Factorio Forums

Pretty much all recipes in the game are rather sensible though the amounts of resources involved are sometimes questionable but for the sake of balance/game I have no major issues with them. But for concrete.

It really bugs me because it makes zero sense. It is currently made of:

- 5x bricks
- 1x iron ore
- 10x water

While in reality it is not made of any of those (well it uses water for cement...). There is no cement in the game and since it is a chemical adding it in would imbalance things a lot (need for yet another chemical plant chain). However there is a stone that is pretty much what the basic ingredient is for concrete so why on Earth is there bricks in the recipe instead? Furthermore iron let alone iron ore is not used in concrete at all. Why is it there? To act as "cement"? However there is a quite common "reinforced concrete" (which is what is used in construction as regular concrete is somewhat brittle for that) but that uses steel, not iron. And steel is in the game as well! What a coincidence. Since there is no cement I believe water is sufficient supplement for that here and therefore I suggest the following recipe:

- 10x stone (equal amount as in the original recipe)
- 1x steel
- 10x water

Perhaps having 5x stone would be more in line with the rest of the game but that is only minor. Stone is not used in many things so it is not going to make a lots of difference anyway.

I believe it would not change balance of the game much but it would really make some sense at least.

Anyhow, thanks for considering this.

PS. It could also be renamed to "Reinforced Concrete" for the completeness sake.

Changing iron ore to steel is a rather large change, since it is a decent hassle to produce steel.

henke37 wrote:Changing iron ore to steel is a rather large change, since it is a decent hassle to produce steel.

Agreed it is.

as for the OP ya, it should be 10 stone but instead of 1 steel, like 5 iron plate instead instead of just ore.

henke37 wrote:Changing iron ore to steel is a rather large change, since it is a decent hassle to produce steel.

Is it though? Concrete is researched AFTER steel only and to produce steel you need only iron and fuel (or just iron if using electrical furnace). I find bringing iron ore to concrete production site to be much more hassle.

But sure, it could be just plain iron plates as well no problems with that idea. Just no bricks or ore, that is really dumb.

If you go by the theme of reinforced concrete, I would suggest iron sticks instead of iron plates. I mean, usually it is just concrete poured over a mesh of iron (or steel) sticks.

Agreed that iron ore does not make a lot of sense...

There was somewhere a mod which replaced ore with sticks called Sane Concrete.

Also Homeworld adds sand.

Greetings steinio

I would also like more realistic concrete but as far as I know devs try not to take new raw materials or too complex manufacturing processes into the game. Under this restriction current materials and processes are not very bad choice. Normal cement is manufactured from limestone and some other stone materials in a furnace. Iron ore works well as special stone. Concrete needs also a furnace, but because smelting of iron ore is already reserved smelting of the stone bricks works as a replacement. Iron sticks (for example 2 or 3 pieces per manufacturing cycle) would fit very well to act as a reinforcement. I think that iron plates in Factorio is basic construction steel, which is typically used in concrete buildings, and steel plates are more special sorts of steel for machine fabrication, tools, aerospace applications etc.

Hannu wrote:Under this restriction current materials and processes are not very bad choice. ... Iron ore works well as special stone. ... Iron sticks (for example 2 or 3 pieces per manufacturing cycle) would fit very well to act as a reinforcement.

I disagree that the current materials are not a bad choice. Nothing else in the game uses ore, except smelting. This is really unusual for a mid to late game recipe to use ore and to be the only one that does it. Others and yourself have proposed good alternatives.

[quote="mooklepticon"I disagree that the current materials are not a bad choice. Nothing else in the game uses ore, except smelting. This is really unusual for a mid to late game recipe to use ore and to be the only one that does it. Others and yourself have proposed good alternatives.[/quote]

I like iron ore because it causes complications. If concrete needed iron sticks or steel plates instead of ore I would have them transported or manufactured in any case to my stone shop because railways need them. But iron ore is another story. I had to put couple of slots in my service train for ore to bring it to my main base when I dumped the iron production out from the base. I understand that such things would be annoying for most players but I like them. On the other hand, bots are trivial solution if somebody does not want to complications.

Make it Iron Sticks instead of Steel and you have my upvote @ Resurrection.

Currently there's not much use for Iron Sticks anyways...

MeduSalem wrote:Make it Iron Sticks instead of Steel and you have my upvote @ Resurrection.

Currently there's not much use for Iron Sticks anyways...

Upvoting this

Typically high-strength concrete is reinforced with rebar so I like this idea.