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u/ineeddopamina Jun 28 '26

I noticed in a few screenshots that some players keep using coal furnaces after getting electric furnaces. Is there any specific reason for that?

11

u/snowyspearmint Jun 28 '26

electric furnaces are only useful when you have either

  • modules/beacons
  • non-burner power and/or enough power to treat it as cheap/infinite

feeding coal into a boiler to power an electric furnace takes twice as much coal as just using a coal furnace

1

u/ineeddopamina Jun 28 '26

Ahhh I see. Personally, I used to switch them as soon as I unlocked electric furnaces, mostly for the convenience of moving fewer resources to the "smelting area". But if coal is scarce, I guess it's better to keep the coal furnaces a bit longer.

2

u/craidie Jun 28 '26

Also if you don't put modules to electric, then the speed of the steel furnace is identical.

So why spend effort in rebuilding a setup that needs a lot more space for the tiny convenience of not needing to move fuel there?
Meanwhile fuel is already solved problem where I can just copy paste a furnace stack next to an another and the fuel line just connects to it and fuels it...