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When I first started Factorio I of course built Small electric poles because that's all that was available. Then when I researched medium poles I upgraded to those. But I started to notice the cost of building all those medium poles.

Recently I started playing a marathon game and the pole cost became more of a factor, so I took a look into the costs.

And even for regular (non-marathon) games, small poles are always the best choice.

Specs on the poles at the bottom of this article.

Small vs Medium
This is the hardest of the comparisons, the small pole is cheaper 1/4 the cost of copper, no cost in steel, and uses wood which is usually something I have an oversupply of.
However it covers half the space of a medium pole (5x5-1 for the pole is 24, 7x7-1 for the pole is 48).
If you want to blanket a 35x35 area with coverage, the small pole needs 49 poles, the medium needs only 25, so you gain 24 squares for other things.
But of the 1225 total, that's about 2%.
The 25 medium poles will cost 50 copper and 50 steel, the 49 small poles will cost 24.5 copper and no iron or steel, less than half the cost.
Also, you don't normally cover an area, you supply power to a factory, most of my factories have multiple sections of belt, inserter, assembler, insterter, belt.

With a medium pole's coverage of 7 you can supply power to 3 assemblers and one side of it's inserters, so you need two poles for this setup, but if you stagger the poles it's really more like 1 1/2.
With a small pole's coverage of 5 you can supply power to 3 assemblers and one side of it's inserters, so you need two poles for this setup, and cannot really stagger them well, so it's generally 2 for each setup.
But even needing an extra 1/2 pole, the small poles are much cheaper.
There are some designs where medium poles would make sense, most likely solar panel farms.

Small vs Big
Big poles are about reach, not coverage, so this will only consider reach.
Base small pole reach is 7.5, 1/4 of the big pole's 30, but in a straight line it's only 7.
To reach 210 distance, you need 30 small poles or 7 big poles.
7 big poles cost 35 copper and 35 steel, 30 small poles cost 15 copper and no iron or steel. Plus there is more coverage along the path.
There is one way that big poles can beat small poles, and that's if you string red or green circuit wires along them, the cost of those wires makes the big poles cheaper for long distance circuits strung by hand. However, if you use a blueprint, the circuit wires are thrown in for free.

Small vs Substation
This is clearly cost vs clutter.
The substations covers 8 times as much as a small pole but costs 60 times as much copper (7.5x as much per area covered), plus iron and plastic.
As with the medium pole, there are cases where it would make sense, but in general the small pole is much cheaper.


Fixes
I think it's a shame that there is one answer for all electric pole needs with only a few exceptions, and that the best choice is the one you get without any research.

I'd suggest that the other pole/substation recipes give 2 each as well, that makes the medium and big poles much more competitive with the small pole. They still cost steel where the small pole uses wood, so that alone wouldn't be enough to make them worth building.
So, I would also suggest extending the medium pole's reach by 1 (to 9, adding 1 to each side) would allow it to cover the full inserter, assembler, inserter by itself, that would also make it more likely to be better for many situations.
For substations even doubling the recipe still makes small poles 3.75x cheaper per area covered. The coverage area would also have to double to make them effectively cheaper.
However, it you increase their coverage from double the medium pole (14) to double the medium pole's expanded coverage (18) would go a long way towards that, and would probably make them more worthwhile in a lot of cases.

One other fix (that would break many existing factories) is to give each pole (of any type) a small fixed electric cost (call it transmission loss), this would definitely encourage bigger more advanced poles, even with higher resource costs. I would guess about 1 to 10 kW would be enough to encourage me to invest in the bigger poles.

Until then, just keep using small poles everywhere.


For reference, here are the costs of each with their coverage and reach:
Small Electric Pole
cost .5 sec, 2 cable + 2 wood -> 2 poles
so in raw materials .75 sec, 1/2 copper + 1/2 raw wood -> 1 pole
Covers 5x5 (effectively 24 squares)
Reach 7.5 (usually only 7, but does allow some better placements in a few cases)

Medium Electric Pole
.5 sec, 2 copper + 2 steel -> 1 pole
.5 sec (plus furnace time for steel), 2 copper + 10 iron -> 1 pole
Covers 7x7 (effectively 48 squares)
Reach 9

Big Electric Pole
.5 sec, 5 copper + 5 steel -> 1 pole
.5 sec (plus furnace time for steel), 5 copper + 25 iron -> 1 pole
Covers 4x4 (ignore)
Reach 30

Substation
.5 sec, 5 Advanced circuits + 5 copper + 10 steel -> 1 station
.5 sec plus time for circuits and steel, 30 copper + 10 iron + 10 plastic
Covers 14x14 (effectively 192 squares)
Reach 14

Also, I am playing in marathon/expensive mode, and that doubles the cost of steel and increases the cost of circuits making everything except the small pole at least twice as expensive.

Inexpensive items being more useful than expensive ones kind of seems to be a theme in factorio in general:

Examples:

1)Stone furnaces pretty much trump everything for a very long time. Steel > electric until you have 24/7 solar/nuclear, not just part time, and stone = steel whenever either coal or oil is abundant since steel does not reduce pollution more than stone (and usually you have excess of one or the other).

2)Turret creeping is basically free, and is the fastest conquering method throughout most periods of the game, although it waxes and wanes compared to other options now.

3)Efficiency modules> 1 essentially have no practical use

4)Lower level modules are way better than higher level ones until you get highly dense beacon setups.

There's a lot of cases of the reverse, like modular armor tiers, burner insterer/miner, but it seems like expensive things that have been imbalanced in a bad way for a while just stay that way >.> Maybe they're saving polish balance for beta.

Don't mean to derail, but your analysis is pretty much correct so there's not much to say regarding the OP >.> Especially on a deathworld/marathon as you've noted, due to expensive items, it is just not worth it making better poles unless you're short on wood.

It's kind of funny with small poles, the way I use them in many games. Sometimes I'll run out of wood, so I'll switch to medium and large simply because it's faster to blow up trees. BUT in post end-game, I go right back to small poles since I can have con bots mass deforest and have logibots handle some small pole assemblers.

greep wrote:1)Stone furnaces pretty much trump everything for a very long time. Steel > electric until you have 24/7 solar/nuclear, not just part time, and stone = steel whenever either coal or oil is abundant since steel does not reduce pollution more than stone (and usually you have excess of one or the other).

Stone Furnaces are half speed, and therefore use twice the power to create the same items. For example, 70 steel furnaces consume and fill a blue-belt of iron, but it takes 140 stone furnaces to do the same. Aside from the size costs (additional inserters, additional belts, etc. etc), the 140 stone furnaces use 3.15 Coal per second, while the 70 steel furnaces use up only 1.575 coal per second.

I highly recommend upgrading to steel furnaces. Electric furnaces only seem worth it if you've switched to solar and/or nuclear... or are taking advantage of muodules, because of the 50% loss of energy in a boiler.

2)Turret creeping is basically free, and is the fastest conquering method throughout most periods of the game, although it waxes and wanes compared to other options now.

Tank is quite powerful.

3)Efficiency modules> 1 essentially have no practical use

Agreed. This is a major problem IMO. Efficiency Module 3 needs to be boosted significantly before it is worthwhile to build.

4)Lower level modules are way better than higher level ones until you get highly dense beacon setups.

Its never "better" to use Productivity 1 over Productivity 3. Its just cheaper to do so. Besides, Productivity 3 and Speed 3 are about size and space efficiency. The smaller your base, the fewer rail stations and fewer roboport coverage and fewer belts you need to handle everything.

-----------------------

In typical circumstances, the #1 issue for me is inventory management. Being able to hold a medium pole for all situations is superior than juggling the inventory of medium vs small poles. Another issue: Medium Poles can be 100% automated, while small poles will require "farmers" to rush out and collect wood.

This thread is another example of why the balancing section of the forum should just be removed.

If you prefer small poles, use them. Problem solved. Don't increase costs of everything and then come running to the balance board complaining about how expensive higher tech is. Your math is irrelevant and pointless because you disregard the relevant factors.

I didn't argue to make things more expensive, just the opposite.

If you'd like to point out the relevant factors I'd be happy to see what you have to say, I would certainly appreciate it if I was wrong and one of the other power poles makes sense to use.

I do prefer small poles and use them pretty much exclusively, I just feel there should be some pluses and minuses to each, and currently for the math I mentioned, the small poles are the best choice about 99% of the time. And for inventory management, just use the small poles for everything.

On a final note, if you don't like the balancing forum, just don't read it.

Substation in v0.15 has reach 18 and coverage 18x18.

You're vastly oversimplifying things when you try and claim that Small electric poles are the best. For instance, my prefered layout for belt-based train loading/unloading with buffer chests is impossible to make work without Medium electric poles because the Small electric poles don't have enough reach to cover the innermost loading/unloading inserters between train and chests. My prefered 0.14 solar layout is more space efficient than any Medium electric pole based layout could ever be because it uses Substations. All 4 poles types have their uses. Small Electric poles are the cheapest and only one available from the start, but their downside is the small radius of coverage (1 tile better than Big electric pole, accounting for the space the pole takes up), which prevents certain layouts, and generally means you have to use more of them to power the same setup (they also can't power inserters on the far side of two belts, which I use in my building store pretty early, so I have to reduce inserters/assemble to put the poles on the nearside, whereas with Medium electric poles, I don't). Medium electric poles are functionally a more expensive, but better version of the Small electric pole, they have longer reach and supply area (3 tiles away in any direction instead of 2), they also don't require an un-automatable resource, which makes them yet more convenient later on). Big electric poles are all about reach and allowing you to transport power generated at one location to another, far away place...and they remain the best at this even after Substations are researched, despite the much lower tech requirement to research Medium electric poles and Big electric poles. Substations are really a whole nother animal, they are 2x2 like a Big pole, but have a bit less reach, but much better supply area (by far the best of all poles), hence they are useful for powering lots of tightly packed machines from a single, central location (They allow for the lowest overhead/tile powered which is quite handy for endgame solar farms for example).

Thanks for trolling me into wasting my time on writing this:

You're kind of understating the costs of the medium electric pole Qon. Ignoring copper costs since it doesn't matter in 0.15, 1 medium pole is 20 iron turned into steel, or basically 2 green science. And you make hundreds and hundreds of poles. So we're talking like 2-3000 green science lost to poles here, which at the time you get them, means you're actually spending more like 5% of your infrastructure, or 500 times your hyperbolic 0.01% comment. In the long run sure, it doesn't matter much, but it's actually quite significant if you don't play on default settings when the beginning of the game is otherwise trivial. If I had to choose between "lulz better poles" and "50-80 laser turrets" the answer is pretty obvious here.

And as for space, medium poles do not save space generally, since you just put poles in between inserters. Maybe in some very weird cases that you might have to put some assemblers one space apart, like with high ingredient intake before stack inserters or something. I actually can't think of any case where a medium pole saves space. Maybe if you're intentionally trying to use poles in a way that saves space with solar and accumulators? I think most people just use straight lines of them before logistics, though.

In any case, yes, it's making a mountain out of a molehole, you could and I do just don't use them until later. But he's not wrong

Qon wrote: On a final note, if you don't like the medium power poles, just don't craft them.

You seem lost. This is a balance forum of a game. If you don't like threads on balance, just don't post here.

Qon wrote: The cost of all the power poles in a factory is like 0.01% of the cost of research, modules, sending a rocket, logistings or anything else. The cost is negligable. The power pole you use is the one that is most convinient, not the cheapest.

...

Medium poles are superior in every way. They might be more expensive in numbers per pole, but you can't automate tree mining. When you mine thousands of resources per minute then caring about paying 2 or 10 resources for a one time cost is meaningless.

...

Space is a vastly more precious resource than a few pieces or iron. Using small poles means you can't place factories where the power poles are. So even if 100% coverage was the goal, you would use substations.

The first two are very good points that I really hadn't considered yet. My current factory is still fairly early (about 70MW of nuclear power), and with Marathon settings every cost is something to consider, so I did for the poles as well. But I can foresee the point where I won't care about the extra steel required by the bigger poles and you are correct that the power poles are a very small % of the total cost.

I was able to make a blueprint of the entire factory in map mode (I love the new map mode by the way), and I have a bit over 1k poles placed, if they were all medium poles that would cost 20k more iron, not trivial, but not a huge factor.

I have yet to hit a space problem and that's harder for imagine, but I'll take your word for it on a huge factory.


Thank you.

i use what i need..small pole have a so small range, the second i research medium ones, i change all for them.. i dont care for crafting cost. i mostly use medium and substations for power, because of range.

greep wrote:You're kind of understating the costs of the medium electric pole Qon.

Oh I'm wrong? ok.

greep wrote: Ignoring copper costs since it doesn't matter in 0.15

I'm not sure why but I'll roll with it.

greep wrote: 1 medium pole is 20 iron turned into steel, or basically 2 green science.

It's 10 iron. If you are increasing the cost, don't complain that it is expensive. Play with vanilla settings, live with small poles or take the cost.
But close to 2 green science, yes.

greep wrote:And you make hundreds and hundreds of poles.

You aren't forced to replace all the small poles as soon as you get mediums. How many hundreds of poles do you need in the early game?

greep wrote: So we're talking like 2-3000 green science lost to poles here

2k green science would be 1100 medium poles in iron.
3k would equal 1650 medium poles.
I have a (moduled and not including mining and defence, but it's what I have for reference) 1 RPM base that uses 746 medium poles.

A more realistic high estimate number would be 300 (Maybe if you show me a green tech factory with 1650 poles or something we can go with your numbers), where half is small poles you haven't replaced yet for an early base imo. So about 300 greens (300 / 2 * 10 / 5.5 = 272.72..)
Which you don't pay up front. So a single research below blue science.

greep wrote: which at the time you get them, means you're actually spending more like 5% of your infrastructure, or 500 times your hyperbolic 0.01% comment.

But 5% of your infrastructure is something like 0.01% of all the ores you mine. Research is where most of your iron goes. All you infrastructure together is cheap compared to research. Only when you go for a moduled factory, blue belts/bots does it start to really cost you something to build the factory.

Also OP thinks small poles are superior when you are ready to launch the rocket...

leitk wrote:small poles are always the best choice.

greep wrote: In the long run sure, it doesn't matter much, but it's actually quite significant if you don't play on default settings when the beginning of the game is otherwise trivial. If I had to choose between "lulz better poles" and "50-80 laser turrets" the answer is pretty obvious here.

So you are playing with settings that force you to play with shitty poles. Maybe your settings are teh lulz and not the cost of the poles? And if you combine low resources with expensive recipies then you get what you deserve...
If you are increasing the cost, don't complain that it is expensive. Have I said that before?

greep wrote:In any case, yes, it's making a mountain out of a molehole, you could and I do just don't use them until later.

You see my point at least.

greep wrote:But he's not wrong

About what?

leitk wrote:small poles are always the best choice.

That?

greep wrote:

Qon wrote: On a final note, if you don't like the medium power poles, just don't craft them.

You seem lost. This is a balance forum of a game. If you don't like threads on balance, just don't post here.

When you remove what I responded to then the circular discussion isn't as apparent. I was poking fun at what he said. If I fix your quote for you so it doesn't lose the context...

greep wrote:

Qon wrote:

leitk wrote:On a final note, if you don't like the balancing forum, just don't read it.

[...]
On a final note, if you don't like the medium power poles, just don't craft them.

You seem lost. This is a balance forum of a game. If you don't like threads on balance, just don't post here.

And I did say more than just that. Maybe you skipped my whole response? The part where I said that I am interested in discussions on balance as long as it's not mindless drivel.

Qon wrote:

Mad rant

leitk wrote:On a final note, if you don't like the balancing forum, just don't read it.

I like it when there's interesting discussions. When people clutter it with threads about pointless topics that they don't understand it doesn't fulfill any purpose.

Some of the uneccessary threads just on the first page:

• Supression of the size shift of electric furnaces. OP wants to upgrade furnaces in place to electric ones. Doesn't understand that EF are for modules and there's no point in upgrading unless you get to a point where you just rebuild your base anyways.
• Trains vs conveyors? OP thinks belts are superior to trains. lul
• Are bitters too hard to kill in end game? Op hasn't tried destroyer drones that trivialises combat.
• Robot speed upgrades and recharge distance. People suggest buffing logistics recharge speed, thinks roboports can't charge robots fast enough. That's like demanding MK999 belts because 1 blue belt wide bus can't carry enough items.
• Kovarex Enrichment Process unbalanced? OP thinks kovarex process is underpowered even though single mine and a handfull of centrifuges can easily supply tens or hundreds of GW, enough for as many rockets per minute as you want (1 RPM is usually considered megabase). Others suggests nerfing it so hard that you can just remove nuclear power completely.
• Balance Barreling + Fluid Transport OP wants the simple fluid wagons to carry more luiquid than cargo wagons with filled barrels. Even though the capacity is almost the same, barreling requires more complicated infrastructure and both handle any amount you can throw at them no problem. The devs write reasonable responses in this thread, saying that it's a non-issue.
• 0.15 Pumpjack gives too much oil. OP is researching mining productivity 213 and is boosting pumpjacks like crazy with beacons and speed 3 modules with max oil patch size. Trolling deliberatly I guess but it's as dumb as the other stuff on this list.
• 0.15 Expensive Recipie Balance. From page 2, but whatever, so hilarious it needs to be included anyways. OP complains about expensive recipies being expensive. This troll then proceeds to get offended by advice and claims to have made a factory that "produces well over a million iron per SECOND". The stupidity knows no bounds in this troll.
• Electric Pole costs. OP increases cost of everything and complains about the cheapest structure in the game being to expensive. Probably also a troll. Makes calculations about irrelevant things such as covering the entire world with your network would take you 0.023 seconds longer to mine the resources for to "prove" that the medium power poles are indeed more expensive. Doesn't understand that if you have power on all tiles then you have no space for you factory so in the end you achieved nothing.

I've seen people complaining about the most powerful tools in the game being useless, like trains, bots, speed & productivity modules, beacons and mk3 assemblers. Basically what a megabase consist of. People on the balancing board have no understanding of the game and threads are made mostly by rank "Manual crafter" with less than 4 posts on the forum.

The problem isn't the balancing board. It's all the newbies who can't ask how things are used efficiently before they make threads about the new tech they unlocked being useless. Then when they learn how and when to use the new tech they complain about the old tech being useless (Please don't do this once you start crafting medium power poles).

On a final note, if you don't like the medium power poles, just don't craft them.

EH, I'd continue the argument, but honestly you're right in the sense that this topic just isn't worth arguing about it's so trivial, I think any developers stopped reading by now anyways. If they read past the initial post even since the math is done and it's just a matter of whether they care to make a change in cost.

leitk wrote: I was able to make a blueprint of the entire factory in map mode (I love the new map mode by the way), and I have a bit over 1k poles placed, if they were all medium poles that would cost 20k more iron, not trivial, but not a huge factor.

If you use production stats screen, go all time stats tab. Then you can see how much iron you have mined in total. I just started a new factory and have done all green science. I dont' have access to oil yet and had to spend some time to claim space and more iron. Firearms magazine accounts for about 40% of all my iron so far and has takes about 100 times more than my medium poles. I have almost 500 medium poles in my base, but I sprinkle them like crazy. They don't cost anything anyways :^]. I could probably remove 50 of them, and can remove 50 more once my factory gets rebuilt and organised.
Also I use fast inserters only (in my green tech factory) since they are better and still super cheap. Pointless to use basic ones. :]

leitk wrote:I have yet to hit a space problem and that's harder for imagine, but I'll take your word for it on a huge factory.

Well a huge factory can use small poles if it's a space inefficient factory. Extremely compact blueprints are easier to manage and thus easier to get high production with. I have compressed my factory so much that there was no space left even for medium poles at some spots so I had to use a handful of substations.

leitk wrote:Thank you.

You're welcome. I'm glad we could come to agreement.

I can see where you're coming from, however I think you missed a few key points:

• - Using substations or larger power poles significantly reduces the amount of poles you have to place, reducing the amount of bots you need or time you have to spend which could be used elsewhere

• - As stated elsewhere, some setups, especially those involving trains, cannot be used with small power poles due to the coverage area not reaching far enough

• - As for the cost: I do agree that it is a very large difference, but think of it this way: building a rocket silo, satellite, and 100 rocket parts (not in marathon) costs about 113655 iron, 93887.5 copper (enough for over 46000 medium poles, over 18000 big poles, or over 18000 substations), and 12700 steel (enough for 6350 medium poles, 2540 big poles, or 1270 substations), not including science or any other production

• - Marathon mode doubles the steel cost but not the copper cost, making it less than half the price (except for maybe substations)

• -

  dragontamer5788 wrote: In typical circumstances, the #1 issue for me is inventory management. Being able to hold a medium pole for all situations is superior than juggling the inventory of medium vs small poles. Another issue: Medium Poles can be 100% automated, while small poles will require "farmers" to rush out and collect wood.

All in all, I'd say that bigger power poles could even need to become more expensive. At later points in the game, the only non- trivial ingredient is advanced circuits.

Qon wrote:This thread is another example of why the balancing section of the forum should just be removed.

If you prefer small poles, use them. Problem solved. Don't increase costs of everything and then come running to the balance board complaining about how expensive higher tech is. Your math is irrelevant and pointless because you disregard the relevant factors.

He brings up a valid point, and the goal is to make it so that all options are at least somewhat equal based on you playstyle. If it is balanced right, people will neither think it needs to be nerfed or buffed. If you want to disagree, please do it civilly so it actually add something to the discussion.

Jap2.0 wrote: He brings up a valid point, and the goal is to make it so that all options are at least somewhat equal based on you playstyle. If it is balanced right, people will neither think it needs to be nerfed or buffed. If you want to disagree, please do it civilly so it actually add something to the discussion.

But OP says he agreed with me and thanked me...

Jap2.0 wrote:I can see where you're coming from, however I think you missed a few key points:
[...waste of time...]

Everyting here has been said before by several people several times. You are just necroing a finished discussion at this point. We shaked hands, said our goodbyes and our thank yous. We shed a tear for the moments we had that we now knew must now come to an end, already missing eachother. We turned around and walked away, happy that we came through it all stronger and with one friend richer in the end.

Qon wrote:

Jap2.0 wrote: He brings up a valid point, and the goal is to make it so that all options are at least somewhat equal based on you playstyle. If it is balanced right, people will neither think it needs to be nerfed or buffed. If you want to disagree, please do it civilly so it actually add something to the discussion.

But OP says he agreed with me and thanked me...

I'll admit there was some good discussion, but you yourself posted something entitled "Mad Rant", which personally isn't a good sign of a pleasant discussion. Just because you convinced OP doesn't mean it was a pleasant conversation either.
Also: you seem to be using the fact that OP ended up agreeing with your arguments as evidence that your point is right, yet if I had posted this several days ago and OP agreed with me, you would not have accepted that as evidence my point was right.

Finally, because you do not seem to even consider any perspective other than your own, I won't try to persuade you further.

Goodbye.

Jap2.0 wrote:

Qon wrote:

Jap2.0 wrote: He brings up a valid point, and the goal is to make it so that all options are at least somewhat equal based on you playstyle. If it is balanced right, people will neither think it needs to be nerfed or buffed. If you want to disagree, please do it civilly so it actually add something to the discussion.

But OP says he agreed with me and thanked me...

I'll admit there was some good discussion, but you yourself posted something entitled "Mad Rant", which personally isn't a good sign of a pleasant discussion. Just because you convinced OP doesn't mean it was a pleasant conversation either.

I didn't really come here to discuss. I came here to end the discussion.
I labeled it mad rant because a non-discussion doesn't deserve better, and so I could get away with some hyperbole, off-topic ranting and jokes for my own amusement.
My aim was to be productive, not pleasant. And OP thanked me for it, he is obviously not so weak that his spirit gets crushed when someone tells them the honest but harsh truth. OP knows he is welcome here as long as he asks his next question in the forum designed for that instead of the balance section.

And don't tell me to be nice when you are so rude yourself. You necro threads and repeat what has already been said several times before, just because you are so lazy you couldn't bother to read a single page.

Jap2.0 wrote: Also: you seem to be using the fact that OP ended up agreeing with your arguments as evidence that your point is right, yet if I had posted this several days ago and OP agreed with me, you would not have accepted that as evidence my point was right.

What? No, I used it to prove the discussion had ended. No one agrees with the original point any more really. I made OP see that I was right. I made Greep see that I was right. You don't either disagree with me. You said "he brings up a valid point" but everything else you've written has been written as if Jap2.0 is actually Qon2.0 when you came and repeated my counterpoints. No one in this thread is on the wrong side on the topic, because everyone agrees with me.

Jap2.0 wrote:Finally, because you do not seem to even consider any perspective other than your own, I won't try to persuade you further.

Like I said, there are no other perspectives. You can't persuade me to change my opinion if you yourself agree with me. If you actually had another perspective and something to contribute with then I'm always open to change my mind.

Jap2.0 wrote:Goodbye.

Time to lock the thread.