SpookyJ Posted November 8, 2025 Report Posted November 8, 2025 (edited) Preamble This is a bit of a long one. I've come up with hopefully a convincing framework for adding a Blast Furnace to the game as well as Cast Iron as a new metal with many potential uses. This is a very comprehensive post which goes into detail on how the in game mechanics could work. I will update this post as needed to tweak things based on feedback, if you have any ideas or suggestions let me know. Blast Furnace Rationale The Blast Furnace serves as a late game upgrade to the crucible, allowing the player to make large batches of metal items, ingots, etc fairly quickly. The blast furnace also allows for the creation of Cast Iron and its associated items, which would be used for upgrading automation drive trains among other things. (more on this below). It does not outright replace bloomeries however. You must still use bloomeries to create glass, as well as to make iron tools/plates/rods/armor etc as Cast Iron is not suitable for forging. Cast Iron plates, rods, etc can only be used for recipes that call for Cast Iron. Cast Iron and regular Iron are not interchangeable with one exception, Cast Iron Ingots can be used in place of regular iron ingots in a cementation furnace for steel, so it can help speed up steel production once you've reached the steel age. Importantly, Steel is not required for Cast Iron production. Any level of Refractory bricks can be used to make the furnace, but Tier 3 is recommended. The very high heat of the furnace will damage the bricks of the furnace at a much higher rate than the cementation furnace. Tier 2 bricks will break more often, but will work well enough. Tier 1 bricks are not recommended. In game concept: New blocks & Items Some new blocks and items would need to be added in order for the blast furnace to work as a concept. They are as follows: Refractory brick opening A refractory block with an opening. Used to allow air from bellows into the furnace as well as molten metal and slag to flow out of the furnace. One for each Refractory block type. Spill Chute Used with Refractory brick openings to direct molten metal and slag out of the furnace. The molten metal Spill chutes will pour only when there is a crucible directly underneath them. No threat of waste. Using multiple crucibles for large smelts is recommended. I've used fireclay here only for visibility. They would be made from Refractory bricks. Crankshaft Made from cast iron. When attached to a bellows it allows mechanical power to automate pumping of the bellows. Hopper w/ Flap Serves as the interface for filling the furnace. Referred to as Flap hopper and flapped hopper. can't think of a better name Ore Charge block A technical block used by the game to populate the furnace. There should be one for each metal in the game. When fully melted the molten slag and metal will automagic out the spill chutes. Solidified metal If you wait too long to pour the metal in the furnace it will solidify into blocks. You will have to use a hammer and chisel to bust them up into bits and try again. Molten slag New kind of liquid that pours out of the blast furnace after each smelt. If you do not have a spillway to catch the slag it will flow everywhere. Can set fire to flammable objects and players. Solidifies over time into slag blocks. The amount of slag produced depends on how many charges are smelted. At the full 36 charges 18 slag blocks will be created (1 slag for every 2 charges). Slag blocks The solidified molten slag from the furnace Mine with a pickaxe to get slag rocks. Building the blast furnace Layer 1-4 Layer 1 5x5 Refractory brick with 3x3 of any Raw Igneous Stone. (Hearthstone) Layer 2 Increase wall height by 1 block. Up to 3 Refractory openings in the front, with spill chutes attached. The finished melt will flow from here into placed crucibles. Up to 3 Refractory openings on one side. These are the openings for the bellows to stoke the flames. More Bellows equals faster smelt times! Layer 3 Increase wall height by 1 block One Refractory opening in the back with spill chute attached. This is for the slag to spill out from. Layer 4 Increase wall height by 1 block. Layer 5-8 Layer 5 Increase wall height by 1 block, ignore corners. Layer 6 Increase wall height by 1 block. Fill in center leaving a one block opening. Layer 7 Diagonal square shape with a one block opening in the center. Put the Flap Hopper in the center. Layer 8 3x3 Horseshoe shape with opening facing the back of the furnace. Layer 9-12 Layer 9 Repeat layer 8. Layer 10 One block on the front, 2x3 horseshoe shape with the opening facing the front. Layer 11 Diagonal square shape with a one block opening in the center. Layer 12 Repeat layer 11. Filling the blast furnace In order to smelt ore in the furnace you must fill it with “Charges”. This is done by interacting with the Flap Hopper in the charging arch. A "Charge" consists of Ore nuggets, Fuel, and, if smelting Iron ore, flux. The player can smelt ANY metal in the game except for steel in the blast furnace including alloys, so long as the alloy rations are correct. Flux (Lime or Powdered Borax) and Coke are specifically required for Cast Iron smelts. Any other ore or alloy can use Black Coal, Anthracite or Charcoal and doesn't require flux. Each charge = 2 ingots of metal, or 40 ore nuggets. Each Charge requires 4 fuel Each charge when placed by the hopper is a full block. A full blast furnace can smelt 2 x 9 x 4 or 72 ingots at a time. Hopper w/ Flap This is placed in the charging arch and is what the player uses to fill the furnace. The hopper has an inventory and a flap that remains shut until the charge recipe is entered correctly by the player. The player will have to place the charge materials into the inventory in a specific ratio. Once the ratio of fuel/flux/and ore are correct, the player can press a “Release!” button in the gui. The hopper flap will open and populate the blast furnace with the appropriate amount of charge blocks automagically. The minimum number of charges that can be smelted is 4. Smaller smelts are better done on the firepit! You can put more than one charge into the furnace at a time, as long as the ratios are correct! Doesn't let the player overfill the furnace and will warn the player if they attempt to do so. Will also prevent the player from mixing multiple different kinds of charges in the furnace (ex. Tin Bronze and Iron charges) When the player is done populating the furnace with charges they can light the furnace Lighting the furnace To light the furnace, use a torch through one of the bellows openings, targeting an ore charge block. The ore charge will light and then slowly light any nearby charges. Once lit, the furnace will begin to smelt the ore. The bellows will need to be pumped during the smelt either manually, or automatically using a crankshaft and mechanical power. If done manually, the player will have to pump the bellows for at least ¼ the total smelt time. This is cumulative and doesn't need to be continuous. The bellows GUI should let the player know when they have pumped enough. Making a crankshaft or two for your first smelt is recommended! The speed of the smelt is determined by how many bellows are used to provide air to the furnace, as well as how many charges are in the furnace. More bellows will decrease the smelt time. More Charges will increase the smelt time. These numbers can be tweaked for balance! 1 bellows w/ 12 charges (⅓ full): ~8 in-game hours. 2 bellows w/ 12 charges: ~4 in-game hours. 3 bellows w/ 12 charges: ~2 in-game hours. A fully automated blast furnace will smelt rather quickly! Once the furnace is finished smelting, molten slag will spill out of the rear chute and into your spillway and molten metal will spill out of the spill chutes into your placed crucibles. Fireclay Crucibles are recommended as molten iron is too hot for regular crucibles and will break them! You can then grab your crucibles with tongs as normal and begin pouring them into molds. Cast Iron Cast Iron is used for a variety of different applications in real life, from furniture to cookware to machine parts. For Vintage Story I feel the same breadth should be represented! You would be able to upgrade that old ceramic cooking pot with something a bit larger, as well and create mechanical components for use in mechanical power trains, and hopefully much more! As previously mentioned Cast Iron requires Coke as the smelting fuel as well as a form of flux (lime or powdered borax) for each Charge. For One Iron Charge: This ratio can be tweaked for balance! 2x lime or 2x P. Borax 40 iron ore (2 ingots worth) 4 Coke When smelting cast iron, the crucible you use to catch the molten iron must be a fireclay crucible. Regular crucibles won't cut it! They will break and you will lose your metal. Also keep in mind, If the molten iron solidifies in the crucible there is no way to melt it again! You will have to bust out the hammer and chisel and break your crucible to get the iron out. Sand Casting Unlike other metals Cast iron cannot use standard ceramic molds. Instead the player will need to create sand casting molds. These molds have an associated durability. With the sandstone and olivine sand having around 15 durability, or 15 casts before the mold breaks, whereas the fireclay derived Chamotte molds have double that at 30 casts. These numbers may seem fairly low, but most molds will get used only a few times and the player will likely make many molds for bulk items anyway, so this seems about right. In order to imprint the mold with the desired shape, the player must use a “Pattern Item”. These are items that will form the sand casting mold. Some Pattern items are made by the player by smithing specifically for use as mold patterns, but most are regular items you can make, find, or purchase. Don't leave your sand molds out in the rain or they will break, even without any molten metal in them! Minimum number of units that can be smelted by the furnace is 800, prepare your molds accordingly. Mold making process Cast Iron molds require sand casting and only certain "base sands" will work. Sandstone sand (high in silica content) Peridotite sand (in place of “olivine sand”) “Chamotte sand” - Calcine fireclay in a firepit Once you have your base sand you must mix it with a binder, water and clay, in a barrel. This will create casting sand (or chamotte casting sand) To make a mold you need A mold form. (crafted from boards and nails and strips.) Casting Sand A mold “Pattern Item” Now you can make your mold. Place the mold form on a solid surface. Right click and add casting sand into the mold. 4 casting sand is required for one mold Place in the appropriate “pattern item” to create the mold you want. Wait a short while for the mold to set Once the mold sets you can extract the pattern item with right click. Your sand casting mold is now ready for use! In real life it takes 2 halves to make a mold, but for simplicity and player convenience only one will be necessary. Pattern Items: These are Items used to form sand casting molds. There is no associated durability loss; you can use pattern items as many times as you want to make as many molds as you want. Smithed patterns can be placed on the ground for convenience. [Pattern] -> [Mold the pattern makes] Smithed on an anvil using any suitable metal Cast Iron Pot Base Pattern -> Cast Iron Cooking Pot Base mold Cast Iron Pot Lid Pattern -> Cast Iron Cooking Pot Lid mold Cast Iron Pan Pattern -> Cast Iron Pan mold Cast Iron Stove Door Pattern -> Cast Iron Stove Door mold Cast Iron Stove Legs Pattern -> Cast Iron Stove Legs mold Cast Iron Stove Body Pattern -> Cast Iron Stove Body mold Crankshaft Pattern -> Crankshaft mold Uses items as a pattern Chandelier -> Cast Iron chandelier mold Any Planter -> Cast Iron Planter mold Any Pot -> Cast Iron Pot mold Cast Iron Chair -> Cast Iron Chair mold Cast Iron Table -> Cast Iron Table mold Brazier -> Cast Iron Brazier mold Rusty gear -> Small Cast Iron Gear mold Large Rusty Gear -> Large Cast Iron Gear mold Any Metal Plate -> Cast Iron Plate mold Any Metal Rod x2 -> Cast Iron Rod mold Wooden axle x2 -> Cast Iron axle mold Flywheel -> Cast Iron Flywheel mold Aged or Brass Torch Holder -> Cast Iron Torch Holder mold Cauldron -> Cast Iron Cauldron Iron Fence/Ornate Iron Fence -> Iron Fence/Ornate Iron Fence mold Iron Fence Top/Ornate Iron Fence Top -> Iron Fence Top/Ornate Iron Fence Top mold Candle Holder -> Candle Holder mold Candelabra -> Candelabra mold Cast Iron Post x2 -> Cast Iron Post mold Any Metal Ingot x2 -> Cast Iron Ingot mold Cast Iron Items These are various ideas I've come up with for items that could be made using Cast Iron as a material. If you have any other suggestions feel free to let me know! Cookware Cast Iron Cooking Pot Made from multiple casted parts which are crafted together Can cook 24 meal portions at once Cannot cook non meal recipes Cast Iron pot base (300 units) Cast Iron Pot lid (100 units) Too large for an Elk to carry! Cast Iron Pan (200 units) Can cook meat more quickly than just on a firepit, requiring less fuel and extracting more satiety (320 sat from “well cooked redmeat” instead of 280 for example) Can be placed over a firepit or on a Cast Iron stove Can be placed on your elk in the cooking pot slot Could also be used to fry foods Cast Iron Stove Made from multiple casted parts which are crafted together Cast Iron Stove Door (100 units) Cast Iron Stove Body (500 units) Cast Iron Stove Legs (200 units) More efficient than the clay oven for baking. keeps heat longer and can hold more firewood. Can also be used to cook with pots or pans on top! Cast Iron furniture Iron fence (and iron fence top) (200 units for 8 ) The vanilla iron fence Iron fence gate Crafted with iron fence sections and iron nails and strips Ornate Iron fence (and top) (200 units for 8 ) An iron fence with a more ornate design Purchased from trader or found in ruins Cast Iron Chair (200 units) Purchased from trader or found in ruins Cast Iron Table (200 units) Purchased from trader or found in ruins Cast Iron Lantern An ornate lantern crafted with Cast Iron plate and glass Cast Iron Post (200 units for 2) Purchased from trader or found in ruins Great for placing your lanterns onto! Cast Iron Planter (200 units) Cast Iron Pot (100 units) Candle Holder (100 units) Purchased from trader or found in ruins Holds one candle Can be placed on floor or walls Light level 11 Candelabra (300 units) Purchased from trader or found in ruins Holds 3 candles. Can be placed on floor or walls Light level 16 Cast Iron chandelier (800 units) Holds 8 candles Light level 24 Cast Iron Brazier (400 units) Light level 16 Permanent light source Must be filled with 4 firewood and lit manually Cast Iron Torch Holder (200 units) holds torches Cast Iron Cauldron (400 units) Good for making large batches of non meal recipes. 24 portions of non meal recipes Can’t cook meal recipes. Cast Iron Mechanical components Given the recent rumors about a limit on torque or speed for wooden drive trains, the need for an upgrade that can handle high speed high stress mechanical power sources seems like a no brainer! Small Cast Iron Gear (100 units) Large Cast Iron Gear (600 units) Cast Iron Axle (200 units for 2) Cast Iron Flywheel (800 units) Could be retrieved from story location 1 or found in ruins Cast Iron Crankshaft. (200 units) Used for crafting mechanisms and automating bellows and maybe other mechanical stuff! Gearbox which can shift rotation speed up or down via lever Requires Cast Iron components to craft 4 way gear junctions both vertical and horizontal Requires Cast Iron components to craft Metal Clutch, Brake, and Transmission Requires Cast Iron components to craft MISC Cast Iron Stuff Cast Iron Ingot (200 units for 2) Can’t be made into tools, etc, but can be used in a cementation furnace for steelmaking. Cast Iron Plate (200 units) used for crafting lanterns and mechanical components Cast Iron Rod (200 units for 2) used for crafting mechanical components Edited November 9, 2025 by SpookyJ Clarifying some language 7 1
LadyWYT Posted November 8, 2025 Report Posted November 8, 2025 1 hour ago, SpookyJ said: if you have any ideas or suggestions let me know. Well first of all, good job on laying everything out. Seems like a solid idea that would fit into the game nicely. However, the main flaw I see, is that adding something like what you've laid out, would pretty much require a complete overhaul of the current metalworking system, in addition to this idea itself needing a rework in order to accommodate steel production. As it stands, it's a huge jump from basic iron bloomeries, but unless it can handle steel production in some fashion as well there's really no point in sinking that many resources into such a massive structure. If the player can building refractory brick, they can refine steel, which is much better than iron, and it's a lot cheaper(in time and resources) to mass produce iron itself via bloomery. 4
Vexxvididu Posted November 9, 2025 Report Posted November 9, 2025 Agreed with LadyWYT. I like the idea. It's well thought out and very well laid out. But I do feel a bit like this would be hard to shoehorn into the game as is. It might be an awkward fit between current iron bloomeries and steel making. I do especially like some of your suggestions for new iron products though. I think a lot of those could be added even if not specifically out of a huge cast iron factory.
SpookyJ Posted November 9, 2025 Author Report Posted November 9, 2025 @Vexxvididu Its meant to be more of a companion to the cementation furnace rather than a replacement or upgrade. You dont have to fiddle with multiple bloomeries, you can cast 72 cast iron ingots in one go in far less time. Those ingots can go directly into the cementation furnace to be turned into steel. No need for helve hammer pounding of iron blooms. It would save a lot more time than you might think. The closest thing to it would be the beehive kiln, which serves as a massive upgrade for firing pottery. Think of this as a beehive kiln for smelting. High upfront cost but absolutely worth it. Also, I should have specified "in game hours" because 2 hours in game is like 4 minutes. 24 ingots in only ~4 minutes with a fully automated blast furnace would be a huge deal. 1
LadyWYT Posted November 9, 2025 Report Posted November 9, 2025 5 minutes ago, SpookyJ said: You dont have to fiddle with multiple bloomeries, you can cast 72 cast iron ingots in one go in far less time. Those ingots can go directly into the cementation furnace to be turned into steel. No need for helve hammer pounding of iron blooms. It would save a lot more time than you might think. The closest thing to it would be the beehive kiln, which serves as a massive upgrade for firing pottery. Think of this as a beehive kiln for smelting. High upfront cost but absolutely worth it. I mean, on paper it sounds good, but... 5 minutes ago, SpookyJ said: Its meant to be more of a companion to the cementation furnace rather than a replacement or upgrade. The current cementation furnace is stupidly simple in comparison, and a fraction of the cost. By the looks of it, you could build the blast furnace pictured here, or build two cementation furnaces for the same cost. You also have to factor in repair cost, especially with lower tiers of refractory bricks, as well as the fact that you can cheese helve hammers a bit with some ridiculous windmill setups. All in all, it still sounds good, especially for a cooperative multiplayer setup, however, the cost is disproportionate to the other pieces of the metalworking tech tree. Mass-refining and producing iron products is a start, but there needs to be a similar process available for steel as well, or else there's a big complicated step sandwiched between two simple ones. I think a better place for this level of tech, is to have it available as a late game metalworking option, after the player has already achieved steel via cementation furnace. That way, it has the high cost expected of such tech, while the incredible utility is a natural next step of pursuit after the simpler methods have served their purpose.
VividVoid Posted November 9, 2025 Report Posted November 9, 2025 I really like this suggestion. I think I'd personally be incredibly pleased if such a process was to completely replace iron-making. As it stands, you only need a very small amount of bronze before you can simply run off to find (and use) iron. I'd absolutely love to see the bronze age dragged out some.
SpookyJ Posted November 10, 2025 Author Report Posted November 10, 2025 I doubt they would ever want to replace bloomeries entirely, but it would sort of replace them in some ways, at least for making steel. 1
Teh Pizza Lady Posted November 10, 2025 Report Posted November 10, 2025 (edited) For steel: Add already-processed ingots or nuggets/bits with additional charcoal (steel is higher carbon content than cast iron). Three bellows would be required for the extra oxygen needed to burn off the impurities (most steel-making processes involve direct air injection with a lance). The process of turning iron into steel wouldn't require much more time than turning iron ore into the metal itself, but it would still speed things up due to the mass produced. EDIT: I was wrong. Cast iron's carbon content is almost double that of steel. Still some sort of fuel would be needed to heat the furnace and iron. The 3 bellows would be reminiscent of the finery forges of medieval times. The cast iron could probably be processed 64 ingots at a time using this method since it stacks that high in ground storage and you're probably producing that many with a blast furnace anyway. Edited November 10, 2025 by Teh Pizza Lady
Facethief Posted November 10, 2025 Report Posted November 10, 2025 8 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said: steel is higher carbon content than cast iron *Extremely loud incorrect buzzer* 1
Teh Pizza Lady Posted November 10, 2025 Report Posted November 10, 2025 2 hours ago, Facethief said: *Extremely loud incorrect buzzer* Sorry... I was WRONG on the internet. I was thinking of wrought iron. Cast iron has almost double the amount of carbon than steel. Still you would need something to fuel the furnace for making steel and putting the cast iron into the cementation furnace with a bunch of charcoal wouldn't make as much sense now. I have to rethink this. 2
Vexxvididu Posted November 10, 2025 Report Posted November 10, 2025 1 minute ago, Teh Pizza Lady said: Sorry... I was WRONG on the internet. I was thinking of wrought iron. Cast iron has almost double the amount of carbon than steel. Still you would need something to fuel the furnace for making steel and putting the cast iron into the cementation furnace with a bunch of charcoal wouldn't make as much sense now. I have to rethink this. You replied before I could type my correction, but yes! Newly smelted iron usually has too much carbon to make a good steel. You actually have to REMOVE carbon as part of the steel making process. ...something most games don't show, haha. Also, since I'm an engineer and a metallurgy geek, I want to lament that the way most games reinforce the impression that pure iron was used for ages before steel was invented. Really iron in the middle ages/ancient times was kind of always steel. They just gradually got better at controlling the carbon content and heat treatment, etc. It's a lot more complex than steel being suddenly invented.
Teh Pizza Lady Posted November 10, 2025 Report Posted November 10, 2025 19 minutes ago, Vexxvididu said: You replied before I could type my correction, but yes! Newly smelted iron usually has too much carbon to make a good steel. You actually have to REMOVE carbon as part of the steel making process. ...something most games don't show, haha. yeah. I blame OP for suggesting the cast iron ingots go into the cementation furnace for steel-making when the reality is that is adding even more carbon to the alread-high-carbon alloy. 1
LadyWYT Posted November 10, 2025 Report Posted November 10, 2025 1 hour ago, Vexxvididu said: Also, since I'm an engineer and a metallurgy geek, I want to lament that the way most games reinforce the impression that pure iron was used for ages before steel was invented. Really iron in the middle ages/ancient times was kind of always steel. They just gradually got better at controlling the carbon content and heat treatment, etc. It's a lot more complex than steel being suddenly invented. And then there's Skyrim, that doesn't utilize carbon at all when making steel... Sorry, couldn't resist 2 1
Facethief Posted November 10, 2025 Report Posted November 10, 2025 20 minutes ago, LadyWYT said: And then there's Skyrim, that doesn't utilize carbon at all when making steel... Sorry, couldn't resist That must’ve been a fun discussion “Yeah, uh steel’s made of uh, Iron, right?” “Yeah and that other stuff. I think it starts with a c?” “Oh yeah, corundum, that orange stuff. Right.” “Dude what?” 4
SpookyJ Posted November 10, 2025 Author Report Posted November 10, 2025 3 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said: yeah. I blame OP for suggesting the cast iron ingots go into the cementation furnace for steel-making when the reality is that is adding even more carbon to the alread-high-carbon alloy. Im aware its not at all accurate to real life. In my mind the gameplay experience is more important than absolute true to life accuracy. Technically the iron coming out of the blast furnace wouldnt really even be cast iron but pig iron or something like that. I dont think it really matters as much. More important is the ability to mass produce iron ingots for steel making as well as make new items etc. Simplifing and handwaving the process is both necessary and inevitable.
MKMoose Posted November 11, 2025 Report Posted November 11, 2025 (edited) This is a delightfully detailed suggestion, and I'll gladly reply in turn. I'd argue that the best use for cast iron is to provide a greater breadth of late-game improvements, especially with new cookware and furniture, much as suggested. Currently, the majority of important upgrades are unlocked in the Copper Age and a few things are in the Bronze Age, with subsequent progression having limited impact on building, homesteading and other activities unrelated to combat. While this is desirable to a large extent, as it doesn't lock important features behind lengthy progression that may discourage more casual players, it also leads to iron and steel being potentially disappointing, as they mainly provide stat increases which don't matter all that much outside of combat. On 11/8/2025 at 11:30 PM, SpookyJ said: Importantly, Steel is not required for Cast Iron production. On 11/9/2025 at 1:54 AM, LadyWYT said: I think a better place for this level of tech, is to have it available as a late game metalworking option, after the player has already achieved steel via cementation furnace. That way, it has the high cost expected of such tech, while the incredible utility is a natural next step of pursuit after the simpler methods have served their purpose. Cast iron could serve as a new branch of progression after the initial processing of iron, giving the player an additional direction to progress parallel to steel, with a bunch of rewards that increase the efficiency of regular household or manufacturing tasks. Keep in mind that the benefits shouldn't be too drastic (for example, the 24-portion cooking pot might be a bit overkill, unless it has some drawbacks as well) as to avoid making players feel like they have to get cast iron as fast as possible. It's generally better to give the player meaningful choices for what they wish to prioritize and progress towards, and we want to incentivize and reward players for putting in the effort, not make them slog through until they reach the game proper. Ideally, I think it would be best to have endgame alloys be more specialized. Steel could be favored for high-cost high-quality sharp tools, weapons and armor. Cast iron, however, is brittle and so it's generally not useful for anything that needs a sharp edge, carries heavy loads or has to sustain strong impacts. It is more suitable for simpler agricultural tools, household items and furniture, simply by the virtue of requiring less effort to smelt while being almost as good as steel for those basic applications. This specialization between steel and cast iron may also align neatly with the historical introduction of large-scale cast iron production, which provided broad improvements to the quality of life throughout Europe but had little impact in cases where highest-quality metal was necessary. The main benefit of it was that cast iron products could be produced at much lower cost and much more consistently, benefitting both regular households with easier access to tools, cookware and safe stoves, and trades that needed a consistent supply of uniform metal parts. A simliar approach of specializing different items would also work well for other mid-game and late-game upgrades, for example a firewood-fueled brick fireplace might enable quickly cooking large batches of food with a larger pot, a cast iron stove could allow more fuel-efficient cooking in a regular pot, and a brazier of some sort would only allow cookng certain items (which can be placed on a rack) using coal, but faster than with the current one-at-a-time firepit mechanics. Another example would be a candle holder - worse than lanterns in terms of light radius, but easy to cast in large quantities (I'd argue casting should return two or even four of them per 100 units), without requiring relatively expensive metal plates and additional quartz for each light source. On 11/8/2025 at 11:30 PM, SpookyJ said: It does not outright replace bloomeries however. You must still use bloomeries to create glass, as well as to make iron tools/plates/rods/armor etc as Cast Iron is not suitable for forging. Cast Iron plates, rods, etc can only be used for recipes that call for Cast Iron. Cast Iron and regular Iron are not interchangeable with one exception, Cast Iron Ingots can be used in place of regular iron ingots in a cementation furnace for steel, so it can help speed up steel production once you've reached the steel age. On 11/10/2025 at 5:01 AM, Teh Pizza Lady said: Cast iron's carbon content is almost double that of steel. Still some sort of fuel would be needed to heat the furnace and iron. The 3 bellows would be reminiscent of the finery forges of medieval times. The cast iron could probably be processed 64 ingots at a time using this method since it stacks that high in ground storage and you're probably producing that many with a blast furnace anyway. Realistically, pig iron obtained from a blast furnace can be processed into wrought iron in finery forges, which can then be used for steel as it has very low carbon content. While I'm no expert on the topic of metallurgy, I think I can say that it wouldn't be difficult to keep it both historically accurate and well-integrated into the game's progression. The biggest challenge would be communicating all the distinct iron products to a new player. I would also say that the blast furnace should not allow to skip iron refining entirely - instead, iron blooms should be replaced by the pig iron to wrought iron processing, which could be easier but still significant. That's in large part because reducing the need for a helve hammer (which is great for plates, but especially needed for iron blooms) would also greatly reduce the need for automation in general and also for the new high-speed machinery. On 11/8/2025 at 11:30 PM, SpookyJ said: I will update this post as needed to tweak things based on feedback, if you have any ideas or suggestions let me know. On 11/9/2025 at 1:54 AM, LadyWYT said: The current cementation furnace is stupidly simple in comparison, and a fraction of the cost. By the looks of it, you could build the blast furnace pictured here, or build two cementation furnaces for the same cost. You also have to factor in repair cost, especially with lower tiers of refractory bricks, as well as the fact that you can cheese helve hammers a bit with some ridiculous windmill setups. The sheer size and complexity of this blast furnace concept is arguably unsuitable for the current progression - I think it should be reduced to a smaller size and simplified, to make it more achievable before steel. Historically, early European blast furnaces apparently had about 8 m of height and early Chinese ones were even smaller than that (sometimes as little as around 2 m of height), much less than the proposed 12 m. I'd have to double-check how exactly that is supposed to be measured, but regardless I think it would be better for the blast furnace to be somewhat smaller. Additionally, the average player really doesn't need 72 ingots worth of iron until they start getting into industrial production, and building such a massive structure just to fire it at a fraction of the capacity seems very unbalanced and unapproachable, especially for a newer player. Restricting the blast furnace to only be fueled with coke also seems completely unnecessary, even if it gets the player to engage with more game systems. It could be in some way faster or more efficient, but realistically charcoal is absolutely sufficient. Both for gameplay and realism reasons, there isn't much reason to use coke aside from supplementing charcoal shortages or utilizing types of coal which otherwise aren't suitable for smelting. It may actually make sense to create two different blast furnaces: 1. Smaller and simpler one, easily achievable shortly after or even before iron forging. At most about 3x6x3 in size but perhaps as small as 2x3x2, not counting spill chutes. It would be used for more easily casting smaller batches of simple cast iron cookware and farming tools, serving to more naturally introduce the player to cast iron mechanics in a way that integrates with the current progression much more smoothly. Also, it would be easier to implement for the devs more gradually while gauging gameplay balance and community sentiment, instead of beelining for mass production. 2. A huge blast furnace more similar to the OP's concept for creating large quantities of pig iron that can then be turned into a larger variety of more complex products (including machinery, fences and other construction elements) as well as into steel. On 11/8/2025 at 11:30 PM, SpookyJ said: Cast Iron Items These are various ideas I've come up with for items that could be made using Cast Iron as a material. If you have any other suggestions feel free to let me know! There are things that I would argue should not be added to the game this late into the progression on the account of being disruptive, i.e. forcing the player to redo or relearn a lot and sometimes practically build a new home to accomodate the quantity and size of some suggested features. This primarily includes large multi-block furniture, albeit the OP's suggestions seem reasonable in this regard. Other items could also pose issues, like mechanical power parts or cookware, which may replace the earlier ones and leave the player with a bunch of stuff that can only be thrown out. I worry that cast iron would make a lot of items, including the increased variety of clay colors unlocked with the beehive kiln (used for both cooking pots and for realistic-looking fireplaces) kind of obsolete in favor of the generic black items from cast iron. We don't want too many things to default to cast iron in the late game due to alternatives being worse, and historically even something like ceramic cookware still had a lot of uses after the widespread introduction of cast iron because they were cleaner, non-reactive, safer and more resistant to high temperatures. Overall, though, I do like the suggestions, and some of them have also been quite frequently requested by the community (especially a better alternative to the firepit and more light sources, from what I've seen). To add to the list of items that could be introduced with cast iron: - braziers of different sizes may be used to cook food, - large cauldrons, if we go for historical accuracy, would have to serve as a replacement or alternative to barrels for some parts of the leathermaking, dyemaking, brewing and similar processes (cast iron was extremely important for large-scale industrial processes like those), - there's a lot of fun that could be had with decorative building elements, especially complex wrought iron fences of different heights, including a variety of gates in 1x1, 1x2, 2x2, 2x3 and perhaps other sizes, - I would love to have metal buckets, if only just to allow them to be stacked in ground storage (5 on one tile, possibly only if empty), - metal gears with different ratios could be useful for more precise speed and torque tuning. On 11/8/2025 at 11:30 PM, SpookyJ said: Sand Casting Unlike other metals Cast iron cannot use standard ceramic molds. Instead the player will need to create sand casting molds. These molds have an associated durability. With the sandstone and olivine sand having around 15 durability, or 15 casts before the mold breaks, whereas the fireclay derived Chamotte molds have double that at 30 casts. These numbers may seem fairly low, but most molds will get used only a few times and the player will likely make many molds for bulk items anyway, so this seems about right. In order to imprint the mold with the desired shape, the player must use a “Pattern Item”. These are items that will form the sand casting mold. Some Pattern items are made by the player by smithing specifically for use as mold patterns, but most are regular items you can make, find, or purchase. I do like the sand molds, as they get the player to keep some of their old items instead of just throwing all of them out, but they contribute to the same complexity concerns as mentioned before - it may be undesirable to lock large improvements behind such a late-game and difficult to set up manufacturing process. I also think that adding durability to them might not be a great idea. Most of the time some of the mold material has to be removed to get the product out of it, and also the mold cracks very easily, and so it's only suitable for a single casting. If we were to go for realism, then both ceramic and sand molds would have to be single-use, or maybe limited to at most 2 or 3 uses in certain cases. If ceramic molds are already indestructible, then I see no reason to add durability mechanic to sand molds, unless we want to specifically make them single-use. On 11/8/2025 at 11:30 PM, SpookyJ said: Cast Iron Mechanical components Given the recent rumors about a limit on torque or speed for wooden drive trains, the need for an upgrade that can handle high speed high stress mechanical power sources seems like a no brainer! Cast iron machinery has the issue of being a replacement for everything, with most large industries starting to use them around the 17th and 18th century (which is notably later than the current tech level of the game, by the way). Small and precise gear systems, high-speed power transmission, machine frames and structural elements, milling, textile machiney, printing, metalworking. Everything got smaller, faster, stronger, and the old wooden machinery became obsolete. It would arguably even require the addition of new variants of helve hammers, pulverizers and a whole lot of other machinery, not just axles and gears, and may invite brand new features to automate like looms, sawmills and so much else. Starting with one thing may require fifty other new features to match the level of technology with an acceptable level of historical accuracy. That said, I especially like the bellows and the more self-enclosed metal parts that may be neatly integrated into the current system, like the flywheel or the gearbox (probably should have just two gears for simplicity). A good middle-ground, though, may lie in wood-metal hybrids - very similar to wooden machinery, but reinforced with metal, or with some high-load parts replaced entirely - which could be used to upgrade the current machinery in place for better speed and torque tolerance. Edited November 11, 2025 by MKMoose 2
SpookyJ Posted November 11, 2025 Author Report Posted November 11, 2025 @MKMoose A lot of good points here. I'll try my best to respond Quote Cast iron could serve as a new branch of progression after the initial processing of iron, giving the player an additional direction to progress parallel to steel, with a bunch of rewards that increase the efficiency of regular household or manufacturing tasks This is the exact thoughts I had when I put together this thread. Cast Iron would serve as another big step in progression just like getting your first saw opens up so many new recipes and possibilities, I want Cast Iron to open up a whole range of new automation. Quote may invite brand new features to automate like looms, sawmills and so much else Exactly. Cast Iron would serve as the gate keeper for automation of anything that needs complex metal components or a crankshaft. The bellows obviously, but also automatic spinning wheels, Looms, a Sawmill, a Lathe for woodworking, an automatic sieve for mass paper manufacturing, a printing press for copying books, a mixer for aiding in cooking and doughmaking, pumps for moving around liquid, all kinds of new mechanics would be possible. Cast Iron should open up a lot of new automation options for the player and be a big step in progression overall. Quote Steel could be favored for high-cost high-quality sharp tools, weapons and armor. Cast iron, however, is brittle and so it's generally not useful for anything that needs a sharp edge, carries heavy loads or has to sustain strong impacts. It is more suitable for simpler agricultural tools, household items and furniture. Exactly. The goal here isn't to replace Iron or steel but to introduce a new metal into the game that can maybe diversify metalworking a bit. making individual axles and gears on the anvil by smithing would become tedious very quickly. Quote I would also say that the blast furnace should not allow to skip iron refining entirely reducing the need for a helve hammer It doesn't. Under this system you would still need to use bloomeries to create iron tools, armor, weapons, as well as plates and rods. Cast Iron would not replace regular Iron for those purposes and any crafting recipe requires iron nails/rods/plates etc could not use cast iron as a replacement. Cast Iron ingots would really only be useful for speeding up steel production, and steel production still requires the helve hammer for blister steel -> Steel so it wouldn't be reducing the need for helve hammers at all. You would be reducing the number of times you need to use the helve hammer sure, but not the overall need for one, because you definitely still need it, if that makes sense. On top of that, though this isn't within the scope of this thread, the helve hammer really should be able to automate the breaking of ores into nuggets. Don't understand why that isn't already a thing. Drives me nuts. 1 hour ago, MKMoose said: pig iron This has been brought up before and my general thought is that it's not really necessary. Yes it's inaccurate, but it's honestly fine to lump pig iron and cast iron together for player convenience and simplicity. 1 hour ago, MKMoose said: I think it should be reduced to a smaller size and simplified Additionally, the average player really doesn't need 72 ingots worth of iron until they start getting into industrial production, and building such a massive structure just to fire it at a fraction of the capacity seems very unbalanced and unapproachable, especially for a newer player. This is a fair point, but the same could be said of the beehive kiln, albeit to a lesser extent. It's not so good for small batches, but firing tons of shingles or bricks? it's absolutely worth it. Bulk smelting iron for decorative items would absolutely be something players would want to do. Need a lot of iron fences for your base? want a fancy dining room with candelabras and chandeliers? you will absolutely want to be able to do large batches. That's not even mentioning the cast iron mechanisms which would also benefit form mass production. That being said it would still be useful even if you aren't bulk smelting 72 ingots at a time just due to the speed of the smelts alone. in fact, smaller batches of 12 to 24 would be significantly faster than using a crucible, and by a large margin too. I don't see players ever regretting spending the time and effort to set one up. Also, I am definitely predicting the future a bit here, but I can see steel becoming much more important in the future than it is now. One of the biggest problems with steel is that it doesn't really have much use outside of tools and armor. That will likely change however. At some point steel could end up being as big of a progression step as copper, who knows, but this is preparing for that, enabling large volume steel production at an accelerated pace that will likely be necessary for future content like train tracks and what have you. As for two different blast furnaces, I'm a bit on the fence about that. on one hand it could be nice, but on the other hand the progression jump would be less impactful since you aren't expending as much effort as you would setting up the big one. This is one of the core philosophies of VS game design in my opinion. They make you work for things but that work gives you a feeling of satisfaction. I'm not entirely against a smaller design, but this is something we need to consider nonetheless. If you have an idea for a smaller design I encourage you to post a concept image like the ones I have made to add to the discussion. 1 hour ago, MKMoose said: This primarily includes large multi-block furniture I'm not sure if this is in reference to anything in particular or if I'm misunderstanding something, but all of the cast iron furniture described is assumed to be 1x1x1. 1 hour ago, MKMoose said: I worry that cast iron would make a lot of items, including the increased variety of clay colors unlocked with the beehive kiln (used for both cooking pots and for realistic-looking fireplaces) kind of obsolete in favor of the generic black items from cast iron. We don't want too many things to default to cast iron in the late game This is absolutely a valid concern going forward. I don't see cast iron decorative items replacing anything however. they are just another option ultimately. If you want a red flower pot for your build you are gonna use the red flower pot and not the cast iron one. Quote for example, the 24-portion cooking pot might be a bit overkill I've used metal cooking pot mod before and it's honestly quite fine. In terms of cooking you really don't want do smaller batches in the metal pot, it's very useful for large batches of food like jam making or bulk meal making but ceramic pots are definitely more convenient for smaller batches. If you are looking for potential downsides that could be the angle. I can easily see Cast Iron pots being less efficient for smaller batches than a ceramic pot but more efficient for bulk cooking. Also there is the downside of not being able to cook non-meal items with it. I think there can be suitable overlap where players will use both. Quote large cauldrons, if we go for historical accuracy, would have to serve as a replacement or alternative to barrels for some parts of the leathermaking, dyemaking, brewing and similar processes (cast iron was extremely important for large-scale industrial processes like those), this is an interesting idea. currently I have the cauldron as being the non-meal cooking counterpart to the cast iron pot but maybe it could work with accelerating dye making and other things. 1 hour ago, MKMoose said: I also think that adding durability to them might not be a great idea. Most of the time some of the mold material has to be removed to get the product out of it, and also the mold cracks very easily, and so it's only suitable for a single casting. If we were to go for realism, then both ceramic and sand molds would have to be single-use, or maybe limited to at most 2 or 3 uses in certain cases. If ceramic molds are already indestructible, then I see no reason to add durability mechanic to sand molds, unless we want to specifically make them single-use. That's fair. At that point I would leave it up to the developers as to what direction they want to take. 1 hour ago, MKMoose said: A good middle-ground, though, may lie in wood-metal hybrids - very similar to wooden machinery, but reinforced with metal, or with some high-load parts replaced entirely - which could be used to upgrade the current machinery in place for better speed and torque tolerance. I was thinking about basically the same thing but it fell outside the scope of this suggestion so I omitted it. Basically for midgame mechanical power progression you could create metal reinforced axles etc. This would allow you to simply upgrade your wooden mechanical components. It's only later when you get access to really high torque and high speed power sources like steam power that you would need replace most things with cast iron mechanical components. That being said, there is nothing stopping player from repurposing those wooden or reinforced wooden components in separate drive trains. If you already have a windmill powering querns, you don't need to upgrade that to cast iron. Wood will work fine. and you could use the parts you are replacing with cast iron to expand your milling operations, or even to provide power for some other industry you gain access to like paper making, looms etc. 1
MKMoose Posted November 12, 2025 Report Posted November 12, 2025 (edited) 16 hours ago, SpookyJ said: If you have an idea for a smaller design I encourage you to post a concept image like the ones I have made to add to the discussion. I'll see if I can work out a solid concept at some point, but in the meanwhile I have a few quicker comments. Overall I agree with a bunch of your points and a few of my criticisms were a little rash, but I'd argue your suggestion has a big issue with scale. 16 hours ago, SpookyJ said: Yes it's inaccurate, but it's honestly fine to lump pig iron and cast iron together for player convenience and simplicity. First, a note on this: cast iron and pig iron are almost the same - pig iron takes the name from the way it is cast (a main channel called a sow which "feeds" a series of pigs, which are generally 20-50 kg metal chunks, similar to ingots but larger), and the primary difference between the two is that pig iron is poured quickly and tolerates impurities since it's refined later anyways, while cast iron is the result of careful and precise pouring into a detailed mold to obtain a clean and strong product. I'm also not a big fan of some of the inaccuracies in your concept (i.e. pig/cast iron going directly into cementation furnace without processing into wrought iron, or cast iron not being used for tools), if only because I know that the devs value realism and historical accuracy quite highly as well. Wrought iron, is practically the same as that obtained from bloomeries, and historically the blast furnace has largely superseded the bloomery for most applications. I don't see much reason to restrict it for gameplay reasons. 16 hours ago, SpookyJ said: Cast Iron would serve as the gate keeper for automation of anything that needs complex metal components or a crankshaft. The bellows obviously, but also automatic spinning wheels, Looms, a Sawmill, a Lathe for woodworking, an automatic sieve for mass paper manufacturing, a printing press for copying books, a mixer for aiding in cooking and doughmaking, pumps for moving around liquid, all kinds of new mechanics would be possible. Cast Iron should open up a lot of new automation options for the player and be a big step in progression overall. While it does sound very appealing in some respects, keep in mind that you're talking about 17th and 18th century advancements focused largely on large-scale industry and bordering on the Industrial Revolution proper, whereas the current technological level of Vintage Story doesn't generally go beyond the 15th, maybe the 16th century. This would require massive development effort into a wide breadth of new features to keep all areas of the game roughly on par. And that's when we still don't have many simpler machines, devices or systems that would arguably be much more important, like a basic loom, fishing, a woodworking system for simple tools, kitchenware and furniture, a glassmaking system for proper bottles and jars, farming improvements in the form tilling or plowing farmland. All stuff that historically appeared and developed well before metal machinery. Large industrial machinery would also realistically take multiple people to run reliably and would supply entire towns or cities, and it most likely wouldn't have developed the way it did if there wasn't a need for this scale of production. I don't know if that makes much sense to add to a game which, although technically allows large-scale multiplayer, is ultimately designed mostly around solo play or groups of a few friends. On 11/8/2025 at 11:30 PM, SpookyJ said: In game concept: In that vein, do you know how massive this furnace actually is? A real blast furnace from around the 17th-18th century Europe apparently had about 8-10 m of height (matches yours pretty well if we were to count from the base to the hopper), designed for continuous operation with tapping multiple times per day, operated by a total of about two dozen people split between shifts in a variety of roles in the furnace complex, and outputting at least about 5 tons of cast iron per day. That is not practical for the current state of the game. Even an early 14th-15th century blast furnace apparently had about 5 m of height and and output of about 1 ton of metal per day over 3-4 casts, which is more reasonable though still quite a lot. I think it would be suitable to design a 3x5x3 furnace (or even shorter) with a hollow core, hearth at the bottom and charging hopper or whatnot at the top, which would be much easier to build for the player and to code for the devs. Also, keep in mind that you can put 64 ingots in the space of one block in ground storage, which would mean that, going by volume, even the smaller furnace could still believably hold the equivalent of a stack of ingots if not more, with the necessary fuel. A fairly cautious but realistic estimate could get you a single charge that yields 200-300 kg of output split into 6-9 pigs or an equivalent quantity of directly cast items (more likely some of both), with one tapping about every 6 to 8 hours. The equivalent of one pig may be two ingots of metal (and that would still arguably be a small pig or large ingots, more realistically it should be at least like 4 ingots). The furnace may have a maximum capacity of about 3 charges to allow more efficient continuous operation. Even scaled down further, it's difficult to keep it remotely realistic without having it output at least 8 ingots per cast. It may be reasonable to consider something like an early Chinese blast furnace 2x2x2 in size as well, to allow less efficient casting of a few pots and simple tools before the player invests into a large structure with refractory bricks and a large quantity of sand molds. Granted, there's a lot of places in the game which have completely unrealistic proportions and other concessions for the sake of gameplay, for example for brickmaking or shingle roofs. Thing with blast furnaces, though, is that a decently sized one should realistically have at least multiple times the bloomery's output per cast, or sometimes a few dozen times. There's a reason I keep harping on about how they're used for large-scale manufacturing. I will also mention quickly that a realistic implementation of a blast furnace would ideally require: 1. Large metal ladles with ceramic lining, instead of the simple crucibles. 2. A way to create sand channels through which metal flows into pigs for later processing into wrought iron (this would be very similar or even simpler than detailed sand molds). 16 hours ago, SpookyJ said: 18 hours ago, MKMoose said: I think it should be reduced to a smaller size and simplified Additionally, the average player really doesn't need 72 ingots worth of iron until they start getting into industrial production, and building such a massive structure just to fire it at a fraction of the capacity seems very unbalanced and unapproachable, especially for a newer player. This is a fair point, but the same could be said of the beehive kiln, albeit to a lesser extent. It's not so good for small batches, but firing tons of shingles or bricks? it's absolutely worth it. The difference is that the beehive kiln has an early-game alternative in the pit kiln which is easily accessible and absolutely sufficient for the average player until they want to create decorative items en masse or fancy a specific ceramic color. For iron you could at best consider the bloomery an earlier alternative, but it would be unlocked at a much closer point in progression to a blast furnace than pit kiln is to beehive kiln. And perhaps more importantly, the bloomery can't produce cast iron, which is a bigger limitation than purely efficiency and cosmetic benefits of a beehive kiln. This is largely why I was suggesting two different furnaces: one small and accessible shortly after obtaining iron to be more balanced in complexity and size with other structures available at that stage of progression, and only then if needed we can consider a 17th-18th century behemoth. Even if we were to discard the gameplay aspects for a moment, it would just be much more realistic to start with an early blast furnace as it first appeared at scale around the 15th century in Europe, instead of immediately jumping from a late medieval bloomery straight to a blast furnace from near the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Edited November 12, 2025 by MKMoose Note on already present concessions to gameplay.
SpookyJ Posted November 12, 2025 Author Report Posted November 12, 2025 Most of the inaccuracies arrise from gameplay concessions, yes. Its simpler to go straight from the blast furnace into a player made sand mold, but if you have an alternative process please do post a detailed reply. As long as the process feels rewarding people will enjoy it. Ultimately its up to the developers to decide what implementation they like best. Im hoping for this thread to become a pool of ideas they can pull from. More interpretations is better. 1
Teh Pizza Lady Posted November 12, 2025 Report Posted November 12, 2025 @MKMoose You touched on a lot of points that I didn't feel I had the necessary knowledge to make, but I will comment on some things I felt needed clarifying at least for me. 5 hours ago, MKMoose said: I'm also not a big fan of some of the inaccuracies in your concept (i.e. pig/cast iron going directly into cementation furnace without processing into wrought iron, or cast iron not being used for tools), if only because I know that the devs value realism and historical accuracy quite highly as well. Carbon content of the iron alloys is very much important here. Steel is made from iron by impregnating it with carbon to allow the crystalline structure of the iron to form differently, giving it added strength and durability. Too much carbon and your iron becomes unworkable, stiff and brittle, only good for *ahem* casting in molds (cast iron). Too little carbon, and the iron isn't durable enough to offer any advantage over wrought iron. The iron that comes from the bloomeries is, by far, the purest iron we can get with a whole lot of slag that has to be worked out of it. Then carbon is added to make the different iron alloys. Pig iron has to have excess carbon burned out of it to make it into steel. Steel isn't just "iron with some carbon added", it's iron with a very specific ratio of carbon in it. 5 hours ago, MKMoose said: In that vein, do you know how massive this furnace actually is? A real blast furnace from around the 17th-18th century Europe apparently had about 8-10 m of height (matches yours pretty well if we were to count from the base to the hopper), designed for continuous operation with tapping multiple times per day, operated by a total of about two dozen people split between shifts in a variety of roles in the furnace complex, and outputting at least about 5 tons of cast iron per day. That is not practical for the current state of the game. I think for the sake of gameplay, that the real blast furnace operation would be heavily simplified. Remember games are about fun, not realism. I, for one, enjoy putting aside my real world knowledge and just enjoying what the game has to offer unless it's just too ridiculous to enjoy. You mentioned the size of different furnaces from various regions of the world. I think it's safe to say that while some were smaller and didn't require as much work to operate, scalability is one of the things that Anego loves to implement in the game... to a limit Take windmills for example: Base size of 1; expandable to 5 Operational at any height; perform most efficiently at a certain height where the wind is the strongest Speed can be transformed up or down Pit kilns can be expanded into beehive kilns So why not add a larger bloomery, call it a blast furnace, and let it smelt larger amounts more quickly? For the sake of game play, I think it's fine to let players put the output cast iron into the cementation furnace and let it bake, just don't add more carbon, so I guess baking it in the coffin without charcoal? Or add another multiblock structure, called a finery forge, that is specially designed to turn the pig/cast iron into steel. Copious amounts of fireclay, fire bricks, and refractory bricks will be needed, for sure. I hope your quartz and bauxite mines are productive! And for whatever reason we're heading into year 2 on my server and still haven't found olivine. 1
SpookyJ Posted November 12, 2025 Author Report Posted November 12, 2025 (edited) Yeah this is more or less my thoughts as well. Im sure there is some way to make it feel a little more realistic and find that realism/gamplay balance. The important bit is that the furnace, whatever they end up calling it, enables high volume steel production. Steel absolutely will be more important in future updates and high volume production will be important. Removing the process of turning blooms into iron is how you do that in-game. Adding another process to turn cast iron into wrought iron so you can then turn it into steel would kind of defeat the purpose. Im sure the team will find a good solution one way or another. Edited November 12, 2025 by SpookyJ
MKMoose Posted November 13, 2025 Report Posted November 13, 2025 I have to say, I love the idea, but the more I read about it the less viable it seems. It's one thing to simplify it for the sake of gameplay - I'm all for it if the end result is fun, engaging - and another to completely ignore fundamental principles that allow the furnace to function. What I mean is that I've run into a notable roadblock which may be difficult to account for with any level of realism. A real blast furnace operates continuously, without discrete charges, refilled continuously every hour or even more often, and for weeks or months with no breaks until it has to be very carefully and slowly shut down and repaired. The full column of material has to be maintained consistently, and any imbalances may cause the chemical reaction in the furnace to destabilize in extremely dangerous ways. Both cooling down the furnace too fast or running out of charge mid-operation easily produces catastrophic consequences, in the best case scenario requiring the furnace to be cleaned out of remaining material and repaired. In the worst case, the only option is to basically tear the whole thing down. Early Chinese furnaces are more forgiving in this regard, but still few can be stopped and restarted fully freely like batch furnaces. In order to allow reliable intermittent operation without risk of heavy damage, the furnace has to be simpler than European furnaces and at most about 4 m in height. There is a potential alternative which doesn't need to be run continuously in the cupola furnace as well, though it is a tad more modern and seems to be more intricate in design. I may yet look into it further, but I cannot promise anything. For now, I want to mention that the easiest way to simplify your design with in a way that I would consider fully acceptable in terms of size is to just scale it down to a simple 3x3 structure with 4-5 blocks of height. Empty interior, hearth at the bottom and hopper at the top, one taphole for molten iron, one taphole for slag, and one tuyere (air blast opening for the bellows). And there's a few clarifications and other details below, if you're interested. 23 hours ago, SpookyJ said: Its simpler to go straight from the blast furnace into a player made sand mold, but if you have an alternative process please do post a detailed reply. Realistically, casting molten iron follows two main paths: 1. Pig iron - metal flows from the furnace directly into a large sand bed, and the stream of metal through the main channel (the sow) gets split between a number of molds to form large ingot-like pieces (the pigs). Those can then be broken off once solidified and transported to a finery forge for processing into wrought iron. Most impurities and some other issues are tolerated, because they will be worked out later in the forge anyways. 2. Finished products - metal is directed into a large ceramic-lined ladle, which is then used to carefully pour iron into detailed sand molds while allowing to precisely skim slag from the surface. The reason why they can't be cast directly from the furnace is that the direct stream is turbulent and more contaminated with slag, which causes a variety of issues when the goal is to precisely cast a clean and durable product which has to be practically ready to use right out of the mold. The two can be used interchangeably, or even at the same time, since part of the stream can be directed into the pig bed and another part into ladles with no issues. 22 hours ago, SpookyJ said: The important bit is that the furnace, whatever they end up calling it, enables high volume steel production. Steel absolutely will be more important in future updates and high volume production will be important. It feels like you may be overestimating how large a part of steel production is taken up by iron refining. Collecting the raw materials and a large amount of fuel (mainly for the cementation furnace) is already a large time sink, and making iron refining cheap and quick won't affect all those other parts of steelmaking. Let's not forget that a single cementation furnace processes 16 ingots and and consumes 168 pieces of coal every cycle, taking 6.67 days, if I recall correctly. A single bloomery produces 6 iron blooms and consumes 6 pieces of coal over 10 hours, which can be done 16 times in the same 6.67 day span that takes for one cementation furnace to complete its cycle, letting just one continuously-running bloomery supply six continuously-running cementation furnaces. At that point I'm frankly kind of confused as to why the bloomery is the one that needs to have a better alternative. Granted, I get it's not simply about scale but also about iron refining, but with a decent helve hammer setup I've never found to have any problems with that, whereas coal can be really tedious to obtain in this massive quantities (184 per cementation furnace cycle including bloomery but not including refining). 22 hours ago, SpookyJ said: Removing the process of turning blooms into iron is how you do that in-game. Adding another process to turn cast iron into wrought iron so you can then turn it into steel would kind of defeat the purpose. It may still be relatively easy and fast to refine pig iron, especially if one pig turns into two, maybe even three or four ingots. Here's a fun fact I've found: the middle step between pig iron and wrought iron obtained partway through the finery forge process is actually an iron bloom, similar to the one obtained from a bloomery, albeit much more consistent and uniform, lower in slag content and overall better quality. On 11/12/2025 at 4:38 PM, Teh Pizza Lady said: You mentioned the size of different furnaces from various regions of the world. I think it's safe to say that while some were smaller and didn't require as much work to operate, scalability is one of the things that Anego loves to implement in the game... to a limit Take windmills for example: Base size of 1; expandable to 5 Operational at any height; perform most efficiently at a certain height where the wind is the strongest Speed can be transformed up or down Pit kilns can be expanded into beehive kilns So why not add a larger bloomery, call it a blast furnace, and let it smelt larger amounts more quickly? For the sake of game play, I think it's fine to let players put the output cast iron into the cementation furnace and let it bake, just don't add more carbon, so I guess baking it in the coffin without charcoal? Or add another multiblock structure, called a finery forge, that is specially designed to turn the pig/cast iron into steel. I don't want to endlessly reiterate the problems with adding blast furnaces, so I'll start with scalability. I do agree that it is an excellent thing to have, if only to allow easier onboarding of new players into the more complex game mechanics - a windmill with one set of sails can power a quern, but there is so much to improve and expand for a player who wishes to engage with the system deeper and progress. There are some things which aren't scalable without duplication, like the cementation furnace, and if they are too complex they may be very unapproachable for a newer player - that is why my first reaction to the large furnace concept was just to make it smaller, if nothing else. The easiest way to implement scalability is to just allow the player to repeat things many times if one is not enough. The bloomery currently does the job well, and for large-scale smelting there's nothing stopping the player from just making tens or even hundreds of bloomeries if they so desire. Not greatly convenient, yes, but possible, and the blast furnace would need a more meaningful distinction from the bloomery in order to be worth it, especially if implemented in a remotely realistic way. The beehive kiln allows firing different ceramic colors, while scaled-up mechanical power allows to use more demanding machines (the helve hammer) and do it much more consistently without having to wait randomly for wind. One distinguishing factor for the blast furnace could be to allow cast iron to be used directly in the cementation furnace - I've already made it clear that in reality it has to be processed into wrought iron first and only then carburized, you have mentioned its high carbon content yourself, and just putting it without extra carbon will kinda cook it in some way but the output will not be steel. A more realistic way to differentiate them could be different qualities of iron and therefore likely also of steel, but I don't know if that's a good idea. But hey, isn't there a more obvious difference between the two furnaces? Cast iron products are the most important benefit of blast furnaces if scale doesn't provide significant benefits (it could in the future, but that's probably like in 5 years if ever), and for this specific purpose, a much smaller furnace is absolutely sufficient. Early Chinese ones are even much more forgiving on stopping and restarting without catastrophic damage, which is large part of why I would prefer the potential design in VS to be more similar to them (could be even very similar to the OP's concept, just much smaller). 1
Teh Pizza Lady Posted November 14, 2025 Report Posted November 14, 2025 2 hours ago, MKMoose said: One distinguishing factor for the blast furnace could be to allow cast iron to be used directly in the cementation furnace - I've already made it clear that in reality it has to be processed into wrought iron first and only then carburized, you have mentioned its high carbon content yourself, and just putting it without extra carbon will kinda cook it in some way but the output will not be steel. A more realistic way to differentiate them could be different qualities of iron and therefore likely also of steel, but I don't know if that's a good idea. I don't necessarily like the idea either, but does a cat truly enjoy toying with a bug? Does pizza truly love being eaten? Yet it still persists on that path. I will call to your attention that I offered a second option: the finery forge where cast iron actually was turned into steel. I offered this in hopes that OP could see how much more complex their idea was if they truly wanted to make cast/pig iron into steel. I only mentioned the cementation furnace because I don't necessarily think the game would benefit from having TWO multi-block structures to achieve the same result: turning iron into steel. At this point we're drifting away from fun into the realm of realism for realism's sake. The crop diseases thread proved that this is not how Vintage Story should go. It's a game, it needs to stay fun. Realism will have to suffer for gameplay reasons to keep it fun and engaging and not turn it into Steel Worker Simulator 3000. We already have that game. We don't need another one. 1
SpookyJ Posted November 14, 2025 Author Report Posted November 14, 2025 The point about cementation furnaces taking way too damn long is a good one. Having a finery structure that speeds up that process might not be too bad, otherwise your offset is just building more cementation furnaces and working them in parallel (which is more or less what I had in mind). At that point in the game having multiple furnaces running is pretty easy to do. Coal veins are often very large and you can clear them out quickly with ore bombs. Having a very late game multiblock finery that enables true mass production of steel could be a really cool goal to work for. As for smaller furnace designs i'd love to see what you have in mind. A simple mockup in creative will do. It would be good to have more than one design concept here, that way the devs can pick and chose elements they like. It all depends on what the developers have planned for the steel age I suppose. 1
MKMoose Posted November 14, 2025 Report Posted November 14, 2025 5 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said: I will call to your attention that I offered a second option: the finery forge where cast iron actually was turned into steel. I offered this in hopes that OP could see how much more complex their idea was if they truly wanted to make cast/pig iron into steel. I only mentioned the cementation furnace because I don't necessarily think the game would benefit from having TWO multi-block structures to achieve the same result: turning iron into steel. At this point we're drifting away from fun into the realm of realism for realism's sake. The crop diseases thread proved that this is not how Vintage Story should go. It's a game, it needs to stay fun. Realism will have to suffer for gameplay reasons to keep it fun and engaging and not turn it into Steel Worker Simulator 3000. We already have that game. We don't need another one. 5 hours ago, SpookyJ said: The point about cementation furnaces taking way too damn long is a good one. Having a finery structure that speeds up that process might not be too bad, otherwise your offset is just building more cementation furnaces and working them in parallel (which is more or less what I had in mind). At that point in the game having multiple furnaces running is pretty easy to do. Coal veins are often very large and you can clear them out quickly with ore bombs. Having a very late game multiblock finery that enables true mass production of steel could be a really cool goal to work for. But... that's just exchanging one inaccuracy for another, even if a less glaring one. A realistic implementation of a blast furnace would still require a finery forge to be added either way. I get the reason for this simplification, but realistically a finery forge was just a somewhat more specialized forge - we wouldn't even necessarily need to make it a multi-block structure - which was used to turn pig iron into wrought iron, that still had to be carburized to obtain steel. Apologies if I'm repeating the same things too much, but I personally have pretty high standards for a game focused on realism as much as Vintage Story, which I find difficult to cast aside just for the sake of making steelmaking faster or simpler. 5 hours ago, SpookyJ said: As for smaller furnace designs i'd love to see what you have in mind. A simple mockup in creative will do. I've been working on it slowly, but it feels like I'm constantly sidetracked in a cycle of "this part is unrealistic -> uh this needs to be simpler". I kind of already described it in the previous post, though, so you already have most of the picture: 8 hours ago, MKMoose said: For now, I want to mention that the easiest way to simplify your design in a way that I would consider fully acceptable in terms of size is to just scale it down to a simple 3x3 structure with 4-5 blocks of height. Empty interior, hearth at the bottom and hopper at the top, one taphole for molten iron, one taphole for slag, and one tuyere (air blast opening for the bellows). I'm also considering a simple 2x2x2 or 2x3x2 structure made of layers of corner pieces named like "blast furnace base (corner)", "blast furnace top (corner)". I'll see if I can make appropriate mockups in a reasonable amount of time.
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