Stationeers – Super Simple Steel Smelting

Absolutely minimal steel refining process.

It’s Simple

All credit goes to Hardly!

Resouces needed:

• 30g iron
• 10g copper
• 1 chunk of coal
• 3 chunks of unrefined iron
• 1 chunk of Ice (Oxite)
• 2 chunks of Ice (Volatiles)

1. Make a furnace at your autolathe (“Kit (Furnace)”, 30g iron, 10g copper) 
2. Place the furnace. Make sure you can access the top, and that things that fall out the bottom won’t roll away.
3. If necessary, split your stacks of unrefined iron and coal into the correct proportions, and put them in your uniform pockets (4) or suit (3). 
4. Leave the Ices in your mining belt, but have it equiped. 
5. Wait until nighttime (so the ices don’t evapourate while you’re working with them). In space, I guess you might need to find a shadowed spot? 
6. Split off one piece of Oxite ice, and two pieces of volatiles ice. Probably stand somewhere flat so they don’t roll away. 
7. Put the big stacks back in your mining belt, and grab the ice chunks you dropped, one type in each hand. 
8. Into the input hatch of your furnace, put 1 chunk of Ice (oxite), 2 chunks of Ice (Volatile), 1 chunk of coal, and 3 chunks of unrefined iron. 
9. Press the big red button. 
10. Hover over the glowing window to see the funace contents, once it’s burning well you should see “will produce a 4g ingot of steel”
11. Pull the “Open Mold” lever.
12. Hey presto you have steel!

You can of course use larger quantities, this was just the simplest version of the process. The ratio of the iron and coal is very important, but altering the gas ratios might let you get hotter or cooler flames in the furnace – check the ereader cartridge on your tablet for details about the pressure/temperature zone and reagent ratios to succesfully create the various alloys.

Caution Be Careful

When increasing the quantities of raw materials to get more steel, do not increase the ice by the same amount. In fact you may not need to add more gas at all, provided it keeps the furnace hot enough for your raw materials to be processed. Adding to much gas can lead to large explosions and/or distressingly bright glows from the furnace – and it will be too hot/pressurised to make steel.