How to Automate Steel Beams Production in Factorio 2.0

Steel Beams may stress a lot of new players in Factorio 2.0 since its introduction may force them to change their first factory. Since Steel Beams require Iron Plates to be smelted again instead of used in an Assembly Machine, it may ruin other beginner factory setups since players might not have enough space for expansion. Luckily, it is easy to redo the setup for now and here’s how you can automate Steel Beams and also keep your Iron Plates production alive in Factorio 2.0.

Early Game Automated Steel Beams Setup in Factorio 2.0

Iron Plates to Steel Beams Ratio – 5:1

In the early game, if you placed an Assembly Machine near or just beside your Furnaces that create Iron Plates, you’ll have to delete them and expand. If you don’t want to delete or rework this production line, you can also get another Iron Ore node somewhere and make a new production line with a new source of Iron Ore.

Either way, what you are looking for is to have a factory for automated Iron Plates production and make it in a way that you can expand a little bit more when needed. The automated Iron Plates will have one transport belt line, which you will split evenly into different production lines.

At this point, you wouldn’t have Electric Furnaces yet, so you would want to build a line of Furnaces with at least three grids of space on one side. This is for an inserter and a long inserter, so you can grab both Iron Ore and Coal to process Iron Plates and automate the refueling process.

Once you have done this, place all Iron Plates into one belt and deliver them to another space or area. Before you build the factory for Steel Beams, you want some space on this main line of Iron Plates so you can easily split them in the middle if you ever make another factory or production line that needs Iron Plates.

Now, you want to build another line of Furnaces and smelt these Iron Plates into another Furnace so you can get Steel Beams. For this part, I suggest creating a temporary line of Coal to automate refueling these Furnaces until you unlock the Electric Furnace. Once these Furnaces run on electricity, you can delete all the Coal lines. If you are too lazy to set this up, you can manually deposit Coal into these Furnaces until you unlock the Electric Furnaces.

Related: How to Take and Deposit Stacks of Items in Factorio 2.0

Mid-Game Automated Steel Beams Setup in Factorio 2.0

In the mid-game, Steel Beams will see more uses, such as engines, purple potions, and more. You want to do the same thing you did with Iron Plates above but with Steel Beams, so you can easily split one main line of Steel Beams to other production lines that need them.

First, you must create a factory with some space for expansion. Second, you want to have Electric Furnaces by now so you don’t have to refuel them. Third, you still want to keep your automated Steel Beams factory a bit further away from your Iron Plates setup.

You want some space to input another line of Iron Plates for occasions when your Iron Ore nodes run out and you have to get another source of iron Ores for your Iron Plates. It depends on whether you want to solve this issue by making another Iron Plates factory or just making a long line or an item delivery system like a train going to your previous Iron Plate factory.

The ultimate goal is to have your automated Steel Beams factory running with a simple “one input,” where if you place a source of Iron Plates into that input, your factory will run again.