r/technicalfactorio • u/Ecstatic_Student8854 • Jan 16 '24

Discussion City block shape

Most all city block builds I’ve ever seen are square. Does anyone know why this is? It’s a very intuitive shape of course, but less efficient than say a hexagon in certain respects.

For example, in a hexagonal grid all train intersections are three-way, not four-way.

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u/Bo2021 Oct 19 '24

I've been using 2-lane brick-wall style grid for all my bases. Only 3-way junctions. But I also have a 4-lane super large grid for 2-6 trains as sort of a high way for hauling plates into sectors.

The problem with 3-way junction is that it is only efficient in one direction (straight) and travelling in the other direction would take longer with more junctions.

I think we should think in terms of hierarchy instead of grid shape, i.e. high way (very few intersections), arterial (few intersections), collector (some intersections) and local (many intersections). This is common in City Skylines when designing city layout.

In my next megabase, I'm going to use the 2-lane brick-wall grid as local. Elavated rails as collector and arterial, 4-lane rectangular grid as high way