Smelting stuff fast, a comparison =)

  • Please make sure you are posting in the correct place. Server ads go here and modpack bugs go here

belgabor

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
574
0
0
I now and then mentioned that I had tested some mod furnaces, mostly being interested in if there is anything in current mods that can keep up with a IC2 induction furnace. To validate my results and include some mods I hadn't checked before, I now ran a new comparison.

Edit: Made a second run with options suggested in the comments. I did not rerun the furnaces from the first run, only the rtedstone furnace to be able to compare and normalize values. Surprisingly it again smelted 899 items (didn't expect that much determinism from MineCraft...)

The condenders:
Code:
                            Mod                 Version     Items/smelt
Redstone Furnace            Thermal Expansion   3.0.0.7               1
Lava Smeltery               RotaryCraft         23d                  18
Furnace + Friction @ 8kW    RotaryCraft         23d                   1
Furnace + Friction @ 131kW  RotaryCraft         23d                   1
Furnace + Friction @ 2MW    RotaryCraft         23d                   1
Furnace + Friction @ 34MW   RotaryCraft         23d                   1
Elite Factory               Mekanism            6.0.4.42              7
Force Furnace               DartCraft           0.2.19v4              1
Induction Furnace           IC2                 2.0.397               2
Electric Furnace w/16 OC    IC2                 2.0.397               1
Alloy Smelter               Ender IO            1.0.6.376             3
Friction Incinerator        Hydraulicraft       1.0.4-68              1
Steam Oven                  Railcraft           8.4.0.0               9
Furnace                     Engineer's Toolbox  1.1.8.4               1
Infernal Furnace            Thaumcraft          4.1.0g                1
I didn't make a specific mod pack to include as many mods as possible so there are of course some mods missing. I used the pack I currently use, which is Monster with some mods added. I also used mostly the mods I actually play with, so there are even options missing that are in the pack.
One thing I want to mention, RotaryCraft has a second fast option to smelt items. You can use a friction heater with a vanilla furnace. I tested it, it exploded, didn't try a second time. Second run: included.

To measure the performance I piped ore of different types from creative strongboxes into the machies using Ender IO item conduits (fast ones) and stored the output in an AE system. They ran for one hour.
All machines were upgarded to their max if possible (8x speed and energy for Mekanism, 5x speed core for DartCraft, Ignis + 3 bellows for the infernal furnace and octadic capacitor for Ender IO). The electric furnace had 16 overclockers.

The results:
Code:
                            Power (RF/tick)   Items    Total RF   Rel. Power   Rel. Items   Rel. Items (1)   RF/item
Redstone Furnace                         20     899     1440000         1,00         1,00             1,00      1602
Lava Smeltery                            12    8622      864000         0,60         9,59             0,53       100
Furnace + Friction @ 8kW                  2     875      144000         0,10         0,97             0,97       165
Furnace + Friction @ 131kW               24    1073     1728000         1,20         1,19             1,19      1610
Furnace + Friction @ 2MW                373    5528    26856000        18,65         6,15             6,15      4858
Furnace + Friction @ 34MW              5963   35940   429336000       298,15        39,98            39,98     11946
Elite Factory                           200   25186    14400000        10,00        28,02             4,00       572
Force Furnace                             -    8885           -            -         9,88             9,88         -
Induction Furnace                        75   11072     5400000         3,75        12,32             6,16       488
Electric Furnace w/16 OC              22136  215637  1593792000      1106,80       239,86           239,86      7391
Alloy Smelter                           100    3597     7200000         5,00         4,00             1,33      2002
Friction Incinerator                     35    1635     2520000         1,75         1,82             1,82      1541
Steam Oven                                -    2385                                  2,65             0,29         -
Furnace                                  10     397      720000         0,50         0,44             0,44      1814
Infernal Furnace                          -    3422                                  3,81             3,81         -

Some notes on power consumption:
  • Measured with Ender IO power monitors with the exception of TE, Mekanism and RotaryCraft Magnetostatics where I took the value displayed on the machine UI / Waila.
  • To run the Lava Smeltery you need to provide it with power and lava. Lava was produced with a RoC rock melter fed with smooth stone by a TE igneous extruder. The power consumption includes running this but is in fact a bit more than you need to feed the lava smeltery. The true value I estimate around 10 RF/tick. Fact is you can run this setup for free with two DC and three steam engines.
  • The force furnace runs only on furnace fuel, I included it mostly because I was curious how fast it is.
  • The induction furnace was powered via Mekanism universal cable.
  • Power consumption for the induction furnace, electric furnace and friction incinerator was fluctuating so the values are an estimate.
Details on the colums:
Items: Raw numer of items processed in the one hour runtime
Total RF: Total RF used, calculated from total ticks in one hour (72000) and RF consumption per tick (aka not measued)
Rel. Power: Power usage relative to the TE redstone furnace
Rel. Items: Processed Items relative to the TE redstone furnace
Rel. Items (1): Relative processing speed for one item, essentially the previous value divided by the numer of items the machine processes at once
RF/item: RF used per item smelted

I hope people find this useful or at least interesting, feel free to ask/post if you have questions or comments :)
 
Last edited:

ThatOneSlowking

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
3,520
0
0
What about TiC smeltery? RF can be measured in worth of lava in a magmatic dynamo, and assuming max size smeltery
 

malicious_bloke

Over-Achiever
Jul 28, 2013
2,961
2,705
298
I'm curious as to why you chose the induction furnace for IC2 over a monstrously overclocked electric furnace.

Other than that, Mekanism looks more and more godly every day :)
 

belgabor

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
574
0
0
What about TiC smeltery? RF can be measured in worth of lava in a magmatic dynamo, and assuming max size smeltery
I was going for multi-purpose smelting, basically machines the use regular furnace receipees.

I'm curious as to why you chose the induction furnace for IC2 over a monstrously overclocked electric furnace.
Because usually it's "the thing" mentioned when fast smelting is at question, at least it was =)
If I do a second run I will probably include it.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Padfoote

Hydrattler

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
7
0
0
A regular electric furnace can be overclocked to the point of 1 process per tick, its imo the fastest smelting, but its also probably the highest power consuming as well
 

belgabor

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
574
0
0
What about TC's Infernal Furnace (is it even called that? lol)
I actually forgot about that, only remebered once I was done. Last time I tired to automate it it was kinda hard to reliably fill. If I take another look I'll try again and include it.
 

Azzanine

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
2,706
-11
0
What about TC's Infernal Furnace (is it even called that? lol)
It's not the same level of fast as say a 100% heat IC2 indiction furnace. Also you need to provide it with ignis to get it to go at an acceptable speed.

It's not slow by any means but it's not fast either.
 

Wekmor

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
939
0
1
It's not the same level of fast as say a 100% heat IC2 indiction furnace. Also you need to provide it with ignis to get it to go at an acceptable speed.

It's not slow by any means but it's not fast either.
While that's all true I would like to know how it compares to other methods of smelting.

Oh with the ignis: 1 jar of ignis (64) is 32 coal + 2 coal to smelt the coal. And this jar lasts for quite some time!
 

Iluvgotes

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
7
0
0
Railcraft has a nice option with the steam oven. It is fast and does at a time if loaded fully.
 

Revemohl

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
595
0
0
It's not the same level of fast as say a 100% heat IC2 indiction furnace. Also you need to provide it with ignis to get it to go at an acceptable speed.

It's not slow by any means but it's not fast either.
Not really, give it three arcane bellows and it spits about one item every 1-2 seconds.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ThatOneSlowking

Azzanine

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
2,706
-11
0
Not really, give it three arcane bellows and it spits about one item every 1-2 seconds.
In comparison to a 100% heated induction furnace that is painfully slow.
If you compare it to a vanilla furnace the infernal furnace is very quick.
It might be worth investigating I mean the infernal furnace is in the same league as a powered furnace.
But if I wanted to smelt things fast-fast I wouldn't opt for either. The arcane furnace is comparatively difficult to automate too. The Thauminomicon says you can use those grates and a hopper but in my experience that's just sprayed things out of the bellow holes.
 

ThatOneSlowking

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
3,520
0
0
In comparison to a 100% heated induction furnace that is painfully slow.
If you compare it to a vanilla furnace the infernal furnace is very quick.
It might be worth investigating I mean the infernal furnace is in the same league as a powered furnace.
But if I wanted to smelt things fast-fast I wouldn't opt for either. The arcane furnace is comparatively difficult to automate too. The Thauminomicon says you can use those grates and a hopper but in my experience that's just sprayed things out of the bellow holes.
The items go out the front into a hungry chest impulse itemduct into diamond chest import bus into AE system
Automation: diamond chest with impulse itemducts to dropper OR golems and grate
Produces bonus nuggets as well as the ingot so it has greater yield

There, I answered a simple question :D
 

Celestialphoenix

Too Much Free Time
Nov 9, 2012
3,741
3,204
333
Tartarus.. I mean at work. Same thing really.
What about Greg's auto electric furnace?
-with coil upgrades- cuts the cooking time and Eu by 66%​

Tinkers construct and steelworks is only good for melting metals. A decent sized smeltery can hold 4 stacks easily. If you have a constant input of metal, then it can match that flow of metal.
 

Azzanine

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
2,706
-11
0
The items go out the front into a hungry chest impulse itemduct into diamond chest import bus into AE system
Automation: diamond chest with impulse itemducts to dropper OR golems and grate
Produces bonus nuggets as well as the ingot so it has greater yield

There, I answered a simple question :D
I'm talking about insertion, not extraction. To do it reliably you need to set up a convoluted hopper dropper/ BC pipe system on a timer prefereably fast as to not slow the furnace down. All those other furnaces have you just connecting a hopper or pipe with less fuss.
Also that extra yield has you having to set up something to craft the nuggets in to useable ingots. In my experimentation that extra yield is not very dependable at best it's 50% more ingots with 3 bellows.
 

TheAwesomater

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
243
0
0
I now and then mentioned that I had tested some mod furnaces, mostly being interested in if there is anything in current mods that can keep up with a IC2 induction furnace. To validate my results and include some mods I hadn't checked before, I now ran a new comparison.

The condenders:
Code:
                       Mod                 Version     Items/smelt
Redstone Furnace       Thermal Expansion   3.0.0.7               1
Lava Smeltery          RotaryCraft         23d                  18
Elite Factory          Mekanism            6.0.4.42              7
Force Furnace          DartCraft           0.2.19v4              1
Induction Furnace      IC2                 2.0.397               2
Alloy Smelter          Ender IO            1.0.6.376             3
Friction Incinerator   Hydraulicraft       1.0.4-68              1
I didn't make a specific mod pack to include as many mods as possible so there are of course some mods missing. I used the pack I currently use, which is Monster with some mods added. I also used mostly the mods I actually play with, so there are even options missing that are in the pack.
One thing I want to mention, RotaryCraft has a second fast option to smelt items. You can use a friction heater with a vanilla furnace. I tested it, it exploded, didn't try a second time.

To measure the performance I piped ore of different types from creative strongboxes into the machies using Ender IO item conduits (fast ones) and stored the output in an AE system. They ran for one hour.
All machines were upgarded to their max if possible (8x speed and energy for Mekanism, 5x speed core for DartCraft and octadic capacitor for Ender IO).

The results:
Code:
                       Power (RF/tick)   Items   Total RF   Rel. Power   Rel. Items   Rel. Items (1)   RF/item
Redstone Furnace                    20     899    1440000         1,00         1,00             1,00      1602
Lava Smeltery                       12    8622     864000         0,60         9,59             0,53       100
Elite Factory                      200   25186   14400000        10,00        28,02             4,00       572
Force Furnace                        -    8885          -            -         9,88             9,88         -
Induction Furnace                   75   11072    5400000         3,75        12,32             6,16       488
Alloy Smelter                      100    3597    7200000         5,00         4,00             1,33      2002
Friction Incinerator                35    1635    2520000         1,75         1,82             1,82      1541

Some notes on power consumption:
  • Measured with Ender IO power monitors with the exception of TE and Mekanism where I took the value displayed on the machine UI.
  • To run the Lava Smeltery you need to provide it with power and lava. Lava was produced with a RoC rock melter fed with smooth stone by a TE igneous extruder. The power consumption includes running this but is in fact a bit more than you need to feed the lava smeltery. The true value I estimate around 10 RF/tick. Fact is you can run this setup for free with two DC and three steam engines.
  • The force furnace runs only on furnace fuel, I included it mostly because I was curious how fast it is.
  • The induction furnace was powered via Mekanism universal cable.
  • Power consumption for the induction furnace and friction incinerator was fluctuating so the values are an estimate.
Details on the colums:
Items: Raw numer of items processed in the one hour runtime
Total RF: Total RF used, calculated from total ticks in one hour (72000) and RF consumption per tick (aka not measued)
Rel. Power: Power usage relative to the TE redstone furnace
Rel. Items: Processed Items relative to the TE redstone furnace
Rel. Items (1): Relative processing speed for one item, essentially the previous value divided by the numer of items the machine processes at once
RF/item: RF used per item smelted

I hope people find this useful or at least interesting, feel free to ask/post if you have questions or comments :)
So in reAlity the elite factory surrounded by time torches for extra speed is the best :D
 

epidemia78

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
1,810
-4
0
Oh my god does it really matter? All praise the almighty electric furnace, marvel at its superiority!