Alchemy Factory Fuel & Heat: P Values, Tiers & Coke Powder
Quick answer
Heat in Alchemy Factory is measured in P per second. A heating device burns fuel to make heat, and every device stacked on top of it draws a fixed amount — a crucible takes 4 P/s whatever it is processing, while a cauldron's draw depends on the recipe. Fuel type changes how long the heating device runs, never how fast the machines above it work. Fuels climb from raw logs and coal ore through charcoal and coke to powders and potions, and the cheapest reliable mid-game fuel is coke powder made from coal ore in a stone crusher.
How heat works in Alchemy Factory
Heat is measured in P and shown as P per second in every tooltip. Heating devices burn fuel to make heat, while heat consumers sit on top of them and each draws a fixed amount out of that pool. Because the draw is fixed per device, the fuel you choose only decides how long a furnace runs before it needs the next item — not how quickly anything above it processes.
Version 1.0 removed the base heat cost that heating devices used to draw on their own. Through Early Access a Stone Furnace consumed 1 P/s just to exist and a Blast Furnace 4 P/s, so an idle furnace with fuel in it slowly ate through the stack. The worked example below — a furnace plus three crucibles at 13 P/s — is therefore 12 P/s from 1.0 onward.
Heating devices
| Device | Footprint | Own heat draw | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stone Furnace | 3 x 3 tiles | 1 P/s in Early Access; base cost removed in 1.0 | The first heating device. Placing one is the 75.8% "Fire It Up!" achievement. |
| Blast Furnace | 6 x 7 tiles | 4 P/s in Early Access; base cost removed in 1.0 | Same consumer speed as a Stone Furnace, just more heat capacity and more slots to gridlock. |
| Steam Boiler + Steam Heating Pad | Two-part | Not measured in the sources — 待确认 | Added in v0.4.4.4298 as a new heating mechanic; the boiler makes steam that heating pads deliver to consumers. |
The base draw column is the one number on this page that changed at 1.0. The patch notes list "Removed the base heat cost of all heating devices", so any furnace figure you find dated before September 2026 is one to four P/s too high. The Steam Boiler and heating pad get their own breakdown.
Heat consumers
| Device | Heat draw | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Crucible | 4 P/s each | Fixed regardless of what it processes: planks, stone or sage all cost 4 P/s. Three crucibles on a furnace needed 13 P/s total in Early Access (12 plus the furnace's own 1). |
| Cauldron | Varies by product | The only consumer whose draw depends on the recipe: the clay recipe ran at 4.6 P/s for 16.7 clay per minute at base speed, and 6.9 P/s at +50% factory efficiency. |
| Kiln, Smelter, Alembic, Athanor, Thermal Extractor | Fixed per device type | Exact values were not listed in the sources — 待确认; read the tooltip P value and add them up per furnace. |
The cauldron is the outlier worth planning around, since its draw moves with the recipe rather than the machine. The cauldron recipes and heat draw page lists the per-recipe numbers in one place.
How to size a furnace
To size a furnace, add up the consumers sitting on it. The March 2026 guide's example: three crucibles making plant ash from sage need 3 x 4 = 12 P/s, plus the furnace's own 1 P/s in that version. Whether those crucibles hold planks, stone or sage makes no difference to the total.
Heating devices also do not speed anything up. Two crucibles run at exactly the same rate on a Stone Furnace and on a Blast Furnace — the difference between the two is heat capacity and slot count, not throughput. Upgrading a furnace only buys you more room and more consumers, so the fuel math stays the same.
The three fuel tiers
| Tier | Examples | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Raw | Logs, planks, coal ore | Burnable directly but meant for refining. Player numbers from the Steam board: a 200-copper log gives 22 heat per plank, and a 4,800-copper coal ore gives 594 heat per coal. |
| Refined | Charcoal, coal, coke | Processing a raw fuel roughly multiplies its heat, and guides agree refining is always worth it. |
| Powders and potions | Charcoal Powder, Coke Powder, Black Powder, Blast Potion, Panacea Potion | Highest heat per item. Black Powder's heat value was doubled in v0.5.4467. Panacea Potion doubles as fertiliser, so a single belt can feed both furnaces and nurseries on a floor. |
The practical ladder most players climb: planks in the tutorial, charcoal at tier 5, then coal and coke powder at tier 6 when coal ore unlocks, black powder from a cauldron in the mid-game, then blast potions, and finally panacea potions, which are fuel and fertiliser at once. Late-game factories run one belt of high-grade fuel down an aisle or across a whole floor rather than a dedicated fuel line per machine group.
The full ranking, with the reasoning behind each step, is on the fuel tier comparison page.
Coke powder: Athanor or coal ore?
| Method | Recipe | For one 60/min belt | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Athanor route | 12 Charcoal Powder to 1 Coke Powder | 6 Athanors, 40 crucibles, 60 grinders; the setup itself burns about 34 coke powder per minute | About half the material cost, orders of magnitude more space |
| Coal ore route | Coal ore through a stone crusher gives 120 coal; 1 coal to 1 Coke Powder | Three stone crushers; the setup burns about 3 coke powder per minute, net 57 | Recommended: a fraction of the footprint, no fertiliser, self-fuelling loop |
New players see the 4,800-copper price of coal ore and reach for the Athanor route because it costs about half as much per powder. The April 2026 comparison argues the other way: whatever you burn or build with coke powder sells for far more than the ore costs, money is a function of in-game days, and the Athanor route needs roughly ten times the machines and then fuels itself.
Its closing advice is to feed leftover planks from advanced fertiliser into Jupiter relics or the trash rather than into coke powder, so that fertiliser production never depends on fuel production. The Charcoal Powder blueprint covers the input side of that chain.
Catalysts on the Advanced Athanor
| Catalyst | Effect |
|---|---|
| Unstable Catalyst | Alters product generation probabilities in an Advanced Athanor |
| Fertile Catalyst | Doubles product output |
| Resonant Catalyst | Generates all outputs simultaneously |
| Eternal Catalyst | Recipe consumes no materials |
All four catalysts were introduced with the June 2026 recipe rebalance, which rebuilt every Advanced Athanor recipe around them. The same patch doubled Black Powder's sell price and heat value, so any fuel comparison dated before June 2026 undervalues black powder. Catalysts change what an Athanor produces rather than how much heat it consumes, which is why they matter to fuel planning only through the coke powder route above.
Planning fuel with the production planner
Heat and fuel demand scale with the rest of the factory, so it helps to plan them together. The production planner and calculator lets you set skill levels, production targets and available resources, then works out the machines, heat, inputs and outputs the plan needs. It is the fastest way to check whether a fuel line can actually feed the furnaces you have laid out before you build them.
The recipes hub explains where fuel recipes sit in the wider Inputs–Device–Outputs structure, and the wiki overview covers the systems around them.
What stays unconfirmed
Exact P values for the Kiln, Smelter, Alembic, Athanor and Thermal Extractor were not listed in the sources, so their per-device heat draws are 待确认 — read each tooltip's P value and add them up per furnace. The Steam Boiler and heating pad draw is also 待确认 for the same reason. Late-game fuel strategy beyond panacea potions remains 待确认.