Factorio Forums

Unless I'm missing something, the steel furnace is just straight up inefficient to use over the stone furnace. The stone furnace needs 200kW of power at a crafting speed of 1, while the steel furnace uses 2MW of power at a speed of 4. Four stone furnace will be just as fast as one steel furnace, but only use 40% of the fuel. Steel furnaces don't even seem to have any module slots, which might have allowed them to be more efficient in some other way. It seems like the only reasons to use steel furnaces are for space and pollution, which aren't concerns considering that you are intended to play without biters anyways.

This was made with that exact intent. Those furnaces are efficent just not the way you wanted them to be

Just curious, which way are they effecient then?

You need 4x less footprint for same output

If space is an issue, then your planning of your factory layout is wrong. Easier said than done when it is your first playthrough, I know. Just use much more space than you imagine you would ever need, and then you are fine.

I would have set the value to 1 MW though. This still makes them less efficient, but not as much that people just avoid them. I never use them because of that and I never have needed them THAT badly.

The answer rely on pollution. Steel furnaces are 4x faster, but only create 2x pollution. Some people plays with biters

someday you will need a lot of ash, and steel furnaces will suddenly seem mighty attractive with their 2.5x ash production.