Lightning rods should require a solder bar and soldering iron to craft them

[LadyWYT]

Was discussing this the other day with a friend and we both agreed that it was a bit weird to just stick three copper rods into the crafting grid and have them magically fuse into a lightning rod. To be fair, the crafting grid requires some suspension of disbelief, however, other grid recipes lean towards realism, like the quern and machine parts. So why not here as well? It gives another use to the soldering iron, and the player will already have leftover solder bars from making a still, so it's not a change that really drains resources. 

[Teh Pizza Lady]

Really... joining anything that's made of copper should require a fair bit of solder. Anything less feels like a compromise.

[Never Jhonsen]

If you're making any metal object in the crafting grid, it should require solder. Metal needs a way to stick together.

However, it's been a while since I've messed with copper on an anvil, but I think you can smith the lightning rod on an anvil. And with that method, you shouldn't need solder for it.

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

[...] and the player will already have leftover solder bars from making a still [...]

This gives a use for all the surplus lead I have; you can only make so many leaded windows. Making solder be needed in more metal crafting recipes would make it more useful

[Teh Pizza Lady]

17 minutes ago, Never Jhonsen said:

However, it's been a while since I've messed with copper on an anvil, but I think you can smith the lightning rod on an anvil. And with that method, you shouldn't need solder for it.

hmm I can't find a way to do that. I know you can create copper rods on the anvil and that's what you could (and should) be able to solder together.

[Never Jhonsen]

18 minutes ago, traugdor said:

hmm I can't find a way to do that

anymore. I'm an old player They change things in updates and I forget. "Even a lightning Rod" from Mischief of Mice "Smithing & Alloys! - How to Handbook Bit By Bit"

Edited July 15, 2025 by Never Jhonsen

[Lugh Crow-Slave]

My issue with this is getting a rod is something that a lot of people prioritize before building much of anything. Especially if they have already lost hours to an unlucky strike in the past.

So the materials need to be as simple as they can to aquire. 

[Professor Dragon]

2 minutes ago, Lugh Crow-Slave said:

My issue with this is getting a rod is something that a lot of people prioritize before building much of anything. Especially if they have already lost hours to an unlucky strike in the past.

So the materials need to be as simple as they can to acquire. 

Pretty much what Lagh (above) said - you build houses real early.

• I am a fan of more uses for solder.

LadyWYT is right on the money with this observation.
You make a still . . . and that's it? Does everyone have the original three extra bits of solder lying around like me?

However, I am MORE of a fan of:

• My buildings not catching fire
• Lightning not cratering the landscape (with falling blocks on) around my house

As Laugh said, people build houses well before they get to stills and solder - before copper even.

And from what I've seen of videos, those people who do use  lightning rods have them floating as points in a grid above their base. They do not have them built as sensible structures. It's not really practical to, I don't think. Too expensive, too obtrusive.

I think to address all issues, what is really needed is a redesign of lightning rods - or of fire and lightning mechanics.

• There should be an early game access to preventing a straw and wood house burn down from lightning. (Besides an dirt shack.)
• There could be more uses for solder.
• Lightning rods should be more practical.

Maybe something like lightning rods working on a large cube/cylinder down from around where they are placed, which at least means you could put them on top of a building in a sensible fashion. (Pyramid doesn't cut it.) Or on a large square on the ground around where they are placed, providing they have sky access.

I know that I simply got tired and turned off the lightning, as I had a large sprawling base with many outbuildings over a "large" area, and couldn't be bothered with fighting the mechanics. And the game shouldn't be like that. ("Fire from lightning" default setting is off, I see on the wiki.) 

TLDR, there are two issues here:

• More uses for solder
• Lightning rod/mechanics could be improved

Thanks, Professor Dragon.

 

 

[Lugh Crow-Slave]

6 minutes ago, Professor Dragon said:

 

TLDR, there are two issues here:

• More uses for solder
• Lightning rod/mechanics could be improved

Thanks, Professor Dragon.

 

 

I'm not sure the rod mechanics need to be changed and the lightning and fire definitely shouldn't. Yes, it can be punishing but only ever in ways you can prevent. 

Personally I find crafting games especially survival crafting games, that have builds influenced by mechanics to be far more interesting to play and produce far more creative and pleasing builds. 

For instance the vast majority of bases in vintage story are built around a windmill. This isn't just because most people are drawn to that ascetic but because the mechanics drive that. Both because you need that structure for progression and because you need it for defense. You are pushed to have a tall one both for mechanical power and for defense with the lightning rod. 

However it's also not overly restrictive in vintage story. Plenty of builds find other creative ways to solve these issues and maintain a more unique or (to them) pleasing look. Either by having the wind power further away connected by a tunnel of gears of by having more lower windmills scattered around the base. 

With lightning rods you can maintain protection by also just spreading them out intelligently.

 

The shape of the coverage as well as its base size could be adjusted but I think it's underlying mechanics are solid. 

[Katherine K]

On 7/14/2025 at 3:56 PM, LadyWYT said:

Was discussing this the other day with a friend and we both agreed that it was a bit weird to just stick three copper rods into the crafting grid and have them magically fuse into a lightning rod.

On 7/14/2025 at 8:38 PM, traugdor said:

Really... joining anything that's made of copper should require a fair bit of solder. Anything less feels like a compromise.

In general, yeah. But for lightning rods specifically, I don't think that works.

Solder has two crucial properties: 1) It flows when hot, getting sucked into any thin gaps in compatible metals - which is crucial for electrical circuits to avoid air gaps and in pipes to avoid leaks. 2) It melts at a relatively low temperature, so you can work with it without damaging the main metal.

And the issue is that you don't care about 1) for lightning rod. You could be dealing with millions of volts of potential difference, so any gaps you might have in your wiring are entirely irrelevant. In fact, people sometimes intentionally leave a gap of a few mm to avoid normal electrical currents flowing, which can help avoiding radio interference, while a lightning will jump that like it's not there letting the lightning rod do its job. So as long as you got the two pieces of metal close to each other, you're done. You don't need solder in between.

And 2) actually hurts you. Energy of a typical lightning strike can be in GJ ranges. Most of it, thankfully, gets deposited into the ground and air, but the lightning rod gets *hot*. In some cases, destructively so despite your best effort. But the last thing you want is something like solder holding it together. That will absolutely, no question melt. (Solder has relatively low resistance, but still high compared to copper, so that's usually where a lot of heat dissipation takes place.) And if solder was what held your lightning rod together, you now have bits of fire-starting hot copper falling down, which is the exact thing you wanted to avoid from the lightning strike. And if you had something else hold the metal together, then what's the point of the solder?

Using rods to fit together into a structure is probably as close as it gets to making an early-tech lightning rod. Presumably, you'd make some indents on the ends of the rods that let them fit together mechanically. Yeah, I'd probably want a short segment of copper pipe to hammer the rods in from both ends to really make it work, but for an in-game approximation, 3 rods in a grid kind of works.

 

All that said, aside from lightning rod, which happens to be a uniquely bad example, I do wish we'd have a lot more uses for solder. It's just the parts of the still now, isn't it? Crafting chutes and hoppers for starters, maybe? Lanterns as well? Although, some of the metals lanterns are available in aren't exactly solderable.

Hopefully, we'll be getting some sort of fluid transport in the future. If we'll have steam power, we'll certainly have piping. That'll be a fantastic place for more solder use.

[Thorfinn]

On 7/24/2025 at 2:33 AM, Professor Dragon said:

people who do use  lightning rods have them floating as points in a grid above their base.

I give at least a nod to reality. I build a very tall pole under the lightning rod out of fences so it at least has a fig leaf.

 

On 7/24/2025 at 2:33 AM, Professor Dragon said:

you could put them on top of a building in a sensible fashion. (Pyramid doesn't cut it.)

It can. It just means you have to put it on a post above the ridge of a standard gable roof. Looks more like a radio transmitter antenna, I guess. Or like someone mentioned, if you are at sea level, putting it on top of your windmill effectively covers your whole homestead.

I don't object at all to more uses for anything in the game. It should probably be something that goes well with the progression, though. Something contemporaneous with making aqua vitae. Chutes are a good idea. Lanterns, maybe? Or maybe they should be for attaching the liner to the lantern, but not for the lantern itself -- maybe a little early in the progression? Jonas sub-assemblies? And the promised steam power, obviously. Though solder is a tad weak for something you should be using rivets on...

[Professor Dragon]

13 hours ago, Katherine K said:

In general, yeah. But for lightning rods specifically, I don't think that works.

Solder has two crucial properties: 1) It flows when hot, getting sucked into any thin gaps in compatible metals - which is crucial for electrical circuits to avoid air gaps and in pipes to avoid leaks. 2) It melts at a relatively low temperature, so you can work with it without damaging the main metal.

These are very good points. In all the excitement of new Vintage Story crafting options, I forgot my electrical knowledge. This is the reason why (soft) solder is NOT used in common house wiring - in the past it melted out and caused more issues than it solved. And lightning, as you say, doesn't care. 

[Dark Thoughts]

I completely forgot that the soldering iron is even a thing. But the whole game is like this, starting with all the tools - including the soldering iron. You can't just take a tool head and a random stick and magically fuse them together either. Normally you'd have to prepare some kind of handle and have some sort of binding.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

13 hours ago, Katherine K said:

And 2) actually hurts you. Energy of a typical lightning strike can be in GJ ranges. Most of it, thankfully, gets deposited into the ground and air, but the lightning rod gets *hot*. In some cases, destructively so despite your best effort. But the last thing you want is something like solder holding it together. That will absolutely, no question melt. (Solder has relatively low resistance, but still high compared to copper, so that's usually where a lot of heat dissipation takes place.) And if solder was what held your lightning rod together, you now have bits of fire-starting hot copper falling down, which is the exact thing you wanted to avoid from the lightning strike. And if you had something else hold the metal together, then what's the point of the solder?

I mean if you want to get technical, copper vaporizes at 2595C and the temperature of a lightning bolt is about 10x that. But lightning rods don't melt during a strike. 

Let's examine why.

First the temperature of the lightning strike comes from the internal plasma of the bolt itself, reaching temperatures of over 25000 degrees Celsius. However the math works out that because the duration of the lightning strike is so short, that the temperature of the metal doesn't rise very much at all.

Typical strike duration: t = 500 μs
Typical rod resistance: R = 0.001 Ω (measured as the resistance of copper at its thinnest point)
Typical strike current: I = 50,000 A

We are able to use a formula to calculate the number of Joules the rod must be able to dissipate as heat: Q = I²Rt

In our case: Q=50,000²×0.001×500×10^-6=12,500J

Copper has a specific heat capacity of 0.385 J/g·K. This means we can begin to calculate the temperature rise of a 5kg rod as. 
ΔT=mc/Q=12,500/(5×385)≈6.5 degrees C

6.5 degrees C is not enough to melt the copper. Let's re-examine using the data from the typical Lead/Tin solder. UH OH... we have problems. The melting point of solder is around 180 C and has a lower heat capacity of around 0.21 J/g·K. Plugging this information back into the formula gives a temperature increase of around 160 C which would be enough to melt 10g of solder in the rod which would already be at a temperature of around 25 C on a typical day. However the surrounding copper can serve as a heat sink and a sufficient mass of solder would increase it's thermal capacity, but I think it's safe to say that soldering pieces of a copper lightning rod together is not a feasible way of joining. Much better to use copper/copper joints with clamps to avoid thermal issues.

In short, you're right. Solder wouldn't be useful unless it were used in excess and even then it wouldn't be as reliable.

Edited July 28, 2025 by traugdor

[LadyWYT]

A fair point on the lightning rod being a bad example of solder--I was thinking "videogame mechanics" but I'm not sure that would entirely fit consistently with the other recipes in the game that lean more towards realism(even if it can be a little goofy sometimes). As for being accessible early in the game...I don't think that itself is an issue, given that the materials needed for solder and a soldering iron are fairly easy to find.

12 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Chutes are a good idea. Lanterns, maybe? Or maybe they should be for attaching the liner to the lantern, but not for the lantern itself -- maybe a little early in the progression? Jonas sub-assemblies?

The chutes are a great idea! You generally need at least a handful, or more if you're going to delve deep into the automation aspect of the game. So that poor soldering iron could finally see some more use instead of being forgotten on the tool rack for eternity.

[zand]

Greetings,

One of my side hobbies is amateur radio and lighting is sort of a nemesis of mine. Lightning rods in reality prevent lightning by providing a path for charge to dissipate before it builds up enough to cause a strike. When lightning strikes a rod, it is due to the rod failing to do its job. When a strike happens, the plasma at the contact points is hot enough to melt steel and the current creates an EMP that can rip apart cables and fry electronics in the nearby area. The discharge path does not stop once it gets to the ground as it then spreads out, and it can come back out of the ground, causing damage and starting fires.

As for grounding systems, you do not want to use solder as not only is it slippery when it melts, but it can also crack, creating week points that have high resistance. Everything in a grounding system should be crimped or welded.