Now, I haven't really tested this much, but would it make the smelting process faster if you were to make a 2x4 wall of furnaces, then place a piece of coal and 8 of whatever material you need to smelt in each of them?
P.S. I haven't slept in approximately 18 hours, so I believe my mathematical comprehension has gone out the window for the time being.
Sure, that would work, but it's simpler and better to build an auto-smelter. I always have at least a dual furnace auto-smelter in my worlds.
A simple dual furnace auto smelter would be built like this:
Large (double) chest input
2 input hoppers between the chest above and the furnaces below.
2 furnaces
2 output hoppers
Large (double) chest output.
And behind the furnaces you have another pair of hoppers feeding into the back of the furnaces, with another large chest on top of those, and that's where the fuel goes.
So you put stacks of smeltable items in the top/input chest, fuel in the side chest, then come back later and take all the smelted items from the bottom/output chest.
Here's a picture to illustrate the concept.
You could also put the fuel chest in front for easier access.
And if you really want to go crazy with smelting, there's always Tango Tek
Damn. Yeah, I gave that a try on my previous run through, but never realized you could do the same with the coal -- At the same time, no less. Thanks for the tip!
Personally, I just go with a manually loaded furnace wall when I want to smelt a lot of items; it doesn't take that long to load/unload them and is very easy to set up; for example, I carry a stack of furnaces with me while caving (also only one inventory/Ender chest slot required) so I can smelt iron and gold so I can craft them into blocks to make more room (a single stack of blocks is 576 resources or 9 stacks of ore), and I usually only put half a stack in each one so they take 5-6 minutes to smelt, during which time I continue exploring caves nearby:
Also, manually emptying furnaces gives you XP - quite a lot when you smelt on the scale that I do (as shown above, 574 XP from 717 iron and 72 gold).
If you want a super fast (and somewhat OP) super smelter, take a look at MumboJumbo's video:
...
This thing is insane (although it does have a bug causing it to skip a single furnace). It actually overloads the hoppers used to transport items!
That design has a major flaw. Loads of items get stuck in the locked hoppers and never processed. If you want to build something big, go with the designs by Tango Tek or ilmango.
P.S. I haven't slept in approximately 18 hours, so I believe my mathematical comprehension has gone out the window for the time being.
Sure, that would work, but it's simpler and better to build an auto-smelter. I always have at least a dual furnace auto-smelter in my worlds.
A simple dual furnace auto smelter would be built like this:
Large (double) chest input
2 input hoppers between the chest above and the furnaces below.
2 furnaces
2 output hoppers
Large (double) chest output.
And behind the furnaces you have another pair of hoppers feeding into the back of the furnaces, with another large chest on top of those, and that's where the fuel goes.
So you put stacks of smeltable items in the top/input chest, fuel in the side chest, then come back later and take all the smelted items from the bottom/output chest.
Here's a picture to illustrate the concept.
You could also put the fuel chest in front for easier access.
And if you really want to go crazy with smelting, there's always Tango Tek
Damn. Yeah, I gave that a try on my previous run through, but never realized you could do the same with the coal -- At the same time, no less. Thanks for the tip!
If you want a super fast (and somewhat OP) super smelter, take a look at MumboJumbo's video:
This thing is insane (although it does have a bug causing it to skip a single furnace). It actually overloads the hoppers used to transport items!
Personally, I just go with a manually loaded furnace wall when I want to smelt a lot of items; it doesn't take that long to load/unload them and is very easy to set up; for example, I carry a stack of furnaces with me while caving (also only one inventory/Ender chest slot required) so I can smelt iron and gold so I can craft them into blocks to make more room (a single stack of blocks is 576 resources or 9 stacks of ore), and I usually only put half a stack in each one so they take 5-6 minutes to smelt, during which time I continue exploring caves nearby:
Also, manually emptying furnaces gives you XP - quite a lot when you smelt on the scale that I do (as shown above, 574 XP from 717 iron and 72 gold).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
I do the same as TheMasterCaver.
XP benefits aside I've just never felt like I was gathering any cookeable/smeltable items at the rate or the quantities to need an auto-smelter.
That design has a major flaw. Loads of items get stuck in the locked hoppers and never processed. If you want to build something big, go with the designs by Tango Tek or ilmango.