Factorio Forums

Hi, all,

I want to check I have the basic understanding in place - apologies that this is the most basic of questions. If I know I understand this, I can hopefully apply the same principles throughout the game.

Consider smelting iron ore into iron plates. Is my understanding below correct:

- It takes 1 iron ore to make 1 iron plate
- A stone furnace has a Crafting Speed of 1. The recipe time for an iron plate is 2
- … therefore a stone furnace can turn 1 iron ore into 1 iron plate every 2 seconds (Craft Speed x Recipe Time).
- Said differently, 0.5 iron plates per second.

- Electric Mining Drill mines at 0.5 per second

THIS is where I think I am going wrong. My thinking is this:
- If a mining drill is mining 0.5 ore per second, and a furnace is consuming it at 0.5 per second … then there is 1:1 ratio between mining drill and furnace.

BUT this goes against everything I've read (which suggests a 2:1 ratio). Have a made a very basic maths error, or is my understanding of the data wrong in some way?

Many thanks in advance,
GrayDS

The smelting recipe time is 3.2 not 2.

https://wiki.factorio.com/Iron_plate
3.2s craft time.

Oh.
My.
Goodness.

I clicked on the link Koub provided, and double checked … it's definitely 2.

Except I looked a bit closer … and realised I had not seen the "3." bit (only the "2") bit. 3.2 is definitely NOT 2!

Appreciate the very speedy response. I'll order some new glasses, I think.

GrayDS

Its less a matter of “how many smelter furnaces do I need for X miners” than it is two somewhat different matters : “how many miners do I need to fill this (yellow, red, or blue) belt” and “how many smelter furnaces are needed to turn this full (yellow/red/blue) belt of ore into a full belt of plate”.

Without any Mining Productivity tech levels, it is 30 miners for a yellow belt (15/side), 60 for a red, and 90 for a blue.

It takes 48 Stone Furnaces to completely turn a yellow belt of ore into a yellow belt of plates. It would take 24 Steel Furnaces for that yellow belt, or 48 for a red belt.

The reason for this is simple : it does not matter if you have 30 miners, or 100; if you are bringing one yellow belt of ore in, you will not need more than one yellow belt of furnaces to turn the ore into plate.

If you can only fit 45 miners onto an ore patch, with low expected yields for the miners, it is probably worthwhile to only bring one belt of ore from it. If you can fit 100 miners on the patch, you probably want to divide that patch into thirds and bring three yellow belts from it (the extra, as well as the Mining Productivity tech, helps to extend the life of the overall mine, as measured by continual output of full belts). Figure out how many belts of ore you can bring, or need, from an ore patch. Then figure out how many furnaces you need for your belts of ore.

astroshak wrote: Wed May 06, 2020 11:43 pm Without any Mining Productivity tech levels, it is 30 miners for a yellow belt (15/side), 60 for a red, and 90 for a blue.

mining productivity will break any calculations anyway.

Miners on the edge of an ore field deplete faster and the output will drop over time.

Orientation for the beginning
one stone furnace for one burner miner
two stone furnaces for one electric miner
one steel furnace for one electric miner

Exception: stone bricks; you need two stones for one brick
one stone furnace for one elctric miner (stone)

steel production:
add another smelter of the same type that is fed from an iron plate smelter.
one steel beam needs 5 iron plates and needs 5 times longer to create than one iron plate.
A perfect match.

later on you always want to have enough ore for your smelters.
Some backup istn that bad.

Boy oh boy. Wait till you start training in ore to your smelting arrays. Then its more an issue of how many trains can i stack in this amount of space. This is more fun to me.

Another way of looking into things is that the ratios are just guidelines. The math can get thrown off from minor to major, exponentially, depending on the distance of where the "actions" are taking place and how you are transporting things.

Say for example, you have an electric mining drill mining directly into an electric furnace. This will work pretty close but there still will be a tiny delay, it's not exact even with perfect math ratios. Now, the farther away your furnaces are from your mines the more furnaces you'll need. Add in trains, belts types, arm types or robots and things can get pretty complex.

To make things simple, start out with just the ratios but watch things. Too much ore on the belts? Add more furnaces or close the distance between the two. Too many furnaces not in operation? Reduce the number of furnaces. In just about every setup I find myself having to tweak things a bit to get close to optimal efficiency.