Furnace Item Transfer Limits

[Vaylon]

As some of you may recall, previously we were able to put a near-unlimited number of items into a furnace and smelt them. This led to some problems, of course: for instance, an infamously heavy bar of metal in Shadgard that took, if I remember correctly, a dozen people to heave. As a result of incidents like that (no matter how amusing they are), furnaces were changed in two ways: (1) we can now only transfer a maximum of six items into a furnace and (2) there is a weight limit on how much we can smelt. I'm not about to suggest that we entirely remove limits from furnaces. However...

There's already a weight limit: furnaces prevent you from smelting something that's too heavy to carry. That limitation by itself seems to me to be sufficient; why, then, keep the arbitrary transfer limit of six items into a furnace? What if we have many tiny items that we'd like to smelt (such as, oh, I don't know, say, lockpicks, for example)? Because of the limitation on transfer, we can't transfer enough of them into the furnace to create a bar.

Let's get rid of the arbitrary six-item transfer limit on furnaces -- we're already prevented from smelting something that's too heavy to carry.

[Slaidh]

Probably same reason I have to skin animals one pelt at a time instead of all at once. It's supposed to take time.

[Fayne]

I don't think it's arbitrary. That'd be like saying the item limit on mortar and pestles is arbitrary. The way it is now, even if you smelt the smallest possible things you can successfully get bars of metal from, you'll end up with three pounds of metal.

I can tell you from experience that smelting anything that weighs less than 1 pound is nothing more than a good way to dispose of it instantly. For whatever reason, if the resulting bar of metal would weigh less than 1/2 pound, the item is consumed. Lockpicks I believe are 0.1 pounds each. That means you would need 20 just to make one pound of usable metal, but because of the way the code works, you could put a thousand in and still get nothing. Metal boxes are really the smallest things worth smelting down into bars. Sure is a good way to make sure no one else gets their hands on your lockpicks though.

[Arphaxad]

The limit seems arbitrary. As far as it taking time, doesn't transfer give you a round time anyway. Is there a similar limit for transfer for other things as well? Perhaps the issue is documentation, does it say somewhere easy to find why we have this limit? Maybe one of the changelogs? I know 'Transfer' has gone through a number of iterations to prevent abuse in some situations. I'm just not sure this is one of them.

Just a few thoughts. If you have a few links to share or examples, that would help tremendously in understanding why this limit is in place.

Arpahxad

[jilliana]

This system hasn't been quite right since earlier this year when the transferring bugs began and I don't think it was fixed quite right.

I think the change should be in strictly a weight limit, not both an item and weight. It makes sense to have a bunch of small things instead of six small things when I can have a 25-pound breastplate and two or three other items.

The weight limit could be based on how much one person could heave on their own. Fifty pounds? Seventy?

Whatever it is, the way things stand now don't make very much sense.