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Hello all-

recently in one of my factories I have started using beacons with my copper smelting. However, I don't know what the most efficient setup with modules in both the beacons and furnaces might be. So far, I have 2 level 2 speed modules in the beacons with 2 level 2 productivity modules in the electric furnaces. This works out so that I get 12% productivity without losing speed (because of the beacons). The only cons are WAY INCREASED power demand and more pollution, which I don't really care about. Currently I'm powering my factory with solar panels/accumulators, totaling up to 108 MW of power during the day.

So here is my question:
Is it worth it to have this setup with the following pros/cons or should I use other module combinations?
Pros- greater rate of smelting, get more copper plate from less ore, MAY save me time as I MAY need less outposts
Cons- energy consumption goes from 180 kW per furnace to 504 kW per furnace, 80% more pollution, cost of producing said modules, cost of producing solar panels/accumulators

P.S. What designs and combinations do you other factorio users use or like?

Thank you for your help!!!

At that stage of the game, I'd suggest using just productivity modules for the following reasons:
1 - Speed modules can be replaced with more furnaces
2- Efficiency Modules don't matter since pollution doesn't matter and energy can be produced with more solar
3 - productivity makes more from less. Going and connecting more mines, rails, infrastructure is what takes the most precious resource at this stage of the game (time).

Personally I don't use modules except speed in my oil pumps. I can never justify the cost

Since I've been experimenting around with the topic the past 8 months I'd say:

Furnaces: Productivity Modules (Since they can't be put inside Beacons)
Beacons: Speed Modules

I'm with DerivePi on the Efficiency Modules... When using Beacons the EM's disqualify themselves automatically because there is NO combination of EM's with PM's that will ever result in something useful and since Energy/Power is basically for free it makes no sense to use them. I did the math on that with some excel sheets and basically the Beacons kill the efficiency anyways due to them being a constant power drain. So one has to make sure that the furnaces are working 24/7 or otherwise using beacons just doesn't pay off in the first place.

While I understand DerivePi's opinion of not using Speed Modules in favor of having more furnaces instead, but since there is no other option on what to use you eventually have to put Speed Modules in the Beacons.

The Speed Modules have the nice sideeffect that you will need less Furnaces, therefore less space, allowing more compact solutions, which is especially interesting if you are aiming for high throughput because I would just hate to have HUGE arrays of furnaces because one needs 150-200 or more furnaces to get the througput needed to do some of the ridiculous stuff some people are doing. With Beacons using Speed Modules you can cut the amount of furnaces needed to a fifth or something in that magnitude if I remember my math correctly.

Also using the PM's in furnaces + SM's in beacons results in MUCH less power drain than furnaces using PM's but without Beacons pushing their speed. But that is only the case if, like said before, the furnaces are running 24/7 without interruption.

Here is one of my smart furnace setups using beacons:
The furnaces are filled with PM3s and the Beacons with SM3s. The speed at which the furnaces work and the overall throughput is just ridiculous, believe me. Something about 34000 Plates/min (570 Plates/sec) theoretical limit.

I never managed to push it to its theoretical limit yet due to the trains being the bottleneck on that map and I have no real motivation to change that ever since I started over with a new map.

Here are some other Power/Item comparisons:

Above setup: 0.19 MW/U
Furnace only using PM3, no beacons: 0.28 MW/U <- above setup better than without beacons.
Furnace only using SM3s, no beacons: 0.11 MW/U
Furnace only using EM2s, no beacons: 0.02 MW/U <- obviously winner if one doesn't care about productivity.
Furnace without Modules/Beacons: 0.09 MW/U

So it is far more efficient to use Beacons filled with Speed Modules together with Furnaces when using Productivity modules.

Comparison for Items/min (Items/sec) and Total Power required:

Above setup (52 furnaces, 70 Beacons): 34042 U/min (567 U/sec), 108.34 MW
338 furnaces using 2 PM3 each, no beacons: 34070 U/min (568 U/sec), 158.18 MW
142 furnaces using 2 SM3 each, no beacons: 34080 U/min (568 U/sec), 61.34 MW
284 furnaces using 2 EM2 each, no beacons: 34080 U/min (568 U/sec), 10.22 MW
284 furnaces without Modules/Beacons: 34080 U/min (568 U/sec), 51.12 MW

So basically you save a lot of furnaces but at the cost of power.

I haven't done any calculations on the resource investment breakeven-point... since honestly I don't really care about how much resources go into crafting furnaces/beacons/modules because at some point I don't really know what else to do with the resources anyways. But if someone wants to do that based on my numbers feel free to do so.

Ok, thank you all for your quick replies!
So I was doing it right after all, since power is easier to get than resources.
Why do you have so many beacons next to your furnaces, isn't it more cost efficient to have more furnaces MeduSalem?

Gouada wrote:Why do you have so many beacons next to your furnaces, isn't it more cost efficient to have more furnaces MeduSalem?

Because I'm min/maxing around space usage. I don't want to have endless fields of furnaces so I'm pushing the limits to make the setup more compact. Also doing that consumes less overall power than using no/less beacons when using productivity modules in furnaces. So I also need to supply less power, which also means saving a little on space for solar farms/steam engines as a welcomed side effect.

Of course that's only true when using productivity modules. Without productivity modules things are different anyways.

Take a closer look at the numbers I added above and you'll notice why it is preferably better.

Yup you were doing it just fine. This idea is also very good for like purple science packs for example. I use this for the science packs in a multiplayer game and it works wonders. Have never actually done it with smelting before but as others have mentioned and as I am sure you have experienced it works good for that.

Personally I never see any reason to use efficiency modules in anything unless you are currently only on steam power and running of fuel or something. If you the space and resources to build the solar panels and accumulators it is pretty much free energy after that so the energy reduction from EMs doesn't seem too useful unless your in a desperate situation. :p And the pollution reduction... Well who really cares about the pollution? Lol

Gouada wrote:Why do you have so many beacons next to your furnaces, isn't it more cost efficient to have more furnaces MeduSalem?

Well, with 6 beacons per furnace, you get +270% speed. With 1 beacon, you get +20% speed. 3.7/1.2 = 3.08. So each furnace has three times as much throughput. That's why fewer beacons is not really cheaper, even with the savings on speed modules.

--
I did some loose calculations on resource break-even points for productivity. An electric furnace with no mods produces about 2k iron per hour. One prod 3 module adds +10%, so 200 per hour. A prod 3 module costs over 3k resources. So that's 15 hours to just break even. This is not very exact, but it's enough for me to stay away from productivity in furnaces (but I used it for green circuits)

As for pollution, if you are worried about it at all.... then stay *far* away from productivity and speed modules.

I did a quick in game test on the pollution listed on an electric furnace.

• Electric furnace with no mods: 0.9 pollution.
• With 2x efficiency module 1, (-60% energy): 0.36 (What I always use).
• With 2x efficiency module 2 (-80% energy): 0.18.
• With 2x productivity 3 (+160% energy, +100% pollution): 4.68
• With 2x productivity 3, and 4 beacons with 2x speed3 (+440% energy, +100% pollution): 9.72.

The latter has productivty +20%, speed +170%. So it creates 3.24 times more output, for 27 times more pollution. 8.33 times more per unit produced, compared to my favourite low-cost solution of 2x efficiency 1. So it is *way* more than +80%. This is how you turn the minimap into a really angry red.

Random note: Highest pollution stat on a single building my last game was 53.1, from a pumpjack with +350% speed.

A pollution math post from Kovarex
Awesome post on productivity in assembly plants. September 2014, should be relevant still.

Linosaurus wrote:I did some loose calculations on resource break-even points for productivity. An electric furnace with no mods produces about 2k iron per hour. One prod 3 module adds +10%, so 200 per hour. A prod 3 module costs over 3k resources. So that's 15 hours to just break even. This is not very exact, but it's enough for me to stay away from productivity in furnaces (but I used it for green circuits)

One would also have to factor in the loss in crafting speed which is -15% per module no matter if Level 1, 2 or 3. So you get 10% more plates per ore but thanks to the speed loss you lose 5% of the throughput with each module you insert, for a total of 10% throughput loss for each furnace. So it takes even longer to break even.

The only way to counter this is to actually craft speed modules and productivity modules alternately, so you can counter the negative throughput effect. That way you break even faster and faster the more modules you already finished and inserted into the furnaces/beacons due to increasing throughput. But you'll never get below a certain threshold of course.


I'd say it hugely depends on prefered playstyle... someone who doesn't play a map for more than 20-30 hours won't need any modules ever. If you spend 100-200 hours on a single map though then you'll play far beyond the break-even point and then there's no logical argument why not to do it.

Arguably someone spending only 30 hours on a map won't need quite a lot of the stuff the game offers because most of them only become interesting once you've already surpassed rocket-defense. For rocket-defense most people probably won't even leave the starting area and as there's currently no "logical reason" to play any further on a map than that most people will find it quite hard to find a reason using modules at all, which is also true for trains and some other stuff.

That said, it may still be an interesting part for speedruns. Since some of the module combinations might actually result in shorter runs. But I wouldn't play that way ever because I find no fun in killing my own game experience by breaking/bending the game and getting to the end of the game faster and faster each time, making it repeatedly more boring with each replay due to taking the same exact steps over and over, leaving no room for actual "fun" and experiments. In speedruns for other games I've seen people starting over the second they did something wrong... which must be quite frustrating on the longterm.

Sorry for the necro, but I have a question for @MeduSalem:

In your smart furnaces setup, I assume that you set logistics conditions on the inserters to insert e.g. iron ore if plates < X. For steel smelting, how do you prevent iron plates being "stuck" if e.g. 7 plates were inserted, 1 steel made, so 2 plates left in the furnace and the the steel quotum is met?

(also, why do you have smart inserters on the output instead of regular inserters?)

vanatteveldt wrote:Sorry for the necro, but I have a question for @MeduSalem:

In your smart furnaces setup, I assume that you set logistics conditions on the inserters to insert e.g. iron ore if plates < X. For steel smelting, how do you prevent iron plates being "stuck" if e.g. 7 plates were inserted, 1 steel made, so 2 plates left in the furnace and the the steel quotum is met?

(also, why do you have smart inserters on the output instead of regular inserters?)

Iron/Copper Ore Inserters work on Logistic Network conditions like you expect. They stop once a certain threshold of Iron/Copper Plates in the storage system is met.

For Steel Smelting the Iron Plate inserters are wired individually to the Requester Chests located behind them and are set to work on Circuit Network Condition "Iron Plates > 4", which ensures they only insert Iron Plates into the Furnace as long as the Inserter is able to grab 5 Plates in a turn from the Requester Chest, basically abusing the fact that Inserters take 5 Plates when the Inserter Stack Size Bonus Research is fully upgraded (That's why it actually works for Steel Plates, but sadly not for Stone). The Circuit Network Condition prevents the Inserter from inserting incompatible amounts which would lead to residuals rendering the furnace stuck. Of course there is also an additional Logistic Network Condition just like with Iron/Copper ore with a threshold so it doesn't produce endlessly Steel Bars when the storage amount is sufficient.


As for the reason why I use Smart Inserters on the Output instead of Regular Fast Inserters... well there is no particular reason to use Smart Inserters... You can use Fast Inserters as well. If I had to take a wild guess I probably just used Smart Inserters because I had them in the inventory or some other oddity like that resulting from experimenting around. At least I can't remember exactly why I did that on the picture above, because nowadays I use Fast Inserters on the Output since it doesn't need to work on any conditions/filters whatsoever.


In more recent implementations of Smart Furnaces I also go so far to shut down Beacons by swapping in/out the Speed Modules on condition as well, meaning in low demand scenarios I don't waste energy on the beacons, but they rather come gradually online in high demand scenarios when lower storage thresholds are reached. It is actually the only place where I use combinators because otherwise it would be too damn ugly to control.

So actually I am using Smart Furnaces + Smart Beacons.

Cool, that makes sense. I don't have full inserter stack size so I guess I'll wait a bit. Do you have a solution for stone, or do you keep separate furnaces for stone->brick?

Can you post a screenshot of the smart beacons? I am curious how you put the extra inserters in space-wise.

vanatteveldt wrote:Cool, that makes sense. I don't have full inserter stack size so I guess I'll wait a bit. Do you have a solution for stone, or do you keep separate furnaces for stone->brick?

I keep stone seperate.

I tried quite a lot of different approaches to include stone, with the conclusion that Robot delivery just doesn't work for stone because of how unpredictable the Robot deliveries are (ranging anywhere between 1-4 items) and because of how the damn inserter stack size bonus can't be configured individually for each inserter to something different than 5 once fully upgraded (meaning they could put anything between 1-5 stone in the furnace, which is the root of all the problems). So no matter what, eventually stone would always render the smart furnaces stuck when combined with robot delivery.

... that said if one uses a belt-based solution for resource delivery instead of robots then one can make it work, but then everything else becomes inefficient by sacrificing compactness, just like so (or something similar if someone finds even a better layout):
It works because the smart inserter grabing from the belt is inserting items one by one into the buffer chest, so you can count them accurately. Also one would have to think about all the other problems, how to prevent the belt from becoming clogged with one item type or additional sacrifices like not using beacons in the first place, etc... In my opinion it is just not worth it. And yeah, the picture is quite old... back then circuit wiring inserters directly to chests wasn't possible yet... one had to route the circuit network wire over the electric poles.

vanatteveldt wrote:Can you post a screenshot of the smart beacons? I am curious how you put the extra inserters in space-wise.

Sadly I only have a picture from an experimental test setup for the Smart Beacons around and not one of an actual large scale implementation, but I think it still gives an idea how I did it:
In optimized setups I have the Iron Ore Input+Copper Ore Input on one side and Iron Plate Input+Furnace Output on the other side of each furnace. Which leaves me exactly 1 space on each side of the furnace, which I use for Input/Output of the modules from the Beacons.

Don't let yourself get irritated by the EM3s... as a generalized prove of concept I originally tried to switch between three modes on-the-go:

• No modules ... no usage scenario, furnaces/assemblers are idle (Storage is full)
• EM3's ... low usage scenario, furnaces/assemblers are only lightly utilized (Storage getting full, >50%)
• SM3's ... high usage scenario, furnaces/assemblers are highly utilized (Storage getting low, <50%)

But in real applications there would not be enough room to support 4 inserters per beacon, so I had to compromise and go for:

• No modules ... no+low usage scenario, furnaces/assemblers are only lightly utilized or idle (Storage is getting full or is full, >50%)
• SM3's ... high usage scenario, furnaces/assemblers are highly utilized (Storage getting low, <50%)

It is a trade-off that gives the most benefit.

The program as to when the "low usage" and "high usage" scenarios are triggered is actually rather complex due to 3 items being involved in the load balancing, and therefore it would take longer to explain.

Building space is quite dense already, which left me no choice other than to use substations or otherwise I wouldn't have been able to power everything. Maybe someday that setup will become easier to implement once the Filters of Smart Inserters can be controlled by Circuit network signal or something like that. Then just changing the filter would do the trick and give back some space from redundant inserters.

But yeah, basically the Smart Beacons can be adapted to any other Assembler/Chemplant Setup as well (which is what I am doing too). Doesn't have to be just Furnaces. Helps a lot to reduce the energy consumption in idle parts of my factories.