Producing iron sticks?

[radioreid2000]

How does this work? Whenever I set up a furnace with iron plates it only produces steel plate. What am I missing here?

[Galileus]

That is correct. To further craft the plate into (two) iron sticks, you need to supply it into an assembler and choose related recipe :)

[radioreid2000]

Originally posted by Somewhat Frontal Admiral:

That is correct. To further craft the plate into (two) iron sticks, you need to supply it into an assembler and choose related recipe :)

*Face palm* Of course. Thanks!

[Emaulligu]

Furnaces only smelt raw ore into useable plates (and iron plates back into steel).
Anything else is done with assembling machines or other stuff you'll see later.

[xjulep]

I meant to ask this yesterday: are iron sticks the most tragic and useless item in the game? They're used for 6 items and most of those are pity recipes. Loose analogy to the copper wire, but at least copper wire has an obvious purpose like the metal gear.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by xjulep:

I meant to ask this yesterday: are iron sticks the most tragic and useless item in the game? They're used for 6 items and most of those are pity recipes. Loose analogy to the copper wire, but at least copper wire has an obvious purpose like the metal gear.

Not really. It makes sense and helps keep iron plate and copper plate use in balance late game.

[xjulep]

So which item is the most useless?

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by xjulep:

So which item is the most useless?

None. If you want to know which resource you use the very least of it would be fish or wood.

You can launch a rocket without ever having used fish or uranium.

[Hedning]

Originally posted by xjulep:

I meant to ask this yesterday: are iron sticks the most tragic and useless item in the game? They're used for 6 items and most of those are pity recipes. Loose analogy to the copper wire, but at least copper wire has an obvious purpose like the metal gear.

Iron sticks are used for purple science, making that chain more complex.

Most useless item is probably the slowdown capsule. Maybe the cluster grenade.

[Vyndicu]

Barrels - energy intensive to unpack/pack and provide less fluid carrying capacity per stack for logistic purposes. Just far better to use fluid wagons or pumps/pipes instead.

Pistol - Immediately outclassed by Submachine gun regarding range and firing rate after military research unlocks (Only needing ten red science packs and labs).

Light Armor - Becomes obsolete with cheap steel processing and heavy armor technologies unlocks.


There are a couple of combat items that I don't see many people generally using, such as capsules, portable flammable fluids, or a Discharge Defense system, and it depends on the scenario.

Do they have Spidertron + mass personal laser defense + shield army? Then yeah, everything else that deals damage is unneeded. If they are in the early game, their options are limited, and what are useful and necessary changes.


As others have already discussed, wood and fish are not helpful outside specific edge cases, such as consuming fish to stay alive in combat (before shield mk 1/2) or wood for early-game power connections.


Almost everything within the Vanilla Factorio's Intermediate Product tabs is used toward useful end-products except for what I mentioned above.

The only question is how many X or Y end products you want that will decide how many intermediate goods you will need, such as iron or copper plate, oil, etc...

[RiO]

Originally posted by xjulep:

So which item is the most useless?

Slowdown capsules or land mines.

Honorary mention: (reinforced) hazard concrete, considering it is functionally exactly the same as normal (reinforced) concrete and is only needed for aesthetics.

[knighttemplar1960]

Barrels still have uses. They are required for cliff explosives if you play with cliffs and you can also use them to jump start coal liquefaction.

Pistol and light armor are useful but only for a very short time until you can research better (kind of like burner mining drills). If you can get the next item researched and built without using the previous item you are ahead of the game a bit.

Capsules are useful for corpse recovery in the early game. I keep a stack of defenders in my rescue cars the other capsules can be used in this way too but the are definitely a niche item.

Landmines are a niche item too. They can be used to good effect on corners where you only have half the usual turret coverage. Construction robots can replace them and they won't be self immolating if the storage chest is far enough away that it takes a few seconds for the robots to arrive.

I have to agree that cluster grenades are very useless. They come far too late in the research tree. They have too short a range and the AOE is too large. The best use is to throw them out the tank or the car but the large AOE is likely to do too much damage to the car or tank since you are very likely to drive through the delayed AOE. Explosive rockets are far superior and come earlier in the research tree.

[Hedning]

Lol, landmines are literally used in speedruns. They are very cheap and quick to spam down for the bots. Hardly useless.

Barrels also not useless. Yes as an intermediate, but also so that bots can carry fluids instead of setting up pipes or rail lines. This artillery bunker is supplied with barrels, which makes it a lot easier to place than if I had to hook up pipes:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2968229640

[Khagan]

Originally posted by xjulep:

So which item is the most useless?

Truly there is nothing new under the sun:
https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=99229

[Vyndicu]

I re-arranged your post a bit. I hope you don't mind that.

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Barrels still have uses. They are required for cliff explosives if you play with cliffs and you can also use them to jump start coal liquefaction.

The main question was, "Is there anything one should not put on a main bus?" Not "Are there any uses for Barrels?"

Barrels (all uses from crafting to barreling) are a temporary spike in demand at most. Once the temporary need for more barrels is met, the player stops production or leaves the barrel production line idling. It's better to craft those barrels on-site near players' needs. This is true for all needs or uses of barrels, including fluid transportation, which I know of in Vanilla Factorio.

I have finished Vanilla Factorio multiple times without producing a single barrel. It is optional to use cliff explosives even with cliff enabled at the game start.

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Pistol and light armor are useful but only for a very short time until you can research better (kind of like burner mining drills). If you can get the next item researched and built without using the previous item you are ahead of the game a bit.

Like with Barrels, the main issue is that I never see anyone mass product pistols, light armor, or any military personal equipment in Vanilla Factorio except for ammunition/radars/walls/turrets, and even then the amount needed is dependent on how harsh the players tweak the biters' map generation setting.

The sole exception is radar in the satellite production line, which falls under the craft at-site category.

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Capsules are useful for corpse recovery in the early game. I keep a stack of defenders in my rescue cars the other capsules can be used in this way too but the are definitely a niche item.

I have to agree that cluster grenades are very useless. They come far too late in the research tree. They have too short a range and the AOE is too large. The best use is to throw them out the tank or the car but the large AOE is likely to do too much damage to the car or tank since you are very likely to drive through the delayed AOE. Explosive rockets are far superior and come earlier in the research tree.

I don't use capsules or grenades much against biters, but it depends on what the player has access to and plans to do.

Grenades fall under the category that it is better to craft on-site for military science packs.

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Landmines are a niche item too. They can be used to good effect on corners where you only have half the usual turret coverage. Construction robots can replace them and they won't be self immolating if the storage chest is far enough away that it takes a few seconds for the robots to arrive.

I see landmines being mass-produced and forwarded into a logistic network to be moved closer to the wall but the main bus? Eh.

[brian_va]

Even without biters the grenades are useful in tree clearing. Yes bots can do it too, but then you have to do something with that wood.