Iron plate — Factorio Production Calculator
Iron plate is crafted in the furnace in 3.2 seconds, producing 1 per craft from 1 × Iron ore. At 60 per minute you need 3.2 furnaces, and the chain behind it draws on 1 raw resources: iron ore.
Production chain for 60 Iron plate / minute
| Item | Per minute | Machines | Machine |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron plate | 60 | 3.2 | Furnace |
Raw materials
| Resource | Per minute |
|---|---|
| Iron ore | 60 |
Machine counts are not rounded up. Add a little headroom in game — belt throughput and inserter speed usually mean you want 5-10% more than the exact number.
Iron plate recipe
| Machine | Crafting time | Output | Ingredients |
|---|---|---|---|
| Furnace | 3.2 s | 1 | Iron ore × 1 |
What the whole chain needs
This recipe has no intermediate steps: every ingredient is a raw resource, so the chain is a single machine block fed straight from mining or pumpjacks. At 60 per minute that is 3 machines and nothing else to build.
Belt check: the busiest input here moves 60 per minute, which is 0.07 of a yellow belt's 900 per minute. Above 1.0 and you need a second belt (or a faster tier) before the machines themselves become the limit.
What uses iron plate
44 base-game recipes consume iron plate, sorted by how much each one takes:
- Light armor — 40 per craft
- Car — 20 per craft
- Cargo wagon — 20 per craft
- Gun turret — 20 per craft
- Storage tank — 20 per craft
- Shotgun — 15 per craft
- Electric mining drill — 10 per craft
- Radar — 10 per craft
- Steam engine — 10 per craft
- Submachine gun — 10 per craft
- Underground belt — 10 per craft
- Uranium fuel cell — 10 per craft
- Assembling machine 1 — 9 per craft
- Iron chest — 8 per craft
- Train stop — 6 per craft
- Grenade — 5 per craft
- Loader — 5 per craft
- Pipe to ground — 5 per craft
- Pistol — 5 per craft
- Power switch — 5 per craft
…and 24 more, mostly buildings and equipment that use one or two each.
FAQ
How many furnaces do I need for 60 iron plates per minute?
3.2 furnaces. One at standard speed produces 18.8 per minute, so 60 ÷ that number is the count. The calculator above rounds nothing — add 5-10% headroom for belt and inserter losses in a real factory.
How much raw ore does iron plate take?
At 60/min the chain consumes 60 iron ore per minute. Those numbers are the theoretical minimum — mining productivity research and productivity modules both reduce them.
Is iron plate needed for science packs?
Not directly. It feeds Light armor and Car, and those in turn feed the science packs. Open the science pack page to see the demand that lands on this recipe.
Machine counts assume bare machines at standard speed. Recipe data comes from the game's own prototypes (PlayerCalc, Factorio 2.0 base game). Not affiliated with Wube Software.