![factorio beacon factorio beacon](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/5r0noiTVFqk/maxresdefault.jpg)
trains were unloaded into provider chests, and bots would take stuff to requestor chests that dumped onto belts to deliver to the assemblers, and the output was belted to a provider chest and carried by bots to the labs requestior chests. The science setup was also a hybrid, but the reverse of the building setup. alot of things were setup with speed modules here, specifically the chain making modules as well as assemblers making the staples gears, pipes and so on. this had somewhere around 1000 logistic bots, maybe a few more. this was all to feed a building train, which was setup with some logic i dont completely understand to load whatever quantities of stuff i felt i needed. from there bots took over, delivering what was needed and so on. the building station was a hybrid setup, belts unloaded the train and it was dumped by loaders into provider chests. Then it was trained to either the science outpost, or the main base that built all the stuff. i did have them both setup with power switches to turn the furnace columns off when a certain number of plates were in the warehouse in an attempt to save some power usage. the output was belted to another warehouse, where it sat waiting to get belted to the loading station. raw ore was dumped into a warehouse (warehouse mod) by loaders (mod), then sent out by loaders on belts to beaconed furnace columns. copper and iron smelters were offsite 8 wagons in and out, loaded/unloaded from both sides. i goofed the saves, so that one is gone so no pictures. The 8 reactor setup allowed some spare capacity where the 2 4 reactor setups weren't enough. Yeah, I expected that answer, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something huge. My advice to you is, even if you are not going to be using the beacons and modules YET, plan for their eventual inclusion, and include them into the blueprint (assuming you save one for another game in the future). Electric furnaces are bigger - 3x3 rather than 2x2 - and the addition of the beacons means your smelting columns need to be further apart, but its quite possible to fit (without the beacons) an Electric furnace column into the space formerly occupied by a stone/steel furnace column. A "proper" smelting column using Stone or Steel furnaces is 48 furnaces at 24 per side, for yellow and red belts respectively. I do not know the number offhand, but it takes fewer Electric furnaces complete with Productivity 3 modules, and Beacons with Speed 3 modules, to completely fill a blue belt than it takes without using those modules and beacons. Originally posted by astrosha:If you are not planning on using beacons and modules, there really is no reason to switch to Electric Furnaces.