Is steel furnance used by anyone?

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libik
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Is steel furnance used by anyone?

Post by libik »

I have never used it before and its fine, all of us has different way to play.

However now I started 100x science run (which is amazing by the way, highly recommended if you already finished factorio once or more times).

So now each "era" takes much longer, making any tech viable for quite some time. Still steel furnances come quite late and are quite expensive. So even with 100x science it was easier to wait a bit more and then switch to electric ones (which are close in tech tree to steel furnance, even on 100x science).

So am I missing something? :)
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Re: Is steel furnance used by anyone?

Post by TurtleZ »

I use steel furnaces in every save. In fact, with the release of space age, I normally transition straight from steel furnaces to foundries!

The reason I find them so handy is they're a great in-place upgrade to stone furnaces. I unlock them pretty early into green science, at which point I normally have 1 furnace stack for copper, 1 stack for steel, 1 for stone, and 1-2 for iron. Upgrading stone furnaces -> steel furnaces and yellow belts -> red belts allows me to immediately double all my resource output without building any new stacks.

Without modules, steel furnaces are actually more fuel-efficient than electric furnaces + boilers. So rather than invest time and resources in building electric furnace stacks after blue science, I usually build additional steel furnace stacks to get me to space - once the inner planets are conquered, I build an entirely new base with foundries + other space age tech.
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Re: Is steel furnance used by anyone?

Post by mmmPI »

I very often use steel furnaces as i build my stone furnaces array with yellow belt, and upgrade them to red at the same time as i upgrade the stone furnaces because as mentionned it feels "fast" , little actions to double ressources rather than doubling the size of the factory with cliffs , trees , walking around more as negative consequences. I tend to go Fulgora first in most game, and upgrade the steel furnaces to electric ones with modules and beacons from there in map view, when Nauvis has recovered from making the first space platform and i see some machines underused.
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angramania
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Re: Is steel furnance used by anyone?

Post by angramania »

Is it joke? Actual question should be "does anyone still use electric furnaces?". They were not popular before SA and are even more optional now.
And you deliberately lying about "wait a bit", especially with 100x science.
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Re: Is steel furnance used by anyone?

Post by Tertius »

I made an extendable design that minimizes the effort for extending and rebuilding the smelter line. Of course it includes the steel furnace, because it doubles throughput on the same layout. No upgrade is easier.

1st design is for the early game and contains 24 stone furnaces. Consumes/produces 1 yellow belt lane (7.5/s).
2nd design is the upgrade to 24 steel furnaces. Identical layout to 1st design. Just replace the furnaces, no rebuild required. Consumes/produces 1 full yellow belt (15/s).
3rd design is the upgrade to 48 steel furnaces. Double length, upgrade the outer belts and the splitter to red belts. No need to replace any inserters - manual placement stays easy. Consumes/produces 1 full red belt (30/s).

All tileable (easy chained coal supply) and designed for not too tedious manual placing (just lines of yellow inserters and the whole line points just in one direction).

The 3rd design lasts until Vulcanus and is replaced by foundries. Electric furnaces have marginal use only. Even on space platforms I use foundries as soon as Advanced asteroid processing is unlocked.

Same approach for stone (half length due do double stone consumption) and steel (alternating inserters required, but still manageable).
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Re: Is steel furnance used by anyone?

Post by coffee-factorio »

Absolutely. 2x speed for the same energy input is incredible. Electric furnaces make them obsolescent because they are beacon compatible but you can buy your first rocket with them. When moving to a different surface, they have value because you can run without an electric grid.

Depending on your playstyle, there's a valid "stage" where something is absolutely essential. For me, steel furnaces are 1.5 to 14 hours and typically buy my first rocket.
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Re: Is steel furnance used by anyone?

Post by Ranakastrasz »

I can't imagine not using steel furnaces. Yes, Electric furnaces, once you get them up and running, outperform them in many ways. However, steel furnaces, you can make way earlier, and can just upgrade your entire forge inplace, along with turning the belts from yellow to red, and instantly double production without even having to think about it. Its like when you just throw speed modules in a setup to speed it up, because you don't have time or space to upgrade it right now.

Also it produces half the pollution per plate, but, like, thats secondary for normal games.
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Re: Is steel furnance used by anyone?

Post by libik »

Thanks for answers,
I actually did not know it takes only half coal and therefore creates only half pollution, which is quite handy early game :).

For me -> when I play on "default" settings, usually when I take some ore area, I instantly create full output mining drill and furnances. So when steel furnances come to play, I dont have usually any area I can just replace with steel furnances and add more ore to double output.
And usually I am just setting the blue science when steel furnances hit, so I research electric ones soon after.

But I was used to it mainly before space age and before Big Mining Drill - its good point to quickly go for them and skip the electric furnances all together :).
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Re: Is steel furnance used by anyone?

Post by Loewchen »

Pollution per production cycle does not actually change when switching from stone to steel furnace.
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Re: Is steel furnance used by anyone?

Post by coffee-factorio »

There's a nuanced way that pollution is reduced. The steel furnace uses 2x pollution (4 pollution per minute v. 2). So pollution doesn't change there. And that's important to note.

But if you look at the supply chain... well I need half as much fuel.
If you put uranium fuel into a stone furnace, I have questions.
If you put uranium fuel into a steel furnace. My questions don't go away. But you'll use "half the industry" to provide power for your furnaces.
You'll have half as many inserters at any given work station, asking the same questions I would be asking.
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Re: Is steel furnance used by anyone?

Post by mmmPI »

libik wrote: Sun Mar 01, 2026 9:57 am For me -> when I play on "default" settings, usually when I take some ore area, I instantly create full output mining drill and furnances. So when steel furnances come to play, I dont have usually any area I can just replace with steel furnances and add more ore to double output.
This happens to me with train unload area, when it unload 2 yellow belt per wagon and it gets upgraded to 2 red belts, then there's twice as much ore, and it can sustain the upgrade of the furnaces.

The overal pollution per plate doesn't really change, you get twice as much plate per furnace array, but also roughly twice as much pollution even if you include the coal supply.

The nuance of amount of pollution saved by the fact that you will produce 2x as many plates with the same coal is marginal, as you need about 7 coal per 100 plates with stone furnaces, down to 3.5 or so with steel furnaces, the reduction if you look at the supply chain is less than 5% not around 50%.
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Re: Is steel furnance used by anyone?

Post by coffee-factorio »

mmmPI wrote: Sun Mar 01, 2026 3:16 pm
The nuance of amount of pollution saved by the fact that you will produce 2x as many plates with the same coal is marginal, as you need about 7 coal per 100 plates with stone furnaces, down to 3.5 or so with steel furnaces, the reduction if you look at the supply chain is less than 5% not around 50%.
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What's 3.5/7 mmmPI?
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Re: Is steel furnance used by anyone?

Post by evanrinehart »

The steel furnace uses less coal per craft. So the question becomes is it worth the expense of creating the steel furnace itself before unlocking electric furnace (and modules, because without modules the electric furnace is much more inefficient). I did the math and with vanilla recipes, it takes something like 5 minutes to earn back the coal it takes to make the brick and steel for 1 steel furnace. So in this sense, considering one time coal cost to get ongoing coal savings, it's a no-brainer.

Now some players don't care about saving coal. But the steel furnace also saves space. Using half the space for the same production.

Now if you don't care about saving coal or space, stone furnace is your guy!
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Re: Is steel furnance used by anyone?

Post by quyxkh »

Iron plate takes 3.2s at cs1, 1.6s at cs2, but both furnaces use 90kW. So steel furnace, crafting speed 2, uses 1.6s*90kW = 144kJ to produce one plate, 27 7/9 plates per coal, stone furnace 288kJ/plate, 13 8/9 plates per coal.

Here's a compact steel smelting line I've been tuning for maximum sustainable throughput, irl I use shorter ones just long enough to keep up with train unloading and don't bother going for even this much compression.

(*updated* the bp because I forgot to force stack size 1)
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