Life is Feudal Official Forum

[Bizaroblyatt08]

So me and a friend are trying to get started on our real tools, I have the blacksmithing tree leveled up and have a primitive crucible equipped. He's chopped around 200 hard wood billets for me, all with high quality. When I start the furnace and try to smelt the iron, I add in stacks of 5 billets and it eats the whole thing anytime I use the bellows. It sometimes just goes out when I hit, use bellows at random. Can anyone help me with a detailed smelting process, or is this just a bug?

[Alfie]

Sounds a little buggy to me. I have had this issue before, but not since steam release. I'd avoid putting stacks in, just split them into ones (drag billets in inventory while holding shift down).

The way I do it is I put 90 ore in the furnace. I then add one billet at a time as needed.

Initially when you light it and use bellows, it'll eat your first billet. Place another in and repeat till the temperature reaches 3/4 way up (that's as high as you'll get it and is all you need).

Keep using the bellows every 30 - 60 seconds. Generally each time it'll eat your billet, or it'll be very close to. Be ready to replace.

It'll drop to zero temperature within 30-60 seconds without fuel (not sure if this was intended).

You'll get a bar appear on the actual ore (might not see it to start with - it's essentially its progress to melting point). That bar will slowly progress upwards. Once it's filled, the ore is ready to be melted.

If you want to leave it alone for a little while, just split your stack of billets into singles, and leave a few in there. You will need to use bellows every couple of mins though as the temp does drop (shouldn't go out though).

Hope that helps you.

[Bizaroblyatt08]

I tried putting one in at a time. It took about 4 to get it to full temp, and then the bar never appeared on the ore. So I added a bigger stack... then it went out outta nowhere. This is a bit ridiculous.

[Alfie]

I tried putting one in at a time. It took about 4 to get it to full temp, and then the bar never appeared on the ore. So I added a bigger stack... then it went out outta nowhere. This is a bit ridiculous.

Don't put stacks in. That seems to be the bug.

You won't be able to see the bar till the second use of the bellows once it's at full temperature (you can't just spam bellows, you'll see a change when using them every 30 - 120 seconds approx).

Keep in mind my friend, you're playing an alpha game. It can sure be frustrating but that's part of it at the moment.

[Bizaroblyatt08]

Yes, that's why I haven't given up lol. It's just stopping my progression... I'll try again tomorrow hitting the bellows with just one in about every 30 secs to a min, see how that goes.

[Alfie]

Yes, that's why I haven't given up lol. It's just stopping my progression... I'll try again tomorrow hitting the bellows with just one in about every 30 secs to a min, see how that goes.

You're not the only one to have this bug, but it's been really hard to reproduce. It appeared pre steam launch. Devs couldn't reproduce though. Not sure if anyone has found exactly why it's happening.

Since I started using single billets (you can have multiple single billets in there of course) I haven't had any issues and I've had 4 furnaces on the go consistently.

[Bizaroblyatt08]

well, feel free to hop onto official server 3 and help me out haha

[Belphegor]

well, feel free to hop onto official server 3 and help me out haha

ah.. heads up, server 1-6 (the pre-release test servers) might not be functioning properly last time i checked..

on server server 4 and 6 fire and the inventory are/were broken, idk about 3, but try lighting a campfire, does that work?

[Alfie]

well, feel free to hop onto official server 3 and help me out haha

ah.. heads up, server 1-6 (the pre-release test servers) might not be functioning properly last time i checked..

on server server 4 and 6 fire and the inventory are/were broken, idk about 3, but try lighting a campfire, does that work?

Yeah.. when I just read server 3 that was my thinking.

[Bizaroblyatt08]

Well I don't know, server got taken down. I'll try some more tomorrow, thank you guys for your help. I hope it's just the server and I'm not THAT big of an idiot.

[Belphegor]

Yeah.. when I just read server 3 that was my thinking.

well.. advise to OP, if you are able to carry over 900 soil in the inventory, or the basic campfire won't light up whatever you try.. abandon server bro

these issues have been reported on the 19th, response from bobik was that the test servers were acting weird and if they can't fix it they might get restarted. (and wiped).

don't take my word on this, for all i know a fix might be coming soon.. but if you have these issues consider starting over somewhere else now that you've only just begon your adventures

[Drojdier]

I'll tell you how I did smelting on my own private server, I'm not sure it will apply to ALL public servers out there as some seem to be bugged.

First of, you can drop all the raw mats (fuel + ore) in a bag next to furnace and you can feed it from there so you won't have capacity issues.

- get a stack of iron ore; 70 or 80 is optimal, you'll see why further on. Please note that you cannot drop the iron ore in a bag, so don't mine the whole vein at once.
- get 100 billets or so. I recommend hardwood as it has higher quality and I strongly believe it affects the consumption/heating ability
- split your billets in stacks of 2 or 3
- create and equip a stone cruicible on a stick. Very important!
- load the furnace with the 70-80 iron ores and fill in the rest with billets. At 10 weight/billet, that means 2-3 pieces.
- light the furnace
- use bellows 3-4 times until it reaches 1500 degrees
- use bellows every 5-10 seconds and add billets as they get consumed
- after a while of doing that (30-60 seconds) you'll see an horizontal bar appear over the iron ore icon. This is the ore temperature bar that will slowly fill. When this is full, the ore is ready to be smelted. Do not confuse this with the furnace temperature; as in real life, they're different things.
- keep using bellows every 10 seconds or so and add billets. You'll notice the temp bar on the ore rising in small chunks (few milimeters). Using the bellows too often will not yield better results but you'll eventually get the hang on how often you need to click to get a small increase in temp. Trial and error, there's no real downside to clicking too often, the wood is consumed on a fixed time rate.
- when bar is filled, click smelt. You might need to "bellow" it a few more times after you see it full; might be a graphical bug, don't despair, you're close! Depending on the amount of ore you put inside, you'll get 3 options -> Iron ingot (for 20 ores), Iron bar (4 ore) or Iron nugget/lump (1 ore). Each of these has its uses, check wiki for more details.

Once you smelt the first time and get first "product", the remaining ore will still be in the furnace and will still have the hot temp. So keep pressing smelt while not forgetting to add billets (or the furnace will extinguish!) until you're done.

Now keep in mind that adding new ore will not make it insta-hot so it is important to initially put in as much ore as you can, while leaving room for 2-3 billets that keep being burned and keep re-adding.

Also, if you have some leftover hot ore that you can't turn into an ingot or a bar, smelt it into iron lumps. They're still useful.

The "smelting table" is the following:

1 Iron ingot = 5 Iron bars = 20 Iron ore = 40 Iron lumps

PS: this might apply to copper and other ores as well, I haven't tried yet.

[Frosth]

Drojdier, great explanation, thanks.
Helped me narrow down the issue.

Thing is, it looks like the weight calculations are broken.
I've seen video streams of someone doing smelting before release ,and 1 iron ore was equal to 1 weight on the furnace inventory and 1 billet took up 7.

For me, on server 5, a stack of 80 iron ore only takes up 20/100 and adding several billets only bump it up by 1.
I don't know if it is an interface glitch or if it is the root of the issue.

I managed to get 2 increments of 1 pixel wide using your technique, but that was after spending 40-60 seconds and using bellows every 10 seconds and to just stay lit up it needed 3 to 6+.

Unless it gets faster later on, that pixel is less than 1%, that's more than 1.5 hours of smelting for one stack.

[Alfie]

Drojdier, great explanation, thanks.
Helped me narrow down the issue.

Thing is, it looks like the weight calculations are broken.
I've seen video streams of someone doing smelting before release ,and 1 iron ore was equal to 1 weight on the furnace inventory and 1 billet took up 7.

For me, on server 5, a stack of 80 iron ore only takes up 20/100 and adding several billets only bump it up by 1.
I don't know if it is an interface glitch or if it is the root of the issue.

I managed to get 2 increments of 1 pixel wide using your technique, but that was after spending 40-60 seconds and using bellows every 10 seconds and to just stay lit up it needed 3 to 6+.

Unless it gets faster later on, that pixel is less than 1%, that's more than 1.5 hours of smelting for one stack.

It seriously sounds like #5 is bugged. As said previously, it's one of the pre alpha debug servers which may explain the issue.

[Frosth]

It is indeed, but so is my local server.

The local server is different though, it just doesn't consume wood at
all after the initial lighting on and never shuts off and never progresses.
But on local, the weight calculations are correct, so I guess they are two unrelated bugs that affect the furnace.

[HelmG]

I had the same issues on my local, i´ve made the following experience:

Server settings:
Crafting period (burning of fuel, smelting etc) in Seconds

A high value --> higher burning time of resources --> smelting "did not work" because horizontal bar won´t fill

A lower value (tested 20secs) --> high consumption of resources -> smelting "works fine" -> horizontal bar fills fast

Maybe it helps

[Frosth]

Hmmm interesting.
I'll try to repeat it.

Did the resources get consumed automatically over time?
Did they remain when using the bellows?

[DieScream]

@Bizaroblyatt08

I believe your issue is related to the setting on the server. There is a slider for crafting that can be set all the way to 1 second, which means each billet/fuel will burn in 1 second and you cannot shovel in wood fast enough to hit smelt before it goes out.

I reset mine to 25 seconds and it solved the issue for me, while not affecting your other craft times (chopping, etc).

[Drojdier]

@Bizaroblyatt08

I believe your issue is related to the setting on the server. There is a slider for crafting that can be set all the way to 1 second, which means each billet/fuel will burn in 1 second and you cannot shovel in wood fast enough to hit smelt before it goes out.

I reset mine to 25 seconds and it solved the issue for me, while not affecting your other craft times (chopping, etc).

Correct, I was about to suggest that too. To be fair, the setting does say (for smelting, burning wood,etc.) in the server creation screen so indeed, it only affects this kind of timers, not harvesting.

Also, if I'm not mistaken there have been several reports of bugged servers that wouldn't calculate weights correctly. Now, I assume that weight is also calculated when determining what amount of wood to burn, so such a bug might lead to huge wood consumption, which simply cannot be fed fast enough in the furnace.

[Bizaroblyatt08]

I switched to server 20.... all is well now. It really was just those servers. So my advice is switch and revel in the joy of having metal lol

[Frosth]

Or stay, enjoy the other aspect of this bug: Larger inventory size.

We're doing a lot of terraforming and moving stuff around while this is getting fixed. Carrying 1000+ dirt makes it that much faster.

[Siralosmdk]

People, a big tip: Use Charcoal.

1 unit of charcoal lasts the same as 1 billet
1 billet can be transformed into 4 units of charcoal
1 unit of charcoal: 1 stone. 1 billet: 10 stones.

How to make charcoal?
Put 20 billets inside Kiln, set temperature to 1500º
It will take about 4-5 billets to fulfill the bar, so at the end you will have 15 billets, 60 units of charcoal.

Then, in the furnace, you can put 90 iron/copper and 10 charcoal units, and FORGET about it, because it will finish the bar before all charcoal is consumed. I normally use 4 furnaces at the same time with this method.