Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues.

Are you using the latest MineColonies Version?

• I am running the latest beta/release version of MineColonies for my Minecraft version.
  I am also running the latest versions of other mods that are part of my problem.

Did you check on the Wiki? or ask on Discord?

• I checked the MineColonies Wiki and made sure my issue is not covered there. Or I was sent from discord to open an issue here.

What were you playing at the time? Were you able to reproduce it in both settings?

• Single Player
• Multi Player

Minecraft Version

1.20

MineColonies Version

1.1.842-snapshot

Structurize Version

1.0.766-snapshot

Related Mods and their Versions

No response

Current Behavior

Stonesmelter has managed to place requests for a total of 192 lava buckets. Pending tasks for Stone Smeltery total to less than 150 items to smelt.

Expected Behavior

Requesting a more reasonable amount of lava buckets.

Reproduction Steps

1. Build Stone Smeltery and Nether Mine
2. Ensure that lava bucket recipe is enabled for the Nether Mine
3. Enable using lava buckets as fuel in Stone Smeltery
4. Wait a bit

Logs

n/a

Anything else?

No response

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the smelters and similar jobs don't optimize fuel at all
So if you need to smelt 5 items and t hey have a bucket of lava they'll, by design, put their fuel (the lava) in, to smelt those items. then if there's no smelting before that lava 'charge' is used you're just outta luck.
Lava's just a really bad fuel in a colony.

Personally I use tiny coal/charcoal via mods (1:1 smelting). Otherwise regular charcoal is really the way to go

Yeah, that part is expected. What I didn't expect is requesting a lot more fuel that could be possibly needed.

Note that whenever a fuel request is made, they always request a good chunk of fuel disregarding the actual fuel efficiency.
However these requests are to bring anywhere from 1-192 buckets of lava. They're basically requesting as much as available.
However, you're better off using shorter duration fuels that only smelt one or a few items, to make the best use of materials.

Note that whenever a fuel request is made, they always request a good chunk of fuel disregarding the actual fuel efficiency.
However these requests are to bring anywhere from 1-192 buckets of lava. They're basically requesting as much as available.
However, you're better off using shorter duration fuels that only smelt one or a few items, to make the best use of materials.

Sorry, the issue was marked as completed and I'm a bit confused: was there any change made to improve the behavior, or was this just "Won't fix/Working as intended"?

I think we should actually just disable non stackable fuels from the smelting lists.

IMO, lava buckets are kind of cool as a fuel: there's a risk of sending a citizen to Nether to get them and a reward of smelting a lot of stuff with just one bucket.

Removing them as an option is an easy workaround, and would be already an improvement. But actually making them work would lead to a more engaging gameplay. They could also be gated by unlocking Nether Mine at the University, or even a dedicated research item.

the thing is, you typically won't smelt a lot of stuff with one bucket. At most, probably 64....because the colonist waits for the furnace to turn 'off' before emptying it, no? So they'd put in a bucket of fuel and 64 smeltables. The furnace smelts 64, then everything is on hold til the fuel-ification ends, I think? and then the empty bucket and smelted stuff is removed

Even if it does work, if there's any real time between furnace usage they'd also waste a lot of the 'smelting power'.
It's way better efficiency the closer you can get to 1fuel per 1 smeltable

the thing is, you typically won't smelt a lot of stuff with one bucket. At most, probably 64....because the colonist waits for the furnace to turn 'off' before emptying it, no?

That's something that could be changed, right?

I mean, it's just a bunch of code and it's not set in stone. I sincerely hope that the goal here is to make something that players would enjoy. And in that case treating existing behavior as something that should be preserved is counterproductive.

There is a good reason it's designed this way. That's why it's unlikely to be changed from this

Is that reason documented anywhere?

(I'm not trying to convince you that it needs to change. Just pointing out that from a player's perspective it feels like a bug that wastes in-game resources, and no rationale is provided to justify it.)

Citizens are not machines, so they function similar to the player, they put something in the oven and then check on it later. And don't check on it every moment to retrieve it at the most efficient point.

That makes sense. But players normally don't do this:

the colonist waits for the furnace to turn 'off' before emptying it

A player would check if the products are ready and take them if they are. And when putting the next batch in, they would likely skip refueling if there's obviously more than enough smelting time left from the last lava bucket.

And don't check on it every moment to retrieve it at the most efficient point.

I actually do this at times :) Especially in the early game when I'm short on coal and have some odd quantities of pork chops and chicken to cook.

Yes, very early game when you want that third ingot really quick to get the pickaxe you do this. But not when you melt a stack, you don't constantly check if it's done, you walk around, do stuff and eventually you get back and when the furnace is off, you either need to refuel or its done.

you walk around, do stuff and eventually you get back and when the furnace is off, you either need to refuel or its done.

a) not after putting in a lava bucket, because I know it'll burn for a while. So I might be doing something in close vicinity and frequently refilling input stack and taking products
b) citizens are very much not wandering off from their workstation to loiter elsewhere. They stay there and do work until they need to sleep or eat

I totally agree that citizen behaviour should be player-like. The reason I reported this issue was because with lava buckets it was distinctly different. So if making them behave more player-like in this case is not a priority - then it indeed might make sense to remove lava buckets from the list of fuels for smelting.

The heuristic of waiting for the furnace to stop indeed makes sense for short-burning fuels: players would even try to put in the exact quantities of inputs to not waste any fuel. But players also know that lava buckets burn for much longer and change their behaviour accordingly.

Yes, it's code wise not worth the complexity to adjust the handling for everything for this usecase, which is why I rather remove it from the list of fuels.