Mods / Better Smelting
- Tags:
- Author:
- Genhis
- Side:
- Both
- Created:
- Jun 21st 2025 at 6:53 PM
- Last modified:
- Apr 26th at 2:00 PM
- Downloads:
- 22700
-
Latest release (for Vintage Story 1.22.0-pre.1 - 1.22.0, potentially outdated):
BetterSmelting_0.3.0.zip 1-click install
Better Smelting
This mod improves firepit behavior when heating and smelting items. It also makes mined coal burn longer in coal piles.
Features
- Coal pile patch: Layer burn duration depends on item burn duration and burn temperature.
- Firepit patch:
- Item stack heating is no longer slowed down when it reaches the melting temperature.
- Contribution of item stack temperature above melting point towards smelting progress is no longer clamped to integer multiples of melting temperature (items smelt faster).
- Cooking pot and crucible heating speed depends on items in the slots (configurable).
- When adding items to cooking containers, the temperature is averaged between all slots instead of taking the lowest value.
Burning time comparison (real-time minutes)
Firepit (charcoal as fuel)
| Item | Vanilla (before 1.22) | Vanilla | Better Smelting | | -----------------: | --------------------: | -----------------: | -----------------: | | 1 flint | 01:03 | 01:03 | 01:01 | | 4 flints | 02:28 | 02:23 | 02:17 | | | Heating / Smelting | Heating / Smelting | Heating / Smelting | | 20 copper nuggets | 00:58 / 00:29 | 00:57 / 00:30 | 01:05 / 00:27 | | 200 copper nuggets | 01:01 / 04:56 | 00:58 / 05:00 | 02:01 / 04:17 | | 4 meat (pot) | 00:13 / 00:40 | 00:10 / 00:40 | 00:16 / 00:30 | | 24 meat (pot) | 00:13 / 04:00 | 00:10 / 04:00 | 00:34 / 03:00 |
Coal pile (full)
| Fuel type | Vanilla | BetterSmelting |
| ---------: | ------: | --------------: |
| Charcoal | 08:00 | 08:00 |
| Coke | 08:00 | 08:15 |
| Brown coal | 08:00 | 13:02 |
| Black coal | 08:00 | 15:30 |
| Anthracite | 08:00 | 36:12 |
| Mod Version | Mod Identifier | For Game version | Downloads | Released | Changelog | Download | 1-click mod install* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.3.0 | bettersmelting | 5337 | Apr 6th at 10:16 AM | BetterSmelting_0.3.0.zip | 1-click install | ||
Changed
Removed
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| 0.2.1 | bettersmelting | 14466 | Jul 23rd 2025 at 6:22 PM | BetterSmelting_0.2.1.zip | 1-click install | ||
Fixed
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| 0.2.0 | bettersmelting | 1003 | Jul 13th 2025 at 3:36 PM | BetterSmelting_0.2.0.zip | 1-click install | ||
Added
Changed
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| 0.1.1 | bettersmelting | 261 | Jul 12th 2025 at 4:52 PM | BetterSmelting_0.1.1.zip | 1-click install | ||
Fixed
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| 0.1.0 | bettersmelting | 1633 | Jun 21st 2025 at 7:05 PM | BetterSmelting_0.1.0.zip | 1-click install | ||
Added
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Does this still affect stuff in the latest version with the smithing changes?
Thanks for making the mod, it's been great! I also wanted to ask, but do you think you could add a patch for Aldi's Classes Washery Grade Coke? It's inheriting the +100C Forge Temp modifier but not the Forge duration bonus. Thanks again for the mod!
TimeAtomicz yeah, the mod will be updated when 1.22 release candidate comes out
Genhis
Hello, as the 1.22 update will introduce a fair bit of this mod in vanilla, will you update the mod for 1.22 when it drops so that we can retain the behavior for the coal piles?
Ghost556 yeah just ignore it, I didn't make a new build for 1.21 because the 1.20 build was working fine
I want to apologize in advance for what is probably a really stupid question caused by user error. I wanted to install this mod to make my life a little bit easier when smithing in game. I clicked the one click install button and the mod was installed just fine. I'm just really confused about something because when I hover over the mod in the ingame mod manager I see the following message:
"This mod requests game version 1.20.0 but you are on 1.21.6. It may not load properly."
I saw that the mod is supposed to be compatible with 1.20.0 up to version 1.21.6. Can I ignore this message safely or will it mess up my game? I'd appreciate any help on this. Sorry again if this is a stupid user error mistake.
CJnDJ8402 That is a feature, you can set CookingSlotHeatingTimeMultiplier to 0 in the config if you don't like it.
This mod is nice but seemingly affects food badly so stacking up to 6 meals in a pot can take a half a stack of firewood any idea why that happens?
Ciber No, this mod does different things.
Does this subsume https://mods.vintagestory.at/forgesstaywarm
thanks for taking the time to answer
stevej This is intended to make heating process more realistic, so item mass/stack size is included in calculations. Overall it takes less time than Vanilla but items will heat a lot slower compared to Better Firepit.
This mod replaces better firepit? Im heating up a stack of flint and its taking forever. Im sure the other one works better for that recipe.
Kosmu Higher value means longer heating time in cooking slots - that is, in a cooking pot or a crucible. If you are heating things directly, the multiplier doesn't do anything.
I'm slightly confused with the config, is CookingSlotHeatingTimeMultiplier faster when higher or lower? for example I'm trying to heat 128 things from Alchemical Refinement and it's taking about 2-3 stacks of 32 of peat in default value (and they're not in a Crucible)
Gumbyohson This mod replaces Better Firepit. It does the same thing and more, see "Firepit patch" in the description above.
Would this mod conflict with "Better firepit" or do they cover different parts of the same process?
btw the latest version (freshly downloaded after deleting the old one) still looks for 1.20.0, despite being for 1.20.10-1.21.0
Shion I believe it's a base game bug. It bothered me as well but I couldn't find a quick way to fix it, so I moved on.
Not sure if the thing is related to this mod or not, but once the fire is out in firepit, the UI visually updates only when cooked item is moved to the other slot or reopened.
Thank you for this mod. :)
Genhis
You are right, my mistake. Sry for misinformation. Thx for nice mod
Ezekielos Thanks for reporting this, but it seems to work fine for me and my mod doesn't touch anything related to anvil or work items.
Ezekielos
It's nice that you found a bug/incompatability, but I'm not the author of this mod, Genhis is.
UselessAqua
Hey! I have suggestion, i found incompatibility with your mod and xskills, one of the most popular mods. In metalworking skill tree there is skill "Heating Hits" its increase temparture when you hit something while working on anvil and its dont work when i use both mods. Can you look a bit on that and check if you make this compatible? Thx for mod.
https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/247
UselessAqua It is correct. There is a penalty to heat the crucible, so larger batches are slightly more efficient.
Genhis
Uhm, according to your discription, it takes about 1 min to heat 20 nuggets, but it only takes 30 sec. to melt them?
Shouldn't it be the other way around, like it's with the 200 nuggets?
Haranador vandawn You are right, I pushed a fix. I scaled down liquid stacks by 100, still leaving it uncapped.
Genhis Why not just set an upper limit for the calculation? Math.Min(StackSize, 128) basically. I don't think there are instances where you really would want it to go above 128, or at max 256, per slot. Any higher than that and it's functionally is broken anyway, since my 50 litre cauldron has been running for about 20 real life minutes, and it's still at room temperature.
vandawn Heating time scales with the amount of portions you make, so some recipes could take significantly longer. You can change CookingSlotHeatingTimeMultiplier in the config to 0 to disable this feature. I don't have a better solution at the moment.
It kinda breaks some recipes from expanded food.
When boiling liquids, it treats them as a high count, and will never increase the temperature of 50L of any liquid (5000 units)
Genhis
Thank you so much!
Qwerdo Although I wouldn't personally use it, allowing peat and firewood in the forge is easy enough, so I added a config option for v0.2.0 - ForgeMinimumFuelTemperature. You'll find it in ModConfig/BetterSmelting.json and can change it as you like.
Genhis
Do you think it's possible to add functionality to heat up ingots in the firepit?
I would love to heat up copper ingots to workable temperatures without using coal.
Currently it just doesn't heat up
Or maybe allow peat and firewood to be used in the forge
Genhis Ah, I see! Thanks!
potoes This replaces Better Firepit. It does the same thing and more, see "Firepit patch" in the description above.
Is this compatible with Better Firepit?
Sam_Bucher Thanks, it's fixed. It seems I put an invalid instruction there which .NET 7 tolerated.
This mod breaks the forge on the latest 1.21 snapshot. Adding any amount of charcoal creates a layer so thin that it Z-fights with the forge bottom, and it burns for less than a second (again, the quantity doesn't matter). I do not have any other mods installed.
Genhis Oh fantastic!
Rythillian I updated the description. Values are taken from fuel burn duration and temperature, so all items are generally supported when they define these properties.
Any chance we could get values for anthracite and coke? Currently both are kinda useless
What about Anthracite?
metasynthie Yes, this is correct.
Am I right in thinking that this mod aims to take care of the same sort of problem as these other two mods, but in a different (maybe more nuanced) way? In other words, one game probably doesn't need all of them.
Better Firepit - https://mods.vintagestory.at/betterfirepit (firepits don't reset temperature after each item finishes)
Coal Specific Pile Burn Time - https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/22009#tab-description (coal piles burn different times depending on the fuel used)
Does this also work with Coke and EM2? (Since it has longer burn time and it's hotter)
Refractory furnace falls under "Coal pile", so yes, it is included in the mod.
This sort of change makes a lot of sense, any possibility of making it so that different types of coal last longer in the refractory furnace? Currently coal burns all the same for the refractory furnace.