Furnace Nightmares Almost Fixed

It’s been another long day. I spent it by updating one of my test servers and then removing all plugins except for those that affected furnaces and smelting speeds, etc.

I now have most of it fixed except for the furnace sorting/splitting – it’s going to need an update from the devs on that front. One of them is having a real problem with the changes FacePunch has made and the other was questioning whether furnace sorting was necessary any more.

Well, it is necessary and I’ve told the dev who was questioning it that we still need a sorting plugin.

I have removed all of the old plugins and installed three new ones – one of them is a find by SinKoh. Good job that man.

The first one optionally returns a very similar interface to the one we had last week before FacePunch wrecked it for us (SinKoh’s find). The second one allows smelting in all slots simultaneously, just like it used to last week. The third one replaces the old smelting speed plugin as it doesn’t work correctly with the other two plugins.

The result is a very nice experience again. You can either use the furnaces as they are now, or issue the /furnace command and switch to the old style of furnaces. You have to place down a new furnace once you’ve switched, or pick up and place down an existing one. When you open it you’ll see (almost) a replica of the old furnace interface again.

Here’s the new interface, ready to start…

…and here’s the new interface smelting all items just a few moments later (no lightning bolts yet though)…

…and here’s the metal finished but the sulfur still running a minute or so later.

And now for the old style interface on a large furnace with more smelting slots available (than the 5 above in the new interface) that we’ve all been accustomed to for a long time…

…this is what it looks like after…

…and here’s what it looks like a few minutes later.

Finally, small furnaces, old style.

A few moments later…

Remember, the old style furnace interface is OPTIONAL for every furnace you place down, and you can have both old and new style furnaces together.

All we need now is an updated sorting plugin to make it all easier again.

Before you ask, yes sulfur smelting is deliberately slow in an attempt to reduce the amount of boom-boom produced on the accelerated servers (x5, x10), but that shouldn’t be an issue as you can just fill up a furnace with sulfur in many slots.