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Just watched a lets play where the person spent over a whole episode (half hour) upgrading his furnaces from steel to electric. And i realized that i dont think its an upgrade, i think it may actualy be a downgrade.

If you need smelting speed - not an upgrade, they're the same speed.
if you need to fit your smelting in a confined area, then you're downgrading. you waste 50% more space (electic is 3 wide, to steel 2, the hight difference is compensated by the need for a coal belt, but the width you still lose.
If your power is steam and you want to reduce fuel use, then you're downgrading. Boilers spend twice as much coal to heat the water needed to make the electicity you need to power your electric furnace, then the steel furnace would take.
If your power is almost entirely solar and you want to reduce polution, then i think this is the only time its an upgrade. You waste insane space on panels and some more on furnaces, but you will produce less pollution then burning fuel in a steel furnace.

Also i guess if you're really short on fuel (coal/solid or wood) then making electric furnaces makes sense (again only if you power them entirely by solar power).

Am i missing anything, or maybe i misunderstand something, please point it out if you see something wrong in my analysis.

And ye, the 2 module spaces help counteract SOME of the downsides to electric furnaces, but i suspect that even with them, you'll lose out on most factors when upgrading.

Hey RoddyVR,

As far as I understand, you're right. It's in most cases a downgrade space & fuel-wise but most of the time electric furnaces are used for end game when production is almost fully automated, lots of robots, etc. By using blueprints, having lots of space and using efficiency modules 2 in the electric furnaces, you can greatly decrease power demand and pollution and thus decrease attacks from biters, which I prefer as I'm not a fan of pvp/enemies when I want to build at my own speed

Hope that explains a bit,

Jhonny

Trick question.

All things considered, they are better. Modules are a huge thing. You can have two fast inserters inserting ores and taking away plates non-stop, no need for coal means more ore intake. They do take more space, but they can use it more efficently.

The downside is that you really need those modules to make them worthwhile. More often than not basic electric furnaces aren't worth the trouble to replace your steel furnace network.

Use electric furnaces to reinforce your steel furnace smelting, but don't bother upgrading steel to electric.

Are they better? Yes, but not meant as an upgrade.

I never change steel furnaces to electric. About the only time I use electric furnaces is in far away outposts for smelting(to fit more on trains) or as you say, if I'm completely solar and having fuel issues.

Drury wrote:Trick question.

All things considered, they are better. Modules are a huge thing. You can have two fast inserters inserting ores and taking away plates non-stop, no need for coal means more ore intake. They do take more space, but they can use it more efficently.

The downside is that you really need those modules to make them worthwhile. More often than not basic electric furnaces aren't worth the trouble to replace your steel furnace network.

Use electric furnaces to reinforce your steel furnace smelting, but don't bother upgrading steel to electric.

Are they better? Yes, but not meant as an upgrade.

So you're putting in 2 speed modules to speed them up? in that case, you you're doubling the speed, so those 3 tiles of your smelter line are now smelting at the speed of 2 steel furnaces. so you've saved 1/4 space wize to get the same result as 2 steel smelters would give... and you've spent dozens of times the resourses (those modules are expensive as hell), and have increased your polution by a factor of 3 (the electicity makes them polute twice as much, and the modules add another 140%).
just putting 2 steel furnaces would be better. or if you're solar powered, 2 electric furnaces... the line will be twice as long, but that's a much smaller cost then the modules. If you were trying to conserve space, you're now using 3/4 of the space you would have used with steel furnaces.

I find that steel furnaces do just fine for me. What else would I do with all that coal anyhow?

You can get all technical, which I guess we already have, but I think it really comes down to personal preference. Are they really that much of an upgrade? No not really. However personally I prefer electric one over steel because not having to use coal means more room for iron ore to come in, plus you use less inserters only having to pick up ore. Also I like them because believe it or not, I somehow seem to run out of every game and I don't want to use solid fuel sense I am almost always using every drop of light oil for cracking into petro.

And the ability to put in modules just gives me more flexibility. So yeah they aren't faster by themselves and do take up more space and are pretty expensive, but I would prefer to go to the expense of building them rather than the hassle of bringing more coal in by train from somewhere. Space doesn't really matter sense you essentially have unlimited spce. :p

Electric furnaces powered by coal boilers is a terrible idea. You should not upgrade your steel furnaces until all your steam engines have been replaced with solar panels.

Then it becomes a question of how long you want to play.

1 steel furnace consumes 81 coal per hour.
1 electric furnace costs 150 resources.
The 4.3 solar panels and 3.6 accumulators required to power it cost 394 resources.
2 efficiency module 1's cost 135 resources but save you 236 resources in solar panel infrastructure.

(150 + 394 + 135 - 236) / 81 = 5.5 hours before you turn a profit. 6.7 hours if you didn't bother with efficiency modules.

I upgrade my smelters every time. And then i use one speed and one productivity module. So i rise my output. The used space is no problem for me, because i plan the extra space before. Power is no problem for me too, i have coal in mass. In case i have not enough coal, then i switch energy production to oil (solid fuel).

Electric Furnace Pros:
- Renewable with solar power.
- More efficient|fast with efficiency modules.
- Less pollution with modules.
- No coal conveyors. No need to worry about coal at all. Saves lots of space and headache.
- Easy to establish smelters to process at mining sites. Just run power lines.

Electric Furnace Cons:
- Costs more to set up
- Slightly larger (initial) footprint.
- Steam power -> furnace consumes twice as much coal.
- More pollution without efficiency modules (?)

Switching over is sometimes handy at the worst, and totally worth it at the best.

It's a very slight upgrade. It gets new potential and new flaws to go with them.

Upsides include extremely low pollution, and upgradablity (can interface with beacons as well) which make it very powerful at the late game. You also don't need a coal/fuel line.

Size is both an upgrade and a downgrade, since more size means more inserters can be put on it, which increases the throughput potential and thus the maximum processing speed.

Downsides include cost, electricity load, and research time.

For me its very worth it because I like to keep pollution low and potential high.

its a upgare of modgules

They are an upgrade when you go solar, since you will no longer depend on coal for production. And going solar is generally an upgrade to steam, since you won't have to worry about running low on coal with solars. Just build enough accumulators to last you through the night and recharge during the day and you're good.