Better way to fuel steel furnace?

[Q_Tip]

Honestly I did just quick search which did not give any meaningful result.
Soooo - did any one experiment/is it even possible to fuel more than 2x16 charcoal under steel furnace? Either by dropping level by one or spreading burn area?  ( yeah, its testable, but ATM I cant spare the ticks since I dont have second machine).

[Zane Mordien]

11 hours ago, Q_Tip said:

charcoal

Don't use charcoal is my first advice. Use brown coal if you have it because burning brown coal or charcoal has the same result. Add more coal burning blocks doesn't make it go faster.

[LadyWYT]

3 hours ago, Zane Mordien said:

Don't use charcoal is my first advice. Use brown coal if you have it because burning brown coal or charcoal has the same result. Add more coal burning blocks doesn't make it go faster.

Agreed! This is what I tend to do, since brown coal is more easily found than black coal or anthracite(I don't know if this works for steel production), and doesn't take as much work as charcoal burning.

And yeah, adding more blocks of fuel won't make it go faster. Two piles of fuel is the maximum you can have, because the piles need to be burning directly under the stone coffins in order to actually accomplish the refining process.

[Maelstrom]

Ahhhhhh yes.  Coal vs. charcoal argument.

It comes down to assessing:  How long it takes to mine coal vs. how long it takes to harvest trees.   I can harvest enough wood to fill a 6x6x4 charcoal pit in less time than it takes to mine coal without ore blasting bombs.  While I'm converting one batch of iron to steal I can then run that pit a few more times.  Each run of the charcoal pit is more than enough charcoal for one batch of steel.

At the end of the day, I say coal vs. charcoal is a six on one hand, half dozen on the other kind of argument.

 

Edited July 8, 2025 by Maelstrom
grammars