Factorio scrap recycling on Fulgora
One recycler processes 2.5 scrap per second, so a yellow belt of scrap (15 per second) feeds 6 recyclers. Every 100 scrap gives on average 20 iron gear wheels, 7 solid fuel, 6 concrete, 5 ice, 4 each of stone, steel plate and batteries, 3 each of copper cable and advanced circuits, 2 processing units, 1 low density structure and 1 holmium ore.
What scrap turns into
The scrap recycling recipe takes 0.2 seconds. Each output is rolled on its own for every scrap, so these are chances, and they add up to only 60%: a belt of scrap comes out about 60% as full.
| Output | Chance per scrap | Per recycler per second | From a yellow belt of scrap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron gear wheel | 20% | 0.5 | 3 per second |
| Solid fuel | 7% | 0.175 | 1.05 |
| Concrete | 6% | 0.15 | 0.9 |
| Ice | 5% | 0.125 | 0.75 |
| Stone | 4% | 0.1 | 0.6 |
| Steel plate | 4% | 0.1 | 0.6 |
| Battery | 4% | 0.1 | 0.6 |
| Copper cable | 3% | 0.075 | 0.45 |
| Advanced circuit | 3% | 0.075 | 0.45 |
| Processing unit | 2% | 0.05 | 0.3 |
| Low density structure | 1% | 0.025 | 0.15 |
| Holmium ore | 1% | 0.025 | 0.15 |
Scrap recycling productivity research raises all of these. Holmium ore only comes from scrap, so the holmium you need for electromagnetic science and plants decides how much scrap you mine.
Recyclers per belt
A normal recycler has crafting speed 0.5, so one scrap takes 0.2 รท 0.5 = 0.4 seconds: 2.5 scrap per second in, 1.5 items per second out.
| Belt of scrap | Scrap per second | Recyclers |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow | 15 | 6 |
| Red | 30 | 12 |
| Blue | 45 | 18 |
| Turbo | 60 | 24 |
Higher quality recyclers are faster (speed 0.65, 0.8, 0.95 and 1.25 up to legendary). Recyclers take 4 modules but no productivity modules.
The real problem: surplus
Scrap gives a dozen products at fixed rates, and you will never use them all at that rate. Once one output backs up, the recycler stops and so does everything else. Two habits keep a Fulgora base running:
- Recycle the surplus. Send whatever you have too much of into another recycler. A normal item comes back as 25% of its ingredients, and raw items with no recipe to reverse (such as ice and stone) come back only 25% of the time, so a few recyclers fed with surplus effectively delete it.
- Sort with overflow, not with buffers. Filter each product off the main line with a splitter or filter inserter, let it fill a small chest, and send the overflow on to the surplus recyclers. Sorters that wait for a full chest jam.
Iron gears are the biggest output: recycling them gives iron plates back, which is where most Fulgora bases get their iron.
Ready-made builds: Fulgora blueprints.