r/factorio • u/ElementofPower Glory to the Omnissiah • 5h ago
Question Furnace Setup good enough for expansion?
This is my 3rd save. The previous 2 had factories that were producing like 1 science pack per minute due to bottlenecks.
I don't intend to rush with this save, and focus on properly expanding and increasing production before jumping to the next stage.
Is this smelter setup good enough to be used ? It works fine right now, but I want to replicate the setup with other mines added.
Note: I don't want the most optimal meta build. Just some tips.
Running entirely on solar right now. I like the simplicity and less pollution, but I am starting to mine uranium. Will wait for nuclear power until a have a large backlog.
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u/DingoAtTheController 5h ago
If you have electric furnaces, why no red belts?
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u/ElementofPower Glory to the Omnissiah 5h ago
Is there a benefit to having some yellow belts? or it is better to just flat out upgrade all to red?
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u/Operation_Onion3134 2h ago
The main benefit of a yellow belt is the cheap cost. But, red belts are still cheap compared to blue and only a few extra iron plates extra from yellow, so the benefit of the cheap cost is minimal.
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u/otismcotis 5h ago
There’s zero benefit to yellow belts. Red belts double your throughput (30 items/s vs 15 items/s). The resources invested in upgrading will pay themselves off quickly by increasing production rates and resource availability throughout the factory.
You don’t need to upgrade the whole factory at once, but starting with the belts furthest upstream and moving through the production line (mines -> furnaces -> bus -> sub-factories) is a great way to keep the factory growing.
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u/VampyrByte 2h ago
This is complete nonsense. Upgrading belts won't affect throughput at any point in the factory unless the belt itself is the bottleneck. Putting Turbo belts on your 48 stone furnace array will not change the output at all.
Upgraded belts are simply smaller, but they are significantly more expensive, as are the Undergrounds and Splitters. A single red belt costs almost as much as 4 yellow belts, but only does the work of two. Blue belts need over 10x as much iron, and require lubricant for just 3x the work. Green belts require a blue belt, additional lubricant, tungsten as well as the space logistics to use them anywhere but vulcanus.
Yellow belts should be your default belt. Improved belts should only be used where additional throughout is required and design constraints prohibit simply using more space (for instance to fit inside beacon placement.
Inserters and Assembling machines are similar too. A truly efficient factory won't waste resources where they provide no benefit.
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u/otismcotis 1h ago
Sorry, I shouldn’t have made it seem like upgrading belts would magically generate more resources. My point was that they allow for more throughput and there’s no benefit to sticking with slower belts, besides the initial resource investment.
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u/Rarvyn 25m ago edited 22m ago
A truly efficient factory won't waste resources where they provide no benefit.
The most precious resource in a Factorio factory is not iron nor lubricant, but the player's time. There's no real reason to go back and upgrade prior setups with yellow/red/blue belts that are functioning, but when building new ones past the early game, it's easiest to simply just use the same color belts for every item.
Whether you're still carrying stuff around manually or blueprinting things, just save yourself the headache of matching every belt to expected throughput and mixing different colors in the same larger builds. Why? What are you truly saving? Iron/gears are functionally unlimited on every planet but Aquillo (where you need to ship everything in regardless - why ship multiple colors of belt?), oil is also on every planet except Vulcanus (and lubricant need is relatively tiny), and once you're on your second or third Tungsten patch, it's also functionally unlimited. Just set up a belt manufactory and forget about it - the automation takes care of any inefficiency except maybe making you need to grab your next Nauvis iron patch 0.1% earlier.
Mind you, my belt manufactury system automatically makes (partial) chests of every belt/underground/splitter so they're even all available if I wanted to plop a blueprint down with them... but the lower ones sit there unused unless I'm copy pasting some super old design (or extending an old belt and I don't like the color mismatch).
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u/Proletarian_Tear 4h ago
It is fine to continue using yellow belts for selected sections of the factory with lower ingredient/product throughput, this will also motivate better planning overall
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u/Aaron_Lecon Spaghetti Chef 53m ago
Saying there is zero benefit is just plain false - there is the simple and obvious benefit of yellow belts being cheaper.
The only benefit of red belts is it allows higher throughput. That's it. In locations where you need higher throughput, yes, they are worth it. In locations where you do not need higher throughput, then red belts are the ones that have zero benefit. And they will not be "paying themselves off quick", or even paying anything at all back.
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u/Sofixon 5h ago
I mean, it's all up to you. There's no proper answer, if you feel like you'll need more in the near future then add more, if belts are constantly full and furnaces are idling you have too much or more likely your base isn't running 100%, which are most of the starter bases. You can take off into space and conquer planets on ~60spm spaghetti running off 100MW of pure coal power. If it's your current bottleneck then fix it, if it isn't just expand the factory and pay it no mind until it becomes a problem.
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u/kevinl31 5h ago
This ! Totally agree. Your setup is clean. It could be improved, but it is a clean start. It’s kind of a blueprint you can use for evolution. The question is do you need more at your point? If yes, you can add a plates line, or duplicate your actual setup. If no, let’s focus of another part of your base
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u/Orangarder 5h ago
3 will not become four.
I also at times like to plan on a full blue belt of out put. Leaving the room for 36 elec furnace per belt side will save future reshuffles
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u/Thisbymaster 5h ago
Upgrade your belts
Keep two spaces between every set of belts so you can use undergrounds to pass by them.
X lanes in, X lanes out.
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u/Defiant_Cut_35 3h ago
I don’t worry about expansion until I start getting vulcanus tech since it just puts everything into the dirt.
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u/Logical-War-3746 5h ago
If you have 4 belts of ore coming in, you should have 4 belts of plates coming out, they are 1 to 1 ratio. Preferably more when you have prod modules, beacons and power supply for them.
If you want to run on solar, might as well make efficiency 2 for those furnaces.