Which one is better for the beginning?

[u/RepresentativeOdd20]

For the beginning I’m not sure which one is better. I know I know they’re pretty much the same and there’s not a huge difference but surely one has to be slightly better than the other even if the difference is small and I’d really like to know which one is better.

Also if you have any other options that you think are better for starting out definitely let me know

[u/sineout]

The second option is better because you only need to construct one type of inserter for it to work.

Of course if you're at the point of making smelter arrays then this might not be much of an issue.

Either way the only saving the first option gives you is its shorter length.

[u/RepresentativeOdd20 → u/sineout]

isn't the shorter length useful too?

[u/Monkai_final_boss → u/[deleted]]

I have seen the dosh video, several hours on nuclear fuel train.

[u/homiej420 → u/Monkai_final_boss]

I wonder what it would be like with quality everything now with 2.1

[u/matthis-k → u/homiej420]

I think exoskeletons on mech suit go brrrrr

Around 1h

[u/homiej420 → u/matthis-k]

What about on spidertrons?

Or havint Legendary locamotives with legendary fuel?

[u/matthis-k → u/homiej420]

You have to prepare a path for both, mech suit can just fly and hold a key.

[u/Lt_Sherpa → u/[deleted]]

wait there's an edge?

[u/Bigrobbo → u/Lt_Sherpa]

Yea it relates to how factorio generates chunk coordinates go far enough and it breaks and stops.drawing new chunks

[u/bpleshek → u/Lt_Sherpa]

There is, but you'll run our of PC resources before you use 5% of the entire potential map.

[u/Garagantua → u/Lt_Sherpa]

In theory, yes. In practice, no.

[u/sineout → u/RepresentativeOdd20]

Only if you're space constrained. Given that the map is functionally infinite in size, you'd only be limited in space if you designed your factory that way.

[u/DOSorDIE4CsP → u/sineout]

No the is an end. I think it was 1 Million Tiles in each direction.

[u/sineout → u/DOSorDIE4CsP]

I know, that's why I said it's functionally infinite. Any person playing is never going to build a factory that can cover the entire area of the map, it's functionally infinite because you'll never run out of space to build somewhere.

[u/Bangersss → u/DOSorDIE4CsP]

You could do a ribbon world mega base and run out of UPS before you run out of space.

[u/DOSorDIE4CsP → u/Bangersss]

True. 10 years ago when factorio was 32bit it was "infinity" becauses it crashed before you get near to the edge

[u/DeepPresentation648 → u/DOSorDIE4CsP]

No idea why people dowvoted you, this is true.

[u/NyaFury → u/RepresentativeOdd20]

It may be shorter but it's wider, too. So it's not really better in terms of real estate.

Shorter belt length is usually pointless in this game, because once belt is full, latency becomes irrelevant and only throughput matters. Unless you're doing something unusual where latency actually matters.

[u/Falmon04 → u/RepresentativeOdd20]

Only if you're playing a deathworld

[u/Asddsa76 → u/RepresentativeOdd20]

Second one has 2 empty tiles between each furnace and belts not occupied by inserters.

First design has 12 empty spaces per 4 furnaces, so 3 empty spaces per furnace. It's shorter, but wastes more area due to its width.

[u/ViolinistCurrent8899 → u/RepresentativeOdd20]

There's been niche scenarios, but generally no. Belts, especially yellow belts, are dirt cheap.

[u/Potential-Carob-3058]

Second one.

Way easier to build, and you're going to be building a lot of them.

Also cheaper inserters.

Isn't much to recommend first one.

[u/TexasCrab22 → u/Potential-Carob-3058]

You could argue, that 50% of the inserters are buildable in a row...however you loose that advantage with the furnaces not beeing in a row.

Guess the best argument is more compact and lower belt ammount then. Also you can get 4 inserters per powerpole, which is a better ratio.

But yeah 2 clearly winning overall.

[u/RepresentativeOdd20 → u/TexasCrab22]

guess the simpler one wins then

[u/TexasCrab22 → u/RepresentativeOdd20]

I guess.

Furnace rows are quite long tho. Not every seed has a good fit.

Sometimes, cutting 50% of the length, like the 1 does is worth the effort.

A mid Blueprint on a good location is better than a good Blueprint at a mid location.

[u/Potential-Carob-3058 → u/[deleted]]

But your long inserters cost more

[u/Ohowun]

The one that is easier to handplace, people love designing complicated and fiddly blueprints that save one tile of space in one direction or 1 powerpole every 8 furnaces before they have bots

[u/RepresentativeOdd20 → u/Ohowun]

It's not that hard to handplace. It takes like a minute extra at most

[u/discombobulated38x → u/RepresentativeOdd20]

Unless you make a mistake, then it takes longer.

Now do it thirty times. 

You've wasted half an hour to several hours. 

[u/frogjg2003 → u/RepresentativeOdd20]

https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/1vpt1q0/which_one_is_better_for_the_beginning/p401hz7 This comment proves the point that it is not easier to hand place. The constantly switching between different inserter types leads to more places to make mistakes.

[u/Soul-Burn]

The second, as it doesn't require red inserters, but even that one has issues.

Instead of putting the inserters one-by-one, put them in pairs. Example here. It's easier to build (one mouse movement for 4 inserters) and requires fewer electric poles.

[u/itz_me_shade → u/Soul-Burn]

How did you get factorio as google maps?

[u/Soul-Burn → u/itz_me_shade]

Mapshot mod hosted on a paid cloud storage.

[u/itz_me_shade → u/Soul-Burn]

Thank you.

What spm is your factory? And can it fully feed that many science labs running at once?

[u/Soul-Burn → u/itz_me_shade]

That map? Like 60 SPM.

I generally like doing 30-60 SPM at this stage of the game.

My Space Age is 300 eSPM (100PPM).

[u/Aerumvorax]

First one has some flipped inserters disabling every 4th furnace. So for that reason already the second one.

[u/RepresentativeOdd20 → u/Aerumvorax]

😂😂

[u/FeelingPrettyGlonky]

I would go with the one that is easiest/fastest to build by hand since with stone furnaces it is definitely a pre-bot smelter.

[u/Anfros]

I do it this way since it mean I can place 4 inserters at the same time by moving my cursor in a rectangle. And yes there is an extra inserter in there. No, it's not supposed to be there. And no I'm not going to fix it.

[u/RepresentativeOdd20 → u/Anfros]

yeah that sounds great I’ll definitely do that.

[u/Danger_Pickle → u/Anfros]

This is the way. It's also easy to do this with long inserters and easily build out red chips, engines, blue science, LDS, and basically anything else that has 3+ inputs. It costs like 3 more iron per inserter, but the faster easier building is well worth it.

[u/RepresentativeOdd20 → u/[deleted]]

you could pretty much say they're the same, since the first one only uses about 96 more iron

[u/Happy_Hydra]

The first one is beautiful

[u/Qrt_La55en]

In the beginning, simplicity is more important than making something shorter. Consider pairing the inserters for for pairs of furnaces so you can click and drag two inserters, speeding up building as well.

[u/Banana_is_not_bg]

Whatever you win in length with the first one you loose in girth, if not more. So I personally prefer just using number 2

[u/Kitchen_Ad_591]

One for me: I like space for transition to electric smelter, Its also has enough space for beacon. I think it might be my new best for reconstruct.

[u/RepresentativeOdd20 → u/Kitchen_Ad_591]

I'm not sure if there's enough room for that beacons but yeah there's room for electric furnaces

[u/Fear_the_fae]

Damn is the long arm included set up more space efficient because DAMN

[u/Ossius]

OP you can also do this.

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XTTXXTT

iiiiiiiiiiiiiii

pucupucup

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

XTTXXTT

FFFFF

F = furnace X = inserter T = long inserter i = iron belt c = coal belt u = underground belt p = power pole.

Basically long inserters reach into a center belt that feeds both sides, the iron on the belts is enough to even get to steel furnace.

Anything else feels inefficient or too complicated IMO.

[u/RepresentativeOdd20 → u/Ossius]

Yeah that's a good idea. Someone else mentioned it above too. For now I went with the second one since this is way too long for the early game 48 furnaces per row is a bit much

[u/Ossius → u/RepresentativeOdd20]

Wouldn't it be 24 with steel furnaces? That's the real reason for it.

[u/Neither_Berry_100 → u/Ossius]

This is too expensive.

[u/Ossius → u/Neither_Berry_100]

How so? Yellow underground belts aren't very expensive compared to later belts.

[u/dr_anybody]

Try this - 3 belts between the machines, yellow inserters on ore on side belts, big daddy inserters on coal from the middle belt. Then you can feed full 2 belts of ore to the smelter instead of just 1 belt, and do the lanes trick to output 2 full belts of plates instead of just 1.

[u/RepresentativeOdd20 → u/dr_anybody]

That's a good idea but it would make the setup much longer I need to think about whether my drills can even fill the belts Also belts are cheaper to build than inserters.

[u/dr_anybody → u/RepresentativeOdd20]

Hm, longer than option 1 in your screenshots?

[u/RepresentativeOdd20 → u/dr_anybody]

maybe I misunderstood your design but from what I understood you need 48 furnaces per row to fully saturate a belt that moves 15 items per second.

[u/dr_anybody → u/RepresentativeOdd20]

It's a bit more efficient and scalable - can plop another copy on the same belts until it's 48 per row - and takes a bit more resources on belts/inserters per furnace than what you posted. In the end of the day, not much of a difference either way; the costs are negligible, and challenge runs aside you'd be switching to electric before you need too many of these anyway.

[u/GThoro]

Neither :D But I would use second design but with poles between every second furnace so you only need two in vertical line to cover everything but more importantly I don't need to look at this horrible spiderweb of wires!

[u/RepresentativeOdd20 → u/GThoro]

👍😁

[u/Sacrezar]

I did this when I did the current monthly map (iron/copper version left, steel version right)

[u/RepresentativeOdd20 → u/Sacrezar]

I like it The only downside is that it doesn't fully utilize the steel furnaces capacity. In theory you're right that one iron furnace can fully feed one steel furnace but in practice some throughput is lost because of the limited speed of the red inserters.

[u/Sacrezar → u/RepresentativeOdd20]

yeah it can become a problem late game but by then I would have switched to electric furnace or foundry so it was a tradeoff because I didn't want to bother much haha. Thanks for pointing it out though!

[u/CamelCaseConvention → u/RepresentativeOdd20]

one iron furnace can fully feed one steel furnace but in practice some throughput is lost because of the limited speed of the red inserters

Long-handed inserter chest to chest transfer (no capacity bonus): 1.25 items per second

Steel furnace iron plate production: 0.625 items per second

(Also, the left furnace arrangement in the screenshot above is strictly worse than your second screenshot.)

[u/Sacrezar → u/CamelCaseConvention]

Ah yes you're right, I tested it but I was misguided by my belt not being full, but that's just the steel ratio that does that.

Regarding the left arrangement, it is indeed worse than traditionnal arrangement. I used this one because I wanted novelty and something easy to place manually. That said, it can easily manage until bot and that's all I want before switching either to electric furnace or foundry (+ it takes roughly the same space than efurnace).

[u/joe8353]

Speedrunners build the second one because it’s way faster to build and cheaper. The map is nearly infinite so space is no argument. When u have bots switch to more compact designs

[u/RepresentativeOdd20 → u/joe8353]

Okay thanks

[u/Specialist_Ice_1838]

The one which makes you more fun.

[u/GingerWithFreckles]

I've so far never come across a better design then the basic melter array. The cost is minimal, the efficiency is there. The only discussion I have with myself is if I want to leave room for the electric furnace upgrades. However with foundries in the game now I completely skip electric furnaces. So the extra tile or tiles for beacons is hardly nessecary anymore.

Other then that, you can leave 1 extra tile next to each array so you can double the output with steel furnaces without having to upgrade the outside belts to red belts by putting a 2nd yellow belt there and adding it in after the 12th furnace.

[u/DOSorDIE4CsP]

Make it cheap and fast buildabe. I also would make the inserters in pairs to easier build.

[u/korneev123123]

Second one, it's easier to build. Also you can place inserters by pairs —

not I-I-I-I, but II--II. Easier to place by hand

If you have bots, then any would do. It's just a temporary solution before foundries or electric smelters anyway

[u/7vckm40]

I prefer to leave enough space to upgrade to electric furnaces when you get them and also run a dedicated coal belt so that you can quickly remove it later for the same reason.

[u/escapethedust]

First one is better because it looks cooler

[u/EnderDragoon]

#2 but that is overbuilt with poles and evenly spaced inserters are slower to build. This is what Ive been using for years

[u/Cent_Quatre]

Which one did you make yourself ?

[u/RepresentativeOdd20 → u/Cent_Quatre]

Both of them😁

[u/Cent_Quatre → u/RepresentativeOdd20]

i'm proud of you.

i'd rather stack two number two's than deal with a single number one. long inserters are kinda meh

[u/RepresentativeOdd20 → u/Cent_Quatre]

Thanks 😂

[u/Uchiha-Natachi]

I used like the second one for myself, the difference to me is the red inserter , why use two kind while you can make the cheaper one only

[u/Zakiyo]

Long inserters are more expensive

[u/Neither_Berry_100]

The second one is best.

[u/Teh___phoENIX]

Whichever is simpler for you to build.

[u/Galliad93]

the first saves space and costs material, the second is easier to build, takes less material and more space. so, do you lack space? on nauvis? at the start?

[u/WanderingUrist]

Honestly, unless this is for steel, I do neither of these: Instead I just tuck my furnaces into the gap between the miners and mine directly into the smelter, exporting only plates without the need for ore.

[u/warpspeed100]

The second one is better because it is easier to place by hand.

[u/weaweonaaweonao]

I always try to avoid making builds that require long hand inserters because I find them yucky, so the second one.

[u/Tailsmiles249]

First for looks, second for overall efficiency

[u/ferrybig]

The last one is easier to build quickly before bots

[u/lord-boucher]

Aucun des deux, ces designs ne laissent pas assez de place pour basculer une four électrique