Hi, I'm confused about the iron processing on stage 3.

Why do those iron pulps stage 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 exist?
They don't output anything else. They are not used in any other recipe and overall the whole process end up wasting ores.

Making a rough calculation disregarding loops and the processing of some byproducts (like Iron grade 2 to grade 1, etc...)
To make the same amount of molten iron going:
- pulp 1 -> iron concentrate -> fine iron concentrate -> pulp 7 -> high-grade iron -> molten iron
Uses 750 iron ore (again, disregarding loops and processing of some byproducts, it would be a little lower considering them)

But doing the full pulping 2 -> 3 -> .... 6 -> 7 -> high-grade iron -> molten iron ends up requiring 3000 iron ore
(again, disregarding loops and processing of some byproducts, it would be just a little lower considering them)

I'm just confused on why do these recipes exist since they both unlock at the same time and the pulping one doesn't seem to be worth it, since not only it uses more ore to provide the same output, but also consume a lot of other ingredients.

Is it meant to use with productivity modules?
The "quick" way has 9 processes while the long way has around 13 (again, disregarding processing of some byproducts.)
Since the pulping has more processes, I can see that it might output more if productivity modules are used on each step, but I haven't tried to check that yet.

Hi,

From my own perspective, the latter pulping 2->3-> ... 6-> 7 -> high-grade iron produce line is combined with the first product line, as iron pulp 1 from iron dust would have byproduct which can be made into pulping 2. The whole process, if input is a full red line iron ore, would have 3x more molten iron compared with only use iron processing on stage 2. I did not compare how much percentage of high-grade iron you would like to get from two product lines, I did not even know if using those solvent to go through the entire stage 3 is worthwhile or not. But I can assure that you need both of the lines to maximally consume both mud and concentrate from pulp 1. Try it in helmod or factory planner would be beneficial.

Oh, I totally overlooked the Iron Slime.
I see, so it's a more expensive path, but would only be used for just a fraction of the input as to fully use all the iron.

I thought they were 2 options not that they were supposed to be used together.
Thanks for clarifying that up.

Regarding the comparison I actually listed all the recipes on a paper than traced back from 1050 Molten Iron -> 7 High grade -> etc.... for both paths.
That's why I got confused since the pulping way is so expensive, but now that I know it is complementary to the main path it makes more sense.

Thank you.