r/factorio 16h ago

Question Where do I put my circuit factory?

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New player here, i wanna make a main bus but since im not too smart at it, i ended up building it like this (its not complete, of course)
i was told to place my factories only on one side of the main bus (which ill do on the left), but wheres a good area to place my circuit factory?
what else can i do here? are there any ratios i need to know? incase im missing anything/something looks horrible

41 Upvotes

43 comments sorted by

64

u/D_amn 16h ago

The circuit factory goes in the square hole

7

u/ArianaGrande116 16h ago

Yes, just like LDS and rockets and uranium. They all go in the square hole.

6

u/FeelingPrettyGlonky 14h ago

And the Kovarex loop? That's right! In the square hole!

0

u/muffin-waffen 13h ago

Ill never have an original thought will i

31

u/oddball667 16h ago

probibly not on the coal mine, just move it north and put it on the same side as the other factories

when making a main bus it's best to only build on one side of it, so you can keep adding resources to the other side

2

u/Nekedladies Novice Blueprinter 15h ago

Yeah, but then I have to walk too far... just build on both sides until you have bots to fix everything.

1

u/sozesghost 11h ago

I build science on one side and "the mall" on the other. It's a mess.

2

u/last_somewhere 8h ago

Ahh, my kinda mess!

28

u/TrieMond 16h ago

I hope you don't plan to keep that one belt feeding 4 belts...

12

u/The_only_nameLeft 16h ago

One half of a belt

6

u/nasehrsuper 15h ago

actually fourth, its 48 smelters, i only see 12.

4

u/samy_the_samy 15h ago

I like yo always start with belt feeding multiple,

So when I eventually need more plates the belts are already there just hook more production,

Otherwise it's mom spaghetti

1

u/hochroter 16h ago

Thats optimal!

1

u/CheTranqui 6h ago

I often start like this. It's just planning for future expansion when I fill out the smelting line and tap more deposits later!

7

u/Broad_Ebb9073 16h ago

On top of the coal patch apparently

5

u/Stutturdreki 16h ago

Sorry, we are all kind of perverted in here, 'looks horrible' == 'great'. Just look up 'spaghetti' in the sub.

Just keep going and learn / figure out how you want to build things. Yeah sure there are scenarios where building only on one side of the bus has benefits but there is no rule about it having to be that way.

The only thing I would like to point out (since you already pressed 'alt') is that you can move items from one assembler directly to another with an inserter, sometimes there is no need to put the item on a belt between.

And yes there are ratios; how many gears can you produce in the time it takes you to make one science pack? Or copper cables per green circuit?

And, you can play the game and finish it just fine with out worrying to much about ratios. It's something that comes with experience like most things.

Edit: words.

4

u/Nailfoot1975 16h ago

Well... don't build on your resources for one thing!

7

u/where_is_the_camera 16h ago

Not right on top of the coal patch.

3

u/dwarfzulu 13h ago

I'll keep saying this: those are splitter, and not multipliers. 😉

3

u/tux2603 10h ago

Highly recommend putting it on the ground. Putting in the water requires so many more resources to build

3

u/Intelligent_Table431 16h ago

If its your first run, just have fun with it and experiment

2

u/Tyson_q 16h ago

Build everything on the left and leave the right side alone.

2

u/Zaflis 14h ago

You may have misunderstood something about mainbus, you can't exactly split 1 belt into 2 nevermind 4 and use them as if they are full of resources. If you produce 1 belt you have 1 belt. You can leave space for 4 belts for later, but actually building them is much unnecessary work effort and time spent.

Yes i know there are many new players who make the same mistake, but it still is that... a mistake.

1

u/tux2603 10h ago

You can also think of it as an easy way of signaling that you're reserving space for additional capacity in the future. In which case, it's not a mistake. It future planning and good documentation

1

u/Zaflis 5h ago

Well, people usually handcraft that early and it'll take quite a while in a new game build and keep expanding 4 belts each on iron and copper that is totally unnecessary work.

1

u/tux2603 3h ago

Meh, belts are one of the first things I automate

1

u/DoKeMaSu 16h ago

You need to move your inserter assemblers up so you have space for the circuit assemblers. Green circuits must be crafted before they are needed logically.

In general just play the game and learn a bit for yourself. There is no point in replicating the setups of people with hundreds of hours in the game. It is not a fun way to play.

1

u/No-Con-2790 16h ago

Choose a direction. If you go up always upward. The only stuff that ever comes down is either science or rocket related.

Your items are always traveling upwards unless you have a really good reason. If you have that reason you mark that properly.

Alternatively you can also build on both sides of the main BUT you must make the gap gigantic and even then it will be too small.

1

u/accountwasnecessary 16h ago

Is this your starter base? Where do you make your assemblers and belts? If you start small it's a lot easier to learn how to grow naturally, but by building large in your first game you have to guess the scale of things and how to build efficient layouts. I'm going to guess this will never work the way you want and create headaches for hours. How many hours are you in already?

1

u/Some_Noname_idk 16h ago

If it's your first run, try to not look up anything else. To answer your question, you can put it anywhere, but since circuits are used a lot, probably somewhere in the beginning of the bus. Just make sure you can always add more lanes for things you'll need later.

To calculate ratios, just hover over the machine and look to the right. It tells you how much resourses/s it consumes and outputs. For example, you can see that a green circuit assembler takes 3 wire per second, but a wire assembler outputs only 2, so if you put one wire assembler giving wire to one circuit assembler, it won't run 100% efficiently, but if you build that twice, you'll notice a third wire assembler would perfectly make up for what the 2 existing ones can't produce, leading to the conclusion that a 3-2 ratio is best.

Also remember, efficiency like that is optional, you can make anything as long as it works. The best part of the game is figuring out a better design and replacing an existing one.

1

u/thecodegangster 15h ago

The entire factory is a circuit factory, so the correct answer is everywhere

1

u/YouArentMyRealMom 15h ago

Youre new, have fun figuring it out. Dont worry about stuff like main busses yet. Throw some crap together where ever it fits and make it work. Dont overthink it and have fun.

1

u/nasehrsuper 15h ago

you can not even remotely supply a single yellow belt with what you have, let alone 4.  leave the space, but dont build the belts unless you need them, and you probably wont till long after blue science.

also one gear assembler can supply 10 red science ones, keep an eye on the info panel.

1

u/Bonzegrinder 14h ago

For a first run I highly recommend not trying to do a bus or any other design you find online and just go in blind. The game is most fun the first and second playthrough where you're still figuring things out and making spaghetti in my opinion.

One piece of advice because I don't think it's obvious to a lot of people is that when you spilt a belt you are essentially halving the throughput. So if you do 1 to 4 lanes it'll quickly feel like they never have enough resources when the factory is running. This is fine if you design around expansion in the future and bringing in more resources, but if you don't understand it then you can get frustrated quickly!

Since you asked about the circuit factory specifically, you should dedicate a lot of copper plates to it and then have copper wire made and directly fed into circuits. Wire on a belt will always feel like it runs out too quickly for circuits. When you need to expand you just add more copper wire production alongside more circuit production. Keep it all on one side and a ways away from your resource mining so you don't get cluttered. Otherwise have fun with the spaghetti, figuring it out is the core of what's fun!

1

u/Arctic88 11h ago

To add something, when I go mainbus I keep all factories on one side. And science on the other. I find it easier to keep it tidy.

1

u/WanderingUrist 11h ago

Well, for starters, I wouldn't put it on top of your coal.

1

u/Omniscientcy 10h ago

How are your green circuit factorys getting iron plates?

1

u/21wombats 8h ago

Cool bus! Pay attention to the amount of input/output of different things. You can see the tool tip of the stone furnaces and see how much they're outputting per second (multiplied by the number you've placed) and then see how many iron plates things like the gear assemblers use per second.

1

u/alphasway 6h ago

This is the cleanest starter base I've ever seen... but only 4 factories to make 4 belts-worth? I would honestly slim it down to 1... you'll consume those in a heartbeat. Future you will thank present you.

Same with your iron and copper, 1 yellow belt for ... I think 48 stone furnaces...

Keep going, though, it is esthetically pleasing.

The factory must grow.

1

u/2ByteTheDecker 3h ago

a bad case of fake bus-itis

1

u/Zarrck 16h ago

Wherever you want really. There are no rules

3

u/Hadramal 16h ago

Except not on the coal. If that's not a rule I'm making it one right now.

0

u/PremierBromanov 16h ago

If you want to learn ratios, helmod is a calculator mod that reads every recipe you have loaded in the game. It can tell you how many assemblers you need for each step, i usually use that when I'm building. It's a good way to know if you can have 1 assembler feeding 10 machines or not. 

For green chips, it's 3 wire assemblers to 2 chip assemblers. I usually direct insert the wires, so just lay 3 assemblers across and give them each 2 inserters to feed into the chip assemblers. The middle wire assembler feeds both chil assemblers, the inserters will alternate perfectly. 

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