We all need it for many things - Steel. Probably the most wanted ressource ingame.
What do you guys think is the fastest way to get steel:
Methode A:
Farming iron to make iron bars, farming leather to make tar to finally make steelfire
Methode B:
Farm NPC in volcane, mounds of dead, new asgarth and take the steel bars
Keep in mind that we would like to compare the fastest end game speed also farming in big rounds with the survival perk etc. until the inventory is full.
Also tell us your times you usually need to farm some specific Ressources like: " 9k brimstone around 20minutes + transport time to base"
Then we can maybe roughly Form a formula ;p
First, you porobably confused Steelfire with Dragonpowder, you only need tar and brimstone to make Steelfire.
After 500h of gameplay and a clan of 10 which is then reduced to 2 given the low amount of content, and the insane number of bugs, i can say that the method A its only valid if you are low level and you need some Steel Bars quickly, maybe to spam vaults for exp, or building a t3 base before raid time.
Methob B it is far better in the end game, when you are all 55-60 as long as you have at least 2 guys doing this, one on Hides and Iron gathering with 30 surv. and another one on Brimstone and Bark with 20 survival. In order to maximize the effectiveness of this method you need all named Thralls, smelters, tanners and alchemists.
Given the shocking amount of Bark you can get from dry trees since the last messed up hotfix, its even faster to make Steel bar in very high quantities, like 5k or more.
You don’t need stats to prove it.
The bottle necking of steel production through bark and coal means it is far more efficient to raid asagarth or mounds of the dead. A quick half hour round trip will get you 300 - 400 steel.
It would take about 4 hours to do that with the lack of bark and coal in game.
I build a wheel outpost near Asagarth, then make about 2K steel a day, trying to get Njoror to spawn and letting out my frustrations on his friends when he doesn’t spawn…
Wheel outposts also make for great logistics depots for storing tons of crystal and glass and other things that asagarthians usually drop.
for bark, use a pick on the white, dead trees in the desert. Just farming the ones near the pirate area in 2 or 3 of the tree spawn clumps nets me roughly 3-400 bark and that’s x1 server. Hide is easy to obtain.
I do both methods when I need steel. I farm the iron, fill my 2 advanced furnaces and then go slaughter the townsfolk in Asgarath or Mounds.
One think… Put reptile hides in the tanner. They seem to grant 1 tar per hide. This has allowed me to create a huge stockpile of steelfire.
All that said, one more detail…
Location is key. For me, i have ample Iron nearby. Also a map room helps. I can teleporr to the sinkhole (bone dragon area), then do a brimstone and bark run. I also try to pick up reptile hides on my way back. This nets me the tar, brimstone, and bark. I then just mine iron. This seems faster than farming steel from the north (evej with a main base in the north).
I like to combine the both. When I am grinding resources I collect rocks and Iron. I smelt the Iron and turn the rock into bricks. After 2 hours I get bored and go to Asgarth and kill the npcs there to collect steel, bark and brimstone. I use a skinning knife to get insane ammounts of hide from their dead bodies. With my outpost there a minute walking distance away I can get like 500 or so in 2 hours. Then I go back to my main base with all the won materials. Brimstone I get once in a week from caves. The hide from the good peeps from NA I turn into tar, the tar into steelfire and the now done iron bars from my grinding resources get made into steel too.
It is all about being economical without getting bored while base building and resources collecting. Plus, I think that the drop rates for steel from npcs are not overly high and are fine like they are. If you would need to grind for steel that would make this into a full fledged grindfest ala korean MMOs.
If you are a combat spec, it makes all the sense to farm NPCs for steel. If you have a gathering spec (20 in survival, majority in endurance, and best upgrade mod on tools) then you’re going to pull ahead.
Last night in about 45 minutes I was able to harvest enough materials to make about 1500 steel bars. This is assuming of course you have at least a tier 2 alchemist. And I did it at level 45 with steel tools.
Farming NPCs for their steel drops at level 45 with steel weapons is interesting. Not impossible, but interesting. Though theoretically you could have about 40 pts in STR and be fine.
Do both. Mine three furnaces full of iron, tan a few hundred skins and throw coal in your press, and then go murder NPCs while everything’s cooking. Mining mats is quick, but processing takes time; killing for steel bars takes time, but you eliminate the processing. Time management!
The way I see it there’s no clear winner. 1 might be a little faster than the other. I see it as a choice of preference. I find harvesting boring so I kill NPCs for steel and also get some bonus resources of other sorts.
Do what is most enjoyable to you and don’t burn yourself out. If you tire then mix it up. There’s no need to stress about it
If you are a solo player, or in a tribe where your tribe mates are not helping you gather materials for refining iron into steel, then farming it from NPC killing is faster imo. I usually get around 200 steel bars from a single clear of new asgarth.
However as someone pointed out, if you have help, and can divide the labor among your clan mates you stand to gain much more from refining it from materials gathered.
I’m with you, I fill my smelters as best I can and then go to Asgarth, last night I got 348 steel hitting asgarth and the towers (towers twice), ya that is unusually high but ill take it. It takes so much longer for me to make the iron and steelfire then turn to steel. There is always so many items to get for making armour, weapons, bombs, orbs and buildings that I think any time saved that lets you go play in the game a bit is a better way.
I agree do both base right besides gods claw 20 min farm build gets you 18k iron ore. Farm npcs while it cooks. Use hide earned for tar use 300+ steal for reinforcements repeat you may want to throw a bark run in also black hand to swagger rock come back with around 4k bark and 6k dry wood