Smelting Process

Introduction
This Guide gives you an overview over Furnaces and their use.

Furnace Strategy

 * You can use a, an and
 * Recipes, burn times and Thrall Benefits are the same in every type of furnace, the only thing that differs is the number of slots in its inventory.
 * A bigger inventory is better to reduce a possible downtime of the furnace because you can put more stacks of stuff into it. But if you struggle in early and mid game to upgrade to Improved Furnaces, then better stay with standard Furnaces and just build more of them.
 * At least one furnace must have a to be able to produce . Put every  and  into it to collect a suply of Glass Flasks (for /Orbs and /Food).
 * Crystals could also be a source for /Food, but Salt could also be made from which is easier to collect in masses.
 * This furnace could also be the Multi-Purpose-Furnace, where you also put in other stuff like or  or.
 * For a long time you might have more furnaces than Smelter-Thralls. As you get your Thralls put them in order of their level into the furnaces, the same order you want to fill your furnaces with ressources. Then you get your products faster and with a lower amount of burned fuel. In times with a high demand you can also let the empty or low level thralled furnaces run, if fuel or ressources are low you just use the most efficient thralled furnaces.
 * Don't put every possible ressource into a furnace because you might not get out the product you want the most. Candidates for this unwanted use are (turns  into  instead of just ),  (turns  or  into  instead of just ) and  (turns  into  instead of just ).
 * It is up to you if you use only a specific recipe for a specific furnace or if you switch recipes according to your demand.
 * can only be made in the, which only exists once on the whole map and has no slot for a thrall. If you want to make it, you have to take at least a lot with you and collect  on the way or take it with you from previous Volcano-Trips. 10  and 1  take 10 seconds to make 1.

Fuel Strategy

 * In the beginning every fuel is good enough. Most likely you have to use.
 * Put only one type of fuel into one furnace. One type of fuel is picked and the furnace will stop after it is consumed without continuing with the next type of fuel. You then would have to press start again. Therefore additional types of fuel only take away the slots in the furnace. If you have a mixed supply of fuels then put one type in the first furnace, the next type into the next etc.
 * Some fuels have higher priorities and should not be used as fuel in the furnace:
 * Only can be used as fuel in the  /  (to make ) and in the  (to make ). It would be a waste to use it for other purposes.
 * is used in a lot of recipes. Some have a high demand of it like and various types of Arrows. Better save the Branches for theses things. It also has a very bad burntime.
 * is used in a lot of recipes and will go in masses into, , or . It also has a very bad burntime.
 * is a acceptable but possibly lacking fuel for the first steps into the game. Most of the first building blocks (like or  - until you can make ) and the workstations need relatively huge chunks of wood. Later a lot of it will go into  and.
 * Some fuels are better to use for smelting:
 * : In the Beginning Coal is not as present as you would need it and with bad tools you would have trouble to make it your primary fuel. Later it can be collected in larger quantities and is a possible fuel. A possible bottleneck could be . If your playstyle involves the constant use of Skinning Knifes you might not have trouble making Tar. But if you have trouble, you could use Coal with a bad 25:1-Ratio to make Tar.
 * : It is used to make, but what is left could be used as an excellent fuel.
 * : It is recomended to have some Oil left for other purposes (like ), but that could stay in a . Every additional Oil could be used as fuel. Oil can be massproduced with . For one Oil you need 1 or 5  or 10 . One Fish Trap won't bring you very far, but what about 10, 50 or 100 Traps? You don't have to run around the world to collect stuff, just collect the slowly but automaticly catched fishs, put them into an array of Fluid Presses and have as much Oil as you want. These three types of Fish can also be cooked into, as food for yourself and your Thralls, which allows you to constantly use a Skinning Knife instead of a Cleaver on animal corps.

Chest Organization
At first storage space is rare and ressources will be stored everywhere, sometimes even furnaces and other workstations can be used as a temporarly storage. Later storage rooms can be a valid strategy where you have a lot of chests to store everything. To reduce travel time and distance a few chests around your smelting area can save you a lot of time. It is worth to place furnaces and chests early on in an organized way, can help.

1 If a is present in the Furnace

Contributors

 * User:Joschilein8343389