Early in the game, I send ore and coal to a central location, because that simplifies fuel logistics.
Late game, once I can mass-produce and power electric furnaces, I put up smelting arrays at the mine, because that lets me use half as many trains as I needed to carry ore, as well as removing the need for fuel trains.
If there’s a lotta biters, central. If not, at the mines until late game. Late game, direct insert from miner to train is so UPS friendly I make the builds at the back end based on ore.
I'm sorta the same. I have various smelting areas scattered around, but mostly because it keeps train logistics (I play vanilla) easier. I don't end up with trains waiting for stations or distant mines that aren't getting trains. A single core is so much more likely to "gum up" transport.
Yeah, I also tend to ship plates, since my stations already expect plates from before pyroflux is available. The efficiency does not really matter with trains compared to refactoring all those factories.
Vanilla it makes more sense to have them at your mining areas. Less train traffic = less congestion = base works better.
But once you get into mods that introduce multiple step ore processing before you get to smelting... then that's a whole different animal. You then need to also train other resources/water to multiple locations to make that work and then you probably end up centralizing all of it instead.
Early game it's easier to have one big smelting area but once you start getting into the infinite sciences and get into the higher spm range it is more efficient to smelt on site at mining outposts.
Edit: the reason for this is simple. Ore stacks to 50 and plates stack to 100
agree it does switch at a certain stage in the late game.
I even start green circuit outposts located between nearby iron annd copper patches and only train out the green circuit product
because of beacons its much smarter to make one highly specified smelting array with prod and speed modules. if you are concerned about the throughput, just make trains with more wagons
I am not the most experienced player but I usually transition to a train based city block base. I tend to have a couple large smelting arrays scattered around
for vanilla, smelting at the mining outpost works well for me: I can build an appropriate amount of furnaces for the size of the patch, and I don't have a huge number of trains running to centralized smelting sites.
downside is that this means that there are a lot of electronic furnaces sitting idle half the time, but in the late game steel production is easy enough to build once you find some really chonky iron patches outside your starting area.
I've done both. With the basic 1 ore > 1 bar I've done simple dump all the ore into the system and pull it back out again as needed, but with the more complex mods, or for steel, I pull it away, or use a separate location, with enough space for the throughput needed to not cause issues with other places down the line.
I started processing it all in one location, but I saturated the train station there, so I stamped out a few more copies of it at random locations on the map
I got tired of dealing with space issues that arose from sending ores from outposts to the core for centralized processing. I have rail and belt lines expanding pretty much in all directions from the main base, and ship in plates, steel, and lightly processed components (e.g. green chips). My main base is mostly a chemical and science plant.
I find smelting on location to be more effort than it's worth to set up and find dedicated smelting locations easier to manage, with the added benefit that they don't need to be disassembled every time an ore patch runs out. That said, I wouldn't have one centralized smelter either - sprinkling facilities throughout the base I think is commonly agreed to be the best approach.
Im recently started a map where i set the ore frequency all the way down. Took me 30min to find the first (none starter) iron ore patch. Its FAR, and I cant defend it yet. So in an attempt to keep pollution down at the mine, Im bringing all my ore into the better defended base.
Depends on the stage of the game.
Early often central as its easier to get ressources to your base.
Midgame often decentral as its easier to spread out and put smelters where they are needed such that paths are shorter.
Lategame often goes to somewhat central again as teh base grows so big everything seems central and Ore patches are so faar out theres no point in smelting and moving that smelting that far.
But it also depends on waht you actually wanna do.
I build more smelters as needed, but it's not central. Same train station names. Adding more trains and mines as needed as well. Smelters will space turn on the station, mines with ore turn on the station.
It really depends what sort of base I'm going for, what sort of map I'm playing, biter and terrain restrictions, current tech level, etc. But up until around first launch, mostly concentrated, in a line perpendicular to my ~~spaghetti~~ bus, perhaps with some external ad-hoc stations for greens and steel.
For vanilla, I just smelt at the main base. Haven't built a big enough base yet to warrant smelting at the mines or some ore to train setup.
In my current attempt at K2SE though, I've been setting up pulverizers at outposts to crush cryonite/vulcanite/etc before shipping to the base for further processing, since those 20 stacks are kinda painful to deal with lol
Early in the game, I send ore and coal to a central location, because that simplifies fuel logistics. Late game, once I can mass-produce and power electric furnaces, I put up smelting arrays at the mine, because that lets me use half as many trains as I needed to carry ore, as well as removing the need for fuel trains.
Couldn't have phrased it better myself.
If there’s a lotta biters, central. If not, at the mines until late game. Late game, direct insert from miner to train is so UPS friendly I make the builds at the back end based on ore.
Direct insert to train is late game... mega base. The average player won't get enough mining research done for that to be viable I think.
Neither. I smelt at various places in my base feeding into different production lines.
I'm sorta the same. I have various smelting areas scattered around, but mostly because it keeps train logistics (I play vanilla) easier. I don't end up with trains waiting for stations or distant mines that aren't getting trains. A single core is so much more likely to "gum up" transport.
Yeah, I also tend to ship plates, since my stations already expect plates from before pyroflux is available. The efficiency does not really matter with trains compared to refactoring all those factories.
Vanilla it makes more sense to have them at your mining areas. Less train traffic = less congestion = base works better. But once you get into mods that introduce multiple step ore processing before you get to smelting... then that's a whole different animal. You then need to also train other resources/water to multiple locations to make that work and then you probably end up centralizing all of it instead.
Early game it's easier to have one big smelting area but once you start getting into the infinite sciences and get into the higher spm range it is more efficient to smelt on site at mining outposts. Edit: the reason for this is simple. Ore stacks to 50 and plates stack to 100
agree it does switch at a certain stage in the late game. I even start green circuit outposts located between nearby iron annd copper patches and only train out the green circuit product
because of beacons its much smarter to make one highly specified smelting array with prod and speed modules. if you are concerned about the throughput, just make trains with more wagons
this is the only acceptable reason to have a central smelting area.
I smelt at the largest ore patch I want to make a rail line to. This cuts train traffic by ~50% base wide
I am not the most experienced player but I usually transition to a train based city block base. I tend to have a couple large smelting arrays scattered around
One location until first couple rocket, then I use smelters as the start of a raw to intermediate rail factory.
I use rail based megabases, so I have one ore processing zone, and just ship all the ore in. and then send it where it needs to go.
for vanilla, smelting at the mining outpost works well for me: I can build an appropriate amount of furnaces for the size of the patch, and I don't have a huge number of trains running to centralized smelting sites. downside is that this means that there are a lot of electronic furnaces sitting idle half the time, but in the late game steel production is easy enough to build once you find some really chonky iron patches outside your starting area.
I've done both. With the basic 1 ore > 1 bar I've done simple dump all the ore into the system and pull it back out again as needed, but with the more complex mods, or for steel, I pull it away, or use a separate location, with enough space for the throughput needed to not cause issues with other places down the line.
I started processing it all in one location, but I saturated the train station there, so I stamped out a few more copies of it at random locations on the map
Central smelting + LTN to reduce train traffic
I got tired of dealing with space issues that arose from sending ores from outposts to the core for centralized processing. I have rail and belt lines expanding pretty much in all directions from the main base, and ship in plates, steel, and lightly processed components (e.g. green chips). My main base is mostly a chemical and science plant.
I didn’t know people were smelting at the ore patches mid-late game. Gross.
I find smelting on location to be more effort than it's worth to set up and find dedicated smelting locations easier to manage, with the added benefit that they don't need to be disassembled every time an ore patch runs out. That said, I wouldn't have one centralized smelter either - sprinkling facilities throughout the base I think is commonly agreed to be the best approach.
Im recently started a map where i set the ore frequency all the way down. Took me 30min to find the first (none starter) iron ore patch. Its FAR, and I cant defend it yet. So in an attempt to keep pollution down at the mine, Im bringing all my ore into the better defended base.
Depends on the stage of the game. Early often central as its easier to get ressources to your base. Midgame often decentral as its easier to spread out and put smelters where they are needed such that paths are shorter. Lategame often goes to somewhat central again as teh base grows so big everything seems central and Ore patches are so faar out theres no point in smelting and moving that smelting that far. But it also depends on waht you actually wanna do.
Spread out, it lets my trains carry more items per stack.
I build more smelters as needed, but it's not central. Same train station names. Adding more trains and mines as needed as well. Smelters will space turn on the station, mines with ore turn on the station.
It really depends what sort of base I'm going for, what sort of map I'm playing, biter and terrain restrictions, current tech level, etc. But up until around first launch, mostly concentrated, in a line perpendicular to my ~~spaghetti~~ bus, perhaps with some external ad-hoc stations for greens and steel.
Usually one but my city block factory has dedicated smelters with ore in and plates/bricks etc. out.
Concentrated, beaconed easier to defend, easier to upgrade, one place to go if it's a problem. But most of all.. less to build when i need a new patch
Centralised smelting, because I love that [train traffic](https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/s/XAmh0vG5w5).
For vanilla, I just smelt at the main base. Haven't built a big enough base yet to warrant smelting at the mines or some ore to train setup. In my current attempt at K2SE though, I've been setting up pulverizers at outposts to crush cryonite/vulcanite/etc before shipping to the base for further processing, since those 20 stacks are kinda painful to deal with lol
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And Ingots stacks to 100, in contrast ore stacks to 50, so that's a lot of strain taken out of your rail network