Blast Furnace

Metal goes into almost everything you build. The blast furnace smelts it from pig iron, 2 t of pig iron make 1 t of metal. Later it also produces chrome steel, krypto steel, cobalt alloy and plasma steel. You need these metals for the large buildings, the upgrades and the vehicles of your services.

One recipe at a time

The blast furnace only ever smelts one recipe. Which recipes it knows depends on its level. The list with all ingredients is in the fact sheet. At full load it makes, for example, 75 t of metal per hour, but only as long as there is enough pig iron in storage.

• After the inauguration it runs at 1 % load. Match it to your Pig Iron Mine. A mine at 1 % is enough for a blast furnace at 2 %.
• At full load it needs 15 MW and costs 25,000 $ in wages per hour. At low load it stays cheap.
• Finished metal goes into its own storage and then into your storage buildings. If none has a free slot for that resource, the furnace stops.

On the works yard

The blast furnace stands on its own yard with a fence all around. Chunks of pig iron lie on the ground, the warehouse stands next to it. A tower crane lifts the fresh bars into the quench pool and then sets them down. Two hover forklifts with drivers carry them into the warehouse.

Upgrades

Every level adds new recipes. Levels 3 and 4 are only unlocked by research. The LED ring on the chimney shows the level: green for level 1, blue for level 2, purple for level 3 and gold for level 4. The logo on the yard and the jets of the forklifts glow in the same colour.

Fire, lava and bars show what is being smelted right now: orange for metal, pale yellow for chrome steel, green for krypto steel, blue for cobalt alloy and purple for plasma steel. You can build several blast furnaces, so several recipes run at the same time. Before every upgrade the game asks you once more (Upgrades and Levels).

Read more: Metal, Smog and Air and Flow of Goods.