Pros" are essentially mentioned in the above bullet points, and so far I haven't encountered any issues or "Cons" with it. I suppose the only main issue is that it's insanely expensive to build in the first place. ;)If you want aof this exact design you can find it, as well as many others, check out the Other Resources section at the end.At first glance, this smelter looks pretty much the same as the one above, but actually, has a much larger impact on game performance. It is quite a bit simpler to build though. The first thing to notice is that this design is not tapered and uses a lot more Inserters on the train loading/unloading. Also, it does not share chests at the smelters.This may sound bad, but honestly, if you aren't going super, mega, or giga-scale, this type of design will work great for you! You won't notice any game performance impact unless you plan to build many of these.This particular design does about 30k plate a minute, but the concept is what's important. You could use this concept to make a bigger or smaller smelter to fit your needs.It is completely viable to use robot based smelting before you get beacons or modules, and there are many different ways you could do it. The above picture is just one example. It uses the same general techniques to be a bit more optimized, like having all the chests be on the side of the smelters that's closest to the train station. There are also only 4 unload Inserters on the train because 6 or more would just be complete overkill.Now, of course, your bots are going to hate you while trying to operate in a design like this, but for earlier in the game, before you get beacons/modules, a few designs similar to this would work totally fine. Depending on the size of your base, these would even work late game. Definitely sufficient to make the materials needed to make a rocket or two. :)As an ending statement, I'd like to reinforce the idea of creating your own designs if you're up for it. These builds are just examples to show you different concepts, and you are welcome to copy them, but these are certainly not the only way to build a smelter, so give it a shot with creating your own! If you have issues, I'm happy to answer any questions on my Discord or in the comments here or on my videos. :) The Factorio Reddit and Forums are great places to ask for help too.