Factorio cheat sheet

The sections below are ordered roughly by when a new player encounters them. Smelting comes first because it is the first place the game forces a throughput decision, followed by science because SPM is the yardstick every factory gets measured by, then oil because it is the first chain a simple ratio solver cannot walk backwards. The later sections cover the constants that come up during any build: belt speeds, machine stats, module effects, inserter speeds, and wagon capacities. If you need a number that is not here, the individual ratio pages go into more depth on each topic and are linked at the bottom.

Smelting ratios

A plate takes 3.2 seconds to smelt in a stone furnace. That number comes from the recipe prototype: the game defines how long one craft takes, and the furnace's crafting speed divides it. A stone furnace at crafting speed 1 produces 0.313 plates per second. A steel or electric furnace at speed 2 produces twice that. A belt delivers a fixed number of ore per second, and dividing the belt rate by the per-furnace output gives the column length.

The table covers iron plate, copper plate and stone brick, which all share the 3.2-second smelting time with a single input per output. The numbers change if you add modules or beacons, which is why the table is a baseline rather than a universal answer.

Belt	Ore / s	stone furnace	steel furnace	electric furnace
transport belt	15.0	48.0	24.0	24.0
fast transport belt	30.0	96.0	48.0	48.0
express transport belt	45.0	144	72.0	72.0
turbo transport belt	60.0	192	96.0	96.0

The familiar 24-furnace column is the first data row: a yellow belt delivers 15.0 ore per second, and each stone furnace consumes 0.313 ore per second, so 15 divided by 0.625 equals 24. Steel and electric furnaces craft twice as fast, so the same belt keeps 12 of them busy. A red belt at 30 items per second doubles every count, and a blue belt at 45 triples it. The turbo belt added in version 2.0 carries 60 items per second, which feeds 48 stone furnaces or 24 electric furnaces from a single belt.

Steel is the elegant exception. Steel takes 16 seconds and consumes 5 iron plates per craft, while iron takes 3.2 seconds per plate. Dividing 16 by 3.2 gives 5.0, which exactly matches the 5 plates consumed. That means one steel furnace consumes the output of one iron furnace when both are the same tier, regardless of which tier. This one-to-one ratio is one of the most commonly memorised ratios in the game, and it holds because the recipe times and ingredient counts align perfectly. It breaks the moment iron and steel furnaces are different tiers: an electric iron furnace feeding a steel furnace requires two iron furnaces per steel furnace, because the electric furnace produces twice as fast.

Science pack ratios

Science per minute is the standard measure of factory scale, but the number that actually determines build size is ore per second per pack. The table below expands each science pack through its full recipe tree to raw ore, using assembling machine 3s with no modules. The assembler column is how many machine 3s sustain one pack per second; the ore column is the total raw ore demand per second across every intermediate step.

Pack	Craft time (s)	Yield / craft	Assemblers / pack·s	Total ore / s
Automation (red)	5.0	1	4.00	3.00
Logistic (green)	6.0	1	4.80	7.00
Military (gray)	10.0	2	4.00	6.25
Chemical (blue)	24.0	2	9.60	19.5
Production (purple)	21.0	3	5.60	71.7
Utility (yellow)	21.0	3	5.60	82.8

At 60 science per minute, every pack is consumed at one per second, so the assembler column reads directly as the number of machines needed. The ore column is what that build pulls from the mines. Automation (red) is the cheapest at 3.0 ore per second, while Utility (yellow) costs 82.8 ore per second, roughly 27.6 times as much. The spread matters because a base running all six packs at 60 SPM needs the sum of every ore column, and the expensive packs dominate that total. Military science is unusual because one craft yields two packs, which halves its assembler count relative to its craft time. Production and utility science each yield three packs per craft, which is why their assembler counts look low despite their 21-second craft times.

These counts assume assembling machine 3s. If you use assembling machine 2s at speed 0.75 instead of 1.25, every assembler count multiplies by 1.25 / 0.75 = 1.67. The ore totals stay the same because machine speed does not change how much ore a recipe consumes, only how fast it is consumed.

Oil ratios

Oil is the first production chain that a simple ratio solver cannot walk backwards. One refinery craft produces three fluids at once, and assigning a crude cost to any one of them requires deciding what the other two are worth. What does have a deterministic answer is the forward question: given a set of refineries running advanced oil processing, how many chemical plants does it take to crack every drop of heavy and light oil into petroleum gas.

Advanced oil processing converts 100 crude oil and 50 water into 25 heavy oil, 45 light oil and 55 petroleum gas per 5-second craft. Heavy oil cracking converts 40 heavy oil and 30 water into 30 light oil. Light oil cracking converts 30 light oil and 30 water into 20 petroleum gas. Solving the fluid balance gives a fixed ratio.

Building block	Count
Oil refineries (advanced processing)	20
Chemical plants (heavy oil cracking)	5
Chemical plants (light oil cracking)	17

That 20:5:17 balance converts all heavy and light oil into petroleum gas, producing 390 gas per second from 400 crude per second. The ratio comes from conservation of each fluid: the heavy crackers consume exactly the heavy oil the refineries produce, and the light crackers consume both the light oil from the refineries and the additional light oil from heavy cracking. Basic oil processing yields only 0.450 gas per crude because it discards heavy and light oil entirely. Advanced processing with full cracking yields 0.975 gas per crude, more than double, because every hydrocarbon is converted. If you need heavy oil for lubricant or light oil for rocket fuel, reduce the corresponding cracker count and let the excess fluid accumulate or go to solid fuel.

Belt throughput

Belt throughput is not a separate stat in the game data. It follows from belt movement speed: each tile of belt holds 8 items across two lanes, and the game runs at 60 ticks per second. Multiplying speed in tiles per tick by 8 by 60 gives items per second. This is why the familiar 15, 30 and 45 figures appear without being hardcoded anywhere; they are derived from the prototype speed values.

Belt	Speed (tiles/tick)	Items / second	Relative to yellow
transport belt	0.03125	15.0	1.00x
fast transport belt	0.0625	30.0	2.00x
express transport belt	0.09375	45.0	3.00x
turbo transport belt	0.125	60.0	4.00x

The turbo belt added in the Space Age expansion carries 60 items per second, four times the base yellow belt and double the red. These figures assume both lanes are fully compressed with no gaps. A belt that is only fed on one lane carries half the stated rate, and gaps caused by splitters or inserter placement reduce effective throughput below the rated maximum. Splitters and underground belts of the same tier move items at the same speed as the corresponding belt, so the throughput figure applies to the entire belt family.

Machine speeds and power

Crafting speed multiplies the recipe rate. A machine at crafting speed 2 finishes a 1-second recipe in 0.5 seconds, producing twice the output per second. Power draw is the active energy consumption while crafting; idle machines may draw less or nothing depending on their energy source. Module slots determine how many modules can be installed, which is the main reason to upgrade to a higher machine tier beyond raw speed.

Machine	Crafting speed	Module slots	Power
stone furnace	1	0	90kW
steel furnace	2	0	90kW
electric furnace	2	2	180kW
assembling machine 1	0.5	0	75kW
assembling machine 2	0.75	2	150kW
assembling machine 3	1.25	4	375kW
chemical plant	1	3	210kW
oil refinery	1	3	420kW
centrifuge	1	2	350kW
lab	1	2	60kW
electric mining drill	0.5	3	90kW
pumpjack	1	2	90kW
big mining drill	2.5	4	300kW
recycler	0.5	4	180kW
foundry	4	4	2500kW
biochamber	2	4	500kW
electromagnetic plant	2	5	2000kW
cryogenic plant	2	8	1500kW

The progression is clear when read down the assembler rows: assembling machine 1 at speed 0.5 with no module slots, machine 2 at 0.75 with two slots, and machine 3 at 1.25 with four slots. The mid-game and late-game machines added in the Space Age expansion follow the same pattern of higher speed and more slots. The foundry at speed 4 and the electromagnetic plant at speed 2 with five module slots are the fastest production machines, but they draw 2.5 MW and 2 MW respectively, which makes power planning as important as module planning at megabase scale. The recycler at speed 0.5 is deliberately slow because recycling is a quality-cycling mechanic rather than a production throughput mechanic.

Module effects

Modules modify a machine's operating parameters. Values in the table are fractions: 0.2 means a +20% bonus, -0.3 means a -30% penalty. The four module families serve different purposes and are often combined, particularly productivity modules in the machine and speed modules in beacons surrounding it.

Module family	Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3
Speed	speed: +20.0% consumption: +50.0% quality: -1.0%	speed: +30.0% consumption: +60.0% quality: -1.5%	speed: +50.0% consumption: +70.0% quality: -2.5%
Efficiency	consumption: -30.0%	consumption: -40.0%	consumption: -50.0%
Productivity	productivity: +4.0% consumption: +40.0% pollution: +5.0% speed: -5.0%	productivity: +6.0% consumption: +60.0% pollution: +7.0% speed: -10.0%	productivity: +10.0% consumption: +80.0% pollution: +10.0% speed: -15.0%
Quality	quality: +1.0% speed: -5.0%	quality: +2.0% speed: -5.0%	quality: +2.5% speed: -5.0%

Speed modules raise crafting speed but increase power consumption, making them useful when footprint is the constraint and power is plentiful. Efficiency modules reduce power draw with no throughput penalty, which is the underrated choice for early factories where steam power is limited. Productivity modules grant a chance for free extra outputs at the cost of speed and increased power, and they cannot be used in every machine category; they are the key to reducing raw resource consumption at large scale. Quality modules add a chance for the output to be a higher quality tier, with a small speed penalty, which is the foundation of the quality cascade system. Note that speed modules also carry a small negative quality penalty, which matters when you are trying to produce high-quality items and may want to avoid mixing speed and quality modules in the same machine.

Inserter relative speeds

Inserter throughput depends on two independent speeds: rotation speed, which governs how fast the arm swings between pickup and dropoff, and extension speed, which governs how fast the arm reaches outward. The table below shows both relative to the burner inserter, the slowest arm. These are raw prototype values; actual items per second also depends on arm length, pickup and dropoff positions, and stack size bonuses.

Inserter	Rotation speed	Extension speed	Rel. rotation	Rel. extension	Energy / move
inserter	0.014	0.035	1.08x	1.00x	5kJ
fast inserter	0.04	0.1	3.08x	2.86x	7kJ
long handed inserter	0.02	0.05	1.54x	1.43x	5kJ
burner inserter	0.013	0.035	1.00x	1.00x	50kJ
bulk inserter	0.04	0.1	3.08x	2.86x	20kJ
stack inserter	0.04	0.1	3.08x	2.86x	40kJ

The key observation is that fast, bulk and stack inserters all share identical rotation and extension speeds. They are not faster at swinging; their difference is how many items they move per swing. The regular inserter moves one item per swing, the fast inserter also moves one item but swings nearly three times faster, and the stack and bulk inserters move multiple items per swing, with the exact count determined by stack size bonus research. The long-handed inserter is slower than the fast inserter but reaches across two tiles instead of one, filling a niche that speed alone cannot. The burner inserter is the only arm that burns fuel rather than drawing electricity, which makes it useful for bootstrapping a factory before power is available, but its 50 kJ per movement is ten times the electric inserter's energy cost.

Train wagon capacities

A cargo wagon has 40 inventory slots. The number of items that fits depends on each item's stack size, which varies by item type. A fluid wagon holds 50,000 fluid units directly, with no slot limitation.

Cargo type	Stack size	Items per wagon
Ore, coal, stone	50	2000
Plates, gears, plastic	100	4000
Circuits, cables, batteries	200	8000
Rocket fuel	20	800
Barrels (empty)	10	400

Filled barrels carry 50 fluid each and stack to 10, so a cargo wagon full of filled barrels holds 20,000 fluid. A fluid wagon holds 50,000 fluid, which is 2.50 times as much, without requiring barreling and unbarreling chemical plants at each end. This makes fluid wagons the obvious choice for high-volume fluid transport such as crude oil or petroleum gas, while barreling remains useful for small amounts of fluid at remote outposts where laying a fluid wagon schedule is not worth the setup. The wagon capacity figures do not include quality bonuses; higher quality wagons have more slots, but those values come from the quality system rather than the base wagon prototype.

Console commands vs. this cheat sheet

The search term "factorio cheats" often refers to the in-game console, which is a built-in feature of Factorio rather than a third-party modification. The console accepts Lua commands through the chat interface, opened with the backtick or tilde key. Commands can add items, teleport the player, reveal the map, modify surfaces, or run any other Lua function the game exposes. Running a command that affects gameplay disables achievements for that save, which is the game's built-in safeguard rather than a ban or external penalty.

This page does not list console commands and is not a command reference. It is a ratio reference: every table above answers how many machines, belts or wagons a build needs rather than how to spawn items or bypass progression. The distinction matters because a player who searches for "factorio cheats" may be looking for either thing. The console is documented in the game's official help and is a legitimate tool for testing, creative building and troubleshooting. The ratios on this page are for players who want to plan and build a factory without using console commands, and every number is derived from the same prototype data the game itself uses. If you are looking for console command documentation, the official Factorio wiki and the in-game help are the authoritative sources.

Applies when…

• Ratios assume standard Nauvis recipes with no modules or beacons. Speed modules shorten machine rows, productivity modules reduce raw input demand, and quality modules add quality rolls, all of which change every count on this page.
• Belt throughput assumes both lanes are fully compressed. A single-lane feed or a belt with gaps carries less than the stated rate.
• Machine power figures cover active crafting, not idle drain. Stone and steel furnaces burn fuel; their listed power is fuel energy rather than electrical grid load.
• Science pack ore totals expand the full recipe tree to raw ore but treat fluids such as petroleum gas and sulfuric acid as leaf inputs. Fluid production requires its own ratio calculations.
• The oil balance cracks all heavy and light oil to petroleum gas. If you need heavy oil for lubricant or light oil for rocket fuel or solid fuel, reduce the corresponding cracker counts.
• Wagon capacities use base quality wagons with no research bonuses. Inserter speeds are raw prototype values; actual throughput depends on arm geometry and stack bonuses.

Related

• Smelting ratios — the full furnace-per-belt breakdown, module analysis and steel ratio
• Science pack ratios — ore cost, assembler counts and SPM planning for every pack
• Oil processing ratios — why crude per gas has no single answer and the cracking balance
• Main bus design — how many belts a bus needs and how to tap them