Blast furnace production speed and cost

1st Official Post

    I'm a bit concerned about the balance of the blast furnace, even though it's WIP.


    After digging into the code, I've found that the blast furnace
    * heats up to about 50 000 before it can work, after which it has a very modest heat consumption of 1HU/t.
    * has a progress meter of 6000, which is filled at a rate of 1/tick assuming the furnace stays hot and has air. That's 5 minutes.


    I'm okay with a cost of 6000HU per ingot, that's entirely manageable, but I don't like how slow it is. There aren't many things that use refined iron, yet, but it's already a bit ridiculous.


    For example, a steam turbine will wear out after 86400 ticks of operation using superheated steam (It lasts half as long with regular steam). That's 72 minutes. It costs 27 refined iron, which would take 162 minutes to create. If I want to run a two-stage steam turbine setup, I would need to run seven blast furnaces constantly, just to keep supply enough refined iron to keep operations running smoothly.


    Fortunately, blast furnaces aren't terribly expensive, but I still think it's a little crazy how many of them I need.


    Is there a reason why the blast furnace runs so much slower than the other machines? Most of the basic machines only require 400 ticks, and can be overclocked.

    basically i am total fine with the speed of the blast furnace. If it was quicker, one would need an overclocked Compressor to feed it with air.


    If there is something to be balanced, it should be the durability of the turbine blades. They should last several days and not one hour. (comparable to the rotors)

    • Official Post

    Steelmaking intendly takes a long time. The problem here is that the steam turbine doesn't last lomg enough. Think of RC turbine, it lasts waaay longer than IC2.


    Conclusion: boost IC2 steam turbine duration AND add more types like the wind turbine. Except wood, those would burn away.

    kaldskryke not 86400 ticks .. it should 86400 sec 24h... its a stupid error in Slotcode.. fix on the weekend (more free time)

    • Official Post

    Fixed that for him :)


    So, TD what about adding overclocker upgrade compatibility?
    Each OC would increase speed, but also air cost (rounded up) and heat cost per tick (also rounded up).
    Also, OCs would be twice less efficient on the blast furnace if compared to other machines.


    If overclockers dont make sense, use heat conductors instead.