Whats the purpose of Giant Furnaces?

[crying bird]

I made them expecting their output would be greater than normal, but not only they occupy more space the only benefit is being able to pack together materials and just chuck in there. Still the output seems very lacking than multiple furnaces, as you have very limited space in the end of the game and barely any benefit of having something that big, as you would also need to proper pack everything and move towards them.

Also automation yellow bots seem bugged, more than once they fill only until 9 of the rocket seller ship when it requires 10 for every sale.

[Pax Bellum]

The giant furnaces use less resources per item.

[iwassnow]

Originally posted by Cacione:

The giant furnaces use less resources per item.

No they don't, it is the exact same ratio. The benefit OP is asking for is in space savings.

They process 100 times as many materials at a time but take up only about 3ish times the space. I have not timed them to see what their speed efficiency is but it does seem to be at least even if not faster on a per material basis. However I did notice that they do not benefit from the sleeping bonus, or if they do it only applies if you're afk for a very long time as it might be per craft rather than per product as it implies.

As for the space issue you mention op, I can tell you with certainty that I use WAY less space for them than before that. I was only able to fit in about 10~ of each type of processor. Now I use 3 of each mega for copper, iron, and steel and that produces 3 times as much for about half the previous space. This is despite also included space for packagers and other extra small buildings. The advantages are plenty clear.

[Pinsa]

I finished the game using them mostly for iron copper and steel because of space issues, takes less place than a bunch of furnaces

[Raxyz]

Originally posted by iwassnow:

Originally posted by Cacione:

The giant furnaces use less resources per item.

No they don't, it is the exact same ratio. The benefit OP is asking for is in space savings.

They process 100 times as many materials at a time but take up only about 3ish times the space. I have not timed them to see what their speed efficiency is but it does seem to be at least even if not faster on a per material basis. However I did notice that they do not benefit from the sleeping bonus, or if they do it only applies if you're afk for a very long time as it might be per craft rather than per product as it implies.

As for the space issue you mention op, I can tell you with certainty that I use WAY less space for them than before that. I was only able to fit in about 10~ of each type of processor. Now I use 3 of each mega for copper, iron, and steel and that produces 3 times as much for about half the previous space. This is despite also included space for packagers and other extra small buildings. The advantages are plenty clear.

They do seem to be faster. 3 megas for copper, iron and steel gave me slightly more steel than 6+ of the regular ones. They do take long to get running because of the whole packing thing though, and I've found that it doesn't seem to be faster nor more efficient for coal.

Also

Originally posted by Wicket:

Also automation yellow bots seem bugged, more than once they fill only until 9 of the rocket seller ship when it requires 10 for every sale.

They have an internal priority whereas they won't fill containers if they have recipes to do. If you also have packagers and production buildings in there, they will not fill the rocket until every packager is running and every furnace/assembler/refinery is fed. You can try to toggle their priorities in the antenna and have one logistics bot with only "deposit resources" as directive.

[Mr. Fibble]

The main difference is that the mega furnace will put out resources slowly over time giving you a steady flow rather than the start stop from the regular ones.

Until you unlock the blueprints at the station they're not quite as useful.

I'd advise limiting the packager output to a single crate, especially for the boxes going to rockets. And for rockets you probably want to manually drop resources in for packaging so as to avoid having a box of stuff with nowhere to send it.

[RyuKajiya]

So far I found they are doing more harm then benefit.
Sure they have a little better ratio but for example on an island with copper and iron I tied them. One bot gathering Iron one copper, so three logistic bots. With all the other stuff going on on that island the packaging took so much actions that it completely overwhelmed the logistic bots. They did not even have actions left to send the steel of the end of the chain away to another island that needs it.

So basically I think they are a design error. Or the logistic bots are too limited.
Maybe packers need something like their own logistic bots so the island wide ones are not overwhelmed with it.

[Raxyz]

Logistics definitely could use an upgrade to pick up stacks instead of single items.

[Mr. Fibble]

When they start up there's a definite dip in the flow of resources without tweaking the bots because they can get bogged down but you can offset that initial bump by manually dropping a couple of stacks of ore into the packager and telling it to only output a single box.

I will say I held off really getting into using them until after I got the skill to speed up the process but generally once they're running there's not really a problem.

[crying bird]

Yeah I agree with you all in here. Still I think 5 bots seem to be not enough right now. Furnaces are indeed not being accounted for sleeping which makes them way worse in some regards. Still I have to proper manage island, right now everything is kinda throw together and that seem why they suck at my current playthrough. I have everything unlocked and finished, just missing the earth construction which I have no idea what it does.

I'm also kinda low key getting vibes that the big furnaces aren't receiving the gem bonus, but no way to certify.

[Mr. Fibble]

I think the sleep thing is because it only gives a bonus for 10 cycles which would be 10 crates at a megafurnace and that amount of ore would take a long time to process through a production chain

[crying bird]

Originally posted by Mr. Fibble:

I think the sleep thing is because it only gives a bonus for 10 cycles which would be 10 crates at a megafurnace and that amount of ore would take a long time to process through a production chain

It was actually a bug, they put an update fixing it.

[Sneak]

Originally posted by iwassnow:

I have not timed them to see what their speed efficiency is

I did the numbers VERY roughly with full upgrades and diamond gem:
The Advanced Electric Furnace took about 1m40s ~ 100s to produce the steel recipe. The Mega Electric Furnace took about 8m 20s ~ 500s (a bit more I think). Advanced produces 3 steel per recipe, so about 0.03 steel per second (33.3s per steel). Mega produces 75 steel per recipe, so about 1 steel every 0.15 seconds (6.7s per steel). So the Mega is about as fast as 5 Advanced.

Mega takes only 5x5 = 25 tiles, while 5 Advanced take 5x3x3=5x9=45 tiles. You need to keep in mind that 3x3 tiled packers are needed for the Mega, at least 2 for the recipe, meaning 25+18 = 43 tiles. You probably don't need more packers if you add more Megas though.

Mega needs 8 power. Advanced 5x2 = 10 power. Packers don't need power.

So Mega is always better.

I haven't checked with the resting bonus. This could be an issue.