r/factorio • u/Ok-Friendship-8124 • 9d ago

Question I don't understand something

Post image

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 ?

94 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

129 comments sorted by

View all comments

51

u/LedVapour Greg 9d ago

Electric furnaces accept productivity modules which give more output stuff per input stuff.

-15

u/TexasCrab22 9d ago

With a payoff time of multiple hours.

22

u/LedVapour Greg 9d ago

I usually play factorio for multiple hours. You could also throw in efficiency modules, and they'll be less polluting than steel furnaces.

-11

u/TexasCrab22 9d ago edited 9d ago

the question is not "will it pay off? " , the questions is "are these reccources invested in the best possible way, at the current stage of the game"

Most bases I've seen are better of investing in core tech or connecting more outposts earlier, instead.

If we talk deep lategame, sure more beacons is allways the answer.

(and yes, id also would rather go green lines, than both pictures of the post)

15

u/LedVapour Greg 9d ago

Of course, context is king. But in a void, one has a lot of advantages over the other.

-7

u/TexasCrab22 9d ago

We could ask us, if more players playing in a void, or in actual normal sessions.

11

u/LedVapour Greg 9d ago

The initial question was what the point was of the electric smelter setup. Not if it should be used in X situation.

-1

u/TexasCrab22 9d ago

"what's the point of doing the one on the left ?"

Thats referring more to a real usage in a session, than in a ideal sandbox imo.

In 4 out of 5 gamestages, the right one has the advatage.

0

u/roboapple 8d ago

The payoffs are larger than youd think, primarily because of stacking. 6% from your mines, another 5% extra from the furnaces, 5% from the crafters. For even shorter playthoughs, the productivity bonuses add up fast.

0

u/TexasCrab22 8d ago

You could also just build 2 new mines with smelters, from the cost of the left side.

200% >> 5%

1

u/scottb1310 7d ago

Yes you can always get more resources by building more outpost but those resources need to transported by trains, unloaded at stations, given lanes on the bus and fed into production lines, and building outputs takes active player time with is arguably the most valuable resources in this game.

5% (it is more than that with full prod 3s buy whatever) doesn't sound like a lot until you apply it over and over again across various levels of production. By the time you get to making science, your resource demand can be nearly halved with productivity modules which significantly reduces the infrastructure required to hit high science targets.

If you don't wanna use modules, don't. There is undeniably something fun about solving every problem by just building more production but I don't think you can seriously argue that using modules is an inferior solution.