Steel Bits: one possible use

[Maethius]

So we all know by now (in our frustration) that we can amass steel bits and do nothing with them. They can't be smelted, they can't be bloomed, and they can't be smithed.

BUT!!!  What if we could sorta smith them?

Here's what I was thinking. If you can heat steel enough to smith it, perhaps you could heat a pile of 20 bits into a "bloom" and reshape them into an ingot. OR...

... make rivets out of them! Or nails, and have an option to smith strips separately, then combine 4 strip with 10 nails to produce 1 "nails and strips."

Either that or just make it so we can bloom steel, or place piles of 20 bits in place of 1 iron ingot in the refractory furnace.

 

There's gotta be a balanced way to re-use the hardest to obtain material in the game! Currently I have a pile of 100 steel bits in my smithy, and that's enough (in ingots) to finish my suit of steel chain mail armor... that's a real shame to just throw away.

[StCatharines]

Might I suggest a mod?

SuperFuel - Resumed

It also gives graphite a use.

Edited February 27, 2025 by StCatharines

[Zane Mordien]

Steel bits? Is that from a mod, because I never have steel bits.

[StCatharines]

47 minutes ago, Zane Mordien said:

Steel bits? Is that from a mod, because I never have steel bits.

Yes, Anvil Metal Recovery if I recall right.

[LadyWYT]

52 minutes ago, Zane Mordien said:

Steel bits? Is that from a mod, because I never have steel bits.

5 minutes ago, StCatharines said:

Yes, Anvil Metal Recovery if I recall right.

Plus a certain talent from XSkills. There's probably other mods that allow the acquisition of steel bits as well. Under normal, unaltered gameplay, I don't believe it's possible to obtain steel bits.

[Psyloh]

Of course it is : just chisel a steel item

[Psyloh]

Main way to end up with steel bits :
- I wanna smith some steel item
- I went to fast when selecting what to smith
- I don't want that
- I chiseled the unfinished work item

Done

[Bruno Willis]

On 2/28/2025 at 7:18 AM, Maethius said:

BUT!!!  What if we could sorta smith them?

Damascus Steel

Lots of flattening, adding flux, folding, and re-heating. I think steel bits mixed with iron bits would make raindrop damascus. You'd pack them into a crucible, layers of steel bits and flux, heat it to a crazy temperature, and then put the whole thing, crucible and all, onto the anvil and start hammering. The ceramic would shatter off, and you'd lose a lot of steel, and end up with a "flawed steel bar" which you would re-heat, re-flux, and fold, repeat, fold, until you'd worked the flaws out. 

[Teh Pizza Lady]

17 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

Damascus Steel

Lots of flattening, adding flux, folding, and re-heating. I think steel bits mixed with iron bits would make raindrop damascus. You'd pack them into a crucible, layers of steel bits and flux, heat it to a crazy temperature, and then put the whole thing, crucible and all, onto the anvil and start hammering. The ceramic would shatter off, and you'd lose a lot of steel, and end up with a "flawed steel bar" which you would re-heat, re-flux, and fold, repeat, fold, until you'd worked the flaws out. 

You can use Black Coal, Anthracite, Charcoal, or Coal Coke to reach the temperatures necessary to perform this task. However, I think a bellows with a crank that you can attach to the windmill should be necessary at this point to get the steel hot enough to do this, but I think it should be possible!

[LadyWYT]

2 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

You can use Black Coal, Anthracite, Charcoal, or Coal Coke to reach the temperatures necessary to perform this task. However, I think a bellows with a crank that you can attach to the windmill should be necessary at this point to get the steel hot enough to do this, but I think it should be possible!

Except...it's not possible to reach temperatures hot enough to smelt steel in the the game, not even with coke or a bloomery. It would be nice to have a way to process steel bits back into ingot form though, just in case the player made a mistake while forging.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

Just now, LadyWYT said:

Except...it's not possible to reach temperatures hot enough to smelt steel in the the game, not even with coke or a bloomery. It would be nice to have a way to process steel bits back into ingot form though, just in case the player made a mistake while forging.

the forge-welding temperature of steel is between 1200 and 1300 C, which is why I listed those fuels specifically.  You don't need to melt it, just forge it.

[Tabbot95]

iron and steel in general needs an overhaul; mere "iron" is not descriptive enough;

 

Iron should be more common but be far more "tricky" than copper-alloys to heat treat and smith;

that said it should be able to outcompete copper in technical roles tough with far more effort than bronze (assuming you have both tin and copper).

[Dilan Rona]

the fact that this is still a problem, and only a mod can help fix the problem is quite telling.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

On 6/6/2026 at 5:44 AM, Dilan Rona said:

the fact that this is still a problem, and only a mod can help fix the problem is quite telling.

Steel bits aren't even obtainable in the base game, so why would the devs implement a fix for something that wasn't even broken in the first place?

[MKMoose]

13 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Steel bits aren't even obtainable in the base game, so why would the devs implement a fix for something that wasn't even broken in the first place?

Chiseling down a failed workpiece makes bits. For everything besides steel this serves as a way of retrieving all the metal after a mistake, with the exception of pieces which had more than one ingot added.

[Dilan Rona]

12 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

with the exception of pieces which had more than one ingot added.

Which is just as big a problem, and constitutes a loss of material.

[Bruno Willis]

I played recently with a mod that let me keep bits of metal when a tool broke or when I took off material when smithing, and it was a pain in the bum! Honestly, I appreciated having extra metal available for like, two days of gameplay. After that it just clogged up chests and gave me busy work. I got so stressed trying to use every bit of iron, I pretty quickly uninstalled it.