Why Do People Say Steel is Hard?

[k1ngofpentacles]

I see this a lot on reddit where people say that steel isn't worth it because it's too tedious or iron is good enough, and my question is: is this really a widely shared sentiment? I'm near the end of my first winter and am already one batch away from full chainmail and a full set of steel tools. I have the bricks to make a second cementation furnace but am not even bothering at this point because one more batch on top of what I've already made (total of 4 batches) feels like it should be enough to last for a very substantial amount of time. 

tl;dr Steel doesn't seem as hard to acquire as people make it out to be, does anyone else agree?

[idiomcritter]

Not hard as in needing brain powered solving ability.  More like hard in being on the grindy side perhaps?

need to make fireclay (a process) to then craft fireclay bricks (bloomery) and refractory bricks.  pit kiln time...

then crafting iron into door(s), anvil, pounding caps..

windmill helps, so all the bits that go into making that...

fuel accumulation be it brown, black coal and/or charcoal...

sourcing the refractory ingredients (fireclay, Bauxite, Quartz, optional Olivine, Ilmenite)

did i miss something?  anyways, it can be a bit time consuming, and fuel consuming..

and of course housing all the parts into a building that might be chiseled upon, more time

but yeah, after (my) mini iron/steel works has been built and housed in a nice building, piece of cake!

[edit]

borax... anyone see where I placed that, i don't need much 

[edit]

Edited March 14, 2025 by idiomcritter

[Cattastrafy]

I haven't done anything with steel other than start to make it in my last playthrough, but on the same game, with iron chainmail (certainly not the BEST iron armor in terms of protection) t4 enemies were tearing me to shreds. I imagine the only sustainable way to manage killing hoards of these is steel and a shield.

Can't speak for the tools, idk how good they are compared to iron.

As far as making it, I guess there's merit in the long journey to be able to make steel. Feels accomplishing in itself. If that's your thing.

My problem last game was I couldn't be bothered to look into the story and was itching to start over new and play differently. As soon as I got the ability to make steel, I no longer had a reason to play, because there was nothing else after that. The "ability to make steel" was the end of that particular journey for me. But that's how it goes with any games end rewards, once you get em you don't need em. Maybe I'm rambling....ahh well.

Edited March 14, 2025 by Cattastrafy

[Thorfinn]

9 minutes ago, Cattastrafy said:

As soon as I got the ability to make steel, I no longer had a reason to play, because there was nothing else after that.

That's it in a nutshell. What would be the point? Gather more resources to replace tools you wouldn't have used otherwise? Like Helga out it in Erik the Viking, 

Quote

But that's a circular argument! If the only reason for going on an expedition is the killing and looting and the only reason for the killing and looting is to pay for the next expedition, they cancel each other out.

 

[k1ngofpentacles]

4 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

That's it in a nutshell. What would be the point? Gather more resources to replace tools you wouldn't have used otherwise? Like Helga out it in Erik the Viking, 

 

Honestly I enjoy the progression aspect but at the same time, I feel like I view it as a gateway to being rich in resources enough to get to a point where winters are almost entirely spent chiseling and making bases to be proud of. I do honestly hope they add steel alloys soon though, but honestly I've been rushing to steel so I can get sturdy leather before exploring the archives (probably overkill but I am a loot hoarder for sure)

[Cattastrafy]

56 minutes ago, k1ngofpentacles said:

Honestly I enjoy the progression aspect but at the same time, I feel like I view it as a gateway to being rich in resources enough to get to a point where winters are almost entirely spent chiseling and making bases to be proud of. I do honestly hope they add steel alloys soon though, but honestly I've been rushing to steel so I can get sturdy leather before exploring the archives (probably overkill but I am a loot hoarder for sure)

Totally makes sense from a builder perspective to want steel tools. If you want to "legitimately" acquire the resources for said building instead of just going creative mode.

That'd be the key for steel armor to have some merit itself, we'd need content tuned for steel armor available (in due time, I'm sure!). Where we currently got ra (t2 tuned?) and new chapter stuff (no idea, heard very little about it, maybe t3?) but that might be a lot of work for such limited content other than caving. Which....has mostly building esque rewards? Seemingly contrary to the type of player that seeks high lvl armor and weapons as their "endgame". Being able to go into something like ra with steel armor and weaps is something I do like about this game, be as op or up as you want for any given content!

Id love rng dungeons with specific tuning so you can test your mettle and get tier level rewards, maybe even require tier specific enemy drops for the next tier of metal to slow down progression and force the player to live in each era longer. But I don't think the majority of players want this to be that kind of game

Edited March 14, 2025 by Cattastrafy

[LadyWYT]

3 hours ago, Cattastrafy said:

new chapter stuff (no idea, heard very little about it, maybe t3?)

Tier 3 for sure. You could probably manage it with tier 2 stuff, with enough skill, but it's risky. Though I think the difficulty of the story content really depends on individual preference and skill level, and isn't necessarily hard-locked to a particular tier of equipment.

3 hours ago, Cattastrafy said:

slow down progression and force the player to live in each era longer. But I don't think the majority of players want this to be that kind of game

What I would do instead, is try to give the player more things to do per era, rather than just opting to make pre-existing things more of a time sink or gating every tech tier behind dungeons/enemies. The late game stuff, sure, gate that behind an enemy(which we already have this for some tech). Otherwise, I think it's nice to have the option to speed-run the basic tech tiers, if you want to sink in the time and effort and have the knowledge to do so. However, if you give players more choices to make in the earlier tiers, then they'll need to think harder about how they spend their time.

5 hours ago, k1ngofpentacles said:

tl;dr Steel doesn't seem as hard to acquire as people make it out to be, does anyone else agree?

And now to actually answer the question posed in the original post...yeah, steel really isn't that hard to acquire. It might seem daunting to a new player, but once you've been through the process you figure out it's not terribly difficult, just time-consuming. My work-around for the refining time is to simply make sure I have a lot of charcoal/coal stocked prior to starting the refining process, and then just running two refractories at once during winter(what else am I gonna do when it's cold and dark). The output is then 32 ingots per firing, rather than 16.

If I had to guess, some players consider steel to be "hard", because you need to have found some very specific materials in order to get it. Bauxite and borax are chief of those, and you may need to travel a couple thousand blocks or so sometimes to acquire these materials. You'll also need to acquire a lot of fire clay, which probably means a lot of crafting due to the recent changes to clay and how the types spawn. It generally takes a lot of fuel as well, and while any coal can fuel the refractories only charcoal or coke will work for carbonizing the ingots. On top of that, it takes about a week in-game to refine the iron into steel, and some players probably don't want to babysit industry for that long.

4 hours ago, Cattastrafy said:

Can't speak for the tools, idk how good they are compared to iron.

Steel tools are a little over twice the durability of iron, and are a tad bit faster. But unless you intend to be doing a lot of building, iron tools and gear will probably suffice for just beating the story, which is probably why non-builders might find it underwhelming compared to the effort it takes to acquire it.

[Kyle Rick]

Honestly it realllllllllllllly depends on the generation of the world.

I remember traveling 30k blocks on my mount to find Bauxite that would have taken much longer without a mount.

If you have Limestone, Bauxite, and borax near you when you spawn it honestly makes it go so much faster because of that. Guess it depends on how far people are willing to travel away from their base.

[RetroTekGuy]

Nothing is technically hard in this game but you get out what you put in. It's a real effort to get to steel and learning the mechanics behind it. The "hardest" part I guess you could say is finding the required materials for it. Sometimes the can be just flat out refuse it to you.

[Thorfinn]

Quote

Why Do People Say Steel is Hard?

Well, jeepers have you ever tried scratching the stuff? Bending it? Hammering on it? You can use steel to cut copper wires thousands of times before they start to dull. The stuff is just plain hard.

[Michael Gates]

Steel *was* hard until 1.20, because it bauxite only really turned up in about one world in five. The rest of the time you'd have to cover every square within 15k of your base to even have a decent chance of finding any. The actual process to make the stuff has never been difficult, just kind of drawn-out and complicated.

Nowadays the hard bit for most people seems to be finding the borax to make an iron anvil, so you can do anything with your blister steel

[Broccoli Clock]

6 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Well, jeepers have you ever tried scratching the stuff? Bending it? Hammering on it? You can use steel to cut copper wires thousands of times before they start to dull. The stuff is just plain hard.

Just don't mention jet fuel!

[Cetasaya]

14 hours ago, Cattastrafy said:

As soon as I got the ability to make steel, I no longer had a reason to play, because there was nothing else after that. The "ability to make steel" was the end of that particular journey for me. But that's how it goes with any games end rewards, once you get em you don't need em. Maybe I'm rambling....ahh well.

For me, finally fully chiselling a gorgeous world class base/village is the true endgame.  Havent even gotten close to winning lol.

As for steel, ive never made it.  The process involves more senseless grinding for a material that isnt all THAT better than the much MUCH easier to attain iron tier.  And as for armor, bronze tier basically makes you immortal anyway as long as you're not completely suicidal or incompetent lol.  Iron tools are still excellent in both efficiency and durability.  In the time it'd take to get to steel tier from iron AND forge all the steel tools ONCE each, I could have made 10 times the same tools in iron.  Each bloomery gets me six.  And one steel tool can't even replace the durability of three iron.  Let alone ten.  Simple as that.  It's just a waste of time that's much MUCH better spent exploring, mapping, prospecting, farming, looting, building, chiselling, ect.

And im doing an isolated islander playthrough rn.  I can't leave my little three island archpelago.  Got extremely lucky with coopper, bismuth, and a TIIIIINY tip of zinc right on the NE tip of my eastern island.  No lime except two seashells.  No borax whatsoever.  So the needed materials are rare and hard to find.  And impossible for a limited run like mine.  Plus my bismuth bronze can do everything steel can.  And they look great up on the walls so I dont even mind making a batch or two ahead of time.

Edited March 15, 2025 by Cetasaya

[Drawn]

Sometimes i only use meteoric iron tools. Too busy chiseling to ever get steel.

But obviously, a speed increase with mining and digging could be very valuable in the long run.

Edited March 15, 2025 by Drawn

[wasa]

As with most things, it's hard to setup but easy to maintain. I also think some people have different expectations for a "proper" cementation furnace, some stick with T1/T2 bricks without rushing to T3, while others try to go for T3 immediately (without even realizing you need steel to make T3 bricks to begin with) and give up before even actually making any at all.

Personally I really enjoy the tech gap between iron and steel. iron mines pretty fast, last pretty long, protects very well, and can be turned from ore to the tool pretty quickly, steel just feels like "upgraded iron" with a bunch more steps rather than being the next tier of metal (yes, I know it literally is upgraded iron ), it's nice, but, it's just not convenient enough in singleplayer!

Servers on the other hand is a different story, communal mega projects, reckless playstyles, etc. can really ramp up tool usage, you can actually feasibly deplete iron veins, so equipping entire groups with steel vs iron, the difference starts to become a QOL rather than the luxury imo!

[cjc813]

First time working toward steel today.

The material processing required is absolutely ridiculous, tbh.

And this is in a seed where I have *everything* (short of olivine and black coal) very close to my base. Plenty of trees, quartz, and bauxite, chalk, etc. I even have a huge supply of borax. I didn't have to hunt for a thing, and it's *still* an insufferable grind.

From processing all the charcoal and flint, and processing the iron itself,  and mining and pulverizing the quartz and bauxite... next I have to fire the bricks just to make the blocks to make the furnace to smelt the g-dang steel. (Which means next I'm going to have to make a scythe and gather a crap ton of grass...)

Oh, and NEXT I have to also cook the lime and then mix it in a friggin' barrel to make mortar!? Saw that in the handbook and logged off for the night.

Uncompromising survival, blah blah blah. Fine. This game isn't Minecraft, and that's why we're all here. Generally, we love the process and the satisfaction our effort gets us, but this crap is the opposite of fun.

There's a line where the tedium required to do something *completely* kills the joy of the game, and @Tyron bloody well crossed it with steel making.

Who the heck thought this would be fun? Seriously.

Edited March 29, 2025 by cjc813

[ifoz]

I kinda like how much of a grind steel is. It gives you this distant goal to slowly work toward as you play. Steel isn't something you make as soon as you have all the materials available.

[Vratislav]

In the endgame, I like to build a lot, and steel tools are much more convenient. I do not bother with steel armor (except repairing looted ones), so my steel consumption is not big. The difference in durability is important for me. 

Getting resources for the furnace and borax for the anvil may take time and one can be unlucky. In my four long-game words, I was quite OK. I usually look for resources as it goes, and if still miss bauxite after RA, the Elk is just good help to do some additional exploring. Finding borax and ilmenite for last tier bricks depends a bit on how much one likes prospecting. I quite enjoy it, so it is not tedious for me just to start by some cardinal direction from the base and do the check the density every 150 blocks. In my experience, even poor readings of rare ores are usually worthwhile when you know the type of strata and the depth you need to check (wiki si very helpful in it). The pulverizer - even automated - is cheap to add to your setup when you already have helve hammer or two to process iron. Yes, this all takes time, but (except exploring for missing resources) it can be done as a part of expanding the base and overall progression.

Running the furnace itself does not bother much when running a base management as a whole (animals, fields, food...). The limiting factor may be coal, but if you sit on sedimentary plateau, brown coal should be not rare. Only if you are in granite or andesite world, consider the lack of fuel as a limiting factor.

(In fact I did not think that ingenious rock on surface means so bad spawn for brown coal. It actually happened in my actual world that is otherwise fabulous. The first run of the furnace I went on charcoal, that IS tedious. Now I have tier 3 furnace but I run it sparsely, because the neighborhood is covered by only thin sedimentary layer above ingenious rock, and I have not found rich sources of brown coal 2000 blocks around, and even around targets of my three translocators, the situation is similarly dire.)

[Vratislav]

1 minute ago, Vratislav said:

Finding borax and ilmenite for last tier bricks

Also, I have forgotten: If I don't find olivine by chance (what just happens if you explore and mine enough), I just do not bother with looking for tier 3 bricks, of course. 

[Zane Mordien]

11 hours ago, cjc813 said:

 

Oh, and NEXT I have to also cook the lime and then mix it in a friggin' barrel to make mortar!? Saw that in the handbook and logged off for the night.

@Tyron 

Who the heck thought this would be fun? Seriously.

I thought the same thing about the mortar at first but the recipe makes a lot so that's not so bad.

 

Steel isn't needed yet really so it's just optional. I only make it about 50% of the time. In thr future I'm sure it will be required but by that point it won't be as grindy as the future stuff..  

[-Glue-]

I haven't bothered with steel yet. Both in my previous world, and current world, I was satisfied at meteoric gear. Though, I do intend on making it on this world, once I finish my house, and surrounding landscape.

Anyways. I think its more of a novelty at the moment. You get steel, then what? By then, you likely did most, if not all the current story stuff, and you don't need it for any further tech progression. I think steel being grindy is totally fine. I love having long term goals to work towards. However, to makes the grind worth it, steel needs more content locked behind it, other than durability/efficiency. Whether that be for tech related progression, such as improved mechanical power. Or for story progression.
Perhaps it could be a necessity for high tier steam power, once that gets added? Or for some form of advanced automation?

Edited March 29, 2025 by -Glue-

[Broccoli Clock]

14 hours ago, -Glue- said:

Anyways. I think its more of a novelty at the moment. You get steel, then what?

Exactly. In my 100s of hours I've never gone beyond Iron. There just seems no reason.

The most telling thing is that while most materials have a "usage" section on the wiki, Steel doesn't.. https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Steel_making

 

[Thorfinn]

I make steel just because it's a very common self-imposed "victory" condition. Steel armor on an armor stand, full set of steel tools (generally never used) , meteoric iron armor on an armor stand, two helves with at least 4 rotors between them, RA, in less than a year. I always add some other goofy stuff. All temperate mushrooms or flowers. One Jonas device. A dozen storage vessels full of grain. One shelf, table or other display of each of the types of sea shells, no repeated colors.

But steel really serves no practical purpose. 'Course, neither do any of the others.  

[Dilan Rona]

Processing blister steel is a lot easier than the iron bloom on an anvil (I am aware of the helve hammer, and prefer to do that job myself). Might be a permanent building that takes a while to build, but well worth it considering the durability you get with steel compared to plain iron.

Iron bloom you can only heat one at a time, at least with blister steel I can put in 4 at a time on the forge for heating. Meaning less fuel spent to process the metal.

[Michael Gates]

On 3/29/2025 at 7:27 AM, Zane Mordien said:

I thought the same thing about the mortar at first but the recipe makes a lot so that's not so bad.

The first time I made a cementation furnace, it was before recipes in the handbook could show that they would produce multiple items. I ended up with a barrel containing three hundred and some blobs of mortar. It copes with the load, but if you take more than you needed out you can't stuff it back in!