how to know how many miners you need?

[MythN7]

So, for using yellow as 1, then red as another, how can i find out how many steel furnace I can put on 1 belt strip so that the belt can barely stay backed up.

also, how do i find out how many miners per furnace I need to feed the belt.
lastly, how do i find out how to find out how many coal miners i need to keep up with these furnaces?

[Odonata]

https://factoriocheatsheet.com/ under "material processing" there are some useful ratios, 48 stone furnaces for 1 yellow ore belt, or 48 steel for one red ore belt. As for miners, 1 miner provides 0.5 ore/second so 30 for a yellow belt or 60 for a red. Practically, you just want to pack in as many miners as you can.

[Warlord]

Originally posted by Poppy:

Practically, you just want to pack in as many miners as you can.

Yeah, pack in all the miners you can, because if one miner runs out (on the edge of the patch) your ratios are screwed up. So just plop all the miners down and let the un-used one idle until they are needed.

[KrysisMode]

Yep just cram those things in and go for TOTAL BELT SATURATION(tm) when it comes to your base level resource production in ores. Quite possibly the one time it's far better to have as much excess as possible than try and find the intake/production ratio. Which is effectively impossible for a number of reasons when it comes to mining operations.

Plus this dynamic changes entirely once you get to the point you need a train to haul resources into the factory. That is when you'll want to stripmine as much as possible, fast as possible, and pump it into your smelters in vast bulk. The last thing you want is the factory running out between shipments.

It saves your sanity, blood pressure, and lets you put your time towards better uses like puzzling out your assembly line's needs instead. That is where it's worth number crunching.

[Overeagerdragon]

a belt has a listing in the tooltip for how many items/s (i/s)
Every assembly station and/or furnace has a crafting speed (cs) and every recipe a time (T)

T/cs=i/s
if TC<i/s you get backlog on the belt
if TC>i/s you get gaps on the belt
the closer the 2 ratio's are to eachother the better your flow on your belt will be provided that the endline of the belt is a bottomless pit. Ofc there will usually be another station/furnace at the end of the belt in which case you need to calculate that ratio too because getting 14 i/s on a yellow belt means very little if the station behind it can only process 1 i/s

to make things easier there are mods like helmod that will calculate these complexer ratio's

[MythN7]

Originally posted by Warlord:

Originally posted by Poppy:

Practically, you just want to pack in as many miners as you can.

Yeah, pack in all the miners you can, because if one miner runs out (on the edge of the patch) your ratios are screwed up. So just plop all the miners down and let the un-used one idle until they are needed.

but dont the arms and miners still draw power and make polution when idle?

[Synical]

Originally posted by MythN7:

Originally posted by Warlord:

Yeah, pack in all the miners you can, because if one miner runs out (on the edge of the patch) your ratios are screwed up. So just plop all the miners down and let the un-used one idle until they are needed.

but dont the arms and miners still draw power and make polution when idle?

Inactive machines will not emit pollution, but they do have a somewhat inconsequential power draw that might add up if you are using polluting power sources, but again it's inconsequential. If you're really that worried, just slap 3x Efficiency Module I in them and call it a day.

[MythN7]

Originally posted by Synical:

https://factoriocheatsheet.com/
This is probably one of the handiest resources for the game; it lists all of the ratios you're asking and more.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2210651570
started a new map seed today, and right off the bat, trying to do nicer setup.

so this is the design im going for very early game when unlocking red, and green stuff, where I smelt right at the spot i am mining.

at the top of the screen it cont... for a few more segments, and thats where the iron plates im making are turned into ammo, that loop around the outside belt, and all those guns each have an arm.

the top of the box has wall to, and i use underground belt to get the ore and coal in

So im letting the miners go to trash if i get a swarm from that direction heh.

not sure how to copy and paste yet, heard its a thing. but any extra ammo i made in way over stock, can just go to the grey bottles im assuming later.

hope this is enough fire power to go afk for tv lol.

[MythN7]

Originally posted by Synical:

Originally posted by MythN7:

but dont the arms and miners still draw power and make polution when idle?

Inactive machines will not emit pollution, but they do have a somewhat inconsequential power draw that might add up if you are using polluting power sources, but again it's inconsequential. If you're really that worried, just slap 3x Efficiency Module I in them and call it a day.

that module adds 5% pollution tho, so is it really worth it?

[Overeagerdragon]

Originally posted by MythN7:

Originally posted by Warlord:

Yeah, pack in all the miners you can, because if one miner runs out (on the edge of the patch) your ratios are screwed up. So just plop all the miners down and let the un-used one idle until they are needed.

but dont the arms and miners still draw power and make polution when idle?

They do but the idle pollution of a single inserter is next to nothing and the pollution of some extra miners doesn't compare to the hassle of finding yourself out of coal to power your base or iron to make more miners.
Or at least that's the general concensus factorio players work under.

explaining why is a TL;DR but if you fancy a read

The objective in Factorio is automisation and everything you do in the game should be focussed on that. From your earliest moment you are taught that doing things by hand is slow and cumbersome.
Now this creates pollution and the bigger you build the more pollution you create. In turn this attracts biters and evolves them but there's a caveat to this:
You will only get attacked by nests that are in the red pollution cloud and only that pollution will actively contribute to evolving them too....so...no nest means no attacks/evolution. So if you make sure that there are no nests covered by your cloud of pollution it really doesn't matter exactly how big you build.
Ergo it's more important to make the Factory grow than it is to combat that extra pollution (because there's a way you can combat (pun intended) the negative side effects of your growing pollutioncloud. Ergo Ergo; running out of raw resources could leave you in a state where you need to handmine/handcraft again (even if it is just 1 coal to boot things up again). Ergo, ergo, ergo; it's better to have a slight overproduction than a slight underproduction.

[Synical]

Originally posted by MythN7:

Originally posted by Synical:

https://factoriocheatsheet.com/
This is probably one of the handiest resources for the game; it lists all of the ratios you're asking and more.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2210651570
started a new map seed today, and right off the bat, trying to do nicer setup.

so this is the design im going for very early game when unlocking red, and green stuff, where I smelt right at the spot i am mining.

at the top of the screen it cont... for a few more segments, and thats where the iron plates im making are turned into ammo, that loop around the outside belt, and all those guns each have an arm.

the top of the box has wall to, and i use underground belt to get the ore and coal in

So im letting the miners go to trash if i get a swarm from that direction heh.

not sure how to copy and paste yet, heard its a thing. but any extra ammo i made in way over stock, can just go to the grey bottles im assuming later.

hope this is enough fire power to go afk for tv lol.

That's surely overkill if you're not on a death world, you're fine. Also I deleted my earlier comment on the ratios because I realized someone else had recommended it.

I guess my thesis is not to freak out over biters. Minimize their attacks if you can and make sure you've arranged around chokepoints if possible, but later in the game, your research pays off and you can basically run roughshod all over them with no consequences. The tipping balance of power and the glee over launching dozens of rockets per second at a bunch of bugs that up to this point made your life miserable is one of the rewards of the game.

[MythN7]

Originally posted by Synical:

Originally posted by MythN7:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2210651570
started a new map seed today, and right off the bat, trying to do nicer setup.

so this is the design im going for very early game when unlocking red, and green stuff, where I smelt right at the spot i am mining.

at the top of the screen it cont... for a few more segments, and thats where the iron plates im making are turned into ammo, that loop around the outside belt, and all those guns each have an arm.

the top of the box has wall to, and i use underground belt to get the ore and coal in

So im letting the miners go to trash if i get a swarm from that direction heh.

not sure how to copy and paste yet, heard its a thing. but any extra ammo i made in way over stock, can just go to the grey bottles im assuming later.

hope this is enough fire power to go afk for tv lol.

That's surely overkill if you're not on a death world, you're fine. Also I deleted my earlier comment on the ratios because I realized someone else had recommended it.

I guess my thesis is not to freak out over biters. Minimize their attacks if you can and make sure you've arranged around chokepoints if possible, but later in the game, your research pays off and you can basically run roughshod all over them with no consequences. The tipping balance of power and the glee over launching dozens of rockets per second at a bunch of bugs that up to this point made your life miserable is one of the rewards of the game.

ya, i havent been attacked yet on this map, cause this was an awesome seed, iron coal and copper all touching each other in a peace symbol looking shape, LOL. Which was ALSO!!! in the middle of a massive thick lush forest, larger than i can zoom out on the map view.

but now, i might get attacked soon maybe, most of that forest, on the normal game screen way bigger than i can zoom out in that view has been turned to no trees and mostly brown grass. So im thinking i dont have a smog filter for much longer.

[Synical]

Originally posted by MythN7:

Originally posted by Synical:

That's surely overkill if you're not on a death world, you're fine. Also I deleted my earlier comment on the ratios because I realized someone else had recommended it.

I guess my thesis is not to freak out over biters. Minimize their attacks if you can and make sure you've arranged around chokepoints if possible, but later in the game, your research pays off and you can basically run roughshod all over them with no consequences. The tipping balance of power and the glee over launching dozens of rockets per second at a bunch of bugs that up to this point made your life miserable is one of the rewards of the game.

ya, i havent been attacked yet on this map, cause this was an awesome seed, iron coal and copper all touching each other in a peace symbol looking shape, LOL. Which was ALSO!!! in the middle of a massive thick lush forest, larger than i can zoom out on the map view.

but now, i might get attacked soon maybe, most of that forest, on the normal game screen way bigger than i can zoom out in that view has been turned to no trees and mostly brown grass. So im thinking i dont have a smog filter for much longer.

You're definitely good. Unless you have a bunch of nests in your pollution radius, your attacks probably won't be too large. If you get grenades, armor piercing ammo, and a few damage upgrades, you might be able to get away with soloing nearby nests. Certain sizes of bugs that resist that kind of stuff won't spawn until later in the game, so just clear out nearby nests and keep radar scanning coverage of your pollution cloud until you're confident you can start spamming laser turrets. The personal laser defense is also extremely powerful and lets you just run through nests and destroy them without any input from yourself other than movement.

[Warlord]

Originally posted by MythN7:

Originally posted by Synical:

Inactive machines will not emit pollution, but they do have a somewhat inconsequential power draw that might add up if you are using polluting power sources, but again it's inconsequential. If you're really that worried, just slap 3x Efficiency Module I in them and call it a day.

that module adds 5% pollution tho, so is it really worth it?

You might be thinking of pinkish Productivity module. That not only increases power drained, but pollution generated too, for an exponential increase in pollution. It does, though, provide a tiny amount of free "productivity", which is a second bar that provides one free product when filled.

Efficiency, the green module, lowers energy consumption of machines by 30% (rank 1). A miner can hold 3 of these, giving a 90% reduction in energy cost. The reduction is capped at 80% though, so you only get 80%. This not only reduces the pollution that the miner makes from power burned (if you use coal), but also reduces the pollution the miner ITSELF makes when it digs. Slap 3 efficiency modules into all your miners and you can cut your pollution generated by a large amount. Miners are power-hungry, but also extremely dirty.

[MythN7]

in terms of my total polution and near by nests, this is what ive scoutted so far.
looks like i close to touching some nests.

right now im burning 2 boilers and 4 steam engines, and that is even showing my power as mostly full, but every few secs, it bounces below max output for some reason.

So those 2 boilers have been running full tilt for the last 12 hours or so to make this range of pollution in the middle of this huge rain forest that now looks more like the game fallout.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2210663251

[Synical]

Originally posted by MythN7:

in terms of my total polution and near by nests, this is what ive scoutted so far.
looks like i close to touching some nests.

right now im burning 2 boilers and 4 steam engines, and that is even showing my power as mostly full, but every few secs, it bounces below max output for some reason.

So those 2 boilers have been running full tilt for the last 12 hours or so to make this range of pollution in the middle of this huge rain forest that now looks more like the game fallout.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2210663251

Yeah, that's nothing. Provided there aren't too many Behemoth Worms, which are max power ones that can spawn from the start of the game, you could probably clear those out right now. You need to dodge and strafe a bit when taking nests on directly, but those are manageable. You really need to worry when one several times the size of the one in the bottom right of your screenshot is near your base, but as long as you do proper maintenance of new bases that won't ever happen.