Steel Ingot: the standard recipe and three alternates
Steel is the tier where Satisfactory stops being about one resource and starts being about two. The Foundry recipe unlocked at Tier 3 - Basic Steel Production is:
| Recipe | Machine | Cycle | Inputs (per craft) | Inputs (per min) | Output (per min) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steel Ingot (standard) | Foundry | 4 s | Iron Ore 3 + Coal 3 | 45 Ore + 45 Coal | 3, 45/min |
| Solid Steel Ingot (alternate) | Foundry | 3 s | Iron Ingot 2 + Coal 2 | 40 Ingot + 40 Coal | 3, 60/min |
| Coke Steel Ingot (alternate) | Foundry | 12 s | Iron Ore 15 + Petroleum Coke 15 | 75 Ore + 75 Coke | 20, 100/min |
| Compacted Steel Ingot (alternate) | Foundry | 24 s | Iron Ore 2 + Compacted Coal 1 | 5 Ore + 2.5 Coal | 4, 10/min |
“Steel Ingot: 3 Iron Ore and 3 Coal per craft, 4 s in a Foundry, 3 out, 45 per minute” — the row mirrored from the satisfactory.wiki.gg recipe table into
src/data/satisfactory-recipes.json.
Two corrections to the folklore before going further. First, the standard recipe takes Iron Ore, not Iron Ingots — you do not need a smelter row in front of the Foundry, which saves an entire building stage and a lot of power. Second, the ratio is 1:1 ore to coal, so a steel line is exactly as coal-hungry as it is iron-hungry. That is why coal supply, not iron, is what usually caps a steel block.
45 Steel Ingot per minute per Foundry is the baseline. At 4 seconds per craft it is a fairly quick machine, but it eats 45 ore and 45 coal per minute to do it — two separate feeds, each carrying as much as a full Smelter row’s output.
Ore and coal per ingot
Comparing the recipes on resource cost is more useful than comparing output rates:
| Recipe | Iron Ore per ingot | Coal per ingot | Output per Foundry |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | 1.00 | 1.00 | 45/min |
| Solid Steel | 0.67 ore equivalent | 0.67 | 60/min |
| Coke Steel | 0.75 | 0.75 petcoke | 100/min |
| Compacted Steel | 0.50 | 0.25 Compacted Coal | 10/min |
Solid Steel Ingot is the general-purpose winner. It takes 2 Iron Ingot and 2 Coal to make 3 Steel Ingot, and because one Iron Ingot is one Iron Ore, that is 0.67 ore and 0.67 coal per steel ingot — a third less of both resources than the standard recipe, with a 33% higher output per machine. The cost is a smelter row in front of the Foundry, since you now need iron ingots.
Coke Steel Ingot is the throughput monster at 100/min per Foundry, using petroleum coke instead of coal. It is 25% more ore-efficient than standard, but it ties your steel production to the oil base. Build it at an oil outpost where coke is otherwise a waste stream, not next to your coal nodes.
Compacted Steel Ingot is the most resource-efficient recipe in the table at 0.5 ore per ingot, but 10/min output makes it a novelty unless you have Compacted Coal to burn. It is a recipe for players who have solved coal logistics and want ore savings, not for a first steel line.
A 270 steel per minute block, three ways
Two hundred and seventy per minute is six Foundries exactly, which makes the comparison clean:/n/n| Build | Foundries | Iron Ore | Coal | Extra step | |---|---|---|---|---| | Standard | 6 | 270/min | 270/min | none | | Solid Steel | 5 (4.5 exact) | 180/min | 180/min | 180 Iron Ingot (6 Smelters) | | Coke Steel | 3 (2.7 exact) | 202.5/min | 202.5/min petcoke | none |
The Solid Steel column is why the recipe is so popular. Five Foundries instead of six, and 90 fewer ore and 90 fewer coal per minute, at the price of six Smelters and the ore to feed them. Once you have the power, that is a straight resource win: 180 ore and 180 coal in, 270 steel out.
Coke Steel gets you to 270/min from three Foundries and 202.5 ore, but it demands 202.5 petroleum coke per minute, which means a refinery chain that has nothing to do with your coal line.
From ingot to beams and pipes
Steel Ingot is not an end product. Two Constructor recipes consume almost all of it in the mid game:
| Recipe | Machine | Cycle | Input (per min) | Output | Ingot per unit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steel Beam | Constructor | 4 s | 60 Steel Ingot | 1, 15/min | 4.0 |
| Steel Pipe | Constructor | 6 s | 30 Steel Ingot | 2, 20/min | 1.5 |
| Molded Beam (alternate) | Foundry | 12 s | 120 Ingot + 80 Concrete | 9, 45/min | 2.67 |
| Molded Steel Pipe (alternate) | Foundry | 6 s | 50 Ingot + 30 Concrete | 5, 50/min | 1.0 |
| Aluminum Beam (alternate) | Constructor | 8 s | 22.5 Aluminum Ingot | 3, 22.5/min | 1.0 aluminum |
| Iron Pipe (alternate) | Constructor | 12 s | 100 Iron Ingot | 5, 25/min | 4.0 iron |
The standard beam is expensive: 4 ingots per beam, 15 beams per minute per machine. The two “Molded” alternates are dramatically better on steel — Molded Beam uses 2.67 ingots per beam and produces 45/min, Molded Steel Pipe uses 1.0 ingot per pipe against the standard 1.5 — at the cost of a concrete feed and a Foundry slot.
For a frame or heavy-frame build, this matters enormously. A single Encased Industrial Beam Assembler needs 18 Steel Beams per minute, which is 72 ingot per minute; switching to Molded Beam drops that to 48 ingot per minute for the same beam count.
Laying out the block
- Coal first, foundries second. 45 coal per minute per Foundry means a six-Foundry block needs 270 coal per minute. If your coal miners are also feeding generators, the steel line will brown out the grid before it starves. The coal power transition guide covers the split.
- Keep the ore and coal belts the same length. A Foundry that receives ore reliably but coal intermittently runs at partial efficiency and hides the problem inside the block. Two symmetric manifolds make the shortfall obvious.
- Buffer ingots, not ore. Steel Ingot is the item every downstream line competes for; a container of ingots between the Foundry row and the Constructor row absorbs the burst when you build a new frame line.
- Sink surplus at 8 points. Steel Ingot is nearly worthless at the AWESOME Sink — sink beams (64) or pipes (24) instead if you must. A backed-up ingot belt is a signal to build more consumers, not to sink.
If you are still deciding where the steel block goes, the resource guide maps node locations, and the production ratio walkthrough turns any target output into a machine list. For what comes next, the Heavy Modular Frame chain is the biggest steel consumer in the mid game.