Concrete and Rail Supports Guide

If your factory is getting hard to move through, your rail lines need cleaner crossings, or you want better-looking paving for high-traffic zones, concrete and its rail-support variants are the tools to reach for. Start by unlocking the right tech, then build a supply line that can keep up with your paving needs, and only after that move into elevated crossings and specialized floor marking. This guide walks you through what to unlock, how to mass-produce the right tiles, and where to use each option so you can pave, mark, and bridge your base without fighting the terrain.

Unlock the paving and rail support techs in the right order

Your first goal is Concrete. It unlocks after Advanced material processing, and Advanced material processing itself needs Steel processing and Logistic science pack. Concrete research costs Automation science pack×1 and Logistic science pack×1, so it is usually a very manageable mid-game step.

Treat Concrete as more than a cosmetic upgrade. It is the stepping stone to Elevated rail, and it is also part of Recycling, so if you are building a rail-heavy or rebuild-heavy base, it belongs on your research path early. Elevated rail requires Concrete and Production science pack, with a research cost of Automation science pack×1, Logistic science pack×1, Chemical science pack×1, Production science pack×1. Recycling also requires Concrete, along with Production science pack and Processing unit, and has the same science-pack mix as Elevated rail.

So the order to follow is simple: get Concrete first, then push toward Elevated rail if you know you will be crossing obstacles or want cleaner rail intersections. If you are still balancing your base, do not think of Concrete as optional decoration; it unlocks infrastructure that saves time later.

Set up a concrete supply line you can actually scale

Before you start paving whole districts, make sure you can feed Concrete steadily. The basic recipe is straightforward: Stone brick×5, Iron ore×1, Water×100 → Concrete×10 in an Assembling machine 1 over 10s. If your metal side is already strong, you can switch to Concrete from molten iron in a Foundry: Molten iron×20, Water×100, Stone brick×5 → Concrete×10 over 10s.

Here is the practical choice: use the normal recipe early, then move to the Foundry route when your molten iron chain is mature enough to support it. The Foundry provides a fixed 50% productivity bonus to its outputs, and Foundry recipes can accept productivity modules in addition to that fixed bonus, so it becomes the better long-term option when you are scaling paving across a large base.

The real bottleneck is usually not the crafting machine, but the inputs. Keep Stone brick flowing, keep water available, and decide which resource is actually limiting you before you commit to one path. If stone is tight, the foundry route may still help you stretch output through productivity. If iron ore is your problem, the regular recipe may be easier to feed until your smelting and fluids are stronger.

One important side note: Steel furnace is a burner-based smelting building used to process ores and craft plates. Its recipe is Steel plate×6, Stone brick×10 → Steel furnace×1 in 3s. That means your paving line can benefit from stronger smelting infrastructure sooner than you might expect. A Steel furnace is a burner device, so keep fuel supplied and do not try to place it in space.

Quick reference for the core paving and rail-support recipes

Choose between concrete, refined concrete, and hazard variants for the job

Use the floor type that matches the job, not just the fastest recipe you can afford. Concrete is your workhorse: it is a placeable floor item used to pave large areas for faster movement and cleaner base layouts. Use it where you want trains, belts, and your character to move through the factory more smoothly without turning the whole area into a design project.

When you want a higher-end surface, move up to Refined concrete. It is still a functional path tile, but it gives you a more polished look for roads, corridors, and formal production blocks. If your goal is visual organization, that matters: a clean roadway or a consistent paved block helps you read the base faster, especially in busy mid-game layouts.

For marking, use Hazard concrete or Refined hazard concrete. Hazard Concrete is crafted from Concrete×10 → Hazard concrete×10, and Refined Hazard Concrete comes from Refined concrete×10 → Refined hazard concrete×10. Refined hazard concrete is identical to Refined concrete except for its striped texture, and rotating the tile changes the direction of the stripes. That makes it ideal for lane edges, danger zones, loading areas, and places where you want the floor itself to signal “watch this space.”

Do not overthink the choice: use Concrete when you mainly need speed and coverage, Refined concrete when you want a cleaner road surface, and the hazard variants when you want strong visual marking or striping.

Lay floors efficiently and replace old paving without manual cleanup

When you are actually paving, work with the placement tools instead of fighting them. Select the tile item you want, then use the place action. The placement area can be increased and decreased with the plus and minus keys on the numeric keypad, so use a wide brush for roads and large factory blocks, then shrink it for corners, small maintenance lanes, and precise patches.

The big quality-of-life trick is that you do not need to clear old flooring first. When Concrete is placed over another type of path, the previous path is automatically removed and returned to your inventory. The same general behavior applies to Refined concrete and Stone brick. That means you should repave by painting directly over the old surface, not by manually stripping the whole area and then rebuilding it.

If you need to remove flooring, hold any kind of path item and use the deconstruction or collect action. That returns the tile to your inventory, which makes upgrades and redesigns much less painful. Use this to standardize mixed flooring: pave over awkward patches, widen your roads, and convert high-traffic lanes in one pass instead of doing cleanup work twice.

Build elevated crossings with rail supports and rail ramps

Once your paving is in place, you can start building better rail crossings. Rail support is the infrastructure entity used to build elevated rails above ground level, letting your rail lines pass over terrain, water, cliffs, and many buildings without landfill or demolition. Use it when you want a compact elevated line that keeps the ground below usable.

Build Rail support from Refined concrete×20, Steel plate×10 → Rail support×1 in an Assembling machine 1 over 0.5s. Each Rail support can hold up to five straight rail segments in either direction from its center, or two curved rail segments, or one curved segment and three straight segments. Plan your spacing around that limit before you start placing supports, or you will end up with awkward gaps and reroutes.

Use Rail ramp when you need the rail line to transition up from solid ground onto the elevated section. Its recipe is Refined concrete×100, Rail×8, Steel plate×10 → Rail ramp×1 in an Assembling machine 1 over 0.5s. The raised portion can cross water on Nauvis, oil oceans on Fulgora, marshes on Gleba, and ammoniacal oceans on Aquilo without landfill or foundation, and after rail support foundations research, both Rail support and Rail ramp can also be placed on Fulgora’s deep oil oceans. The catch is that the first four tiles of a Rail ramp must be on solid ground.

That makes the correct building sequence very important: start the ramp on solid ground, then let it carry the line over the obstacle. Before you place anything, confirm you have those four supporting tiles and enough room for the elevated run. Also watch for tall blockers like big electric poles, because they can prevent elevated rail placement.

If you are crossing water or marshes, use Rail support and Rail ramp instead of landfill when possible. It is usually the cleaner, cheaper, and more scalable answer, and it keeps your terrain changes focused on the rail system instead of turning the whole shoreline into a construction project.