Is bronze even worth it

[Rainbow Fresh]

So... is bronze even worth it, or am I just generally better off bee-lining all my efforts into the iron age? (Currently in mid copper age in the attempt to acquire meaningful quantities of tin to get to the bronze age).

The story is the following. After being blessed with virtually no chalk for lime in a meaningful radius, I had to use Borax for leather instead, which already requires bronze tools to mine. Very luckily I randomly stumbled upon a few blocks in a cave one day, so I could afford a whopping 4 bronze ingots with what I had left, so I could finally progress. Seeing some things are gated behind bronze+ ingots (especially some of the cooler weapons from Combat Overhaul - Armory), the durability and damage/armor tier increase being very nice, and the difference between copper and bronze ingots being only two tin nuggets instead of 20 I thought "Ok, let's do that prospecting thing and find big juicy deep ore vein and be set for the forseeable future." So I went poking the ground in grids and lo and behold, soon enough I found a "High" reading peak. At 0.2 percentile. That's not alot. And after a whole while of digging and frustration, I finally found the sparkly rocks. About 20 of them total. But hey, atleast I got really lucky and got a "Copius" density vein! Oh... Looking into the wiki what rate that translates to, on top of all this nonsense Tin is also treated as valuable as Gold and gets the special snowflake treatment of just being generally worth less. Suddenly, my big, lucky prospecting expedition to find a highest tier Tin vein netted me literally as much as your average surface Copper deposit. That would be a total of 40-ish ingots. Certainly not "set for the forseeable future".

So that begs the question; is this even worth it? Surface deposits are incredibly rare, and as much as this peeves me, I don't just wanna increase their probability either (which would only start affecting thousands of blocks away, too.) Deep ore veins are barely veins. Overall yield is artificially nerfed. Yes, you only need two nuggets per ingot, meaning even the poorest quality ore is an ingot per block; but at the same time the amount of time wasted not tending to crops, animals, building projects, food preservation and all the other stuff in your day to day life and the amounts of ingots burned through in pickaxe and propick consumption just to find these couple rocks counter-balances this.

And while there are two other options for "Bronze", they aren't notably better either. Black Bronze, as cooler looking and more durable as it is, is made from Gold and Silver both. Trading one very rare, low yield nugget per ingot for two very rare, equally low yield nuggets does not improve output rate. Bismuth might be slightly more common (or, atleast, more bountiful) but Zinc doesn't help much there either; not to mention Bismuth Bronze being a weaker alloy.

Meanwhile I have read people saying that Iron is much more abundant, supposedly, and there are some more iron+ gated things that would unlock for me. Thoughts?

Edited April 17 by Rainbow Fresh
Oops, it's even two nuggets per ingot.

[williams_482]

Most experienced players use bronze primarily as a stepping stone to iron and then steel. This will become somewhat more difficult in 1.22 than it currently is in 1.21.6 thanks to the forge changes, but will probably remain the standard play where possible. 

As you've discovered, bronze can be difficult to acquire in large quantities (sometimes not, occasionally you get lucky and find a lot of tin), while iron veins are massive enough to supply you for many years and yield superior equipment to boot. The primary advantage of bronze is that it can be cast, which makes it easier to quickly turn ore chunks into useable tools. For this reason some players will use bronze as their primary axe/shovel material well into the iron or steel age. But the higher tier of iron equipment matters a fair bit more with weapons and pickaxes, and likewise few players will recommend investing large amounts of material into bronze armor if iron can be found. 

[MKMoose]

The short of it is that bronze is for the most part a stepping stone to iron. It's easier to obtain and process than iron, but past that it's superseded by it in practically every way. It can have its uses, especially when modded, but you won't lose out by switching to iron as fast as possible.

Keep in mind that at least a small amount of bronze is necessary in order to process iron in the first place - most notably for an anvil. Many people don't even make a copper anvil - just cast a hammer, pickaxe and prospecting pick, then beeline for bronze to get set up with higher-quality tools right out of the gate.

 

3 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

So I went poking the ground in grids and lo and behold, soon enough I found a "High" reading peak. At 0.2 percentile. That's not alot.

It's permille, not percentile. Cassiterite readings are bugged - the actual density should be up to ~12 times higher than the permille number would suggest.

 

3 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

That would be a total of 40-ish ingots. Certainly not "set for the forseeable future".

3 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

Deep ore veins are barely veins. Overall yield is artificially nerfed.

If I did the math right, the game's internal estimate gives ~81 ingots from a typical cassiterite deposit, more in granite, and the actual average should be even higher. That number has a lot of variance, so you've likely just got one on the lower side despite getting a bountiful deposit in granite. If you had found a couple more deposits near the first one, then your impression would be less skewed. At 0.2 permille, you're generally guaranteed 3 deposits per chunk (under an especially thick layer of sedimentary rock, which is what you seem to have gotten, it will be more random).

Also, assuming you switch to iron reasonably fast and unless you're using bronze for armor or some other large project, even 40 ingots of bronze is quite likely more than you're ever gonna need in a typical game.

 

3 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

And while there are two other options for "Bronze", they aren't notably better either. Black Bronze, as cooler looking and more durable as it is, is made from Gold and Silver both. Trading one very rare, low yield nugget per ingot for two very rare, equally low yield nuggets does not improve output rate. Bismuth might be slightly more common (or, atleast, more bountiful) but Zinc doesn't help much there either; not to mention Bismuth Bronze being a weaker alloy.

Bismuth bronze should generally be treated as an alternative option for when you don't have any cassiterite but happen to find sphalerite and bismuthinite. Black bronze is generally only useful in small quantities for when you want a small extra edge in combat before you find iron, but it's generally not very worthwhile.

Keep in mind, also, that bismuth bronze is not weaker than tin bronze, and it's more of a less common sidegrade. It has lower mining speed and damage, but it also has higher durability on everything besides armor if I recall correctly. For tools like hammers, chisels or saws, bismuth bronze is in isolation strictly better than tin bronze due to mining speed and damage being practically irrelevant.

Edited April 17 by MKMoose

[cjameshuff]

Bronze takes a lot less labor to produce than iron, and given the labor involved in iron I don't like to waste it on anything once I have a cementation furnace to turn it into steel, and even when you have the ingots, bronze has much lower temperature requirements for working. Building and firing bloomeries, processing blooms, running the ingots through a cementation furnace, then processing the blister iron, just to turn two ingots into a plate for a single small lantern is excessive.

Yes, you can also make things like lanterns and other hardware with copper, but by the time you are making steel you probably have or can easily get decent amounts of zinc, tin, and bismuth to extend the copper. Also, the traders only take bronze tools/lanterns for trade. So while I go straight from gambeson to steel chainmail armor and only use bronze tools for a short time (and only iron until I can make refractory bricks), bronze is still useful.

[Rainbow Fresh]

1 hour ago, MKMoose said:

t's permille, not percentile.

Gosh darn it, I always forget the word and then my brain told me "Yes, percentile is smaller than percent".

1 hour ago, MKMoose said:

It's easier to obtain and process than iron,

My whole point was that it isn't easier to obtain if it only comes in tiny patches though, versus iron being huge chunks. But beelining for iron should be better then. Luckily I randomly came across an iron deposit of unknown size in another cave near the bottom of the world, guess I start there and hope it's alot.

1 hour ago, MKMoose said:

If I did the math right, the game's internal estimate gives ~81 ingots from a typical cassiterite deposit, more in granite, and the actual average should be even higher. That number has a lot of variance, so you've likely just got one on the lower side despite getting a bountiful deposit in granite. If you had found a couple more deposits near the first one, then your impression would be less skewed. At 0.2 permille, you're generally guaranteed 3 deposits per chunk (under an especially thick layer of sedimentary rock, which is what you seem to have gotten, it will be more random).

It is in a huge slab of Granite. Pretty sure in most parts of my wider home area it's Granite only, all the way down. Which when researching my crippling lack of lime I learned is apparently reason enough for some people to immediately generate a new world. But ok, hold on. One crucial question for my understanding here; I based my numbers on the one tiny patch of connected tin ore blocks I found by digging around the outside. Seeing as all this prospecting stuff is "chance based" I just assumed "that's it, I found it". If you are saying 0.2 permille basically guarantees "3 deposits per chunk" - chunk being a 32x32 blocks area? - would there be more around in the general area then? Cause if there is more to the deposit than the one connected bit, that would also notably change things.

2 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Keep in mind, also, that bismuth bronze is not weaker than tin bronze, and it's more of a less common sidegrade. It has lower mining speed and damage, but it also has higher durability on everything besides armor if I recall correctly. For tools like hammers, chisels or saws, bismuth bronze is in isolation strictly better than tin bronze due to mining speed and damage being practically irrelevant.

Oh yeah, you're right. Didn't see that. Just saw all the multiplier numbers for tools being lower in the wiki and assumed it's a generally weaker alternative. That does make it more viable for 200 durability per block chiseling operations.

 

2 hours ago, williams_482 said:

The primary advantage of bronze is that it can be cast, which makes it easier to quickly turn ore chunks into useable tools. For this reason some players will use bronze as their primary axe/shovel material well into the iron or steel age.

Well, uhm, a flint on a bone/stick is my primary axe/knife material cause I hate using notably limited/scarce resources...

 

1 hour ago, cjameshuff said:

Bronze takes a lot less labor to produce than iron, and given the labor involved in iron I don't like to waste it on anything once I have a cementation furnace to turn it into steel, and even when you have the ingots, bronze has much lower temperature requirements for working. Building and firing bloomeries, processing blooms, running the ingots through a cementation furnace, then processing the blister iron, just to turn two ingots into a plate for a single small lantern is excessive.

Bronze may take less time to produce and process, but to me personally, that is not a problem. I'd happily take slow as hell iron/steel production over "into crucible, onto fire, wait, pour, done" for the added benefits of durability and co. What does make an impact though, is the time and effort required to obtain the material, where huge veins that "supply me for years", as williams said, are always better than many tiny ore patches. Because time producing iron/steel is mostly just waiting at home. A passive activity during which you can tend to crops, animals, cook and preserve food, build a house, all the other things needing attention. Going out for days poking rocks, that is active work during which nothing else can happen, besides seasons ever-changing and crops dying.

So occasionally prospecting until a reading appears, then prospecting finer until the peak is found, then digging down once into a vein you simply cannot miss and from here on out just having to come back and fill you inventory with stacks of ore chunks every now and then is much better than continuously spending days away poking the ground then burning through pickaxes and propicks trying to find the tiny, slippery bugger lasting you for exactly one haul.

[LadyWYT]

6 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

So... is bronze even worth it, or am I just generally better off bee-lining all my efforts into the iron age? (Currently in mid copper age in the attempt to acquire meaningful quantities of tin to get to the bronze age).

I would it depends on your personal playstyle preferences, and what kind of settings/mods you're running to alter the game experience from the defaults, especially if you're running mods like Combat Overhaul, which significantly alter the game. In such cases, advice that applies to the game on standard settings may not be very useful.

Generally speaking, bronze is quite useful in the mid-game, but quickly gets replaced by iron once the player has found an iron vein and processed a few ingots. In the late game, bronze can still have some limited applications in expendable tools like shears, axes, and shovels or crafting materials such as nails, but iron/steel will be outright better in most cases. Iron supply isn't much of a concern due to how massive iron veins are.

For the mid-game, many veteran players will do the bare minimum needed with bronze to acquire and work iron--10 ingots(pick + anvil), though many players will add a few extra tools/weapons into the mix as well. Personally, I've found that making a set of bronze lamellar is quite useful as well, since doing so allows the player to confront dangerous wildlife, basic caves, and lighter temporal storms with relative safety, and the armor is easily repaired. Gambeson is better, yes, but the player will probably want to save their first flax harvest for windmills and other things.

6 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

So that begs the question; is this even worth it? Surface deposits are incredibly rare, and as much as this peeves me, I don't just wanna increase their probability either (which would only start affecting thousands of blocks away, too.) Deep ore veins are barely veins. Overall yield is artificially nerfed. Yes, you only need two nuggets per ingot, meaning even the poorest quality ore is an ingot per block; but at the same time the amount of time wasted not tending to crops, animals, building projects, food preservation and all the other stuff in your day to day life and the amounts of ingots burned through in pickaxe and propick consumption just to find these couple rocks counter-balances this.

And while there are two other options for "Bronze", they aren't notably better either. Black Bronze, as cooler looking and more durable as it is, is made from Gold and Silver both. Trading one very rare, low yield nugget per ingot for two very rare, equally low yield nuggets does not improve output rate. Bismuth might be slightly more common (or, atleast, more bountiful) but Zinc doesn't help much there either; not to mention Bismuth Bronze being a weaker alloy.

Keeping in mind that tin, bismuth, and zinc are all common ores and relatively easy to find, so while it's ideal to dig at Decent or higher readings it's often worth digging at worse readings as well. The percentage numbers I tend to just ignore, unless I'm trying to pinpoint the best digging spot. Do keep in mind though that as long as lore content is enabled, trading for those ores is also an option, since Commodities traders will often sell nuggets of those ores at reasonable prices.

As for the time it takes to find the stuff...prospecting is something the player can easily do while out exploring, foraging, or hunting. The map can be studied during "down time"(like at night or during a storm) to figure out where to dig. Digging itself tends to only take part of a day, depending on how far away the digsite is. Tending crops/animals and preserving food really doesn't take that long, and most other chores aren't particularly time sensitive. 

Regarding bismuth bronze...it's not weak. Yes, it does a little less damage than the other alloys, but it's also more durable. The damage difference also isn't enough to be noticeable when it comes to combat.

57 minutes ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

So occasionally prospecting until a reading appears, then prospecting finer until the peak is found, then digging down once into a vein you simply cannot miss and from here on out just having to come back and fill you inventory with stacks of ore chunks every now and then is much better than continuously spending days away poking the ground then burning through pickaxes and propicks trying to find the tiny, slippery bugger lasting you for exactly one haul.

In this case though, I think the best answer to your question is worry less about bronze and focus on finding iron as quickly as possible. Hematite tends to be the most solid option to look for, since limonite almost never appears and magnetite is dicey to find(though will also be your only real option in andesite-heavy areas). Forty ingots' worth of bronze should be more than enough for you to find an iron vein and start working it, and that should solve your material concerns.

[cjameshuff]

2 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

Bronze may take less time to produce and process, but to me personally, that is not a problem. I'd happily take slow as hell iron/steel production over "into crucible, onto fire, wait, pour, done" for the added benefits of durability and co.

There are no durability benefits for nails/strips, lanterns, etc, which can consume considerable quantities of metal. Meanwhile, I'm clear-cutting distant forests because my tree farm is regrowing and I need more charcoal for my third cementation furnace run. And I don't think I've started a single mine for tin, zinc, or bismuth in my current world, I've come across plenty in looking for ilmenite and olivine for more durable cementation furnace, chromite for my inventory upgrade, and yes, the iron...I ran into both sphalerite and cassiterite while mining iron. (And enough lead that I'm looking at making stuff out of molybdochalkos, despite not being in an area with especially high occurrence of it.)

Are you just digging based on the probability reading and hoping to run into the ore? If so, use the node function and you'll find a lot more. I dig down 9 blocks, prospect the tenth, and mark that level for later exploratory probes out to the furthest digging distance in each cardinal direction if I don't find anything interesting in the main hole.

[Rainbow Fresh]

4 minutes ago, cjameshuff said:

There are no durability benefits for nails/strips, lanterns, etc, which can consume considerable quantities of metal. Meanwhile, I'm clear-cutting distant forests because my tree farm is regrowing and I need more charcoal for my third cementation furnace run. And I don't think I've started a single mine for tin, zinc, or bismuth in my current world, I've come across plenty in looking for ilmenite and olivine for more durable cementation furnace, chromite for my inventory upgrade, and yes, the iron...I ran into both sphalerite and cassiterite while mining iron. (And enough lead that I'm looking at making stuff out of molybdochalkos, despite not being in an area with especially high occurrence of it.)

Are you just digging based on the probability reading and hoping to run into the ore? If so, use the node function and you'll find a lot more. I dig down 9 blocks, prospect the tenth, and mark that level for later exploratory probes out to the furthest digging distance in each cardinal direction if I don't find anything interesting in the main hole.

So far, I have prospected in a grid of 128, then 32 blocks to locate where the peak is supposed to be, marked the general area between the two equal highest points, just for my own sanity's sake randomly dug down in creative to check if I was generally on the right track with prospecting like this and did actually hit tin (filled it back up and didn't even mark where I dug). Then I later came back with equipment, dug a proper ladder shaft just to find nothing anymore. Dug a second hole not finding anything anymore. Probed about 10 further holes in creative again not finding anything. Digging out a huge area in creative not finding anything anymore. Finally remembered the proximity mode on the propick is a thing, used that to finally find the vein again, dug it out in creative to see how big it actually is for me to miss 12 times, found it only about 20 blocks big, and called it a night.

[Rainbow Fresh]

5 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

But ok, hold on. One crucial question for my understanding here; I based my numbers on the one tiny patch of connected tin ore blocks I found by digging around the outside. Seeing as all this prospecting stuff is "chance based" I just assumed "that's it, I found it". If you are saying 0.2 permille basically guarantees "3 deposits per chunk" - chunk being a 32x32 blocks area? - would there be more around in the general area then? Cause if there is more to the deposit than the one connected bit, that would also notably change things.

I... have learned. I temporarily installed that one x-ray "hacks" mod nobody likes on a copy of my world and looked. There is quite a little bit more somewhere down there than I'd ever thought.

I will retract any and all complains and walk away from this as a learning experience on how to look for ores.

[ArgentLuna]

Im inching towards steel and i still use a lot of Bronze, its easy to set going while i do other things in the forge and then it just gets to cool down while im still doing those other things and hey presto a bunch of tools that are comprably disposable for doing bulk work 

[Teh Pizza Lady]

8 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

I... have learned. I temporarily installed that one x-ray "hacks" mod nobody likes on a copy of my world and looked. There is quite a little bit more somewhere down there than I'd ever thought.

I will retract any and all complains and walk away from this as a learning experience on how to look for ores.

And sometimes you get readings that say nothing here... and sometimes you get... well... just look:

That one reading had two bands of hematite and a HUGE halite dome.

Edited April 18 by Teh Pizza Lady

[Meezredeye]

I always try and move on from bronze as soon as possible, obviously I make a bronze anvil/pickaxe, but usually nothing other than that as Iron is isn't too hard to find and once you find some you find a ton of it.