Ore into bars
What each metal needs, against what each fuel reaches.
Smelting here is not a recipe. It is the heat simulation doing its ordinary job: you get the ore hot enough and it melts, and when the melt cools it sets as metal. There is no furnace UI and no progress bar — there is a temperature, and either you reach it or you do not.
That makes one table the whole of this page.
You will need
- Ore, mined
- A heat source hot enough for that ore — see the table
- Somewhere the melt can pool without running off
Steps
- Build a pit or a basin out of something that does not melt. Stone is fine and conducts heat well (85 of 255); Iron is better still at 255.
- Put the ore in it.
- Heat it from outside with a fuel hot enough for that ore.
- Wait for it to run. The ore becomes a molten metal, which is a liquid and flows.
- Let it cool. Below its setting point the melt turns solid, and you mine it as metal.
When it works
What each ore needs, and what it becomes:
| Ore | Melts at | Becomes | Sets below |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tin | 120 °C | Tin Melt | 105 °C |
| Gold | 160 °C | Gold Melt | 120 °C |
| Copper | 165 °C | Molten Copper | 140 °C |
| Iron | 190 °C | Molten Iron | 160 °C |
| Titanium | 208 °C | Ti Melt | 175 °C |
| Tungsten | 211 °C | W Melt | 195 °C |
What each fuel reaches:
| Burn | Sits at | Which is enough for |
|---|---|---|
| Wood Ember | 130 °C | tin |
| Fumarole | 150 °C | tin |
| Ember (coal) | 185 °C | tin, gold, copper |
| Fire (leaves, cotton, rope) | 205 °C | + iron |
| Fuel Fire | 202 °C | + iron |
| Coke Ember | 215 °C | everything |
| Lava, Brimfire | 215 °C | everything |
Read the two tables against each other and the progression falls out of them. Coal takes you to copper and stops. Its embers sit at 185 °C and iron needs 190 — five degrees short, and no amount of patience closes it. Fuel fire at 202 °C gets you iron and steel and stops, because titanium needs 208. Only coke ember at 215 °C reaches titanium and tungsten, and coke is not something you find. You make it, in a sealed vessel, and nothing in the game tells you how — see Coke, and the sealed retort.
The cheap surprise: burning leaves, cotton or rope gives open fire at 205 °C, hotter than coal. It is the cheapest route to iron and it burns out fast.
When it does not
The ore sits there and nothing happens. Your fire is not hot enough. Check both tables. This is almost always the problem, and waiting longer never fixes it — a cell settles at the temperature its neighbours can deliver.
The melt ran away down a tunnel. Molten metal is a liquid with real flow. Build the basin before you light the fire.
The metal set somewhere you cannot reach. Same cause. Note the setting points are lower than the melting points — molten iron stays liquid down to 160 °C — so it keeps running for a while after you stop heating.
Your basin melted too. Check what you built it from. Stone melts to lava at 185 °C, which is below several of the temperatures on this page.
You used refractory to line it and it never got hot. Refract conducts heat at 4 of 255. It is furnace lining — designed to keep heat away from what is behind it. That is right for a furnace shell and exactly wrong for a wall you are trying to heat something through.
Next
Coke, and the sealed retort — the process that takes you past iron, and the one the game never mentions.