Heat-efficient Furnace?

[His Quivzness]

Uses the exact same amount of base materials. 2 ironstone = 1 iron bar, 5 iron bar + 1 steelfire = 1 steel bar. 1 steel bar + 1 black ice = 1 hardened steel bar as usual. 10 stone = 1 brick and 1 brick + 1 stone consolidant = 1 hardened brick as usual.

So... Whats the point besides the speed increase? Especially considering the tooltip says "A furnace designed to reduce the waste of base materials".

[Seishisha]

I was wondering the same thing, as it seems no better than a regular furnace, a quote from the wiki.

"The heat-efficient furnace is comprised of a short hearth in the shape of an inverted pyramid centered beneath a stone chimney. A moveable cap on the chimney peak affords the smith a greater degree of temperature control, reducing the waste of base materials and lowering the cost of forged items."

This to me implies that the furnace can be interacted with in some way toggle the resource cost, if that is the case, why not just have it on by default, if this is not the case, perhaps the furnace is not 100% functional as of yet, or currently bugged.

I'd be curious if anyone else has some insight about this, because right now that furnace seems like a waste of time.

[His Quivzness]

It is way faster thann the tier 2 furnace... Maybe thats all it does and the description is wrong. The other tier 3 option says something about fuel efficiency.

[Seishisha]

Interestingly the fuel-efficient furnace has this quote on the wiki.

"As an improvement over more archaic smelting holes, the heat in a fuel-efficient furnace is fanned by air entering through an aperture at the bottom of a smelting shaft positioned to capture the prevailing winds. This refinement helps to reduce the cost of fuels such as coal, wood, and ores needed for processing."

Which once again implies it will make bars cheaper to produce, if this is the case it makes me wonder if there was some internal mix up and the heat-efficient furnace has the incorrect description.

The theme of the other grand master stations is one makes things fast, the other makes things cheap, bearing that in mind it seems like two description were written for the material saving furnace and applied to both, one obviously being wrong.

If this is just a simple mix up with descriptions it would explain the issue.

[His Quivzness]

I would expect the fuel efficient furnace to burn for longer per piece of fuel. Thats what the description and name implies to me.

[His Quivzness]

Okay did some testing...

1 piece of coal burns for 8 seconds in the heat-efficient furnace.
1 piece of coal burns for 2 minutes and 20 seconds in the fuel-efficient furnace.
1 piece of coal burns for 50 seconds in the improved furnace

It takes less than 2 seconds to make a brick in the heat efficient furnace.
It takes approximately 5 seconds to make a brick in the fuel-efficient furnace.
It takes about 5 seconds to make a brick in the improved furnace

The heat efficient furnace can make 3 bricks per piece of coal
The fuel efficient furnace can make about 28 bricks per piece of coal
The improved furnace can make about 10 bricks per piece of coal

It takes less than 20 seconds to make 10 bricks in the heat efficient
It takes about 50 seconds to make 10 bricks in the fuel efficient
It takes about 50 seconds to make 10 bricks in the improved

So the Heat efficient one is faster than the improved furnace at the cost of WAY more fuel. And the fuel efficient one burns less fuel than the improved furnace for the same speed of smelting.

I've now tested with a tier 4 smelter in a heat efficient furnace and it further increases the speed. With a tier 4 thrall it takes about 3 seconds to make 5 bricks. In the fuel-efficient furnace with a tier 4 thrall it takes about 8 seconds to make 5 bricks.

The tooltip is very misleading for the Heat-efficient furnace although the name has the right implication for its function.

[His Quivzness]

Now I'm making a garrison blacksmith's bench and hoping it actually does what it says on the box... I'm rather annoyed that the heat-efficient furnace turned out to be fast but wasteful... I'm gonna have to tear it down and build the fuel efficient one instead.. I'm also going to have to raise my roof, since it doesn't seem to fit under a 2 wall high ceiling.

[His Quivzness]

And the garrison bench does reduce material requirements, but is missing the steel reinforcement recipe... So (unless i'm going to wait for a patch) now i need to remake my improved bench to make reinforcements to make a furnace since the one i have is the wrong one... *sigh*...

[Seishisha]

I also did some testing, and came to similar conclusions, the fuel-efficient furnace with the same tier of thrall saves about three times as much fuel as the heat-efficient furnace uses. I also checked as the description hinted at, whether or not either furnace type could be interacted with or adjusted to alter the burn rate / item production, short answer no, both types have the standard interactions of cancel, dismantle, interact and pick up.

Considering it only saves fuel and the heat-efficient furnace is blisteringly fast, in a realistic scenario heat-efficient wins hands down every time. To me at least it does not matter if the furnace can only run for ten minuets on a hundred coal if in that time it produces two or three times as much bars or bricks.

Unless fuel-efficient is changed to also make bars cheaper, particularly for things like star metal or eldarium, i see no reason to use it and wait longer just to save on fuel. Considering the abundance of fuel materials, coal, wood, dry wood, oil even plant fibre, and the fact it is much taller are both real factors against it.

[His Quivzness]

Originally posted by Seishisha:

Unless fuel-efficient is changed to also make bars cheaper, particularly for things like star metal or eldarium, i see no reason to use it and wait longer just to save on fuel. Considering the abundance of fuel materials, coal, wood, dry wood, oil even plant fibre, and the fact it is much taller are both real factors against it.

Actually i'd rather wait longer than use fuel at that rate, but each to their own. The extra height is a pain though... My shrine of mitra is right above where i was going to place my furnace.

The problem now is that there's NO way to use less mats.

[Seishisha]

Originally posted by His Quivzness:

Actually i'd rather wait longer than use fuel at that rate, but each to their own. The extra height is a pain though... My shrine of mitra is right above where i was going to place my furnace.

The problem now is that there's NO way to use less mats.

I can absolutely understand that reasoning as well, the fuel cost is really extreme on a per craft basis, but very often my own play style, i go out gather up a full inventory of ores or whatever, load up my mount or follower, sometimes even both then return and get it all cooking.

It normally results in thousands of stone or iron being cooked across multiple furnaces, if i can condense that down to one furnace and just load it up with extra coal, lose no time in the actual smelting process or perhaps even gain some due to the heat-efficient's speed then for me its definitely the right choice.

I do agree, one of those furnaces needs to be material efficient, like all the other grand master stations. At least the grand armour and blacksmith benches reduce crafting costs.