Suffering from success

[Slam]

I’m someone who hates easily gotten/given valuable stuff.

Recently I finally made my first windmill, and had plans to plate black bronze armor which I would use to get armor, but soon after making starting, I decide to go on a quick adventure, didn’t even really prospect the area, just went down cave, hopping for ruins, then boom, 2 veins of iron not that far deep in the cave, and iron veins, are humongous compared to copper veins. Now I have no reason to make that plate armor, as it would make more sense to just skip it, and make iron armor. What do I do? Do I just accept it, or should I just take a little bit, and then after doing, like, the first chapter I may get the rest?

double also, reason why this isn’t a question, does anyone else feel the same sometime, or anyone story’s with similar experiences. This would just be in humorous story’s but it not funny, just very unluckily lucky. 

[WiggleStick]

Just roll with it. some games I have to wade through copper, then wade through bronze, and Then Iron to get to steel.

Sometimes I can skip copper, go to bronze until I make an anvil, roll through Iron to steel. Different worlds different luck, different stories.

Enjoy the journey.

[LadyWYT]

28 minutes ago, Slam said:

Now I have no reason to make that plate armor, as it would make more sense to just skip it, and make iron armor. What do I do? Do I just accept it, or should I just take a little bit, and then after doing, like, the first chapter I may get the rest?

Make that plate armor anyway. Bronze plate has a different look--a sort of Greek style, if I recall correctly--and having a set of black bronze plate is a definite status symbol. Even if you don't wear it, making it will be a challenge, and it'll look really cool as base decoration.

Also keep in mind that iron might have come easily, but that doesn't mean that steel will. Though even if it does, @WiggleStick has it right--sit back and enjoy the ride if the RNG is in your favor. Next map could easily go the other way.

[Lollard]

Copper armor isn't worth making. Bronze armor seems good but I just end up finding iron instead. Iron armor seems good but I can mine the meteors I found to get meteoric iron instead. I had found bauxite and could have my very first suit of armor be endgame steel but I actually forced myself to use meteoric because it felt like I was skipping the entire progression system, which is kind of offputting.

I would make the bronze age more prolonged somehow and remove the tier 1 and tier 2 refractory bricks to make steel actually challenging by requiring all 4 minerals (and by extension have these minerals be crushable with iron caps), because there's a good chance you already found bauxite by the time you find iron.

[HalfAxd]

I'd flip a coin and go with it... if I don't like the flip, then I know my answer    

Enjoy!

[Slam]

42 minutes ago, HalfAxd said:

I'd flip a coin and go with it... if I don't like the flip, then I know my answer

did it, got iron, didn't like it. ill just bring a 6 bars worth of nuggets, enough for tools, try out quenching and tempering, and to flex with a black bronze anvil cuz why not.

[cjameshuff]

1 hour ago, Lollard said:

Copper armor isn't worth making. Bronze armor seems good but I just end up finding iron instead. Iron armor seems good but I can mine the meteors I found to get meteoric iron instead. I had found bauxite and could have my very first suit of armor be endgame steel but I actually forced myself to use meteoric because it felt like I was skipping the entire progression system, which is kind of offputting.

I would make the bronze age more prolonged somehow and remove the tier 1 and tier 2 refractory bricks to make steel actually challenging by requiring all 4 minerals (and by extension have these minerals be crushable with iron caps), because there's a good chance you already found bauxite by the time you find iron.

I made a meteoric iron falx my latest time through, but other than that just used iron tools until switching to steel, and just upgraded from gambeson armor to steel chain.

The problem with meteoric iron is it for some reason requires an iron anvil, which means you have to have already started using iron and makes very little sense, considering historically it was the first iron humans could work. In VS, it's not a head start, it's a bonus you can't start using until you're mostly to the point of making it obsolete apart from decoration. I get that it's supposed to be a slightly higher tier material, but it should just be a better quality iron that needs less processing, not a material that's somehow more difficult to work.

Meanwhile, the labor and materials that go into copper/bronze armor doesn't really seem worthwhile to me when you could instead work on producing steel.

[Rainbow Fresh]

Since you were asking for other people's stories, it took me nearly to winter of the starting year to find my first copper because all caves were uselessly empty death traps, I didn't know I needed to mark down the first few surface copper pebbles to come back digging later, and for some reason I managed to not find any of the dozens of surface deposits around me until walking by the 100th time. Then, on the other hand, I too found iron just randomly in a cave one day, before even really interacting with bronze - just enough scraped together tin for a pickaxe and anvil. I could skip bronze alltogether, seeing as iron is better and seemingly more common, just harder to process. Am I unhappy about being "lucky" and that each new ore for each new tier of progession isn't a stacking 0.1x as common as the previous one? Not really.

A bit late to enter the discussion on your specific conundrum though still want to give my 2 cents. You said you hate being given valuable stuff too easily; the problem is already with the definition though. Iron isn't valueable, by quantities atleast. Iron ore veins are supposed to be massive and as such more easily acquirable. Where you might have to look for more than one copper source and certainly scavange for rarer metals that might not even have that much of a use in the game, iron is pretty common (which I think is pretty accurate to reality). It's not quite a "rare metal". And those rare metals, in turn, you don't get given that easily, usually.

Then there is the value of progression. Sure, Iron tier is higher than even black bronze tier. The equipment is stronger and more durable, and in case it wasn't just my mods adding stuff, latest iron tier is where you can craft everything that isn't a brass-only scone. Ultimately, that doesn't make too much of a difference though. More durability is nice especially for high-use tools like the hammer for smithing, the chisel for, well, chiseling your pickaxe for mining and axe for chopping down those humongous oak trees. Personally, I have found the increase indurability between copper and bronze not that notable though, still rely on tool repair mods and don't expect iron to change all that much about it anyway. Surface enemies are tier 1 monsters, meaning everything past leather armor is essentially overkill and if you go to the deepest depths, nothing but steel will properly protect you. Not to mention running from a bear while poking it with a stick without any slowing armor is safer than wrestling one head-on even with strong armor.

So with all this free value given to you by some luck being rather relative and subjective, there is a more important point to consider which I think is nicely touched upon by this comment:

On 4/18/2026 at 5:41 PM, HalfAxd said:

I'd flip a coin and go with it... if I don't like the flip, then I know my answer    

It's not what is given to you, it's what you make of it. In my personal opinion, black bronze is the coolest looking material for armors with it's dark knight-esque black hue. So sure iron armor is statistically better, and steel evene more so, but even in the late steel age I would go out of my way to look for the comparatively much rarer resources needed to make black bronze just for a dope looking set of drip. My own sort of progession in this sandbox world with no actual goals. Tier progression is also just a more drawn-out, complex process compared to the other block game; in the core the freedom to shape the world, exploration and all that stuff in VS hindered by constant need for food supply and the tedium and hardship of creating the tools you burn through, remains the same. In Minecraft you can deck yourself out in fully enchanted diamond gear without ever mining a single ore, and if you go explore some caves you can be at the top of the tier progression in about 2 in-game days. Maybe 5 if you go Netherite. Yet you still play the game for dozens if not hundreds of hours, despite progression material being to easy to obtain. Vintage Story isn't all that different. You may be able to beeline to Steel by the end of year 0, but it will still take ages to build a nice little village to call home and it will still be nice to explore the lands far away and it will still be rare and rewarding looking for some rare shinies to turn into proud collections.

And if at the end of all that you still feel unhappy, you can always tweak spawn rates, install mods and, as you did, just decide to simply not do or use something you have.

Edited Monday at 09:31 AM by Rainbow Fresh