Is ore needed, or better to make ingots right away

[Frost]

I'm only at tier 4 so far - but it seems ore is only needed to make ingots, so thinking of just setting up smelters right at a mine to make ingots immediately and just belting the ingots. Or is ore needed in great quantity at some point and it's better to leave the ore on the belts?

Thank you in advance.

[cywizz]

I usually smelt them at source.
However there are a few alternate recipes that requires different combination of ores and other resources. These recipes most of the time gives you higher output of ingots, etc...but if you do come across those, just tap a new ore node if you want to use it

[kLuns]

If you use smelters make ingots on the node.

if you use alternative recipes for pure ingots, bring to water and use refineries near the factory

[🎮AliveSince1961🎮]

I built a smelter mini base in the south west where there is iron, copper and caterium ore. Not far from there I have coal.

I make all my ingots including steel there except aluminum and I replaced the conveyors belts with a train when it was unlocked.

[tulle040657]

Steel Ingots require iron ore and coal but there is an alternate recipes that uses iron ingot and coal

[Aven]

If the ore is a 1:1 ratio, i.e. iron or copper, it doesn't matter where you smelt it because transport remains the same. If the ore is something like caterium with a 3:1 ratio, smelt at the source and transport the ingots.

[Mahzrael]

The answer is pretty simple : if compression happens ( 30 ore -> 20 plates) , you can do this step anywhere and the result will be less stuff to belt . If expansion happens (30 rods -> 40 screws) you want to do this step only where you will use the resulting product (someplace the screws can be belted into an assembler with minimal distance )

If neither expansion nor compression happens (30 ore -> 30 ingots) do whatever sparks joy.