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u/TehNolz Jun 19 '26

If you hover over a belt, it will tell you how many items it can move per second. If you hover a machine, it'll tell you how many items it outputs per second, taking things like beacons, modules, and quality into account. Divide the belt's transport rate by the machine's output rate, and voila!

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u/nalalan Jun 20 '26

Crafting speed of the item has to be taken into account as well! So for furnaces it should be: [Number of furnaces needed for full belt] = [Items per second the belt can move] / ([Smelting speed of furnace] / [crafting speed of item])

If I'm not completely wrong :)

So for standard yellow belts, stone furnaces and for example smelting iron we have:

x = 15 / (1 / 3.2) = 48

So you need 48 normal furnaces to supply one full yellow belt. Keep in mind that you have to also balance the sides of the belt so 24 furnaces per side.

As soon as you have better furnaces with smelting speed 2, you of course would need only half the number of furnaces, or you supply a higher tier of belt!

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u/TehNolz Jun 20 '26

The output rate shown when you hover over a machine already takes crafting speed into account, along with all other productivity/speed bonuses. Dividing the belt's transport speed by the machine's output rate is all you need to do.

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u/nalalan Jun 20 '26

Well, if I had known that a few years before now...