Tech up to tier 4 metals

[Terex 108]

What is the best way to get to tier 4 (and higher) metals? I just created a blast furnace block and it took hours. Maybe at this point in the game single player mode just doesn't cut it anymore. A fully built blast furnace requires insane amounts of iron ore and processes only so little into pig iron. It doesn't get any prettier (ie. easier) after that.

[Euphoric 48]

There is no better or simpler way. I agree that Blast Furnace requirement are insane for singleplayer. And single-level blast furnace is useless, thanks to how slow it is. So at least 2 levels are needed so you don't have to waste so much time clicking bellows for 5 minutes for single ingot. Even before those changes, creating colored steel was a hassle, thanks to how much steel it required. I can't even imagine making red or blue steel with current requirements in singleplayer. In my latest playtought. I created steel anvil and declared I'm done with it, thanks to that.

 

And even in multiplayer, creating blast furnace would require some kind of coordination, something that is quite effort to achieve. Because normally, thats not how MC multiplayer works.

[Terex 108]

I was gonna say, there is still only 1 blast furnace, so in multiplayer processing iron doesn't get much more efficient either and ore collecting is a trivial task if you're lucky (my world has much iron everywhere).

I'd like to know if any of the devs have ever played up to the point of making steel alloys ha ha

In my opinion, the blast furnace should be pumping out ingots (e.g. pig iron) given the amount of resources and time it takes to build one. It should definitely be more efficient than the bloomery, ...

[Kittychanley 1,002]

Just finished a test world where I ran the blast furnace and the bloomery side by side at almost exactly the same time. Using the same type of ore, the max size blast furnace was only able to produce 5 ingots while the max size bloomery could produce 6, but the blast furnace finished processing 7 in game hours before the bloomery. Considering the bloomery takes just over 14 hours to complete, that would make the blast furnace roughly twice as fast. The only advantages that the bloomery has is that it's cheaper, and that you can set it and forget it, but efficiency wise the blast furnace wins at about 0.7 ingots/hour versus the bloomery's 0.4 ingots/hour.

[Euphoric 48]

 

 

The only advantages that the bloomery has is that it's cheaper, and that you can set it and forget it,

For me those are huge advantages. Especially the set and forget with small-size blast furnace.

[Terex 108]

Kitty, that is very interesting and thank you for taking the time to test this. Now before you point out again that TFC is for multi-player, I simply would like to make the observation that the blast furnace is more efficient only in multi-player. On my own I was making wrought iron double sheets and every time I finish a batch (crafted from 840% raw bloom), the bloomery would finish producing its next amount of bloom. Thus having the blast furnace finish early won't make much difference in single player.

EDIT: Of course, it could be I'm just an impatient player

[crafter15 10]

I find that level 2 blast furnace is just perfect. If you put a forge with a crucible next to it, it creates exactly enough ingots to let you work on the forge non-stop.

Once you make the smallest blast furnace and make a steel anvil with it, you can melt the iron anvil that gives you more than half of the iron needed for the second level.

[Terex 108]

I'm finally operating the biggest blast furnace possible and melting yummy rich hematite ores. It does take 4 ores less than the bloomery, but it is indeed faster now that I experience its operation. I feared things would still take more time to baby-sit the blast furnace but funny that no one mentioned the crucible can take a lot of molten metal. I'm just going to fill up this baby and move it to the forge when it's full. I guess I cannot ask here how much a crucible can contain, now can I? I will figure it out soon anyway.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

Crucibles can hold 30 ingots.