Raw output and usable output are different numbers
A miner's output is not what reaches your factory. The belt attached to it is a hard ceiling, and any ore above that ceiling simply never leaves. This calculator deliberately keeps the two figures apart, because the mistake of connecting a strong miner to a slow belt is the single most common early-game waste in Satisfactory.
The arithmetic is short. Raw output is the miner's base rate, multiplied by node purity, multiplied by clock speed as a fraction:
raw = minerBase × purity × (clock ÷ 100)
usable = min(raw, beltCapacity)
Base rates are 60, 120 and 240 items per minute for Miner Mk.1, Mk.2 and Mk.3 on a normal node. Node purity multiplies that by 0.5 on an impure node, 1 on a normal one and 2 on a pure one. So a Mk.3 miner on a pure node at 100% clock produces 480 per minute — which is why a Mk.4 belt at 480 exactly fills up and a Mk.5 at 780 is the first one with headroom.
Belt throughput, and the tier that fixes a bottleneck
Belt capacity is fixed per mark and does not care what is on the belt:
- Mk.1 — 60 items/min
- Mk.2 — 120 items/min
- Mk.3 — 270 items/min
- Mk.4 — 480 items/min
- Mk.5 — 780 items/min
- Mk.6 — 1,200 items/min
The jump from Mk.3 to Mk.4 is the awkward one: 270 to 480 does not line up with a doubling, so a node that overproduced on a Mk.3 often still overproduces on a Mk.4. The calculator tells you the exact shortfall in items per minute rather than just flagging that a bottleneck exists.
Overclocking is not linear in power
Output scales straight with clock speed. Power does not. The game uses:
power = basePower × (clock ÷ 100)^1.321928
That exponent is below 2, so power rises faster than output but not as fast as the square. At 250% clock you get 2.5× the output but pay about 3.35× the base power. Miner base draw at 100% is 5 MW for Mk.1, 15 MW for Mk.2 and 45 MW for Mk.3.
Two practical consequences fall out of that:
- Power per item gets worse as you overclock. The calculator prints it, so you can compare a 250% miner against a second miner at 100% on power terms alone.
- Overclocking past a belt limit buys nothing. If the belt is already saturated, extra clock speed produces ore that never moves. The calculator states the clock percentage at which the belt becomes the limit, which is usually well below 250%.
Power shards and the honest cost of 250%
Overclocking needs Power Shards: one shard covers up to 150%, two up to 200%, three up to 250%. Below 100% no shards are required at all. Because shards are a limited resource for most of a playthrough, the useful question is not "can I reach 250%" but "does the extra output get used". On a pure node feeding a Mk.5 belt, the answer is usually no — the belt is the limit long before the shards run out.
Sizing a line from the other direction
If you already know what a production line needs, enter it and the calculator converts your node output into a machine count. Rounding up matters here: factories cannot build a fraction of a miner, so a line needing 1,000 items/min from 480-output nodes takes three nodes, with the third one running below capacity.
Sources and standards
Where these figures come from
Every constant and formula on this page was taken from the published reference below and re-checked before it was published.
- Official Satisfactory Wiki — belt throughput per mark and the unlock tier for each.
- Official Satisfactory Wiki — miner base output, node purity multipliers and base power draw.
- Official Satisfactory Wiki — overclocking, the 1.321928 power exponent and Power Shard thresholds.
Belt and miner reference table
| Miner | Impure node | Normal node | Pure node | Slowest belt that keeps up |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mk.1 — 60/min base | 30/min | 60/min | 120/min | Mk.1 · Mk.2 · Mk.2 |
| Mk.2 — 120/min base | 60/min | 120/min | 240/min | Mk.1 · Mk.2 · Mk.3 |
| Mk.3 — 240/min base | 120/min | 240/min | 480/min | Mk.2 · Mk.3 · Mk.4 |
All figures are items per minute at 100% clock. The last column is the one to plan with: a pure Mk.3 node needs a Mk.4 belt, and Mk.4 sits behind a Tier 6 unlock. Early on, a normal node on a Mk.3 belt usually beats a pure node you cannot move.
Worked examples
A Mk.2 miner on a pure node at 150%
Raw output is 120 × 2 × 1.5 = 360 items/min. A Mk.4 belt carries 480, so nothing is lost and 120 items/min of headroom remains. Power is 15 × 1.5^1.321928 ≈ 25.6 MW, which works out at about 0.071 MW per item per minute.
The same miner at 250% on a Mk.3 belt
Raw output is 120 × 2 × 2.5 = 600 items/min while the Mk.3 belt carries 270. The belt is the bottleneck and 330 items/min never leave the machine — ore is produced and simply not transported. Dropping the clock to about 112.5% would already saturate that belt, so the two extra shards buy nothing.
Filling a line that needs 1,000 items/min
Pure Mk.3 nodes at 100% supply 480 each, so the line needs three nodes and the third runs at a fraction of its capacity. The honest options are to underclock a fourth node so all four share the load evenly, or to accept the third node idling — overclocking the first two is the one choice that raises power per item without raising output.
