Frequently Asked Questions
General
Q: What does this mod add?
A: One end-game building — the Advanced Furnace Plus. It is a compact 5×5 assembling-machine that handles every smelting recipe (including fluid recipes and stone → brick), runs at crafting speed 5, and comes with a configurable base productivity bonus.
Q: Is this a standalone mod or a fork?
A: This is a fork of the original "Advanced Furnace" mod by AaRCaT, updated and expanded for Factorio 2.0 by MikdadAgasiev. It is fully standalone; the original mod is not required.
Q: Does it work with Space Age / Space Exploration / Krastorio 2?
A: Yes. The mod automatically picks up any smelting-related recipe categories added by other mods (including kiln) during the data-final-fixes phase, so compatibility is handled transparently.
Settings
Q: How do I change the number of module slots?
A: Go to Settings → Mod settings → Startup and find "Module slots". Set any integer from 0 to 8. The default is 5. A game restart is required because this is a startup setting.
Q: How do I change the base productivity?
A: In the same Startup settings screen, find "Base productivity (%)". Enter a value from 0 to 200. The default is 50 (i.e. +50% base productivity). Restart required.
Q: How does energy consumption work?
A: There are two settings:
- Energy drain — idle (kW) — constant power draw even when the furnace is not crafting. Default: 30 kW. For reference, the vanilla Electric Furnace drains 6 kW idle. Set to 0 for no idle drain.
- Energy usage — full load (kW) — power consumption while actively crafting. Default: 900 kW. This value scales with quality level (e.g. Legendary ×2.5 = 2250 kW).
At full load with default settings the furnace draws 30 + 900 = 930 kW total. When idle it draws only 30 kW.
Q: How do I change pollution output?
A: Set "Pollution (per minute)" — default is 8 per minute. Set to 0 for a pollution-free furnace. Pollution stays constant regardless of quality level.
Q: What is the East-West fluid passthrough?
A: When enabled (Startup setting "East-West fluid passthrough"), the west and east pipe connections share a single fluid. The fluid enters from the west, can be consumed by the current recipe, and any excess flows out to the east — effectively acting as a pipe segment for that fluid. This lets you chain multiple furnaces on the same fluid line without extra plumbing. North and south connections remain independent input/output for other fluids.
Quality
Q: Does this mod support quality?
A: Yes. The "quality" effect is allowed in the module slots, and the furnace benefits from Factorio 2.0's built-in quality scaling.
Q: What exactly changes per quality level?
A: The engine automatically scales crafting speed, max health, and energy usage (full load):
- Normal — ×1.0
- Uncommon — ×1.3
- Rare — ×1.6
- Epic — ×1.9
- Legendary — ×2.5
Drain and pollution stay constant. This means higher-quality furnaces are more efficient — a Legendary furnace produces 2.5× more items with the same idle drain and pollution per minute, so cost per item is lower. Energy usage per item stays the same since both speed and usage scale equally.
Aquilo (Freezing / Thawing)
Q: Does the furnace work on Aquilo?
A: Yes. The furnace has full Aquilo support: it has a heating energy cost of 200 kW and a hand-painted frozen overlay. Without a nearby heat source it will freeze and stop working, just like any vanilla building. Connect it to heat pipes or place it next to a heating tower / nuclear reactor to keep it running.
Q: Why 200 kW of heating energy?
A: The value matches other large buildings in the game. For comparison, a standard electric furnace (3×3) requires 100 kW, while the oil refinery and crusher require 200 kW. Since the Advanced Furnace has a 5×5 footprint, 200 kW is proportional.
Space Exploration
Q: Can I place the furnace on SE orbital / space surfaces?
A: Yes, but you need to enable the "Allow placement in space (SE)" startup setting first. When enabled and the Space Exploration mod is installed, the furnace sets the se_allow_in_space flag so SE's collision system does not block it.
Q: Does this setting do anything without Space Exploration?
A: No. Without SE the flag is simply ignored by the engine. It won't cause errors.
Q: SE removes productivity in space. Does this affect the Advanced Furnace?
A: We patch it back! When SE creates the -spaced clone of the furnace, it removes productivity from allowed_effects and clears the base productivity bonus. Our data-final-fixes.lua detects this clone and restores both the "productivity" effect and the base productivity bonus from your settings. We also override the clone's description to remove SE's misleading "Cannot use productivity in space" warning. This means the Advanced Furnace keeps its full productivity even in space.
Compatibility
Q: Will this conflict with other furnace mods?
A: It should not. The Advanced Furnace Plus is registered as its own entity (advanced-furnace of type assembling-machine) and does not overwrite any vanilla prototypes.
Q: Why is the type assembling-machine instead of furnace?
A: Factorio's furnace type cannot select recipes with multiple fluid inputs/outputs. Using assembling-machine with the smelting crafting category gives full recipe-selection flexibility while still processing all smelting recipes.
Q: A mod adds a second fluid to the recipe and now I can't craft it in an Assembling Machine.
A: This is handled automatically. If another mod (like Crushing Industry) adds additional fluid ingredients to the recipe, the mod detects this in data-final-fixes.lua and removes all extra fluids, keeping only the first one. This ensures the recipe remains craftable in standard Assembling Machines with one fluid input.
Q: A mod I use adds a new smelting category and the furnace doesn't see it.
A: Please report it. The data-final-fixes.lua script already merges categories from stone-furnace, steel-furnace, and electric-furnace. If the category is added to a different entity, it may need a manual inclusion.