Steel Ingot

Steel Ingots are smelted from Iron Ore and Coal in Foundries. They are used to produce Steel Pipes and Steel Beams.

Obtaining[]

Recipe	Ingredients		Building	Products	Prerequisites
Steel Ingot	3 × Iron Ore 45 / min	3 × Coal 45 / min	Foundry 4 sec × 6	3 × Steel Ingot 45 / min 21.33 MJ/item	Tier 3 - Basic Steel Production
Coke Steel Ingot Alternate	15 × Iron Ore 75 / min	15 × Petroleum Coke 75 / min	Foundry 12 sec	20 × Steel Ingot 100 / min 9.6 MJ/item	Tier 5 - Oil Processing
Compacted Steel Ingot Alternate	6 × Iron Ore 22.5 / min	3 × Compacted Coal 11.25 / min	Foundry 16 sec	10 × Steel Ingot 37.5 / min 25.6 MJ/item	Tier 3 - Basic Steel Production Alternate Recipe - Compacted Coal
Solid Steel Ingot Alternate	2 × Iron Ingot 40 / min	2 × Coal 40 / min	Foundry 3 sec	3 × Steel Ingot 60 / min 16 MJ/item	Tier 3 - Basic Steel Production

The following shows different ways to produce 1 Steel Ingot / second, or 60 / min:

Recipe	Iron Ore /min (WP)	Coal /min (WP)	Sulfur /min (WP)	Crude Oil m³/min (WP)	Total WP	Total Energy /item (MJ)	Space (m²)	Building counts	Sink value input (item)	Sink value input (ore)	Sink value output
Default	60 (8.53 )	60 (19.92 )	-	-	28.45	42.97	136.79	1.53	240	240	480
Coke	45 (6.39 )	-	-	11.25 (9.62 )	16.01	46.7	220.32	1.48	945	123.75	480
Compacted	36 (5.12 )	18 (5.98 )	18 (26.32 )	-	37.41	49.37	262.05	2.44	540	290	480
Solid	21.54 (3.06 )	40 (13.28 )	-	-	16.34	47.63	261.63	1.82	200	141.54	480

Weighted Point is the weighted consumption rate which is calculated by: (resource consumption rate / maximum extraction rate) * 10,000. The lower the better.
Energy per item can be used to measure how much power is consumed for the entire production chain. The lower the better.
Building space and building count are summed for all buildings, excluding belts, pipes, power poles, power lines and other logistic infrastructures. The lower the better.
Energy for sinking byproducts are considered, assuming using Conveyor Belt Mk.5.
Although Coke Steel Ingot has slightly lower WP than Solid Steel Ingot, it has more weighted Oil usage than its base resource, Iron Ore. Thus, Solid Steel Ingot will be chosen when it is involved in higher tier item analysis.

Recipe	Ingredients		Building	Products	Prerequisites
Steel Canister Alternate	3 × Steel Ingot 60 / min		Constructor 3 sec	2 × Empty Canister 40 / min 6 MJ/item	Tier 5 - Alternative Fluid Transport
Steel Coated Plate Alternate	3 × Steel Ingot 7.5 / min	2 × Plastic 5 / min	Assembler 24 sec	18 × Iron Plate 45 / min 20 MJ/item	Tier 5 - Oil Processing
Steel Rod Alternate	1 × Steel Ingot 12 / min		Constructor 5 sec	4 × Iron Rod 48 / min 5 MJ/item	Tier 3 - Basic Steel Production
Steel Beam	4 × Steel Ingot 60 / min		Constructor 4 sec × 2	1 × Steel Beam 15 / min 16 MJ/item	Tier 3 - Basic Steel Production
Steel Pipe	3 × Steel Ingot 30 / min		Constructor 6 sec × 3	2 × Steel Pipe 20 / min 12 MJ/item	Tier 3 - Basic Steel Production

Steel Ingot can be sunk into the

AWESOME Sink to yield 8 points.

Solid Steel is the most efficient recipe, due to conserving Coal which is the rarer component and allowing for the incorporation with a ratio of Iron Ore to ingot greater than 1:1.
- If a large Iron Ingot pipeline is already established, a Solid Steel foundry can draw from that rather than requiring a separate ore stream.
- Solid Steel can also take advantage of the Iron Alloy Ingot or Pure Iron Ingot alternate recipes, increasing ore efficiency even further.
Compacted Steel can become useful in mid-to-late-game if Sulfur is available in sufficient amounts.
Steel is better than iron for most purposes (using alternate recipes), but iron is better for making Iron Plates, and can also be made into Wire, while steel cannot.

A bootstrap Steel Ingot production setup with three Coal and three Iron Ore input belts.
Schematic of above steel production.
A mid-game steel production setup.
The calculator showing the above setup.

Patch 0.3: Increased the amount of product from two to three, buffing it by 50%. A new alternate recipe is added.