Steel carbonization process - how much time and how much coal fuel ?

[DrEngine]

I started to produce steel. I had to fill new fuel under steel chamber twice. And carbonization process is only 14%. How long does it take usually to finish process? And how much coal fuel does it need ?

[DrEngine]

I've got first experience. Be careful, information on Wiki concerning needed materials for steel furnace build isn't exact at all !!! You'll need about half of materials only. If you get all material first, make powder (quartz, bauxit, olivine and later ilmentite ) and bulid furnace afterward you'll be dissappointed cos you pulverized twice as much materials.
Moreover Tier3 furnace (build with Ilmenite) isn't 100% durable. It's 99% only. Its a question if it deserves so much work to find Ilmenite and find it again and again to keep Tier3 furnace in work.

[Ivan Stamenov]

My 2 cents on the topic...

Though the wiki states that the tier 3 blocks are 99% heat resistant, I am yet to see a single one break - with about 20 carbonization cycles per furnace done / 4 furnaces total. A furnace needs to be refueled in full 5 times (x32 fuel items) + 4 fuel items = 164 fuel items in total. Each refueling yields 20% progress, except for the first one, which, strangely, yields only 19%, hence the additional layer needed (the 4 fuel items above).

If your furnaces share walls (which saves 9 refractory bricks per wall shared), make sure to make them from tier 3 blocks, otherwise when one of the furnaces finishes the carbonization process and some of the damaged blocks happens to be part of a shared wall, it will interrupt the carbonization process in the other furnace.

[Ivan Stamenov]

Well, today I had one tier 3 brick broken.... So even tier 3 breaks occasionally, though much more rarely.