Meteoric iron is cool but pointless?

[Danny97]

A couple months ago i asked the community to teach me how to prospect as finding iron was impossible for me without someone explaining it like i was a child but have since then improved with their help and even reached steel which only led to more questions.

What i wanted to talk about was meteoric iron and it's uses besides fashion.

I understand it's slightly better than iron and slightly worse than steel but what i fail to understand is why you need an iron pickaxe to even mine the stuff considering meteoric iron was maybe one of the earliest forms of iron humanity could get their hands on and that in order to even get the stuff you would need materials that you already have tons of with iron veins being massive and all that,so besides looks and a slight increase to stats i don't see why we couldn't have m.iron as an alternative to regular iron and be able to mine it with bronze since it's already rarer?

The leap from iron to steel was surprisingly fast and easy with refractory bricks and collecting their materials being the most difficult part of the process,the other being waiting for a week for the damn thing to finish,which leaves meteoric iron in a weird spot of "oh i found m.iron...but i don't need it now".

Yes,you can smelt m.iron into bars just by firing it up and waiting for day as opposed to making blooms and then bars so i guess it's a bit more convinient,but you still need an iron anvil to even work the stuff so whatever "convenience" the smelting process offers is immediately taken away.

Also coming from someone who made a full iron plate suit,the making of the bars was the least of my concerns.

Sure,you could lose your mind and try and collect the tinniest bits of m.iron from what's left on the surface of the crash sites,but like i said,even then you would still need and anvil of the same tier to make use of it.

What is the point!?

Edited March 9, 2025 by Danny97

[Zane Mordien]

Personally I use it for all of my tools because it is faster to process than iron. I save my iron to process into steel, but I also don't make tons of steel. If you love making iron blooms and steel then it probably has no use for you. I do think they should update the recipe for steel and make it so you can turn meteoric iron into steel.

[Maelstrom]

I, too, think m.iron is just for funsies.  By the time I have an iron anvil I'm waiting for my steel to finish processing.  About the only thing I do with m.iron is make an anvil for my helve hammers so the iron anvil I have can be used in forging non-plate steel items like chain and tools.  Recently I've taken to quarrying the m.iron block instead of mining it.

[Broccoli Clock]

This is an interesting read as I have meteoric iron, I picked it up more or less after I crafted a normal (non-meteoric) iron pickaxe.

It's been sitting in a chest, some 120+ of it, but the truth is I've just not looked into how to smelt with it. It seems like it's a bit of a pain as well as not really being the technology jump (ie: flint > copper, copper > bronze, etc.. ) you would expect.

There is no point in throwing it away, but I guess those 120 odd units of meteoric iron are unlikely to be getting used unless it's in a pinch.

[Maelstrom]

creating usable items from m.iron isn't as much of a production pain as steel.  Put the nuggets in a bloomery and out come ingots, unlike regular iron.  From there the ingot can be forged into tools on an iron anvil.  M.iron has higher durability than iron but less than steel. 

So it comes down to personal cost/benefit analysis.  For some, the process of converting iron to steel is too laborious for top tier tools.  Others (like me) prefer the long lasting steel tools over m.iron ones and don't mind (or in my case enjoy) the steel production process.  M.iron can be considered a late iron age material, kind of like a copper anvil is the gateway to the late copper age.

[Cattastrafy]

It'd be cool imo for m.iron to be more necessary, but also a bit easier to find. Maybe there could be some way to detect it from a fair distance. And I probably just suck at finding it to be fair lol.

I really like multiple tech tiers and feel m iron is under utilized. I guess bronze alloys fall under this same category too.

[Danny97]

57 minutes ago, Cattastrafy said:

It'd be cool imo for m.iron to be more necessary, but also a bit easier to find. Maybe there could be some way to detect it from a fair distance. And I probably just suck at finding it to be fair lol.

I really like multiple tech tiers and feel m iron is under utilized. I guess bronze alloys fall under this same category too.

 

3 hours ago, ricp said:

This is an interesting read as I have meteoric iron, I picked it up more or less after I crafted a normal (non-meteoric) iron pickaxe.

It's been sitting in a chest, some 120+ of it, but the truth is I've just not looked into how to smelt with it. It seems like it's a bit of a pain as well as not really being the technology jump (ie: flint > copper, copper > bronze, etc.. ) you would expect.

There is no point in throwing it away, but I guess those 120 odd units of meteoric iron are unlikely to be getting used unless it's in a pinch.

 

5 hours ago, Zane Mordien said:

Personally I use it for all of my tools because it is faster to process than iron. I save my iron to process into steel, but I also don't make tons of steel. If you love making iron blooms and steel then it probably has no use for you. I do think they should update the recipe for steel and make it so you can turn meteoric iron into steel.

 

4 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

I, too, think m.iron is just for funsies.  By the time I have an iron anvil I'm waiting for my steel to finish processing.  About the only thing I do with m.iron is make an anvil for my helve hammers so the iron anvil I have can be used in forging non-plate steel items like chain and tools.  Recently I've taken to quarrying the m.iron block instead of mining it.

With bronze i can understand as it's an alloy with multiple combinations so it's really up to the player's circumstances which one they can produce given their luck with finding the materials but at least they have the option to do so.

I'll use myself as an example.

I have well over 300 hours in Vintage Story and i have never,not once,been able to make black bronze in bulk,NOT because i was limited by my tools,but because i simply never found the damn stuff in large enough quantities to make anything worthwhile and it's counterparts were always much more common so "why waste the time" i thought to myself.

I just feel like it's pointless to have something that rare and pain the butt to find only to be able to use it once you already have a much more abundant alternative for really not that much of an upgrade besides style (meteoric plate helmet,my beloved)

See,if it could be mined with a bronze pick like regular iron then it would at least see some use outside of just being a collectors item once you already have everything unlocked,but the way things are,i don't see it happening,for now.

"it's almost like in order to build a Dyson Sphere,we need the energy that only a Dyson Sphere can produce..." - Kurzgesagt,I think.

Edited March 7, 2025 by Danny97

[Zane Mordien]

5 hours ago, Danny97 said:

 

I'll use myself as an example.

I have well over 300 hours in Vintage Story and i have never,not once,been able to make black bronze in bulk,NOT because i was limited by my tools,but because i simply never found the damn stuff in large enough quantities to make anything worthwhile and it's counterparts were always much more common so "why waste the time" i thought to myself.

I just feel like it's pointless to have something that rare and pain the butt to find only to be able to use it once you already have a much more abundant alternative for really not that much of an upgrade besides style (meteoric plate helmet,my beloved)

It's not very rare in reality.  I've become really good at finding it. I have stacks and stacks of it if I try. 

 

I think meteoric iron is a remnant from before steel was in the game but I need an old timer to confirm.

 

Black bronze is an odd one. I mainly use it for an early pick axe because I pan tons of bony soil and usually get 2 gold and silver nuggets. I did actually have one playthorugh where i had tons of gold ans silver so I made a black bronze anvil. It felt weird but that's what I had.

[Broccoli Clock]

14 hours ago, Danny97 said:

 ...

I've been fairly lucky with my RNG with some things, far less so with others, although I have found enough gold, silver and tin in order to make all the bronze types but reading the wiki it states..

Tin bronze has higher mining speed, attack power and damage reduction than bismuth bronze items. However, bismuth bronze items have higher durability than tin bronze items.

I like that there are alloys out there, but equally I see no reason to use a bismuth bronze weapon over a standard tin bronze one. Yes, it's durability will be less, but anyone using copper/bronze tools knows they don't last all that long anyway.

So yeah, from someone who just got the game a month or so ago and I'm already coming up to the 200 hour mark, I find the inclusion of all the ores really nice, but equally I doubt I'll even use all of them.

 

Oh, and "Dyson swarms" are the answer to your final comment..

[7embre]

It's possible to get into iron age with meteoric iron, as there're bits of it on the ground above the meteors, it just takes quite a few of them. And, fortunately, you need only two pieces for a single ingot.

[Broccoli Clock]

54 minutes ago, 7embre said:

It's possible to get into iron age with meteoric iron, as there're bits of it on the ground above the meteors, it just takes quite a few of them. And, fortunately, you need only two pieces for a single ingot.

I think the problem, and I could be wrong here so feel free to correct me, but meteoric iron can only be shaped on an iron anvil, whereas "normal" iron only needs a bronze one.

You are stuck needing to smith meteoric iron on an iron anvil, but you can't make the iron anvil because you don't have any iron other than meteoric, which needs an iron anvil.

[Danny97]

1 hour ago, 7embre said:

It's possible to get into iron age with meteoric iron, as there're bits of it on the ground above the meteors, it just takes quite a few of them. And, fortunately, you need only two pieces for a single ingot.

"Sure,you could lose your mind and try and collect the tinniest bits of m.iron from what's left on the surface of the crash sites,but like i said,even then you would still need and anvil of the same tier to make use of it."

That was my main concern,yes.

[Michael Gates]

20 hours ago, Zane Mordien said:

I think meteoric iron is a remnant from before steel was in the game but I need an old timer to confirm.

Steel was already in the game when I got here (2016-ish?) There are a *ton* of unusable or pointless ores, metals, and alloys; meteoric iron as purely flavor item fits right in with all that.

And what the heck, that gold-trimmed plate mail does look great on an armor stand.

[7embre]

12 hours ago, ricp said:

meteoric iron can only be shaped on an iron anvil, whereas "normal" iron only needs a bronze one. You are stuck needing to smith meteoric iron on an iron anvil, but you can't make the iron anvil because you don't have any iron other than meteoric, which needs an iron anvil.

 

11 hours ago, Danny97 said:

you would still need and anvil of the same tier to make use of it.

Oh, right, that's true. Thanks for the corrections. It's just that I didn't actually try that, as I had pretty easy time with finding hematite, but not meteoric iron. Guess that was just my luck, huh. Completely forgot that it requires an iron anvil to work with

 

[Danny97]

14 hours ago, 7embre said:

 

Oh, right, that's true. Thanks for the corrections. It's just that I didn't actually try that, as I had pretty easy time with finding hematite, but not meteoric iron. Guess that was just my luck, huh. Completely forgot that it requires an iron anvil to work with

 

A beautiful example of my point.

We just never get to use some stuff,not because we don't have it,but because we simply can't use it,and by the time we can,it's pointless.

Don't worry about it,always nice to talk with people on here.

Edited March 9, 2025 by Danny97

[Facethief]

Tyron needs to add uranium reactors in 1.21.

[Zippy Wonderdust]

There is a mod called Meteoric Iron Overhaul that addresses all of your complaints.  I highly recommend it! 

[Maelstrom]

That mod takes things to the other extreme.  Given how prevalent meteors can/usually be that mod can totally skip the bronze age.  It's worse than skipping the copper age by jumping straight to bronze anvile and tools should one find bronze alloys quickly.  IMO that mod would be better if it toned down the results of mining meteors to vanilla levels and required bronze instead of copper for forging.

Edited March 11, 2025 by Maelstrom

[Zippy Wonderdust]

I think that this is less a problem with the mod and more one with the abundance of meteorites in the game.  Also, I guess I'm just blind because I have terrible luck actually finding them in survival.

I notice that, despite there being no setting to control meteorite frequency in the vanilla game, there is a setting for it in the Better Ruins mod, so it is something that can be adjusted.  I should look into how that mod does it and then suggest it to the Meteoric Iron Overhaul mod author as an enhancement they could add. 

Edit to add: Also, if memory serves, the drop rates of that mod are configurable.

Edited March 11, 2025 by Zippy Wonderdust

[Maelstrom]

I've had worlds where whenever I think I've found a crater it's hiding a meteor and others where that suspected crater is just a depression in the ground.

[Thorfinn]

4 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

That mod takes things to the other extreme.  Given how prevalent meteors can/usually be that mod can totally skip the bronze age.  It's worse than skipping the copper age by jumping straight to bronze anvile and tools should one find bronze alloys quickly.  IMO that mod would be better if it toned down the results of mining meteors to vanilla levels and required bronze instead of copper for forging.

Yeah, I thought the same thing. The easiest way to make it play nicely with game progression would be to simply write a patch mod so it requires bronze stuff, just like iron does.

If you wanted to keep faithful to the idea behind the mod, maybe you make it massively damaging to copper tools. Kind of like recovering an anvil gives you back 800 of the 900, true, but it completely consumes a 100 chisel. If it cost, say, 10x the durability of pick and hammer, that might be enough, even though it does let you skip bronze.

I don't know. Every time I get to the point where I'm ready to do try balancing existing mods, a new game release drops, and it goes on the back burner again.

Edited March 11, 2025 by Thorfinn