Factorio Smelter Ratio Calculator

🎮 Factorio Smelter Ratio Calculator

Calculate Factorio furnace counts, belt compression, ore or plate inputs, steel-chain demand, optional module modifiers, and rounded build blocks for iron, copper, brick, and steel smelting.

🧭Smelting Presets
Verified constants: The base model uses Factorio Wiki values: stone furnace crafting speed 1; steel and electric furnace crafting speed 2; iron and copper plate recipes take 3.2 seconds; steel plate takes 16 seconds and consumes 5 iron plates; yellow, red, and blue belts move 15, 30, and 45 items per second.
0.3125/s
Stone furnace iron or copper plate rate
0.625/s
Steel or electric furnace plate rate
0.125/s
Steel plate rate in speed 2 furnaces
48
Stone furnaces for one yellow plate belt
72
Speed 2 furnaces for one blue plate belt
120
Speed 2 furnaces for one yellow steel belt
Smelter Inputs
Plate and brick recipes use 3.2 seconds; steel plate uses 16 seconds and 5 iron plates.
Modules apply only to electric or custom furnaces with module slots in this calculator.
Choose whether the result should solve for furnaces or forecast output.
For belt mode this is belt count. For furnace mode this is furnace count.
Full-belt counts use both lanes combined.
Use this for modded belts or measured lane-limited throughput.
Productivity increases outputs without increasing input consumed per craft.
Optional manual bonus for beacons, mods, or custom planning. Leave 0 for vanilla furnace-only math.
Only used when custom furnace type is selected.
Only used with custom module profile; 20 means output is multiplied by 1.20.
Only used with custom module profile; negative values model productivity speed penalties.
Use lower values for train waits, ore gaps, brownouts, or inserter interruptions.
Set 12, 24, 48, or 72 to round up to blueprint-friendly rows.
Estimates ore or iron-plate items to keep staged before the array.
Smelter Ratio Results
Furnaces to build
0
machines
Output rate
0/s
items per second
Input demand
0/s
ore or plate feed
Output belts
0
selected belts
Formula Breakdown
💡Practical Smelter Tips
Ratio tip: A yellow belt of iron or copper plates is 15 items per second, so it needs 48 stone furnaces or 24 speed-2 furnaces.
Steel tip: One speed-2 steel furnace consumes 0.625 iron plates per second and outputs 0.125 steel plates per second.
Module tip: Productivity lowers input per output, but speed penalties can increase the number of furnaces needed.
Belt tip: For steel builds, the iron-plate input belt count is often the real constraint, not the steel output belt.
📊Six-Column Ratio Grid
Recipe
Furnace
Each output
Yellow belt
Red belt
Blue belt
Iron or copper plate
Stone furnace
0.3125/s
48 furnaces
96 furnaces
144 furnaces
Iron or copper plate
Steel/electric
0.625/s
24 furnaces
48 furnaces
72 furnaces
Steel plate
Stone furnace
0.0625/s
240 furnaces
480 furnaces
720 furnaces
Steel plate
Steel/electric
0.125/s
120 furnaces
240 furnaces
360 furnaces
Verified furnace output reference
FurnaceCrafting speedIron/copper/brick recipePlate output eachSteel recipeSteel output each
Stone furnace13.2 seconds, 1 input to 1 output0.3125 items/s16 seconds, 5 iron plates to 1 steel0.0625 steel/s
Steel furnace23.2 seconds, speed doubles cycles0.625 items/s16 seconds, speed doubles cycles0.125 steel/s
Electric furnace2Same base speed as steel furnace0.625 items/s before modulesSame base steel speed as steel furnace0.125 steel/s before modules
Custom furnaceUser inputBase speed divided by recipe timeSpeed / 3.2Base speed divided by 16 secondsSpeed / 16

For module profiles, the calculator multiplies recipe cycles by speed modifiers and multiplies final output by productivity. Input per craft is not multiplied by productivity.

Belt throughput and common full-belt smelter counts
Belt tierThroughputPlate furnaces at speed 1Plate furnaces at speed 2Steel furnaces at speed 2Steel iron-plate input
Transport belt15 items/s48 stone furnaces24 steel/electric furnaces120 steel/electric furnaces75 iron plates/s
Fast transport belt30 items/s96 stone furnaces48 steel/electric furnaces240 steel/electric furnaces150 iron plates/s
Express transport belt45 items/s144 stone furnaces72 steel/electric furnaces360 steel/electric furnaces225 iron plates/s
Half yellow target7.5 items/s24 stone furnaces12 steel/electric furnaces60 steel/electric furnaces37.5 iron plates/s

Steel output compresses five iron plates into one steel plate, so steel builds usually require more input belts than output belts.

Module profile modifiers used by the calculator
ProfileSpeed modifierProductivity modifierApplies toPer-furnace plate ratePlanning note
No modules0%0%All furnace types0.625/s in speed-2 furnaceBaseline vanilla ratio
2 speed module 1+40%0%Electric/custom0.875/s before uptimeFewer furnaces, same input per output
2 speed module 2+60%0%Electric/custom1.000/s before uptimeClean one plate per second target
2 speed module 3+100%0%Electric/custom1.250/s before uptime36 furnaces fill a blue plate belt
2 productivity module 3-30%+20%Electric/custom0.525/s before uptimeLess ore per output, more furnaces
1 productivity 3 + 1 speed 3+35%+10%Electric/custom0.928/s before uptimeBalanced speed and productivity

Speed module 1/2/3 use +20%, +30%, and +50% each. Productivity module 1/2/3 use +4%, +6%, and +10% each with speed penalties of -5%, -10%, and -15% each.

Formula reference for smelter planning
CalculationFormulaIron/copper exampleSteel exampleWhy it matters
Cycles per secondEffective speed / recipe seconds x uptime2 / 3.2 = 0.6252 / 16 = 0.125Base machine work rate
Output per furnaceCycles per second x output x productivity0.625 x 10.125 x 1Furnace count divisor
Input per secondCycles per second x input per craft x furnaces0.625 ore per furnace0.625 iron plates per furnaceSizes ore or plate belts
Furnaces neededTarget output / output per furnace45 / 0.625 = 7215 / 0.125 = 120Rounds into build rows
Belt countRate / selected belt throughput45 / 45 = 1 blue75 / 15 = 5 yellow inputHighlights bottlenecks

When furnace-count mode is selected, the calculator reverses the target step and forecasts output from the entered machine count.

For example, many players begins with a couple stone furnaces and hope it’s enough to carry the load. The ore begin to pile up, the belts slow down and eventually stall. Every player has this bottleneck.

This is why manufacturing isn’t something you can do using only intuition. The math are straightforward but unforgiving. A single miscalculation in furnace count can starves your entire production chain or flood your output with unneeded plates.

Why You Need Math in Factorio

The next point is how fast your furnaces are. There are three type of furnace in Factorio; stone (speed 1), steel (speed 2), and electric (speed 2). It affects the belt/furnace machine to belt capacity ratio based off speed.

For example, forty-eight stone furnaces will fill a yellow belt with iron plates. Twenty-four steel furnaces can does that job as well. It isn’t just the materials cost but the power cost and the space cost. Get this ratio correct early on so you don’t have to rebuild later if your base becomes too small.

You don’t need to guess at the coefficients; the page do that for you in its calculator. But you will still need to know what those numbers translate into for your setup.

Using productivity modules results in less speed and more volume. Each craft take longer, but you produce more plates per craft. Often this means you require more furnaces rather than fewer to maintain the same output. Players see the increased output and mistakenly assume they can reduce their hardware. The result? They end up with a slower, larger smelter array that is harder to wire and manage. You end up with a larger, harder-to-manage array.

Making steel isn’t so easy since it consumes other products. To make one steel plate, you need five iron plates. This means your steel smelters must be much smaller than your iron smelters if they are directly connected. To put it another way: No matter how big your belts are, you can’t simply match them… You also has to factor in the compression.

According to table on page, five yellow belts full of iron plates require only one yellow belt filled with steel. If you don’t have iron smelters large enough, your steel furnaces won’t operate. A minor mistake in ratios set off a chain reaction.

Keep your module planning as simple as possible. Generally speaking, speed modules is good in the early to mid-game because space may be limited. These modules reduces the number of machines required by making each furnace work faster.

Late game, productivity modules are better since they’ll save you resources which becomes important when there’s no iron around. You might want to mix them together, but the speed penalties tend to cause more trouble then they resolve. A combination of a productivity module and a speed module is good if you have sufficient room for slightly slower furnaces.

The math is expected, and it gives you confidence to build. The ratios teaches you how to blueprint your factories. You don’t guess when you’re running copper through a blue belt. You don’t guess when you’re juggling an entire array of steel. The math is the same.

Determine the size based off the bottleneck. You must account for input demand. Round them up into manageable groups. Build systematically. Be precise; the game rewards precision.

When the math works, the belts will flow smoothly and none of your machines will sit idle. Efficiency transforms a messy layout into a clean system.

You should of used more furnaces to avoid this. The amount of furnitures needed is high. Actually it is quite simple if you use the calculator for better results naturaly. It makes things much more comfortabley too.

Factorio Smelter Ratio Calculator

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