Alchemy Factory Best Fuel — Coke, Coal and Heat Values Compared

Alchemy Factory has no single best fuel — it has a best fuel for each stage of the game, and the Codex fuel table makes the trade-off readable by listing heat value against total copper cost. The community advice that accompanies it is simple: always aim for the fuel item with the highest fuel value, and work toward Coke, Black Powder and Blast Potion in that order.

How Fuel Value Works

Two numbers decide a fuel: its heat value, which is the total energy it releases, and its heat per copper, which is how much of that energy you get per unit of cost. The second is the one that matters for efficiency, because a fuel can have a huge heat value and still be a terrible deal if it costs a fortune. Coal Ore is the extreme case — 30,000 heat but only 6.25 heat per copper.

The Documented Fuel Table

The figures below come from the Alchemy Factory Codex fuel category and are stamped with an Early Access game version, so treat them as to confirm after 1.0.

Fuel	Total cost	Heat value	Heat per copper
Coke Powder	17 copper	660	38.9
Coke	17 copper	600	35.4
Panacea Potion	10 silver	320,000	32
Charcoal Powder	2 copper	48	24
Blast Potion	1,096 copper	24,000	21.9
Black Powder	298 copper	6,000	20.2
Plank	1 copper	20	20
Charcoal	2 copper	40	20
Coal	40 copper	540	13.5
Logs	200 copper	2,000	10
Coal Ore	4,800 copper	30,000	6.25

What to Burn When

The shape of the table suggests a clear progression. Plank and Charcoal both give 20 heat per copper for almost nothing, which makes them the early workhorses. Charcoal Powder doubles that efficiency for two copper. Then Coke and Coke Powder take over as the mid and late game fuels at 35.4 and 38.9 heat per copper, and the exotic fuels — Black Powder, Blast Potion and Panacea Potion — trade much larger absolute heat values for lower copper efficiency.

Stage	Fuel to use	Why
Early game	Plank or Charcoal	20 heat per copper at almost no cost
Early upgrade	Charcoal Powder	24 heat per copper, still cheap
Mid game	Coke or Coke Powder	35.4 to 38.9 heat per copper, the efficiency peak
Late game	Coke at volume	Steel demand makes coke the bottleneck fuel
Bulk energy	Black Powder, Blast Potion, Panacea Potion	Large heat values when throughput matters more than cost

• Always compare heat per copper, not heat value alone.
• Aim for Coke first, then Black Powder, then Blast Potion, per the community order.
• Do not burn Coal Ore; at 6.25 heat per copper it is the worst deal in the table.
• Fuel efficiency is a separate upgrade track that scales Fuel Heat Value from 100%.

What is not confirmed.

The Codex table's version stamp predates 1.0, so the exact heat and cost values may have shifted, and a few entries — notably Panacea Potion's silver pricing — sit outside the copper column used by everything else. The full list of burnable items, and how Fuel Efficiency interacts with these numbers, are not documented yet. For the fertilizer side of production, see the fertilizer guide, and for where fuel points sit in the upgrade tree, see the upgrade guide.

• Verify Coke's heat value in-game before committing a coke-only build.
• Check whether Coal Ore is worth mining as fuel or better spent elsewhere.
• Re-read the table after 1.0 in case costs were rebalanced.
• Remember Fuel Efficiency scales the whole table by a percentage.