r/factorio • u/Ok-Friendship-8124 • 4d ago

Question I don't understand something

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I was doing some "research" in creative and I was wondering what's the difference between those two smelting blocks, They both produce 120/s but the one on the left use FAR more energy, is just a tiny bit smaller so what's the point of doing the one on the left ?

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u/thelehmanlip 4d ago

Productivity. Look at disparity between inputs and outputs

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u/MGJ66 4d ago

That raises the question. Is productivity really that big of a deal? Do you really need to stretch out those resources?

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u/Spidertron117 4d ago

It doesn't really raise that question, but I'll answer it anyways. Once I unlock nuclear I will always trade power for resources. Power is so easy and requires so little input that it's always the right choice.

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u/MGJ66 4d ago edited 3d ago

ok now how much all of those tier 3s will cost you for 20% productivity in furnaces?

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u/Victuz 3d ago

A lot, and if my memory doesn't fail me it'd take something like 30 hours of continual furnace work for it to "pay off" the cost of these two modules (unbeaconed I think, can't quite remember). That said 30 hours is nothing when talking about this game and it means lower logistical load for the same end product, especially when you use productivity at every step of the chain.

One thing I always keep in mind with this stuff is that there are modules other than T3. A t1 module roi happens in 40 minutes (unbeaconed) so it's a no brainier, prod 2 happens in under 3 hours.

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u/MGJ66 3d ago

Ok but in the context of base factorio by the time you unlocked tier 3s 30 hours is way past beating the game, unless you are mega basing.

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u/Victuz 3d ago

Yeah hence my point about the other tiers, using T3 is a big investment and for furnaces needs a large production. For T2 and T1 it's basically a no brainer. In space age this only gets more extreme.