One important thing you didn't mention is that larger buildings, like refineries, can be affected by more than eight beacons. If you use the eight beacon setup and leave a gap between each refinery they will actually be affected by ten beacons, not eight. It also would have been cool if you had shown the difference in size between an eight and twelve beacon setup producing the same output.
When you make rows of beacons, an easy way to line up assemblers/chem plants/cetrifuge/elec furnaces is to make sure the machines arent in line with a beacon. If the machine row is offset from the beacon row by 1 or 2 tiles you'll get 8 beacons per machine.
Not sure if it was noted but beacons do use power even if they do nothing and even if they don't have any modules inside, compared to assemblers which use significantly less power when idle. So it is not a bad idea to turn off whole block when it is not used constantly - power switch and some circuit logic :) I used it when I did my train world where each station produce one thing - so e.g. smelting iron - full electric furnace with 12 beacon. When I filled my output buffer I use logic circuit to cut power to whole block (all electric furnaces and beacons around) :) it was fun
on the compact 12 beacon design: you can set it up like this: take an 8 beacon design and space out the assembly machines to put 2 beacons between them, like this beaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeacon beacon beacon beacon beacon assembler assembler assembler assembler beacon beacon beacon beacon beaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeacon edit: this one only really looks good on pc
yea you also save beacons so less power and cheaper to build. I would only use the other 12 beacon design if I couldn't fit the belts in the compact variants.
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB B B B B B B B B B B B B A A A A A A A A A A A B B B B B B B B B B B B BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB This probably looks slightly better.
Xterminator That’s for sure! A lot of ratio calculations to redo as well 😂 ran through the vanilla game after 1.0 but getting back to Krastorio 2 for next run. Can’t get enough of that mod 🤩
This was exactly what i was looking for^^ I never used beacons, because i didn't want to bother looking for layouts or ideas, but as im going for a mega base sooner than later, im basically forced to use them :P Dropped a sub, so im looking forward to new videos :) Until then
There are more compact 12-beacon layouts for megabases out there, especially for matching the 7-tile wagon length. Before jumping into the megabase world, it is worthwhile to investigate better beacon designs, and how to use cars/wagons/tanks as an alternative to chests.
With the 12 beacon layout, it you condense the top and bottom sides, you can then tile it with the 8 beacon design as well, and still get overlap for every side of the blueprint. The downside to this is it is harder to fit all the belts into the footprint, but if you can fit everything in it, that layout can be good for getting max beacon overlap using both of the designs.
@Fred G. Or, make 4 beacons top and bottom with no gap, and 2 on either side with a 1 tile gap, like how he does in the video, but removing the gap on top and bottom. This gives you 1 tile in front and 2 behind the assembler, which is useful if you need a lot of belts.
@Fred G. If you are doing a single product, than that setup will work, but if you are passing other products through (think red circuits, or science, or modules) then you may need the extra space to pass belts of products through.
One other concern, or opportunity for another tutorial... How to arrange belts to get the resources to a factory and product out. Not a big deal with red science packs, two inputs on a single belt, outputs on another. What about something complicated like yellow science packs? (Or really anything that needs 3+ items of input.) Or at that point, do you just go robots/logistic request chests?
Consider how many resources of something you really need. Use half belts when possible. Use belt weaving when lower belts will do. Maybe ratio things in a way that consumes all the input, rather than targeting a specific output. For example I have a red circuit build that consumes one red belt of green circuits and plastics each. And the output belt weaves with the copper cable belt: i.imgur.com/PskyZcM.jpg This produces ca. 1200 circuits / minute, which isn't a full belt of anything, but that's fine. I find that fitting all the belts is more of an issue with recipes that need an enormous amount of one material. For example blue circuits
Wouldn't it be overall faster to do blocks of 8 beacon setups instead of 12 beacon setups? You can fit 4x 8-beacon assemblers in the same space that you can fit 2x 12-beacon assemblers, so overall the production line would produce more products in the same amount of space.
In the end game space isn't really an issue. The constraints disappear once you can easily clear and landfill everything. Generally 8 beacon setups are perfectly fine, but if you really want to optimize for UPS 12 beacons are better because it means less entities. It's just that contrary to what many players constantly say, UPS isn't always the most important thing. It all depends on the scale you want to play at. You can easily build 2000 SPM without going to extremes. There are also some builds were something other than 8 beacons results in more convenient ratios.
The 12 beacon layout shown here is ok for belted designs. However if you use bots I'd suggest eliminating the gaps between the beacons. You still can fit 5 requester chests and six inserters for each assembler. A more compact layout reduce the loading on the bot swarm as there is less travel.
Well technically you can also use the 8 beacon layout but in-between the machines add beacon alternate depending the arrangement you could almost fit 2 or 1 beacon. Not any more effective but it's a lot faster ...
No, it's not an opinion. The row-based layout is objectively better. The prod bonus is the same, so the only differences are A) the number of MJ of power spent per item produced, and this is lower for the row-based layout, and then B) the cost of construction, which is also lower, and C) space efficiency, which is also better. The ONLY thing that the 12-beacon layout minimizes is the absolute number of assembly buildings, and there are folks who argue that's a UPS win.
Indeed! There is actually room for fluid inputs in both the layouts shown here. Of course if the thing being produced requires a lot of inserted materials as well it could get a bit tricky.
@@lkadfkjdkladfskl I have a build with direct insertion I really like: i.imgur.com/ZPo6Rkf.jpg The assemblers have 10 beacons and the chem plants 12. This results in an almost exact 2:1 ratio with the chem plants very slightly underproducing (so they stutter a bit now and then). I then ratio the total number of machines so that I can consume maybe one refinery + heavy oil cracking in a row. But you could also build it so you don't produce solid fuel from petroleum if that bothers you. But doing it this way means nothing ever backs up. Or you can use 12 beacons for both and a 3:2 ratio (3 assemblers : 2 chem plants), which means the chem plants slightly overproduce. For that you'd alternate chem plants and assemblers. It's also possible to route the pipes in a way that doesn't need those outside pipes, but it's tileable either way Also shows how you can use beacon spacing to get the desired speed everywhere
The effect on each building does not change with the number of building that the beacon is affecting. When a beacon is affecting a single building, that building will get 50% of the modules in the beacon. When a beacon is affecting 8 buildings, all the building will still get 50% of the modules in the beacon.
@@kevinbagust thanks for the explanation, is there any way for a beacon to provide 100% of the effect to a building or can that only be achieved by putting the modules inside the building itself?
Was curious, you never seem to have any sponsors and the view count is not as high as minecraft, so how are you supporting yourself? Do you have a full time job elsewhere cause I'm surprised that you can still do normal things without playing factorio
Not sure why you're comparing my content to Minecraft in particular lol. This is my full time job. I have some very kind and generous supporters over on my Patreon as well as on my Twitch channel. The majority of my income comes from those two, not RUclips. As you said, there is no way I could support myself just off the ad revenue from my videos, although it does help.
One important thing you didn't mention is that larger buildings, like refineries, can be affected by more than eight beacons. If you use the eight beacon setup and leave a gap between each refinery they will actually be affected by ten beacons, not eight. It also would have been cool if you had shown the difference in size between an eight and twelve beacon setup producing the same output.
When you make rows of beacons, an easy way to line up assemblers/chem plants/cetrifuge/elec furnaces is to make sure the machines arent in line with a beacon. If the machine row is offset from the beacon row by 1 or 2 tiles you'll get 8 beacons per machine.
Not sure if it was noted but beacons do use power even if they do nothing and even if they don't have any modules inside, compared to assemblers which use significantly less power when idle. So it is not a bad idea to turn off whole block when it is not used constantly - power switch and some circuit logic :) I used it when I did my train world where each station produce one thing - so e.g. smelting iron - full electric furnace with 12 beacon. When I filled my output buffer I use logic circuit to cut power to whole block (all electric furnaces and beacons around) :) it was fun
One of those rare practical uses for power switched networks.
on the compact 12 beacon design:
you can set it up like this: take an 8 beacon design and space out the assembly machines to put 2 beacons between them, like this
beaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeacon
beacon beacon beacon beacon
assembler assembler assembler assembler
beacon beacon beacon beacon
beaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeaconbeacon
edit: this one only really looks good on pc
I get your idea, i was thinking the same. Looks quiet nice also i think. And uses less space then the 12 design.
yea you also save beacons so less power and cheaper to build. I would only use the other 12 beacon design if I couldn't fit the belts in the compact variants.
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
B B B B B B B B B B B B
A A A A A A A A A A A
B B B B B B B B B B B B
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
This probably looks slightly better.
Thanks for the explanation, just got a couple more ideas for beacons now!
1500h, and never played with beacons. 😅
Will use them next run!
No worries! They are very much an optional thing. :) They are quite powerful though!
Xterminator That’s for sure! A lot of ratio calculations to redo as well 😂 ran through the vanilla game after 1.0 but getting back to Krastorio 2 for next run. Can’t get enough of that mod 🤩
Yeah beacons mess up a lot with ratios, resulting in lots of non-round numbers... so be prepared to play Factorio on Excel for some days... 😜
This was exactly what i was looking for^^ I never used beacons, because i didn't want to bother looking for layouts or ideas, but as im going for a mega base sooner than later, im basically forced to use them :P Dropped a sub, so im looking forward to new videos :) Until then
Thanks! Really glad it helped you out. The will help you so much in a megabase for sure. To much more content in the future! :)
There are more compact 12-beacon layouts for megabases out there, especially for matching the 7-tile wagon length. Before jumping into the megabase world, it is worthwhile to investigate better beacon designs, and how to use cars/wagons/tanks as an alternative to chests.
With the 12 beacon layout, it you condense the top and bottom sides, you can then tile it with the 8 beacon design as well, and still get overlap for every side of the blueprint. The downside to this is it is harder to fit all the belts into the footprint, but if you can fit everything in it, that layout can be good for getting max beacon overlap using both of the designs.
@Fred G. Or, make 4 beacons top and bottom with no gap, and 2 on either side with a 1 tile gap, like how he does in the video, but removing the gap on top and bottom. This gives you 1 tile in front and 2 behind the assembler, which is useful if you need a lot of belts.
@Fred G. If you are doing a single product, than that setup will work, but if you are passing other products through (think red circuits, or science, or modules) then you may need the extra space to pass belts of products through.
One other concern, or opportunity for another tutorial... How to arrange belts to get the resources to a factory and product out. Not a big deal with red science packs, two inputs on a single belt, outputs on another. What about something complicated like yellow science packs? (Or really anything that needs 3+ items of input.) Or at that point, do you just go robots/logistic request chests?
Consider how many resources of something you really need. Use half belts when possible. Use belt weaving when lower belts will do.
Maybe ratio things in a way that consumes all the input, rather than targeting a specific output. For example I have a red circuit build that consumes one red belt of green circuits and plastics each. And the output belt weaves with the copper cable belt:
i.imgur.com/PskyZcM.jpg
This produces ca. 1200 circuits / minute, which isn't a full belt of anything, but that's fine.
I find that fitting all the belts is more of an issue with recipes that need an enormous amount of one material. For example blue circuits
Wouldn't it be overall faster to do blocks of 8 beacon setups instead of 12 beacon setups? You can fit 4x 8-beacon assemblers in the same space that you can fit 2x 12-beacon assemblers, so overall the production line would produce more products in the same amount of space.
In the end game space isn't really an issue. The constraints disappear once you can easily clear and landfill everything. Generally 8 beacon setups are perfectly fine, but if you really want to optimize for UPS 12 beacons are better because it means less entities. It's just that contrary to what many players constantly say, UPS isn't always the most important thing. It all depends on the scale you want to play at. You can easily build 2000 SPM without going to extremes.
There are also some builds were something other than 8 beacons results in more convenient ratios.
ohyeah centrifuges can be pumped up and turned into a uranium throwing monster :D looks really funny
The 12 beacon layout shown here is ok for belted designs. However if you use bots I'd suggest eliminating the gaps between the beacons. You still can fit 5 requester chests and six inserters for each assembler. A more compact layout reduce the loading on the bot swarm as there is less travel.
Well technically you can also use the 8 beacon layout but in-between the machines add beacon alternate depending the arrangement you could almost fit 2 or 1 beacon. Not any more effective but it's a lot faster ...
No, it's not an opinion. The row-based layout is objectively better. The prod bonus is the same, so the only differences are A) the number of MJ of power spent per item produced, and this is lower for the row-based layout, and then B) the cost of construction, which is also lower, and C) space efficiency, which is also better. The ONLY thing that the 12-beacon layout minimizes is the absolute number of assembly buildings, and there are folks who argue that's a UPS win.
A UPS win is objectively better
@@OutsiderLabs If you are making an absolute megabase sure, but most players are never doing more than 1000SPM so UPS never becomes an issue.
It would be interesting to see layouts for assembly machines with fluid inputs.
Indeed! There is actually room for fluid inputs in both the layouts shown here. Of course if the thing being produced requires a lot of inserted materials as well it could get a bit tricky.
@@Xterminator I was having trouble designing something for belted beaconed rocket fuel. I'll give it another go.
@@lkadfkjdkladfskl
I have a build with direct insertion I really like:
i.imgur.com/ZPo6Rkf.jpg
The assemblers have 10 beacons and the chem plants 12. This results in an almost exact 2:1 ratio with the chem plants very slightly underproducing (so they stutter a bit now and then). I then ratio the total number of machines so that I can consume maybe one refinery + heavy oil cracking in a row. But you could also build it so you don't produce solid fuel from petroleum if that bothers you. But doing it this way means nothing ever backs up.
Or you can use 12 beacons for both and a 3:2 ratio (3 assemblers : 2 chem plants), which means the chem plants slightly overproduce. For that you'd alternate chem plants and assemblers. It's also possible to route the pipes in a way that doesn't need those outside pipes, but it's tileable either way
Also shows how you can use beacon spacing to get the desired speed everywhere
You did not cover refineries? Was there a reason for that?
I forgot honestly.
Lol fair answer. I cannot I have never forgotten anything.
when a singular beacon affects two buildings do each of the buildings get 100% of the effect or only 50%?
The effect on each building does not change with the number of building that the beacon is affecting. When a beacon is affecting a single building, that building will get 50% of the modules in the beacon. When a beacon is affecting 8 buildings, all the building will still get 50% of the modules in the beacon.
@@kevinbagust thanks for the explanation, is there any way for a beacon to provide 100% of the effect to a building or can that only be achieved by putting the modules inside the building itself?
@@J-McG Nope. Vanilla beacons always provide 50% effect. There may be a mod that changes that, but I'm not aware of any.
@@BillH2949 Bob's modules has beacons with 100% but also with more range
Was curious, you never seem to have any sponsors and the view count is not as high as minecraft, so how are you supporting yourself? Do you have a full time job elsewhere cause I'm surprised that you can still do normal things without playing factorio
Not sure why you're comparing my content to Minecraft in particular lol. This is my full time job. I have some very kind and generous supporters over on my Patreon as well as on my Twitch channel. The majority of my income comes from those two, not RUclips. As you said, there is no way I could support myself just off the ad revenue from my videos, although it does help.
@@Xterminator Great to know. Well I wanted to compare to "a big game", so Minecraft seems representative.