Factorio Forums

I've seen several screenshots and gameplays with long belts of ore being taken somewhere else and smelted. I usually just smelt the ore as soon as I mine it and then just make sure the resources get to where they need to be. Is there any advantage to having your smelting in a different area than your mining, or is it just personal preference?

It is somewhat personal preference, but remember that when an ore field runs out you have no choice but to move your miners, while your smelting facility can stay the same throughout the game. So while you may at first put your furnaces near where you mine your ores, once does are finished you may wish to keep the furnaces where they are, instead of moving them as well.

sillyfly wrote:It is somewhat personal preference, but remember that when an ore field runs out you have no choice but to move your miners, while your smelting facility can stay the same throughout the game. So while you may at first put your furnaces near where you mine your ores, once does are finished you may wish to keep the furnaces where they are, instead of moving them as well.

That's a good answer and it makes a lot of sense. Not for the setup I've got now, but for some.

Also, this question's probably been asked before. I think this thread might've been unnecessary. My bad.

Moreover, until you get to electric furnaces, you have to convey coal all the way to your mining outpost to smelt the ore. Double the work, and double the work to deconstruct everything once your ore field is depleted.
With static smelting area, all you have to do is get the ore there, and that's it.

Its not a closed question, some people prefer outpost smelting, some others prefer base smelting. Both have their advantages and backdraws. For me, the static base smelting facility wins.

It can make sense, when playing with trains to first smelt it and then transport, cause the stack size for furnaced ores is double size (iron/copper ore is 50, iron/copper plates is 100).

I never tried that, but I doubt, that it really makes sense...

ssilk wrote:It can make sense, when playing with trains to first smelt it and then transport, cause the stack size for furnaced ores is double size (iron/copper ore is 50, iron/copper plates is 100).

I never tried that, but I doubt, that it really makes sense...

Also Steel is very strongly compressed Iron Ore. So there it can make a lot of sense too.

I personally prefer to have a smelting setup somewhere central rather than at my mining areas. The other problem with having it right at your smelting areas is that it can be very difficult to expand later on, depending how you built it. Also it means you have to probably run the iron/copper plates a long way to get them together for all your products, sense it is usually pretty rare that an iron field and copper are right next to each other.

I've tried both styles and came to the conclusion that a mix of both seems to be working well for me.

I start with a smelting facility near my first ore patches, mostly near my future factory. This will be my main smelting area for the whole game. As my first ore patches run dry, i normally start hauling in ores by trains from more distant patches, to be smelted in this area.

After i researched electric furnaces, i start to change things up a bit. I still keep the steel furnaces fueled with coal. But, as soon as i find a large ore patch, i build electric furnaces near the patch and bring in the plates. At the same time, i still have my old smelting setup going and bring in ores from a different patch, mostly from a smaller one. So for my baseload of plates, i have ores brought in from a smaller patch and smelted in my factory. For any spikes in demand i bring in the plates smelted on site from the larger patch.

I found this setup gives me more flexibility when sudden changes of demand happen, i can easily see when my "baseload" setup reached it's max capacity, and i don't have to replace the furnaces too often. Also, when i'm one patch is about to run dry, i still have a second one working, so the pressure of setting up a new mining area is somewhat reduced. Also, i upgrade the smelting-where-i-mine areas to full outposts and keep them after the ore is depleted.

It might be a bit of work and not that energy efficient to do it this way, but for me it works great.