The standard recipe, in real numbers
Heavy Modular Frames are the item that proves your mid-game factory actually works. The recipe unlocks in the Manufacturer and consumes four separate lines at once:
| Recipe | Machine | Cycle | Inputs (per craft) | Inputs (per min) | Output |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heavy Modular Frame (standard) | Manufacturer | 30 s | Modular Frame 5 + Steel Pipe 20 + Encased Beam 5 + Screws 120 | 10 Frame + 40 Pipe + 10 Beam + 240 Screws | 1, 2/min |
| Heavy Encased Frame (alternate) | Manufacturer | 64 s | Modular Frame 8 + Encased Beam 10 + Steel Pipe 36 + Concrete 22 | 7.5 Frame + 9.375 Beam + 33.75 Pipe + 20.625 Concrete | 3, 2.8125/min |
| Heavy Flexible Frame (alternate) | Manufacturer | 16 s | Modular Frame 5 + Encased Beam 3 + Rubber 20 + Screws 104 | 18.75 Frame + 11.25 Beam + 75 Rubber + 390 Screws | 1, 3.75/min |
“Heavy Modular Frame: 5 Modular Frame, 20 Steel Pipe, 5 Encased Industrial Beam and 120 Screws per craft, 30 s in a Manufacturer, 2 per minute” — the row mirrored from the satisfactory.wiki.gg recipe table into
src/data/satisfactory-recipes.json.
2 per minute per Manufacturer is the number that shapes everything. It is the slowest output of any frame-tier recipe, and it consumes 240 screws per minute to achieve it — six screw Constructors, all on their own, before you count the screws inside the Modular Frames.
The 120 screws per craft is exactly 30 Iron Rods (screws convert 1 rod to 4), so one HMF Manufacturer quietly consumes 30 rods’ worth of iron every minute just in fasteners.
The full ore bill for one Manufacturer
Pushing every input back to raw resource uses the upstream ratios from the same dataset (Iron Plate 3 ingot to 2, Iron Rod 1 ingot to 1, Screws 1 rod to 4, Steel Beam 4 ingot to 1, Concrete 3 limestone to 1):
| Input | Per minute | Ingot cost | Other |
|---|---|---|---|
| Modular Frame 10/min | 15 Reinforced Plates + 60 Iron Rods | 180 iron (plates) + 60 iron (rods) | — |
| Screws 240/min | — | 60 iron (60 rods) | — |
| Steel Pipe 40/min | — | 60 steel | 60 coal |
| Encased Beam 10/min | 30 Steel Beams + 60 Concrete | 120 steel | 120 coal + 180 limestone |
| Total per Manufacturer | — | 300 iron ingot + 180 steel ingot | 180 coal, 180 limestone |
That is the real cost of 2 frames per minute: 300 iron ingot, 180 steel ingot, 180 coal and 180 limestone, spread across dozens of machines. Heavy Modular Frames are not a recipe, they are a district.
Scale it and the numbers get alarming in a useful way. Ten frames per minute — five Manufacturers — needs about 1,500 iron ingot, 900 steel ingot, 900 coal and 900 limestone per minute, plus the 2,100 screws per minute those five machines and their plate line consume.
Which alternate to run
The three recipes differ most in what they remove, not what they produce:
| Metric per frame | Standard | Heavy Encased | Heavy Flexible |
|---|---|---|---|
| Modular Frames | 5 | 2.67 | 5 |
| Steel Pipes | 20 | 12 | 0 |
| Encased Beams | 5 | 3.33 | 3 |
| Screws | 120 | 0 | 104 |
| Other input | — | 7.33 Concrete | 20 Rubber |
| Output per machine | 2/min | 2.8125/min | 3.75/min |
Heavy Encased Frame is the recipe most players should aim for. It deletes screws entirely — no 30-rod fastener tax — and cuts Modular Frames per frame from 5 to 2.67, which removes about 47% of the entire frame sub-chain. In exchange it asks for 7.33 concrete per frame, which is 22 limestone. When you compare 22 limestone against 120 screws’ worth of iron and rods, it is not close.
It is also 41% faster per machine (2.8125 against 2), so a 10/min frame block is four Manufacturers instead of five.
Heavy Flexible Frame is the speed recipe: 3.75/min per machine, nearly double standard, and it needs no steel pipe at all. But it takes 104 screws per frame and adds 75 rubber per minute per machine. It is the right choice on an oil-based outpost with rubber to spare, and the wrong choice anywhere screws are already the bottleneck.
Note the per-frame beam count: Heavy Flexible uses 3 beams per frame against the standard’s 5, because it produces 1 frame per craft rather than sharing a batch. Per frame, it is actually the gentlest recipe on Encased Industrial Beams.
Where the frames go
| Consumer | Frames per min | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Fused Modular Frame (standard) | 1.5 | 1 per craft, 1.5/min |
| Heat-Fused Frame (alternate) | 3 | 1 per craft, 3/min |
| Hoverpack | 2 | equipment |
| Adaptive Control Unit | 1 | 1 per craft, 1/min |
| Building costs | — | Nuclear Power Plant, Drone Port, Blender, Radar Tower |
The Fused Modular Frame line is the main consumer and the reason to build frames at all. A single Blender running the standard recipe takes 1.5 frames per minute plus 75 Aluminum Casing — see the Fused Modular Frame chain. The Heat-Fused Frame alternate doubles that to 3 frames per minute but drops the aluminum casing for raw aluminum ingot, which is a different logistics problem.
The Adaptive Control Unit takes only 1 frame per minute, but it also wants Automated Wiring, Circuit Boards and Computers at the same time, so it is usually the last of the four inputs you finish. The Adaptive Control Unit guide covers that balance.
Build order that actually works
- Build from the top down, not the bottom up. Start with the Manufacturer, count backwards to the Modular Frame, plate, rod, screw and steel requirements, then build forward. Building the inputs first always produces the wrong ratios.
- Size the screw line for the plate line too. A standard frame Manufacturer needs 240 screws directly, but its 15 reinforced plates need another 180. Plan 420 screws per minute, or eleven screw Constructors, per frame machine.
- Keep steel pipes and beams on separate belts. Both come from the steel block and both are consumed every 30-second cycle; a shared belt halves the effective feed rate.
- Buffer frames before the consumer. Fused Modular Frame Blenders take 1 frame per craft in a 40-second cycle, and Hoverpacks take 2 at once. A container of frames between the two stages prevents stutter.
- Sink at 10,800 points. Heavy Modular Frames are worth 10,800 points at the AWESOME Sink, the best return of any frame-tier item — a legitimate overflow if the fused line is not built yet.
For the upstream half, the Modular Frame guide covers the frame recipes and their alternates, the steel production guide covers the pipe and beam lines, and the production ratio walkthrough converts any target into a machine list.