Whiteout Survival Furnace upgrade costs, level 1 to FC10

Taking the Furnace from level 1 to FC10 costs 910 days of base build time, and only 215 of those days are spent reaching level 30: the Fire Crystal stages take about 76% of the time and 80% of the Meat. The single most expensive upgrade on the whole ladder is not a Fire Crystal step at all but level 30 itself, at 300M Meat and 40 days, more than any step after it.

Totals by stage

The full climb asks for 6.34B Meat, 6.35B Wood, 1.27B Coal and 323M Iron, plus 11,610 Fire Crystal and 870 Refined Fire Crystal. Steel never appears in a Furnace cost. Split at FC5, the Fire Crystal count is close to even: 5,715 to reach FC5 and 5,895 from FC5 to FC10. What changes in the second half is everything else. FC5 to FC10 takes 430 days and 3.13B Meat on its own, roughly half of the entire ladder, and it is the only stage that needs Refined Fire Crystal.

Power follows a flatter curve. Levels 1 to 30 add 1.52M power, the stage to FC5 adds 1.49M, and FC5 to FC10 adds 1.74M, for 4.75M in all. The last stage takes about 1.6 times as long as the one before it for only a little more power.

Levels 1 to 30

The early levels cost Wood first. Meat appears only from level 11, at 1.3M, and from then on every upgrade asks for the same amount of Meat and Wood. Coal runs at about one fifth of the Wood cost and Iron, from level 6, at about a twentieth.

Build time is trivial at the start: levels 2 to 15 together take 3 days. Level 16 is the first single upgrade over a day, and level 22 the first over six days. From there the timer climbs steeply. The five upgrades from level 26 to level 30 take about 149 of the 215 days of this stage, and level 30 alone is 40 days and 300M Meat and Wood each. If you plan around one upgrade, plan around that one.

Each upgrade from level 11 also requires the Embassy at the previous level and one other building at the previous level, mostly rotating through the Lancer Camp, Infantry Camp, Marksman Camp and Research Center (level 12 asks for the Command Center instead), so those buildings have to keep pace with the Furnace.

Fire Crystal steps

After level 30 the Furnace climbs in steps: four sub-levels and then the next Fire Crystal level, five upgrades per band. Within a band all five steps cost the same Meat, Wood, Coal and Iron, and through FC5 the same Fire Crystal too. The first step past 30 is a relief after level 30: 67M Meat and 7 days, against 300M and 40 days for the upgrade before it. Meat per step then rises slowly, to 160M in the last band.

Fire Crystal per step rises from 132 in the first band to 335 in the band that ends at FC5. Refined Fire Crystal enters at the step after FC5, at 10 per step, and the cost changes shape: the sub-levels cost 200 Fire Crystal and 10 Refined each, while the step into FC6 costs 100 Fire Crystal and 20 Refined. Every band after that repeats the pattern, with the main level costing half the Fire Crystal and double the Refined Fire Crystal of its sub-levels. The step into FC10 is the costliest in Refined Fire Crystal, at 140, while each FC9 sub-level costs 70.

Build time per step goes 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 18 and 20 days through the first eight bands. The band from FC8-1 to FC9 breaks the climb at 13 days per step, shorter than the band before it, before the last band returns to 20.

Gates on State age

Resources are not the only limit. Each band of Fire Crystal steps has a minimum day before the upgrade opens:

Levels 1 to 30 have no day gate. These are the game data's own counters: the first gate counts days since the State opened, and the later three use the game's battlefield-day count instead. Players usually quote the same gates as State ages of about day 60, 150, 315 and 500, so expect the in-game unlock near those days rather than on an exact date. The gates open in large blocks, so once one lifts, build time is the main limit: the five steps from FC3-1 to FC4 take 60 days, and the 25 steps from FC5-1 to FC10 together take 430 days of building.

Planning the climb

Three things stand out. Level 30 is the hardest single upgrade, in both resources and time. Fire Crystal is spent evenly before and after FC5, but Refined Fire Crystal is needed only after FC5, and in growing amounts on each main level. And the second half of the Fire Crystal ladder, FC5 to FC10, is where most of the calendar goes: 430 of the 910 days, gated on battlefield days 323 and 491.