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[FallenAngel]

How many smelters should a fortress have near the closing of its second year? I've gotten around to adding a few more, but do I need EVEN more? I have 6 so far.

[Magistrum]

Depedends on how much you dig and how many goblinite you are smelting, I generally don't get more than twenty even on late game, by the second year you maybe be fine with six, add up two more by year and see if jobs start piling up, if so, just go around making more... All the planters having the furnace operator labor active also helps.

[FallenAngel]

My mining operations are extremely active.
We're mining up magnetite and hematite and whatnot faster than the smelters can process it.
I really need to dig out a second metal bar storage.

[Doktoro Reichard]

Depends on what you want to do and how much metal you have. Ask yourself the following:

1. Do I produce enough metal for my military/crafting needs? If so, you are OK.
2. Do I produce more ore than what my smelters can handle? If so, increase the number of smelters and/or decrease the number of miners.

Do note however that smelting is a menial task. Its skill advancement only speeds up the process. On fortresses with more than 50 dwarves, it is easy to just assign all "peasant" dwarves the Furnace Operating jobs.

On the other hand, anything related to crafting items out of metal is influenced by skill (as those items gain quality levels). As such, it is advisable to only have between 1 to 3 armorsmiths/weaponsmiths/metalcrafters, as to concentrate skill gain.

[Duuvian]

I only used one my last game, and had invaders turned off until I was ready for a massive goblin invasion due to high wealth and enough children had matured in my 30ish popcap fort for an army. I was waiting for enough to be born to trigger the monarch.

I traded for all the iron and steel I could from caravans, and the smelter was constantly melting items. I never ran out of iron items to melt for decades until I lost the save, so I'd advise having as many as you need to finally finish up your meltable items.

Unfortunately I lost the save before turning invaders back on.

[FallenAngel]

I designated one single smelter for melting metal objects (so the fractions of bars add up properly).
Time to build MORE.
Also, since I have a population of 82 (woo, migrants), I'm expecting a goblin siege at one point or another.
Goblin christmas will come. It always does.

[PDF urist master]

when christmas comes, make sure you have at least 5 smelters working nonstop to melt all the loot. those can pile up really fast.

[Hans Lemurson]

Unless I am using Magma, I find that I run into fuel restrictions long before my smelter capacity is reached.

[Swonnrr]

I personally use raws of 4/8 smelters with peasants assigned to them.
Overkill most of the time, but allow fast processing when i begin drowning in ore and goblinite.

[Uggh]

when christmas comes, make sure you have at least 5 smelters working nonstop to melt all the loot. those can pile up really fast.

In my experience the number of smelters is not the bottleneck but the number of haulers and their motivitation to do their job.

[Magistrum]

when christmas comes, make sure you have at least 5 smelters working nonstop to melt all the loot. those can pile up really fast.

In my experience the number of smelters is not the bottleneck but the number of haulers and their motivitation to do their job.

Smelters aways cluttered?

[smjjames]

I have 8 in my smelting and smithing area plus one smelter in a side room for melting objects. I generally only use that 9th one for melting stuff, but it can be used during larger smelting operations.

All are magma powered btw.

[GotIt_00]

I have a ton of dorfs with the smelting labor, something like 80. They do a bunch of other stuff too, like mining and hauling, but having more than necessary means the jobs are always being performed.

[milo christiansen]

I my current fort (with a siege (sometimes two) every year) I have three furnace operators (two are legendary) and two magma smelters. One smelter is always melting stuff down and is actually keeping ahead of production (I am also melting down copper items made by my smiths in training). The other smelter is smelting ore and is more-or-less keeping up wit production there too.

The secret is to use a small number of highly trained furnace operators instead of the peasant swarm. I used to use the peasant swarm too, but trained operators are much faster.

[Magistrum]

The secret is to use a small number of highly trained furnace operators instead of the peasant swarm. I used to use the peasant swarm too, but trained operators are much faster.

I just coudn't figure out what to do with all that useless beardless bodies.