Steel Acquired (Iscariot's survival stuff)

[Iscariot]

I decided to add on to the title. I guess for if I ever wanna open up a post that ISNT related to my progress.

Well I've done it! 16 steel all for me >:3 it wasn't too bad. Just feed it charcoal and let it carburize. I just kinda afked while playing FFXIV so it'd carburize overtime.

Only 2 bricks broke afterwards since I started with tier 2. Now I'm just wondering what to do with it... I could make armor yeah. But at the same time, I haven't really *needed* armor if that makes sense. I've got a map to the resonance archives so when I go there, yeah I'll definitely want armor. But.. When Mining if I see a drifter I just bolt out of there.

What I'll probably do next is make a greenhouse. It's almost autumn, and while I've got plenty of grain... I think it'd be good to have. Just to keep the growing cycles going, and be able to fund my expeditions.

[Professor Dragon]

Well done.

Standard advice is "Two picks and a shovel" - which lets you get MORE steel, and also dig up ruins and do more effective base building.

16 steel is nice and all, but you are a looooooong way off steel armour.

And yes, greenhouses are lovely. Get one in the early game and you are set up all game for food.

[Never Jhonsen]

22 minutes ago, Professor Dragon said:

Standard advice is "Two picks and a shovel"

I would counter-argue on that; Standard advice is a hammer and two picks

I value a hammer over any tool, as losing all your hammers will reset you back to panning for copper in the stone age, unless you're lucky enough to have 100 units of a pourable metal to cast a new one

[Shoom]

I made 4 pickaxes, 2 hammers, 1 axe and 1 chisel using 8 of my first 16 ingots. I'm saving the other 8 for later. 

Edited September 15, 2025 by Shoom

[Krougal]

You all lack disciprine!

Your first 3 loads of steel should go for pounder caps, a full set of chain mail, falx (silver or gold ornate as you like), and some tools. Chain takes 40 ingots. 2 for caps. 1 for sword. That leaves 5, at least 2 of which should go for pickaxes. You can use the other 3 for arrows. 27 steel arrows should last you a while if you make sure to retrieve them.

If you want to upgrade that chain to plate, that will be another 32 ingots (16 plates). I don’t recommend scale or brigandine, but they are options as well.

While steel hammers and other tools are nice, mostly for the durability, I'd keep using meteoric iron for all other tools until the above are done.

Edited September 15, 2025 by Krougal

[LadyWYT]

5 hours ago, Iscariot said:

Well I've done it! 16 steel all for me >:3 it wasn't too bad. Just feed it charcoal and let it carburize. I just kinda afked while playing FFXIV so it'd carburize overtime.

Only 2 bricks broke afterwards since I started with tier 2. Now I'm just wondering what to do with it... I could make armor yeah. But at the same time, I haven't really *needed* armor if that makes sense. I've got a map to the resonance archives so when I go there, yeah I'll definitely want armor. But.. When Mining if I see a drifter I just bolt out of there.

I'll break with what others here have said and say you should build a second refractory. That way you'll double your steel output for each firing. It's also not that tough to build and maintain two refractories, although any more than that may be too much of a handful, at least for singleplayer. Having the 32 output though will make it much easier to refine your iron though, and thus make it easier to acquire steel armor as well.

As for the first batch...pickaxe, hammer, and pounder caps are an absolute must. I'd also recommend a steel falx as well, for maximum damage.

57 minutes ago, Krougal said:

If you want to upgrade that chain to plate, that will be another 32 ingots (16 plates). I don’t recommend scale or brigandine, but they are options as well.

Chain or scale is what I would recommend for a first set...which, chain is better because it can be converted into scale or plate. Chain is probably the best overall in stats for adventuring, currently, but scale is similar to chain in that regard as well. Scale will sacrifice a bit more accuracy for a bit more protection. I do prefer plate, myself, but plate is more of a home defense armor and not great for adventuring, in many cases.

Brigandine is still solid, but has the worst stats--the main reason to pick this one is for the cheaper cost, unless you just really love the look or are just needing it to complete a collection.

[Shoom]

Curious what tree you guys farm for charcoal, I'm currently using birch because I have crates full of seeds from shearing bushes.

I've heard some say pine because they grow tall, but oak seems more useful to me since you can use it for tanning and they can grow quite big as well, I'm guessing oak has longer growth time than pine? I haven't really looked into it, a 3x3 pit of coal used to last me ages but now that I got steel furnace my coal consumption suddenly increased like tenfold.

[Never Jhonsen]

3 hours ago, Shoom said:

Curious what tree you guys farm for charcoal

I have a desert full of oak and pine. No particular reason to that wood type, it's just what I had spare when I started the farm, and thus what the farm got expanded on

[LadyWYT]

4 hours ago, Shoom said:

Curious what tree you guys farm for charcoal

I typically use pine, since it's easy to get and grows quickly. Maple and birch are close seconds. I tend to avoid using oak, since I can use that for tannin.

[Echo Weaver]

Yeah, I think I have finally built a large enough oak farm to be able to keep up with my leather making. I assumed that hardwoods like maple would also grow slowly. 

Agreed -- birch and pine, at least for the default temperate start zone.

I don't actually use a ton of charcoal, though. Maybe because I have been advancing at a slower place than some folks, I've found plenty of brown and black coal while exploring or mining. I've only made charcoal for the stuff that requires charcoal, like making terra preta. 

[Professor Dragon]

5 hours ago, Shoom said:

Curious what tree you guys farm for charcoal, I'm currently using birch because I have crates full of seeds from shearing bushes.

I'm fickle and switch around. "Whichever wood you have a lot of" is the right answer.  

• Pine - my default.
  Grows fast, throws off a lot of seeds (which I plant along trade routes as future humungous way markers), my current primary building wood, "kind of easy" to harvest with grass block scaffolding, relatively quick to get wood with the growing and harvesting.
• Birch - secondary
  Much easier to harvest being closer to ground level. Plant it closer and take large groups of leaves out at once. My secondary building material. Reasonable seeds. Pretty to look at.
• Oak and maple - tertiary.
  Just because I had them around. Oak was primarily for tannin, but I now have forests beyond my needs. Either is a good "avenue" tree for trade routes. Protect against snow and rain as you walk, nice colours. Good to build with. Oak throws off a lot of wood, but is slower.
• Exotics
  Never firewood - go to my storage chests for building as I don't have farms of them yet eg walnut, kapok.

Get yourself a forest or avenue and wood becomes less of a limiting resource.

Also, forests are not rare. I'm very much a "save the planet" type of player, but honestly, you could take down that spare forest over the hills back there, and no-one would notice

Professor Dragon.

Edited September 15, 2025 by Professor Dragon

[Maelstrom]

Trees grow like that other blocky game.   Slap down seeds next to each other and create a massive tree.   Only thing to worry about is shearing leaves to insure future iterations remain possible.

Steel armor?   IIRC chain is like 30 to 36 plates while plate armor is around 72 to 76.  Multiple furnaces make this less of a grind.

[Krougal]

14 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

Trees grow like that other blocky game.   Slap down seeds next to each other and create a massive tree.   Only thing to worry about is shearing leaves to insure future iterations remain possible.

Steel armor?   IIRC chain is like 30 to 36 plates while plate armor is around 72 to 76.  Multiple furnaces make this less of a grind.

Except much more slowly.

See above post. It's 20 for chain. 36 for plate (which includes the 20 for chain).

[Maelstrom]

Been a long while since I last made those armors.   I think my numbers are inflated coz I made a set of chain AND plate for my blackguard.

[Michael Gates]

Just going to note that a steel chain body, with gambeson head and leg armor, is great for cave diving especially those little locust nests. Now if I only knew the right tool to break all the different nests...

[Iscariot]

Sorry for the late response! Been on a few other games for the time... And thank you all! I had made just made a few tools with the steel.

As I mentioned in another post, I am sitting on a bunch of iron that's already dug up. The issue is refining all of it. To which I only really have two issues now.

Lack of charcoal or coal, and lack of fireclay.

Surprisingly, shears solve my first problem. I can get about 7 pinecones from a bit of shearing on one tree, and 6 acorns from an oak tree. Better to have trees close to home (Also getting into growing some fruit trees) I can't believe I haven't used shears until now. absolute game changer.

I will definitely make more furnaces. Since quartz and bauxite are way easy to get. Olivine is eh. My first cementation furnace is entirely tier 2, so I think I could find plenty of olivine if need be. though I'll probably start with t1, and upgrade to t2.