Small Electric Pole

Lore & Background

In the scattered settlements that dot the Factorio archipelago, the small electric pole is everywhere. Clusters of them stand in neat rows beside abandoned assembly lines, their thin copper-wound frames rusting in the salt air. The locals who still live on the outer islands treat them with a kind of superstitious respect: a pole without a generator is a dead thing, but a pole with a generator humming behind it is a small, patient god of industry. Children are taught never to climb them, and the copper smell lingers on fingers for days. The poles were not designed by any single engineer. They emerged from the same iterative, workshop-driven culture that produced every other piece of Factorio hardware—trial, failure, a slightly better weld, repeat. The 1.5-tile radius was a deliberate compromise: large enough to cover a small cluster of machines without needing a second pole, small enough that a careless player who forgets to extend the line will notice the dead assemblers within seconds. That friction, that little jolt of "oh, I need another pole," is arguably the most important tutorial in the entire game. Over time, the small pole became a cultural shorthand. In the scattered forum posts and in-game chat logs that survive, players refer to "pole gaps" the way sailors refer to dead water—those frustrating stretches where your factory runs out of power because you forgot to bridge the last two tiles. It is a small, unglamorous piece of infrastructure, but every factory that ever hummed to life started with one.

In Their Own Story

The generator coughed, spat a brief blue flame, and settled into a steady thrum. Mara wiped grease from her forehead and watched the small electric pole flicker to life, its copper threads catching the low afternoon sun. Three assemblers to the north shuddered, their pistons finding rhythm for the first time in what felt like weeks. She'd been out here alone for two days, hauling iron plates in a cart that kept tipping on the gravel. The pole was the last thing she'd placed—just one, right in the middle of the little yard between the engine and the machines. No grand substation. No underground cable trench. Just a single upright of iron and copper, doing its quiet job. A bird landed on the crossbar. Mara watched it tilt its head at the humming wire, then hop off and disappear into the scrub. The assemblers clicked on, one by one, and the whole yard filled with the sound of small, purposeful industry. She sat back on the cart, legs stretched out, and listened to it all breathe.

Reader's Guide

The Small Electric Pole is a passive distribution node. It has no input or output slots in the traditional sense: it simply broadcasts electrical power to any machine whose footprint falls within its 1.5-tile radius (a 4 × 4 tile area). It draws zero power itself and has no throughput limit—its only constraint is geometry. It is unlocked by the Electric Energy technology, which is one of the very first researches available. The recipe is 2 iron plates and 2 copper cables, making it cheap and fast to mass-produce once you have a basic iron and copper pipeline. Its primary role is to connect a power source (steam engine, solar panel, wind turbine, or accumulator) to nearby consumers (assemblers, furnaces, pumps, or other powered items). Because the radius is small, you will almost always need multiple poles to cover a growing base. Poles can be placed adjacent to or overlapping each other; their distribution areas simply merge, so a row of small poles can create a continuous power corridor. Key pairing notes: place a small pole within 1.5 tiles of both the generator and the machine you want to power. If a machine sits outside that radius it will simply not receive power—there is no warning, the machine just idles. For longer distances, step up to the Medium or Large Electric Pole, or use underground cables to route power around obstacles. Small poles are also the only distribution method available before you research larger infrastructure, so early base layout revolves almost entirely around their limited reach.

Did You Know?

• The small electric pole is the only power-distribution item available before you research the Medium Electric Pole, meaning your entire early-game electrical layout is built on its 1.5-tile radius.
• Multiple small poles can be placed on adjacent tiles; their distribution areas overlap and merge, effectively creating a larger continuous power zone without any special connection item.
• The pole is completely passive—it has no internal power draw, no fuel, and no moving parts. All it does is broadcast. The entire electrical burden sits on the generator and the consumer.
• Because the distribution check is purely geometric (tile distance), a small pole can power a machine even if a wall or another building sits between them, as long as the consumer's tile falls within the 4 × 4 radius.