Conveyor systems Astro Colony are the essential logistical networks that transport solid resources like Carbon and Iron from your Auto Asteroid Catchers to your processing machines. By mastering splitters, mergers, and upgraded belt tiers, players can fully automate their space factory and completely eliminate the tedious grind of manual gathering. If you want to scale your floating voxel base into an intergalactic industrial powerhouse, you need to stop hand-carrying ores and start building a mathematically perfect logistics grid.
If you are still manually dragging carbon to your coal burners by hour three, you are playing Astro Colony wrong. In a game that blends the deep factory logic of Satisfactory with a procedurally generated, destructible voxel universe, your ability to survive depends entirely on your throughput. Oxygen barriers fail, astronauts starve, and power grids collapse when your supply lines stutter.
Here is the definitive, ownership-grade breakdown of how to design, troubleshoot, and optimize your belt networks so your colony never starves.
Core Mechanics of Conveyor Systems Astro Colony
Before you can optimize, you must understand the underlying rules of the game's physics. Astro Colony operates on a strict grid system where logistics are divided into two distinct categories: pipes and belts.
Pipes are exclusively reserved for liquids and gases—Water, Oxygen, and Hydrogen. If you are trying to route breathable air to your astronaut quarters or fuel to your thrusters, you use pipes. Conveyor belts, on the other hand, are the physical spine of your factory, designed strictly for solid items. This includes raw ores like Carbon, Iron, and Copper, as well as refined components like Gold Plates, Iron Rods, Screws, and Gears.
The fundamental rule of conveyor systems Astro Colony is that they are "intelligent" by default. When you place a belt, it automatically snaps to the output ports of machines like Smelters and Assemblers. However, raw placement is not enough. A belt is only as efficient as the machines feeding it and the logic blocks directing it. If your destination inventory fills up—for example, if your Constructor hits its storage cap for Copper Wire—the entire belt line will back up, causing a cascading failure down to your asteroid catchers.
Upgrading Conveyor Systems Astro Colony: Belt Speeds
Throughput is the god of factory games. In Astro Colony, your production lines are hard-capped by the movement speed of the belts you deploy. Relying on basic belts in the late game is equivalent to trying to drain an ocean with a spoon.
Extensive community testing—utilizing filter blocks, signal deciders, and inventory sensors to measure exact item flow—has revealed the hard data behind the game's three primary belt tiers. Understanding these thresholds is critical for calculating your machine ratios.
| Belt Tier | Speed (Items/Min) | Best Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| Basic Conveyor Belt | 69 | Early game, feeding basic Auto Asteroid Catchers |
| Conveyor Belt Pro | 104 | Mid-game, routing smelted ingots to Assemblers |
| Conveyor Belt Expert | 138 | Late-game, main bus lines and high-density sorting |
Upgrading from a Basic Conveyor Belt to a Conveyor Belt Pro increases your throughput by roughly 50%. This means a single line that previously supported a handful of smelters can now feed a massive industrial wing. However, upgrading costs valuable Science points and refined resources. Do not blanket your entire base in Expert belts; use them strategically for your main "bus" lines (the central arteries of your factory), and use cheaper basic belts to branch off into individual machines.
The 8-Catcher Rule for Conveyor Systems Astro Colony
The most common mistake new players make is overloading a single belt line with too many Auto Asteroid Catchers (AACs). When you first unlock automated mining, the temptation is to line the edge of your space station with dozens of catchers and feed them all into one massive belt. This results in immediate gridlock.
Because a Basic Conveyor Belt moves exactly 69 items per minute, there is a hard mathematical limit to how much raw ore it can carry before the items start clipping and the catchers stop functioning. The community consensus for early-game optimization is the 8-Catcher Rule.
For every single basic belt line running south into your factory, you should attach a maximum of 8 Auto Asteroid Catchers. Furthermore, to prevent your smelters from constantly switching recipes (which kills efficiency), you should dedicate each 8-catcher array to a specific resource.
Use the game's filtering tools to ensure that Array A only catches Iron, Array B only catches Copper, and Array C only catches Carbon. This dedicated routing ensures a smooth, predictable flow of 69 items per minute straight into your dedicated refining columns.
Logic Blocks for Conveyor Systems Astro Colony
A belt that just goes straight is a wasted belt. To build a true automated colony, you must master Logic Blocks. These are the brains behind your logistics network, allowing you to split, merge, and throttle the flow of resources.
| Logic Block | Function | Output Behavior |
|---|---|---|
| Splitter | Divides a single belt into multiple paths | Ratio-based division |
| Merger | Combines multiple belts into one | Perfect ABCD interlace |
| Timer Pusher | Controls flow based on time intervals | Interval-based bursts |
| Filter Block | Allows only specific items to pass | Strict sorting |
The Merger: Introduced in a major patch to solve belt balancing issues, the dedicated Merger block is a masterclass in logistics. When you feed multiple different resources into a Merger (for example, Gold Plates, Iron Rods, and Carbon), the block intelligently balances the network. It pulls from all available directions equally, generating a perfect, stable ABCD ABCD interlace output. This is vital when feeding complex Assemblers that require multiple ingredients at exact ratios.
The Timer Pusher: While Splitters are great for dividing a line in half, the Timer Pusher gives you god-like control over your factory's timing. Instead of a continuous flow, the Timer Pusher holds resources and only releases them at a specified time interval. If you have a high-tier machine that only needs one Gold Plate every 10 seconds, the Timer Pusher prevents the belt from backing up and hoarding plates that could be used elsewhere.
Overcoming the Iron Rod Bottleneck
Every automation game has its notorious early-game hurdle. In Astro Colony, it is the Iron Rod bottleneck. Iron Rods are the foundational currency of your expansion. You need them to build floor panels, craft basic conveyor belts, and construct basic machines.
If your conveyor systems Astro Colony are not aggressively prioritizing iron rod production, your base expansion will grind to a halt. The solution is to build an overflow manifold.
Route your primary iron ore belt into a series of Splitters. The first Splitter should direct 50% of your iron directly into a dedicated "Rod Only" Smelter column. The remaining 50% continues down the line to be split again for Screws and Gears. If the Rod Smelter's output inventory fills up, the Splitter will automatically bypass it and send 100% of the ore down the line. This ensures that you are always stockpiling Iron Rods while never starving your secondary component factories.
Advanced Routing: Filter Blocks and Sensors
Once you reach the mid-game, space on your colony becomes premium real estate. Running ten parallel belts across your base is messy and inefficient. This is where "Sushi Belts"—single belts carrying multiple different types of items—come into play.
Sushi belts are inherently dangerous; if one item type backs up, the whole belt stops, freezing your entire factory. To execute this safely, you must use Filter Blocks paired with Signal Deciders and Inventory Sensors.
By placing an Inventory Sensor on a storage warehouse, you can read exactly how much Copper Wire you have. Wire that sensor to a Signal Decider, and set a logic rule: If Copper Wire > 500, send a red signal. Connect that signal to a Filter Block on your main belt. When your storage hits 500, the Filter Block slams shut, preventing any more Copper Wire from entering the belt, while allowing Iron Rods to pass freely. This level of dynamic, sensor-driven automation is what separates amateur builders from true Astro Colony architects.
Belts vs. Drone Delivery
As you expand your colony and begin attaching large planetoids to your moving space station, you will unlock Drone Delivery. A common question is whether drones make conveyor belts obsolete. The short answer is no.
Drones are exceptional for low-volume, high-value transport over long distances—such as moving late-game Science points or rare biological samples across a massive base. However, drones have travel time, battery life, and limited carry capacity. For high-volume, continuous throughput—like moving thousands of chunks of raw Carbon from your mining drills to your power grid—conveyor belts remain the undisputed kings of logistics. Use belts for your raw industrial foundation, and drones for your specialized, low-yield logistics.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
How do I unlock faster belts in Astro Colony? Faster belts (Pro and Expert) are unlocked via the Technology Tree. You will need to generate specific Science points (Engineering and Chemistry) to research them. Once unlocked, you can upgrade existing belts in place without having to tear down your entire factory.
Why are resources stuck on my conveyor belt? The three most common reasons for a jammed belt are:
- The destination machine's inventory is completely full.
- You have accidentally placed a liquid pipe block in the middle of a solid belt line.
- A Filter Block is set to the wrong item, acting as a solid wall.
Can I move liquids on a conveyor belt? No. Water, Oxygen, and Hydrogen must be transported using the dedicated pipe system. Attempting to route a gas geyser output onto a conveyor belt will not work.
What is the best way to merge two full belts? Use the dedicated Merger block. Unlike simply ramming two belts together, the Merger block intelligently balances the input, ensuring that neither source belt backs up prematurely, providing a stable, interlaced output.
The Final Take: Scale or Starve
Your survival in the voxel void dictates that you must automate or perish. Conveyor systems Astro Colony are not just a convenient way to move rocks; they are the central nervous system of your base. By respecting the 69 items/min limit of basic belts, adhering to the 8-catcher rule, and utilizing Timer Pushers and Mergers to orchestrate perfect flow, you transition from a struggling space survivor into a master industrialist. Stop moving items by hand, build the grid, and let the factory do the work.