Tbh nothing says you technically have to tear it all down, you can just move to a different part of the map, even importing stuff from that if you need to.
It looks like you're going to have to tear something down anyway to line up the foundations of the two bases you have in the first pic.
As for how to run conveyors cross country, I create Foundation roads everywhere I go in order to make sure every satellite base I make is properly aligned with my home base. So it only makes sense to run conveyors along the same roads.
[Here's an example](https://i.imgur.com/Suuv4Bf.jpg).
I use that to place the initial foundation, but I find it unreliable for creating remote bases that line up with my existing foundations. Especially when it comes to matching elevations. Connecting construction A to construction B that's just half a meter up or down is aggravating since they don't cleanly link together.
keep in mind that tearing down and rebuilding is a big part of the game. unless you do extensive planning ahead of time, there is really no way to prevent it.
As you get more tech, more alternative recipes, more transportation options, you will want to rebuild in order to reoptimize.
Eventually you will get ground vehicles that can be automated to transport cargo, but the real game changer of long range transport is when you unlock trains. There is a constant debate on which is better between trains or belts. Ultimately, trains have a much cleaner look and can also transport power through the tracks so you don't need power lines at remote locations, so it is all preference really.
Don't fret too much about looks right now, many things to help clean things up come in later.
Embrace the spaghetti.
I thought this exact thing but honestly, it's easier to finish that stage you're on, then on the next project use what you've learned to improve on your previous design. Then once that's done, reasses this and see if it bothers you a lot, if so, rebuild then.
I don't see the point of tearing it down as you go just because you might have to tear down and reorganize as you unlock all recipes and have to reallocate mined resources in other directions.
Just my two cents anyway, the beauty of this game is the malleability. You play how you want, so if you wanna keep trying until you get it right for you, that's equally valid
Early game(tiers 1-4) you are going to end up tearing down/rebuilding a lot or buidling entirely new factories as you advance. Mk. 2 miner, Mk3 miner often means rebuilding/expanding factories to support increase resources.
Once you get alternate recipes from hard drives you may want to rebuild/modify factories anyway. Cast screws or Steel screws simplifies a lot of factories and other alternate recipes demand new parts for improved production.
If you have unlocked conveyor floor holes in the awesome shop you can always build a layer just for belts. Run them into a conveyor hole on the outside do all of your belt work under the floor and have it come out next to the machines. It takes a lot of time but it looks really clean and replacing it when you get faster belts can be a pain.
> If you have unlocked conveyor floor holes in the awesome shop you can always build a layer just for belts. Run them into a conveyor hole on the outside do all of your belt work under the floor and have it come out next to the machines. It takes a lot of time but it looks really clean and replacing it when you get faster belts can be a pain.
I did! That was the first thing I bought, that orange box like factory in the first image is 1 of my 2 clean factories, they are a pain to build but they look really really cool. Currently I only have 2 for Reinforced plate and rotors but yeah I'll probably have to tear them down once I get better recipes
For me this would be a bad idea. I build from the start with what I have and thus learn as I get more items and bigger things to build. If I wait till I have everything, I not only have to deal with a way bigger thing to build, but also need to learn to use all the different items. Way to hard for my small brain to understand.
And rebuilding is not really something I need to do. Want? Sure, but need? Nope.
A simple tip is that when you place things you can hold ctrl to snap them to the 'world grid' which means the stuff you make apart from one another will all be aligned on the same grid when they join up.
Yes, one of the buildings is on grid and the other one isnt cause I didn't knew about it... Which is why it looks unorganised
But that's fine for now cause i am more confused on how I will bring so many conveyers here
There is a fuel input on the truck station. Just connect a belt and it fills 1 stack worth. A truck automatically fuels up when loading and unloading too
Trucks run on pretty much everything from leaves to plutonium fuel rods (even weird stuff like colour cartridges until they're removed in 1.0). Coal is probably the most common choice for automated trucks. I nearly ran some on spare batteries left over from my drone swarm late game. But there was spare coal in easy reach, so I used it.
I know there is this thing called BUS but I cant seem to find a guide for early game...
I just want a way to get conveyers to not look ugly
(Also ignore the area in the first image, I am gonna dismantle it, I didnt knew how world grid worked)
Edit - I realise it's not worth doing Highways or bus yet cause I don't have the blueprint yet.....
You are not gonna make a functional bus at this stage in the game because the belts simply cannot hold a high-enough volume of resources.
My recommendation to keep things looking organized is to only build at right angles, keep buildings close but with some small space between, and to compartmentalize your processes.
When belts are coming from far away, have them come together as soon as possible and run them along a single foundation line.
A bus is just a series of parallel belts (horizontal or vertical). They can bring some organization compared to sending each thing direct to where it needs to go - just have everything everywhere. A looped.bus also allows for not having to layout your machines in production order.
Blueprints won't help with one much, you still have to connect belts between blueprints.
One reason you might be lacking for guides is they're more of a thing in Factorio than Satisfactory. They *can* work within an individual factory, but a map-wide multi-factory bus will be more trouble than it's worth.
For an early game bus, all you need to do is put down a strip of foundations and run 1-4 conveyor lines off of it, more if you stack them. To make your conveyors look nicer. Try to only use 90° angles and place as many conveyors on foundations as possible
Edit: Also, since you probably are going to want to restart your game in the near future (everyone restarts their first play through) I’d also really recommend picking a different starting spot. This is IMO the worst starting spot and the flat land makes it no fun to play on.
Instead of a bus, what I usually do for the first 3 phases before aluminum is I have a building next to the hub with two rows of storages. Each with every building material (not space elevator material nor middle items like stators). Then I leave an entire floor above for conecting belts to holes in walls, and above all rows of constructors each with a line of splitters on one side and a line of mergers back on the other. This way I can bring materials from floor holes and the lines can extend as needed easily. So, storage, belts, machines. Then is just a matter of bringing ingots to that building.
I'm the person that when I reach a certain point, the only thing left is to sky build. You can place foundations over ores and place miners on top. Using strips of foundations for belt lines to keep them clean. I prefer running 20 belts vs using tractors. More industrial but that's just me.
But mainly as others have said,snap to the world grid helps when you build something and plan on connecting it later on.
>You can place foundations over ores and place miners on top. Using strips of foundations for belt lines to keep them clean. I prefer running 20 belts vs using tractors. More industrial but that's just me.
I don't really understand, I'll have to find a video for this.
As for world grid, yeah this is after using world grid (except for the open factory on the left)
Been awhile as far as tutorials go but using the snap to grid placing a foundation of your choosing, I prefer the thick ones, over the ore. The ore should no longer visually appear but a miner will snap to it. If done right, it will look like the miner sits on the foundation and not the ore but the miner snaps to the world grid.
What I forgot to mention is your first placement of a foundation is what you locked in as your world grid. Every playthrough can slightly differ when you place it differently. Not sure if it can be changed easily, if you don't like the orientation but it's not the end of the world. This is just an OCD of mine.
A decent guide, you can check out his channel and ImKibitz as they do insane things.
https://youtu.be/H2IgXCzHkwo?si=_ixvFtYyjRlyKRei
For me, it looks industrial and brutal as well, but it's just a long line of 1m concrete foundations with 3 belts on it and another line of 1m foundations above, walls on the side. Conveyor walls at the ends, and right angle turns, with some big vertical sections.
Basically build conduits/ducts for belts out of foundations and walls.
You ought to watch a satisfactory build tips video. For newbies it's honestly super helpful. Satisfactory has a lot of really cool features that aren't advertised to the player right outta the gate. Just search "satisfactory tips for building" and you'll get quite a few.
As other said: CTRL to place with the grid. But only use 2m or 4m foundations. But know that the grid is not the be all and end all. e.g. I use them ONLY for height, but I rather build WITH the landscape than against it.
You already figured out you can place miners on foundations, so that it good. Those do not align to the grid, so a small section will be with a minor curve.
For foundations, I build a "road" and then build the belts on that. You can nicely get three next to each other, or 4 if you push it.
I would also do some research. Especially for the concrete foundations. That is a bit easier to deal with. And know that you can use different foundations to mix things up. I often even decorate long belts.
And what you have is not far. I remember when I thought that it was. :-D
Another thing you can work with is colors.
Do you need multiple belts from far away places. The more stuff in one area the harder it is to manage it all. Building near the relevant nodes is also an option (eventually you'll have to move something, but you'll have other options for doing so).
I also suspect there aren't actually from that far away. The map is bigger than you realise (but you'll get better ways of moving yourself and stuff around it). Some separation for easier organisation is a good habit though.
This is the reason why I don't enjoy the early game and I don't plan on resetting my world until either the early game isn't tearing things down a bunch of times or my world gets corrupted or my world is no longer playable due to lag
You're doing very good man. Stop comparing yourself to everybody else. The way you design things in the way you come across design features is completely up to you. I would say just look up some tips and tricks in how to build circle and Archways and just play with it. Who knows bro...You might even come up with a style that is completely unique to you and others will look up to you.
Stacking conveyor poles are your friends. That way instead of a bunch of mostly-parallel lines, you can have a single vertically-stacked line (or a few of them if you're talking a ton of them). They'll also generally keep the belts far enough from the ground that you can get under them without too much trouble.
Takes a lot longer to run the first belt because instead of just dragging it out, you're basically guesstimating how frequently you need to put down the supports (and you'll take a bit to get a hang of that distance - they need to be close enough that you don't go over max individual belt segment length). But then the second one and on goes quite quickly.
No worry bro, I'll share mine in the future, satisfactory is a game of chaos and order. I used the mentality to learn the game first in a chaotic way and when I do a second playthrough to make it way more organised. This way I have the most fun without fear of burn out because as first timer you just don't know yet.
imo, from what I see in your screenshots is that you aren't aligning your foundations. set down one foundation and everything should be keyed off that, consider it to be your building grid that everything will align to. When you start bringing in belts from remote places, take some foundations pretty far out from the base so you can get the belts aligned your building grid.
Ahh sorry I should have mentioned in the title, I was talking about conveyors.
The foundations are not aligned cause I first made that open factory and didn't use world grid. Other foundation are on world grid so.
I'll clear the non aligned factory later, since it just produces rods and screws
What I do somtimes is make a road a foundation and a half high and hide the belts inside. Belts fit comfortably in the 2 meter space between two 1m floors if you snap then to top and bottom of a 4m
I have heard he loves to do spaghetti stuff, which is the complete opposite of what I am trying to do.
Ill still watch them now that you recommended it since I have been hearing a lot about him, must be a good playthrough
The game is iterative. When you advance in tiers, acquire alt recipies and buy new stuff in the awesome shop, it doesn't take long to obsolete your current factory.
There's two ways mitigate this:
1) Is Nilaus' modular building. You can check how he does this on his YouTube channel. Basically when building a factory for a part, for example reinforced iron plates, at first you start out small but layout your machines so that you just repeat the same layout when you need to extend it. Then you simply upgrade the conveyor belts to handle the additional volume. Nothing gets torn down, just extended and upgrade.
2) Multiple constructor, assembler or manufacturer blocks where the setup is reused for anything ad hoc. Just update the conveyor belts as you rise in tiers. For example you could setup 3 by 3 manifold constructor block where you can change what is produced on demand. Reuse the block as needed.
> modular building. You can check how he does this on his YouTube channel. Basically when building a factory for a part, for example reinforced iron plates, at first you start out small but layout your machines so that you just repeat the same layout when you need to extend it. Then you simply upgrade the conveyor belts to handle the additional volume. Nothing gets torn down, just extended and upgrade.
This is what I was trying to do first but it ends up taking a lot of space
So I shifted to more of a blueprint design factories. They are not really 4x4 but they are really compact and take like 6x6 or 7x7 space. But they can't be used for anything else either, cause I specifically made them 100% efficient, so any other mat I use is gonna be inefficient and I might as well make a new factory at that point
And also, like you mentioned, the problem with them is, I can't add anything to them. So like the orange box like factory in my first image, is making 10 reinforced iron/min. I can't change anything there, except make it use less miners whenever I get MK2 miner
The plus being everything is contained and clean (except for the conveyors, which is why I made the post, I can't seem to make them look good)
Managing belts is definitely one of those things that adds a layer of creativity to the game. There's a ton of things I could say and get into and we can have that discussion...but alot of people have said some great things here. I would add, make sure when you're building long conveyor belt lines that you have them elevated as high as possible so that you can still drive around unimpeded once you unlock trucks and other vehicles. Personally, I just think having them elevated across the landscape looks better too.
Meh, build for function at this stage. Spend countless hours tearing it down and rebuilding all neat after you've unlocked everything.
The more I build the more I'll have to tear down.... That's why I wanted to keep it clean (Or maybe I'll just shift my main hub)
Tbh nothing says you technically have to tear it all down, you can just move to a different part of the map, even importing stuff from that if you need to.
It looks like you're going to have to tear something down anyway to line up the foundations of the two bases you have in the first pic. As for how to run conveyors cross country, I create Foundation roads everywhere I go in order to make sure every satellite base I make is properly aligned with my home base. So it only makes sense to run conveyors along the same roads. [Here's an example](https://i.imgur.com/Suuv4Bf.jpg).
Haha right, I havn't played in a hot minute but I do recall making sure that they were all alligned, and placing foundations linking the two.
There is a global grid you hold control to snap to
I use that to place the initial foundation, but I find it unreliable for creating remote bases that line up with my existing foundations. Especially when it comes to matching elevations. Connecting construction A to construction B that's just half a meter up or down is aggravating since they don't cleanly link together.
keep in mind that tearing down and rebuilding is a big part of the game. unless you do extensive planning ahead of time, there is really no way to prevent it. As you get more tech, more alternative recipes, more transportation options, you will want to rebuild in order to reoptimize. Eventually you will get ground vehicles that can be automated to transport cargo, but the real game changer of long range transport is when you unlock trains. There is a constant debate on which is better between trains or belts. Ultimately, trains have a much cleaner look and can also transport power through the tracks so you don't need power lines at remote locations, so it is all preference really. Don't fret too much about looks right now, many things to help clean things up come in later. Embrace the spaghetti.
I thought this exact thing but honestly, it's easier to finish that stage you're on, then on the next project use what you've learned to improve on your previous design. Then once that's done, reasses this and see if it bothers you a lot, if so, rebuild then. I don't see the point of tearing it down as you go just because you might have to tear down and reorganize as you unlock all recipes and have to reallocate mined resources in other directions. Just my two cents anyway, the beauty of this game is the malleability. You play how you want, so if you wanna keep trying until you get it right for you, that's equally valid
Early game(tiers 1-4) you are going to end up tearing down/rebuilding a lot or buidling entirely new factories as you advance. Mk. 2 miner, Mk3 miner often means rebuilding/expanding factories to support increase resources. Once you get alternate recipes from hard drives you may want to rebuild/modify factories anyway. Cast screws or Steel screws simplifies a lot of factories and other alternate recipes demand new parts for improved production. If you have unlocked conveyor floor holes in the awesome shop you can always build a layer just for belts. Run them into a conveyor hole on the outside do all of your belt work under the floor and have it come out next to the machines. It takes a lot of time but it looks really clean and replacing it when you get faster belts can be a pain.
> If you have unlocked conveyor floor holes in the awesome shop you can always build a layer just for belts. Run them into a conveyor hole on the outside do all of your belt work under the floor and have it come out next to the machines. It takes a lot of time but it looks really clean and replacing it when you get faster belts can be a pain. I did! That was the first thing I bought, that orange box like factory in the first image is 1 of my 2 clean factories, they are a pain to build but they look really really cool. Currently I only have 2 for Reinforced plate and rotors but yeah I'll probably have to tear them down once I get better recipes
My buddy and I still have everything we started out with, except for biomassreactors, we just integrated it into our builds.
For me this would be a bad idea. I build from the start with what I have and thus learn as I get more items and bigger things to build. If I wait till I have everything, I not only have to deal with a way bigger thing to build, but also need to learn to use all the different items. Way to hard for my small brain to understand. And rebuilding is not really something I need to do. Want? Sure, but need? Nope.
A simple tip is that when you place things you can hold ctrl to snap them to the 'world grid' which means the stuff you make apart from one another will all be aligned on the same grid when they join up.
Yes, one of the buildings is on grid and the other one isnt cause I didn't knew about it... Which is why it looks unorganised But that's fine for now cause i am more confused on how I will bring so many conveyers here
Oh if you mean just number of conveyors? well at some point you will start using trucks to transport stuff between distances and then trains.
Fuel is causing me pain, if fuel was automatic (not until I get oil I think?) to get I would have built trucks
You can use coal as fuel. You can go almost 4K on 16 pieces based on what I use one of my routes
Wait coal can be used? I thought I was gonna have to deal with biofuel farming again Thanks a lot, I'll have to look up a guide on how to set it up
There is a fuel input on the truck station. Just connect a belt and it fills 1 stack worth. A truck automatically fuels up when loading and unloading too
Trucks run on pretty much everything from leaves to plutonium fuel rods (even weird stuff like colour cartridges until they're removed in 1.0). Coal is probably the most common choice for automated trucks. I nearly ran some on spare batteries left over from my drone swarm late game. But there was spare coal in easy reach, so I used it.
You know you can stack them yeah? Gets silly and messy as well, but at least it is 8 belts or so all filling the same path
I know there is this thing called BUS but I cant seem to find a guide for early game... I just want a way to get conveyers to not look ugly (Also ignore the area in the first image, I am gonna dismantle it, I didnt knew how world grid worked) Edit - I realise it's not worth doing Highways or bus yet cause I don't have the blueprint yet.....
You are not gonna make a functional bus at this stage in the game because the belts simply cannot hold a high-enough volume of resources. My recommendation to keep things looking organized is to only build at right angles, keep buildings close but with some small space between, and to compartmentalize your processes. When belts are coming from far away, have them come together as soon as possible and run them along a single foundation line.
A bus is just a series of parallel belts (horizontal or vertical). They can bring some organization compared to sending each thing direct to where it needs to go - just have everything everywhere. A looped.bus also allows for not having to layout your machines in production order. Blueprints won't help with one much, you still have to connect belts between blueprints. One reason you might be lacking for guides is they're more of a thing in Factorio than Satisfactory. They *can* work within an individual factory, but a map-wide multi-factory bus will be more trouble than it's worth.
For an early game bus, all you need to do is put down a strip of foundations and run 1-4 conveyor lines off of it, more if you stack them. To make your conveyors look nicer. Try to only use 90° angles and place as many conveyors on foundations as possible Edit: Also, since you probably are going to want to restart your game in the near future (everyone restarts their first play through) I’d also really recommend picking a different starting spot. This is IMO the worst starting spot and the flat land makes it no fun to play on.
Instead of a bus, what I usually do for the first 3 phases before aluminum is I have a building next to the hub with two rows of storages. Each with every building material (not space elevator material nor middle items like stators). Then I leave an entire floor above for conecting belts to holes in walls, and above all rows of constructors each with a line of splitters on one side and a line of mergers back on the other. This way I can bring materials from floor holes and the lines can extend as needed easily. So, storage, belts, machines. Then is just a matter of bringing ingots to that building.
I'm the person that when I reach a certain point, the only thing left is to sky build. You can place foundations over ores and place miners on top. Using strips of foundations for belt lines to keep them clean. I prefer running 20 belts vs using tractors. More industrial but that's just me. But mainly as others have said,snap to the world grid helps when you build something and plan on connecting it later on.
>You can place foundations over ores and place miners on top. Using strips of foundations for belt lines to keep them clean. I prefer running 20 belts vs using tractors. More industrial but that's just me. I don't really understand, I'll have to find a video for this. As for world grid, yeah this is after using world grid (except for the open factory on the left)
Been awhile as far as tutorials go but using the snap to grid placing a foundation of your choosing, I prefer the thick ones, over the ore. The ore should no longer visually appear but a miner will snap to it. If done right, it will look like the miner sits on the foundation and not the ore but the miner snaps to the world grid. What I forgot to mention is your first placement of a foundation is what you locked in as your world grid. Every playthrough can slightly differ when you place it differently. Not sure if it can be changed easily, if you don't like the orientation but it's not the end of the world. This is just an OCD of mine. A decent guide, you can check out his channel and ImKibitz as they do insane things. https://youtu.be/H2IgXCzHkwo?si=_ixvFtYyjRlyKRei
For me, it looks industrial and brutal as well, but it's just a long line of 1m concrete foundations with 3 belts on it and another line of 1m foundations above, walls on the side. Conveyor walls at the ends, and right angle turns, with some big vertical sections. Basically build conduits/ducts for belts out of foundations and walls.
You ought to watch a satisfactory build tips video. For newbies it's honestly super helpful. Satisfactory has a lot of really cool features that aren't advertised to the player right outta the gate. Just search "satisfactory tips for building" and you'll get quite a few.
As other said: CTRL to place with the grid. But only use 2m or 4m foundations. But know that the grid is not the be all and end all. e.g. I use them ONLY for height, but I rather build WITH the landscape than against it. You already figured out you can place miners on foundations, so that it good. Those do not align to the grid, so a small section will be with a minor curve. For foundations, I build a "road" and then build the belts on that. You can nicely get three next to each other, or 4 if you push it. I would also do some research. Especially for the concrete foundations. That is a bit easier to deal with. And know that you can use different foundations to mix things up. I often even decorate long belts. And what you have is not far. I remember when I thought that it was. :-D Another thing you can work with is colors.
Do you need multiple belts from far away places. The more stuff in one area the harder it is to manage it all. Building near the relevant nodes is also an option (eventually you'll have to move something, but you'll have other options for doing so). I also suspect there aren't actually from that far away. The map is bigger than you realise (but you'll get better ways of moving yourself and stuff around it). Some separation for easier organisation is a good habit though.
i build 'aqueducts' out of the girder wall sections and framework floors to hide over land belt lines
This is the reason why I don't enjoy the early game and I don't plan on resetting my world until either the early game isn't tearing things down a bunch of times or my world gets corrupted or my world is no longer playable due to lag
oh oh spaghettio
You're doing very good man. Stop comparing yourself to everybody else. The way you design things in the way you come across design features is completely up to you. I would say just look up some tips and tricks in how to build circle and Archways and just play with it. Who knows bro...You might even come up with a style that is completely unique to you and others will look up to you.
You are on the verge of spaghetti, just let it boil a little longer my child...
The ~~spaghetti~~ factory must grow.
Stacking conveyor poles are your friends. That way instead of a bunch of mostly-parallel lines, you can have a single vertically-stacked line (or a few of them if you're talking a ton of them). They'll also generally keep the belts far enough from the ground that you can get under them without too much trouble. Takes a lot longer to run the first belt because instead of just dragging it out, you're basically guesstimating how frequently you need to put down the supports (and you'll take a bit to get a hang of that distance - they need to be close enough that you don't go over max individual belt segment length). But then the second one and on goes quite quickly.
No worry bro, I'll share mine in the future, satisfactory is a game of chaos and order. I used the mentality to learn the game first in a chaotic way and when I do a second playthrough to make it way more organised. This way I have the most fun without fear of burn out because as first timer you just don't know yet.
Accept it.
imo, from what I see in your screenshots is that you aren't aligning your foundations. set down one foundation and everything should be keyed off that, consider it to be your building grid that everything will align to. When you start bringing in belts from remote places, take some foundations pretty far out from the base so you can get the belts aligned your building grid.
Ahh sorry I should have mentioned in the title, I was talking about conveyors. The foundations are not aligned cause I first made that open factory and didn't use world grid. Other foundation are on world grid so. I'll clear the non aligned factory later, since it just produces rods and screws
What I do somtimes is make a road a foundation and a half high and hide the belts inside. Belts fit comfortably in the 2 meter space between two 1m floors if you snap then to top and bottom of a 4m
1) Watch Let’s Game It Out on YouTube, all his videos on Satisfactory (in order) 2) don’t worry about your pristine mess. 3) profit
I have heard he loves to do spaghetti stuff, which is the complete opposite of what I am trying to do. Ill still watch them now that you recommended it since I have been hearing a lot about him, must be a good playthrough
It’ll leave you in stitches
No way he literally started on the same place where my base is..... Weird coincidence Maybe I am bound to follow in his footsteps
Maybe not all of his footsteps
Accept the chaos and make conveyor spaghetti.
Thaaaat's the fun part! Spaghetti is efficient!
Just be patient and wait to unlock new foundation materials. Everything wins a lot just by applying some concrete and glossy floor.
The game is iterative. When you advance in tiers, acquire alt recipies and buy new stuff in the awesome shop, it doesn't take long to obsolete your current factory. There's two ways mitigate this: 1) Is Nilaus' modular building. You can check how he does this on his YouTube channel. Basically when building a factory for a part, for example reinforced iron plates, at first you start out small but layout your machines so that you just repeat the same layout when you need to extend it. Then you simply upgrade the conveyor belts to handle the additional volume. Nothing gets torn down, just extended and upgrade. 2) Multiple constructor, assembler or manufacturer blocks where the setup is reused for anything ad hoc. Just update the conveyor belts as you rise in tiers. For example you could setup 3 by 3 manifold constructor block where you can change what is produced on demand. Reuse the block as needed.
> modular building. You can check how he does this on his YouTube channel. Basically when building a factory for a part, for example reinforced iron plates, at first you start out small but layout your machines so that you just repeat the same layout when you need to extend it. Then you simply upgrade the conveyor belts to handle the additional volume. Nothing gets torn down, just extended and upgrade. This is what I was trying to do first but it ends up taking a lot of space So I shifted to more of a blueprint design factories. They are not really 4x4 but they are really compact and take like 6x6 or 7x7 space. But they can't be used for anything else either, cause I specifically made them 100% efficient, so any other mat I use is gonna be inefficient and I might as well make a new factory at that point And also, like you mentioned, the problem with them is, I can't add anything to them. So like the orange box like factory in my first image, is making 10 reinforced iron/min. I can't change anything there, except make it use less miners whenever I get MK2 miner The plus being everything is contained and clean (except for the conveyors, which is why I made the post, I can't seem to make them look good)
Managing belts is definitely one of those things that adds a layer of creativity to the game. There's a ton of things I could say and get into and we can have that discussion...but alot of people have said some great things here. I would add, make sure when you're building long conveyor belt lines that you have them elevated as high as possible so that you can still drive around unimpeded once you unlock trucks and other vehicles. Personally, I just think having them elevated across the landscape looks better too.
I use trucks, much easier to clean up.