Satisfactory rewards planning. Whether you are balancing a coal grid, scaling a fuel array, or chasing a perfectly ratio’d production line, doing the math before you place buildings saves hours of belt-untangling later. This guide walks through how power, fuel, recipe, and energy calculators work, the verified numbers behind them, and which tools are worth bookmarking when you run a dedicated server with friends.
What a “Satisfactory calculator” actually does
The term covers a family of planning tools. Most fall into four buckets:
- Production / recipe ratio calculators — tell you how many machines you need to hit a target output (e.g. 60 Iron Plates/min) and how much raw input that requires.
- Power calculators — sum the MW draw of your buildings and compare it to your generator capacity.
- Fuel / energy calculators — work out how much coal, fuel, or uranium your generators consume and how to feed them.
- Generator ratio calculators — match fuel production lines to generator counts so nothing starves or backs up.
All of them lean on the same underlying game data: building power draw, recipe rates, and generator fuel consumption. Those numbers change between major updates, so always confirm a tool is current. Below are values verified against the official Satisfactory wiki for the 1.0+ era; treat them as a baseline and double-check after any patch.
Generator power output and fuel consumption
Every generator except the Biomass Burner runs at full capacity whenever it has fuel — it does not throttle to demand. That means a Coal Generator always burns 15 coal/min whether your grid needs the power or not. The Biomass Burner is the exception: its fuel consumption scales down with demand. Here are the verified figures at 100% clock speed:
| Generator | Output | Fuel rate (100% clock) | Water |
|---|---|---|---|
| Biomass Burner | 30 MW | Scales with demand (Biomass/Solid Biofuel/wood, etc.) | None |
| Coal Generator | 75 MW | 15 Coal/min | 45 m³/min |
| Fuel-Powered Generator | 250 MW | 20 m³/min Fuel (7.5 Turbofuel) | None |
| Geothermal Generator | 100/200/400 MW avg* | None (vent-based) | None |
| Nuclear Power Plant | 2,500 MW | 0.2 Uranium Fuel Rod/min | 240 m³/min |
One nuclear caveat worth a calculator’s attention: at 100% clock a Uranium Fuel Rod plant also outputs 10 Uranium Waste/min, which you must store or reprocess into Plutonium. Plan your waste handling before you scale nuclear.
How to calculate generator ratios
Generator ratios are the part players most often get wrong. The trick is to match your fuel production rate to your generator consumption rate.
Take fuel power as a worked example. The standard Refinery Fuel recipe turns 60 Crude Oil/min into 40 Fuel/min (plus 30 Polymer Resin/min as a byproduct). A single Fuel-Powered Generator burns 20 m³ of Fuel/min. So:
- 40 Fuel/min ÷ 20 Fuel/min per generator = 2 generators per Fuel refinery.
- That refinery line outputs 2 × 250 MW = 500 MW for every 60 Crude Oil/min you feed it.
- Do not forget the Polymer Resin byproduct — sink it, package it, or convert it, or the refinery will clog and stall your power.
The same method works for coal: a Coal Generator’s 45 m³/min water demand means roughly three generators per Water Extractor (which produces 120 m³/min), with a little headroom. A calculator just automates this arithmetic across an entire grid.
Planning factory throughput with recipe calculators
Production calculators flip the problem around: you state the output you want and the tool back-solves the machines and raw inputs. The workflow looks like this:
- Pick your target item and rate (e.g. 30 Reinforced Iron Plates/min).
- Choose recipes — including alternate recipes if you have them unlocked, since they often change the ratios dramatically.
- The tool outputs machine counts, belt/pipe tiers needed, and total power draw.
- Feed that power number into your power calculator to confirm your grid can handle it.
Because alternate recipes can completely change input ratios, lock in which ones you’ll use before committing to a layout. Our alternate recipes tier list covers which are worth the hunt, and the aluminum production guide shows how messy multi-step ratios get without planning.
Best calculator tools
- Satisfactory Tools (satisfactorytools.com) — the most popular production planner, with full recipe graphs, power totals, and alternate-recipe toggles.
- SCIM / Satisfactory Calculator (satisfactory-calculator.com) — production planner plus a save-file map editor and blueprint viewer.
- The in-game data and the official wiki — the source of truth. When a tool and the game disagree, the game wins; verify against satisfactory.wiki.gg after each update.
If you’re running a shared world, accurate power planning matters even more — an under-powered grid trips for everyone at once. A stable always-on Satisfactory server keeps your factory ticking 24/7 so generators and storage stay in sync even when no one’s online. For installing the dedicated server and managing it, see our Satisfactory server docs.
FAQ
How many Coal Generators can one Water Extractor support?
A Coal Generator consumes 45 m³ of water per minute at 100% clock speed. A Water Extractor produces 120 m³/min, so it supports two generators comfortably with water to spare — a third is possible but leaves no headroom. Underclocking or a third extractor is the cleaner approach for larger coal banks.
Do Satisfactory generators waste fuel when power isn’t needed?
Yes, for every generator except the Biomass Burner. Coal, Fuel, and Nuclear generators run at full capacity and consume fuel whenever they have it, regardless of grid demand. Only the Biomass Burner scales its fuel use to actual power consumption. This is why fuel and nuclear setups are usually sized to a precise target rather than overbuilt.
Are calculator numbers accurate after game updates?
Usually, but not always immediately. Recipe rates and building stats can change between major updates, and community tools may lag a patch behind. The numbers in this guide are verified against the official wiki, but if you’re playing right after an update, cross-check critical ratios against in-game values. After you update your dedicated server, re-confirm any tight power balances.
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