Hardcore Smelt

At its core, Hardcore Smelt adds different cook/smelt/bake times for ores and bricks in the furnace. Smelting and creating smoothstone out of cobble will now take much more time and fuel to accomplish, while baking bricks and cooking glass will take more time than cooking food, and less than smelting ore. This was done to increase the value of tree farming in the early to mid game, create a more distinct transition when moving up to iron tools/weapons, and to increase the value of the Kiln in the mid to late game. It was also done to provide some slight advantages to a sedentary lifestyle as opposed to going nomadic, as it will now take a significant amount of time in a single location to smelt ores. This addition involves several other changes in this release as well, which are listed individually below.

The cook times for items in the Cauldron, Crucible, Kiln have been increased to relate better to the adjusted values of the furnace, and to provide a more significant advantage to having more fire blocks beneath them. The minimum time it takes to cook something has remained unchanged (with 9 fire blocks), but the maximum time it takes to cook (with just 1) has increased significantly, making it much more rewarding to upgrade your builds with time.

Ore other than metals (like diamonds, redstone, and lapis) can no longer be smelted in the furnace. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense for them to be in there in the first place, and it muddies the functionality of the furnace in weird ways.