The usefulness of a maintanance belt

[Tobruk]

Cons:

• have to plan it out in advance, at a very early stage so it doesn't interrupt with other builds
• takes spaces, is usually 2 or 4 tiles high
• disrupts oxygen/CO flow (if not using airflow tiles, but they transmit bad decor from industrial power wires too)

Pros:

• easy transfer of energy through industrial power wires to the other side of the base
• all main lines of gas/liquid in one place, where you can draw from and send to where they're needed (see: Factorio)
• more organised
• you can extend the bus (the main lines of gas/liquids) to a distant part of the map and hook it up to relevant producers/consumers
• contains bad decor of industrial power lines if build of non-decor-permeable tiles

What do you think?

[WanderingKid]

I know of it as the Main trunk or the Main Power Trunk, as I'm more familiar with bus being a term from factorio that comes from manufacturing and chip construction.  I personally use it pretty much in all games.

[Tobruk]

Just now, WanderingKid said:

I know of it as the Main trunk or the Main Power Trunk, as bus is a factorion term for a manufacturing concept.  I personally use it pretty much in all games.

So do you use it only for industrial power wires?

[WanderingKid]

11 minutes ago, Tobruk said:

So do you use it only for industrial power wires?

Yeah.  I create 'passthroughs' with massive amounts of décor spam and the lower décor cost wires and hide the rest as much as possible.  Typically 4-5 squares wide for the passthroughs leaves you plenty of room to not have the atmosphere get jammed up.

Some examples I had handy.  I very commonly associate it with my Mushroom Farm, as it works very well with Coal Generators early.  Not the newest design I have for mushrooms, but it will show you the intent.

EDIT: Sorry, was distracted watching Fusion Trounce Spitfire.  GO PHILLY... anyway, I've modified this design a few ways and if you're interested I'll get some better screenies later.  I've split the hydrogen and coal into two different power centers for finer control about # of workers, I'm using the new transformers pretty heavily for space concerns, and I've almost completely rebuilt the mushrooms to throw away the farmer centers and use a more open air design to let the CO2 and Chlorine drift out.

[blash365]

This might interest you:

 

[WanderingKid]

So, a quick set of shots from my second runthrough with the new Morale system.  You'll notice I'm not handling the décor well enough for the first tier of the Mushrooms, and I'll have to re-adjust it eventually for the new farmer levels so I can only have to worry about Exosuits, but this will let you understand the overview of it. I also don't have enough refined metals for the passthroughs, so they're rather décor heavy.

EDIT: Now that I'm staring at it, moving a few of the airflow tiles around will pretty much nullify the heavy-watt that's bleeding into it.  Moving the farm down as few layers for later wouldn't work, as I end up inserting a ton of shipping automation into it so the only time anyone drops by is for harvesting.

 

[KittenIsAGeek]

50 minutes ago, Tobruk said:

What do you think?

I have been doing this since nearly day one.  I didn't like running pipes and electrical wires through things like the barracks, so I started doing the maintenance tunnel.  Its a great place for storage lockers, and heavi-watt power lines, power transformers, etc, as well as being a great place for gas and liquid pipe runs.

[PhailRaptor]

I understand the idea behind this, but from my admittedly limited experience I have found it to be unnecessary.  As you are developing the starter biome into the core of your base, you should be endeavoring to keep your industrial areas on it's periphery, rather than internal to it.  In doing so, you should have your primary power systems running on the outside edge of that.  Having it internal to your base comes with a list of disruptions, everything from room geometry to heat management to decor.  Internal space is limited.  External space is not.

[Promethien]

I've been thinking of it as my utility tunnel. Its where I put all my NIMBY like transformers and heavy duti cables. I'm still torn on if I should go horizontal or vertical with it. But I always put one in early for planning purposes even if its mostly empty.

[Sevio]

I typically use a two-floor maintenance corridor for this, right below the printing pod's floor:

The first problem I have when starting a colony is needing a place to store all the stuff you dig out, so I start this corridor early and all my storage compactors go there. Later I add heavi-watt wires, batteries and power transformers and any liquid/gas pipes that need to travel horizontally. With decor more important now for high tier dupes, I probably should turn them into dead-end corridors so dupes don't try to use them to travel long distances horizontally.

[Soulwind]

I use a 2 high corridor set below the lowest point of my living zone that runs across the base width.  I run a heavy watt wire through there for easy access to power from my main power plant.  It's usually not accessible from within the living zone itself, just at the end points from outside. Transformers run vertically just outside the base.  All internal wires and piping are hidden inside walls and floor (as much as possible).

[Coolthulhu]

Don't bunch up pipes. If you always have 2 tiles of distance between pipes, you can bridge over them without having to deconstruct anything. This really helps with spaghettification.

[martosss]

I'd say it's worth thinking about it, but unlike the real world, it's not useful in this game. You might need just a little bit of planning when you make pipes, but certainly not a belt.

Here are the reasons:

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easy transfer of energy through industrial power wires to the other side of the base

You might consider this an expoit, but If you use wires in a smart way, you basically don't need a heavi-watt grid. Currently I have 2 power transformers that supply 10 circuits of 1kW(each with it's set of 2 batteries and not all active in the same time). I'm using in total 72 Heavi-wires(including bridges - those link power transformers to generators and 10 batteries) and ~40-50 conductive wires(for 2 aqua tuners). Everything else is normal wires. So this is basically a non-issue. How to do it? - Read the electricity tutorial in my description. (Pictures or it didn't happen - I can upload wiring if someone is interested)

Just a friendly comparison to get an idea why this might be worth doing, @WanderingKid has a belt and is using more heavi-watt wires than me, but has ½ of the generating power that I have( I have 5 hydrogen generators(1200W each) + 2 coal).

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all main lines of gas/liquid in one place, where you can draw from and send to where they're needed (see: Factorio)

If you played a little longer you'll know that running multiple pipes next to each other creates more problems than it solves.

1. Expansion sucks - when top/left pipe needs to connect down/right, one of your engineers receives a heart attack due to the work required. Afterwards, moppers receive high stress from mopping all that liquid from deconstructed pipes. And God forbid if it's 90+° water or some hotter nastier coolant stuff.
2. Pipes don't harm decor, so you don't need a dedicated belt for them(although it would be nice if you had it).
3. Sometimes you need a split from your main pipe that requires the pipe to go THROUGH the split. That means you need extra space for valves and if your pipe is cluttered around 3-4 others, again a mess ensues.
   Spoiler

   

   Here I'm taking 150g from each packet to supply the room on the right with Oxygen. If I had a belt, I'd have to figure a way to move that pipe to the outer part of the belt, or find a space for the valve. Notice the ")" turn that the main pipe makes. I actually made the right part, then deconstructed the middle tile. If there were pipes around it, that wouldn't be possible. Also note how I'm using ladders as a pipe-highway - no decor loss means you don't need a special highway for them.

   • Example - ventilation splitting

Quote

more organiZed*

You're right, it is more organized, but why is this a good thing? Does it increase dupe efficiency? Decrease resource usage?

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you can extend the bus (the main lines of gas/liquids) to a distant part of the map and hook it up to relevant producers/consumers

So why not use the natural corridor +ladders that your dupes created to go to that distant part of the map instead of digging out twice the area, just to put a few pipes there, which will actually also fit in that corridor?

Quote

contains bad decor of industrial power lines if build of non-decor-permeable tiles

As stated earlier, I don't suffer from that problem as my grid uses almost entirely normal wires. If you keep your grid small until you get smart batteries + logic, you can escape the need for expensive heavi-watt running all over your base and killing your decor.

Quote

Cons:

Can I add a few of my own?

• costs in general more resources. If you're using insulated abyssalite piping that REALLY matters.
  • Currently I can't even use insulated pipes because I don't have enough abyssalite, not to mention a belt
• causes extra travel time
  • horizontal belt would probably be worse, since it means up-down  traveling, which is slower
  • having all containers in 1 place means dupes have to travel back and forth to deliver construction materials to a new site on the border of your base. That's why I keep my containers fairly decentralized - if you're digging somewhere , build containers and store materials, don't transport stuff needlessly just because it looks pretty if you have 20 containers next to each other.

As an alternative I'd recommend ladders/firepoles for pipe highways + normal wires throughout your base(or heavi-watt + Power transformers  on the outside if you really don't want to abuse power rules).

[Tobruk]

5 hours ago, Coolthulhu said:

Don't bunch up pipes. If you always have 2 tiles of distance between pipes, you can bridge over them without having to deconstruct anything. This really helps with spaghettification.

Not true though. 1 is enough:

4 hours ago, martosss said:

Expansion sucks - when top/left pipe needs to connect down/right, one of your engineers receives a heart attack due to the work required. Afterwards, moppers receive high stress from mopping all that liquid from deconstructed pipes. And God forbid if it's 90+° water or some hotter nastier coolant stuff.

See above

4 hours ago, martosss said:

You're right, it is more organized, but why is this a good thing? Does it increase dupe efficiency? Decrease resource usage?

Quote

you can extend the bus (the main lines of gas/liquids) to a distant part of the map and hook it up to relevant producers/consumers

So why not use the natural corridor +ladders that your dupes created to go to that distant part of the map instead of digging out twice the area, just to put a few pipes there, which will actually also fit in that corridor?

All these are valid points, I admit. It may have to do with my preferred playstyle, where I am inclined to choose organisation over efficiency.

[WanderingKid]

7 hours ago, martosss said:

Just a friendly comparison to get an idea why this might be worth doing, @WanderingKid has a belt and is using more heavi-watt wires than me, but has ½ of the generating power that I have( I have 5 hydrogen generators(1200W each) + 2 coal).

True, but I've found I don't need much Hydrogen generation on the trunk.  Not listed in that picture are the local generators on some Electrolizer builds I've been tinkering with.  Those hydrogen generators are just there for the excess.  However, we do have a different philosophy when it comes to organizing our system.  I like to be able to plug in a heavi-watt where I need it.  It's become habit for me, absolutely, but I like being able to easily hook the refinery and nat gas components into the opening grid.

In general, it'll come down to what you want to get out of the trunk line.  I want to not work hard at it, so I throw a lot of material into the heavi-watt instead and just snake it wherever I might want it.  Most mining after you build out the ladders is quick and you can hide lines right alongside any long walks you might make, and make passthroughs when you need to biome switch through the abyssalite.

So @Tobruk, all these ideas are valid approaches, and there's a bunch of ways in this thread.  Try 'em all out, see what works best for you.

[martosss]

For me it's similar like you with the heavi watt - once you build a couple of smart battery packs you just can't stop - with smart batteries i can hook up anything anywhere even without the heavi-watt. And Tobi, I know how to use bridges, I know it can be done, I'm just saying that I think it's a bigger problem if pipes are close to each other

Here, have a look at some piping in the middle of the base, that's my main "knot" of liquid pipes:

Here I have 4 pipe systems:

• cold water going right to the bristle farm
• hot volcano/geyser water going down to supply electrolyzers
• warm germy clean water going up to toilets
• warm polluted germy water coming back down from toilets.

So how do I make a belt for everything? 1 pipe needs to go horizontally for the farms, the others need to go vertically ... and it depends where volcanoes and geysers are - now I have a geyser + volcano above, so that pipe needs to go vertically ... I can't make a horizontal belt because it wouldn't have anything in it. And I can't plan a belt from the start of the game since I don't know where the volcanoes are - I need to uncover the map for it.

You might say I have something like a belt along the ladders .. but certainly not a dedicated room.

Then you've got ventilation in the same place

Spoiler

As you can see, I don't have a belt so I'm not constrained by a belt to have pipes run exactly through the belt - I run them where I need them.

And the wiring?

Spoiler

Yea, who needs a belt for that when you have normal wires I have selected my main circuit that powers up everything, you can see I have 500W on it(atmo dock that needs fixing, an algae Deoxydizer and a water pump), everything else is hidden by batteries - you can see on the right there are 2 batteries that separate the "upper" circuit from the main one, there are other batteries on the sides - wherever I need more power I throw 2 batteries and some logic - an extra 1kW circuit appears. So sure, I can put all the batteries in the middle of the base, but .. as others mentioned, that'll generate heat, create ventilation issues slow dupes down...  better to have batteries in the corner where you don't feel neither the bad decor, nor the heat or pathing issues.

 

Ah, here's one more issue with the belt - you need to know/remember which pipe in the belt  does what, so you still need to follow the pipes to see where they start/end. And having 4-5 pipes bunched up means that if you need to change the order of 2 of them for some reason it'll be very easy to make a mistake afterwards. If pipes are separate it's easier to see that 1 pipe goes left-right, another goes up-down. Even in my piping, you can see that it's harder to follow vertical pipes that are close to each other.