Electric Furnace Tip :: Factorio General Discussions

Store Page

Factorio

All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos News Guides Reviews

Factorio > General Discussions > Topic Details

Colonel Sanders Lite has Factorio

Mar 11, 2019 @ 1:20am

Electric Furnace Tip

The last time I brought this up, we where on v0.16 and things where a bit different. Link

Since there seems to be a lot of new players around and we're now on 0.17, I just wanted to restate this with more current information.

Until you hit the very late game phase, electric furnaces are still mostly junk.

As in v16, the v17 incarnation of electric furnaces still do the same work as steel at the same speed but require much more space (9 squares vs 4).

The change is that in v 0.17, boilers now convert coal into electricity with 100% efficiency. This doesn't help the electric furnace any though, as the new stone and steel furnaces only use half the fuel that they used to. This means that when you're in the steam power phase of the game, electric furnaces are still taking twice the fuel to produce a plate as a steel furnace and have an idle power draw on top of that.

In the mid game when you're on solar/nuclear power, they're still only situationally useful as coal seems to be as plentiful as ever. The only really big advantage they have in this phase of the game is a reduction in pollution. IMHO, that's pretty meh. For what it's worth, I think I would only go out of my way to make the switch at this phase in the game if the map is forcing a fuel shortage.

Electric furnaces really only come into their own when you're ready to start using modules and don't really care too much about power and space constraints anymore. Once you're at beacons+modules, they are clearly fantastic. It takes a very well developed factory to got to this point though.

< >

Showing 1-10 of 10 comments

impetus_maximus has Factorio

Mar 11, 2019 @ 1:28am

for 0.17 "Burner efficiency is set to 100% for all entities and fuel value is halved to simplify calculations. This should not change game balance."

i agree they are a downgrade from steel unless you stuff them with llevel 1 efficiency modules. then once swimming in nuclear power, switch to productivity 3/ speed beacons. beacons save energy in the latter case by running less furnaces per belt produced.

pat

Mar 11, 2019 @ 5:23am

Even before I'm producing modules, once I have the near-infinite power of nuclear, my preference is to start building with electric ovens. I understand the math of power efficiency, but it's often a lot more work to get coal out to those remote mining outposts and much simpler to just run a power line. And then once I have the modules, I already have the electrics in place.

THE kilroy has Factorio

Mar 11, 2019 @ 5:32am

Everything in factorio has a balance, electric furnaces allow for modules and can be runn on green energy without any logistic of fuel, however they are more expensive, and do require power.

Personally i prefer electric furnaces because i prefer to make solar early, reducong polution and material cost. But i am in no way trying to spark a fire with a declaration of superiority.

Dragonlily has Factorio

Mar 11, 2019 @ 5:46am

well with prod 3 modules you get more plates out of your ore and have to expand a lot less

Lunacy

Mar 11, 2019 @ 6:57am

Until you can fill them with speed modules, the only real use for electrical furnaces in midgame is if you're smelting in an area that doesn't have nearby coal.

AlexMBrennan has Factorio

Mar 11, 2019 @ 7:54am

electric furnaces still do the same work as steel at the same speed but require much more space (9 squares vs 4).

That is correct assuming you hand-fuel them or use bots (unlikely in the early game); a realistic comparison would have to include the extra space used by the coal belts & the coal bus to supply them.

Also steel furnaces don't tessellate well so that is reason enough to replace them with the electric model.

Last edited by AlexMBrennan; Mar 11, 2019 @ 7:54am

Qosmius

Mar 11, 2019 @ 8:46am

I think electric furnaces are a blast to use. I always get them as fast as i can because of my playstyle. 1. I like them alot because they dont need a belt of coal. 2. They pollute less when combined with solar power. But that is just me.

>//The_FALCON has Factorio

Mar 11, 2019 @ 4:59pm

heavily increased electricity cost is a price i'm ready to pay for comfort and I think i speak for most players too (speed modules are a good pre 0.17 example)

Colonel Sanders Lite has Factorio

Mar 11, 2019 @ 8:24pm

Originally posted by impetus maximus:
once swimming in nuclear power, switch to productivity 3/ speed beacons.

Originally posted by Maia:
well with prod 3 modules you get more plates out of your ore and have to expand a lot less

This is correct, but there is a pretty big caveat - The math says that the smelting columns are pretty much the last place you should be putting productivity modules. So, yeah, they're worthwhile in the very late game, but not really before that and this point was addressed in the top post.

Originally posted by pat:
I understand the math of power efficiency, but it's often a lot more work to get coal out to those remote mining outposts and much simpler to just run a power line.

If you're meaning that you like to build your smelting out at your mining sites, you might have a point in that particular niche case. That being said, personally, I don't see the point of smelting out at the mining sites. Setting up and tearing down smelters as your ore patches run out seems to me to be much more work than just shipping ore to a central permanent refining site.

Originally posted by Qosmius:
1. I like them alot because they dont need a belt of coal. 2.

Originally posted by >//The_FALCONTnY:
heavily increased electricity cost is a price i'm ready to pay for comfort

If you're in the mid game and debating whether to expand your existing smelting array or rebuild your smelting array with electrics, your existing smelting array already has a coal feed and one coal feed will supply 27 smelting columns. So the con side of that internal debate isn't "If I expand my existing steel furnaces, I have to add a belt of coal". It's "If I change over to electric furnaces, I have to remove the existing coal feed system." IMHO, tearing out an existing coal feed without a real need to do so isn't convenient.

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:
electric furnaces still do the same work as steel at the same speed but require much more space (9 squares vs 4).
That is correct assuming you hand-fuel them or use bots (unlikely in the early game); a realistic comparison would have to include the extra space used by the coal belts & the coal bus to supply them.

Well, I didn't want to get into exact numbers for various layouts because because layouts vary and every layout compared is actually quite a bit of work. That being said, it's still 100% true when you include the support infrastructure as well. In the screenshots below, I directly compare two common blue belt smelting columns. They are both completely self sufficient except for wherever the iron ore is coming from and whereever the plates are going to, which would be identical in both cases. The surface footprint of the steel smelting column is 1.2k tiles with the surface area of the electric column being 5.5k tiles. With the complete infrastructure, the electric furnaces take up over 4 times the space!

You could argue that the coal feed is likely to need a train loading and unloading station, but I could easilly fit both stations in the extra space required by just one smelting column and it would be able to supply the coal needed for hundreds of smeting columns.