How do beacons work?

[Hogweed]

I saw beacons on the wiki, they said they are needed to power the modules, but the modules seem to work just fine without them. Are they still necessary?

[syneris]

Beacons give module effects to a radius, but only half the benefits. They stack with other beacons and modules already inside your machines, but don't affect other beacons or anything without a module slot (no benefit for laser turrets or inserters for example). I see them as extremely specialized since you need to focus your building around a beacon layout for them to really be worth placing. They don't accept productivity modules and use more power than you save with effectivity without serious planning.

[ssilk]

Copy/paste-to-wiki

[Coolthulhu]

don't affect other beacons or anything without a module slot

Last time I checked they affected steel furnaces, but this was relatively long ago, before beacons became nearly worthless except for the latest of lategames.

[Hogweed]

Hi syneris,

Thanks for the update. I agree, I use nearly all efficiency modules, and with a power cost of 480 kw, you hav to get a lot of modules close to make them effective.

I agree that though be added to the wiki!

[Zourin]

As described, although it's fair to note the very short radius it provides for.

I don't bother with them, at all. I tried it, did some basic math, and threw it out as garbage tech.

It may 'save' you some resources initially, but it's fair to say if you're having material issues that you can't mod all your factories, you're better off spending the resources fixing that rather than on beacons.

[Coolthulhu]

They were rather useful when productivity modules didn't suck. You could save quite a bit of energy by strategically placing beacons.
Now the best way to use modules is effectiveness for everything, speed purely as a crafting ingredient and productivity for alien science packs. No place for beacons here.

[syneris]

don't affect other beacons or anything without a module slot

Last time I checked they affected steel furnaces, but this was relatively long ago, before beacons became nearly worthless except for the latest of lategames.

I'll have to check that. It might be certain building types instead of only buildings with slots. While furnaces are the only thing this applies to right now, it would be very important information for modders.

Like Zourin said, the radius is rather small. You could potentially use two module to provide the effect of one to multiple buildings. One beacons can only touch 3-6 buildings in most common layouts, depending on belts or logistic bot design. You can have multiple beacons affect the same building, which deemed beacons overpowered because of a single use. You could stack a lot of beacons around a single assembly machine and get an insane productivity bonus (https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =16&t=1511).

Even if you could put productivity in beacons, this wouldn't work anymore. The speed penalty would go negative and your factory would run in reverse: taking items back, disassembling them into raw components, and then put those back in the ground.