Beginner Factory Setup and Conveyor Routing Guide
Your first Little Rocket Lab factory can go from cute town project to noodle festival very fast. One scrap line turns left, another belt cuts across the path, Morgan needs one more part, and suddenly St. Ambroise looks like someone dropped a bowl of conveyor spaghetti on the sidewalk. That mess is normal. The fix is not to build more belts right away. The fix is to give each item a short job, a clear path, and room to rebuild.
A conveyor is the moving belt that carries items from one place to another. For your first setup, think in three zones: input, work, and output. Input is where mined ore, coal, scrap parts, or gathered materials enter the line. Work is where machines turn those items into useful parts. Output is where finished parts wait for Morgan to use in repairs, research deliveries, town jobs, or rocket progress. Keep those zones in a straight row when you can. A simple line beats a clever knot every time.
Starter Layout: Scrap In, Parts Out
Build your first factory as a short lane, not a town-wide highway. Leave one empty tile on each side of the machines if the area allows it. Those empty tiles are not wasted space. They are your future rescue path when a belt points the wrong way, water access forces a route, or a new machine needs to fit beside the old one.
- Choose one input point at one end of the space you want to use. Early on, that may be a hand-fed belt, a furnace feed, or a machine output.
- Run one conveyor straight from the input point toward your first processing machine.
- Face the machine so its input side touches the incoming belt.
- Put the next conveyor on the machine output side, pointing away from the input.
- Send that output into the next machine only if the recipe needs another step.
- End the line at an Item Receiver or a clear pickup tile where finished parts will not block the machine.
The goal is to watch humble scraps become rocket parts without guessing where anything went. If you cannot trace the item path with your finger in one smooth motion, the line is too tangled for a beginner build. Morgan is rebuilding a family dream, not auditing a belt maze.
Use This Early Factory Shape
| Zone | What Goes There | Why It Helps |
|---|---|---|
| Input | Ore, coal, scrap parts, gathered materials, or the first item source | Keeps raw items from entering the line in random places |
| Work | One or two machines in recipe order | Makes the bottleneck easy to see |
| Output | Finished part pickup, Item Receiver, or delivery path | Stops finished items from backing into the machines |
| Service space | One empty tile beside belts and machines when possible | Gives you room to reroute without tearing down the whole build |
If the machine stops, name the exact bottleneck before adding anything. Is the input belt empty? You need more raw material or a shorter supply route. Is the machine full but not producing? Check the recipe order or output side. Is the output belt jammed? Clear the finished parts or give them a better end point. More machines only help after you know which step is actually slow.
Clean Conveyor Routing Rules
- Use straight belts for main lines. Save turns for the end of a run.
- Keep raw materials on one side of the build and finished parts on the other.
- Avoid crossing town paths unless the route is short and easy to read.
- Do not wrap belts around a machine unless you have no other space.
- Leave rebuild room near water access, blocked tiles, and narrow town edges.
- When a line gets ugly, rebuild the middle first. The input and output ends are usually easier to keep.
Blocked tiles and awkward water access are where many beginner layouts start to wobble. If a belt cannot run straight, do not snake it through every open square. Move the machine instead, even if that feels annoying. A machine shifted one tile can save ten tiles of belt and a lot of future squinting.
Recovery Plan for Conveyor Spaghetti
If your first factory is already a mess, pause the build and rescue it in pieces. Pick one finished item you need right now. Follow only that item chain backward from output to input. Remove any belt that does not help that chain. Then rebuild the route as one clean lane with the input on one end and the final part on the other. This gets Morgan moving again without forcing a full town redesign.
Once the first lane works, you can add a second lane beside it for another part. Keep the lanes parallel when possible, like tidy little streets for materials. That is the sweet spot of Little Rocket Lab: cozy town repair on the surface, real factory logic underneath, and the quiet joy of watching St. Ambroise start to hum because your layout finally makes sense.
Tip: When you finish a working starter line, take a moment before expanding it. Watch where items pile up for one full production cycle. The pile tells you the truth. Fix that one spot, then build the next machine or belt. That small habit keeps early progress brisk and stops the factory from becoming a long-mode problem before the rocket even gets dramatic.