Tinkers Construct good starting tools
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if blast furnace is required, i just dont see the point of such addition but wasting coal.
There is no blast furnace requirement. This dust can be melted into 2 ingots worth of molten steel in the TC smeltery. it can also be furnace smelted into 2 ingots directly. (as of version 1.1.1)
If it's gone from the 1.1.2 version, then i can understand that from a server balance perspective. coal is cheap, and steel is used by several mods as a kind of gateway price for starting down their techpaths
i highly doubt that it can be smelted into 2 ingots. 1 ingot at best.
the thing is, blast furnace requirement is simply worse then disabling this recipe at all. besides it`s completely balanced.
i`m not arguing against NEI, i`m just telling how pointless it would be if blast furnace is required.
yes, but it's not. according to nei you can use just about any smelting machine there is, including the vanilla furnace. at closer inspection, it seems that the only machines giving a 1 to 1 ratio on this dust is the Tinkerer construct smeltery. the RC blast furnace doesn't accept this dust at all.
Pheeeew, I'm not completely senile ... yet.
FTB Unleashed 1.1.1:
But I do have GregTech 3.11 included in my pack, this probably changed it into a Blast Furnace recipe. (The other pages are for Industrial Blast Furnace and ore dictionary.) Also tested it in the Blast Furnace, it does smelt it into an ingot, while the Powered Furnace doesn't accept the dust as input.
But you are most likely correct as well, without GregTech it can be used in a regular furnace.
It's from the new MFFS, which is built on a UE foundation, and contains UE Basics, which contains the 4x coal + 1x iron = 1x steel dust recipe.
Honestly, it's fairly inefficient and a waste of coal that could better be put to making coal coke.
Honestly, it's fairly inefficient and a waste of coal that could better be put to making coal coke.
Ture but as a starting tool even ineffeicient steel is good steel. Make a nice steel tool drop some moss and lapis on it and don't worry so much even if you use a whole stack of coal its not a huge loss in the long run if you make the tool self repairing.
Steel dust is added by atomic science, it returns two ignots upon smelting, it only needs be smelted in a blast furnace if GT's present.
There's also the steel dust made via Mekanism, but that's not part of FTB either.
But yes, I still think the blast furnace is the best of all the options since you can make steel using charcoal.
Also, while doing the whole single lapis on a hammer to get Fortune 3 does work, it takes an incredible amount of time when lapis and redstone get better returns from a pulverizer (even more with an enrichment chamber if you opt for Mekanism) and you can get fortune 3 from the MFR block crusher. Sure, you'll need an essence farm of some sort, be it via a mob grinder or manual extraction after eating essence berries, but the point is if you get silk touch early you'll most likely be able to set up such systems quicker than grinding up to fortune 3, or in the case of people just using lapis, it would save you a lot in materials.
I don't know why everyone is tripping over this steel thing. It is not like anyone is suggesting it as your main way to get steal. The thread is titled Tinkers Construct good STARTING tools. It is not going to kill anyone to get a little but of costly steal to have a good starting tool that can mine everything basically. Just a little iron and coal and you got a pick that works on every ore you will run into. Yes there are many better ways and I am not suggesting to grind up to fortune 3 on a hammer. The hammer is not a STARTING tool. But if you want a good STARTING tool a steel pick is a fairly good one and since you will be using it for a lot of things while you get started tossing some lapis when you find some is not a bad idea as it will level up while you just do your normal digging and the such.
I'm going to ignore the GT changes to this steel recipe. there is no GT in unleashed unless you add it, and GT does bad things to TC anyhow.
Steel is massively superior to just about anything as your first metal tool. especially if you are playing without vanilla tools. (don't disable them in the config, since that will prevent you from making certain machines that rely on them as parts).
it's normally flint/cactus/bone pick -> aluminum brass casts/iron blocks (or gold if you make some TNT to harvest gold) -> iron/copper/bronze pick/hammer -> diamond upgrade -> alumite pick/hammer -> manyullyn.
with the steel recipe it's flint/cactus/bone -> aluminum brass casts/iron blocks -> steel pick -> cobalt/ardite/manyullyn.
Thus you save not only a diamond, you are skipping past an entire tool. one that probably would have a pretty short lifespan annyhow seeing as it's only going to ever be made so you can get cobalt and ardite for the manyulyn tools. and even then. you are liable to make your final tools out of cobalt anyhow, seeing as manyullyn is best used as tool handle and not as primary tool material.
Personally i don't really mind this steel recipe. it's fairly balanced for what it does, it's not really any more powerful than using TNT to harvest a diamond early on so you can diamond tip you bone/cactus pick.[DOUBLEPOST=1375948118][/DOUBLEPOST]
Pheeeew, I'm not completely senile ... yet.
FTB Unleashed 1.1.1:
But I do have GregTech 3.11 included in my pack, this probably changed it into a Blast Furnace recipe. (The other pages are for Industrial Blast Furnace and ore dictionary.) Also tested it in the Blast Furnace, it does smelt it into an ingot, while the Powered Furnace doesn't accept the dust as input.
But you are most likely correct as well, without GregTech it can be used in a regular furnace.
It would be just like greg to do something like this.
I usually aim for a bone/flint head, stone or paper binding and a slime tool rod for my first tools. Later, I add a diamond for the better durability and mining level.
There a re a few things I'd like to disagree with you here on. First, if you're able to cast steel into tools you should already have a tool forge. Outside of gravel aluminum is relatively difficult to run into so you should have plenty of other metals unless you've gotten lucky, and you need to be able to cast metals (or use 3 iron ingots) if you opt to use gold instead of aluminum brass. Either way, this puts steel on about the same level as getting a hammer even with the easy steel recipe.
Now that said my post was more about how lapis on a tool is kind of mediocre once you break it down. Yes, getting the fortune and looting can help a lot, especially the looting, but unless you're using a large amount of lapis it just takes entirely too long early game for you to build up enough luck to get fortune3/looting3. I'm talking hours of real time with a steel hammer, much less a pick. Now sure, most of the ores you want you'll want to fortune, outside of redstone or lapis since pulverizer yield is higher. Certus quartz and nether quartz, for example, are really awesome to fortune, but you will also fill your bags quicker. Also, fortune in the nether with nether ores isn't as useful imo as silk touch since silk touch will prevent the ores from going boom.
Basically, I agree with you on getting the Steel Pick, I just suggest shooting for silky instead and using it to take out the blocks for storage until a later time where you can either fortune it with a pick later (either via TiC or enchanting) or fortuning it with an MFR block crusher.
And yes, I did actually get a hammer to looting/fortune 3 and it really did take a few hours of mining to get high enough luck on it. That's why on my next world I plan on focusing for silk touch like I did before, but also opting for weapons with looting on it since they, at least the scythe, get luck from killing mobs.
In my current build, I got a Steel Helmet from a spoils bag, zapped it with a Force Rod, and melted the ingots down to make a steel pick. When TiC and DC collide! 
I don't see what's so bad about this steel dust recipe. You're getting double the steel per iron ingot at the cost of about double the coal per steel ingot, without having to wait 80 years for the Coke Oven and Blast Furnace.
I don't see what's so bad about this steel dust recipe. You're getting double the steel per iron ingot at the cost of about double the coal per steel ingot, without having to wait 80 years for the Coke Oven and Blast Furnace.
I'm not too far into my world, but I have a stone pick with flint binding and a bone handle. I used a vanilla pick to mine up some diamonds early on and threw one on the pick along with some redstone. It's nothing too special but it lasts a long time, can mine everything in the overworld, and i can repair it with cobblestone!
This is how I went in my current game, I'm not saying it's the best way or even an efficient way:
wood/stone pick/sword/shovel/axe -> first blocks of iron to make a Tool Forge -> wood/stone Hammer/Lumber Axe/Scythe/Excavator (and later a Cleaver to get mob heads for Thaumcraft research) -> Make 1 obsidian pick to mine diamonds -> make a quarry and quarry the Nether for a while to get Cobalt/Ardite.
So I went from stone tools to Cobalt in 1 go, no need for steel. The stone Hammer makes mining fast enough that diamonds really aren't an issue, at least I had no trouble at all to pull more than 11 diamonds from the ground (I also made a few redstone energy cells to power that quarry) and then still leave a ton exposed for when I got my first Fortune pick (enough to get me ~35 Diamonds with Fortune 3). That was with ~8 shafts dug at y12 with 2 blocks between each shaft where each shaft was about as long as the Hammer could dig before needing repairs (~1120 uses for a wood/stone Hammer divided by 9 is ~120 block long 3x3 shafts).
Of course quarrying the Nether is a bit buggy atm and certainly a lame way to get Cobalt/Ardite, but it's still an option if you have enough Diamonds.
btw, Lapis is better to Fortune 3 than Pulverize. The Pulverizer gives you 8 shards of Lapis per ore, Fortune 3 gives you (on average) a 120% increase (on the 4-8 it gives if mined), thus giving you more Lapis (on average).
wood/stone pick/sword/shovel/axe -> first blocks of iron to make a Tool Forge -> wood/stone Hammer/Lumber Axe/Scythe/Excavator (and later a Cleaver to get mob heads for Thaumcraft research) -> Make 1 obsidian pick to mine diamonds -> make a quarry and quarry the Nether for a while to get Cobalt/Ardite.
So I went from stone tools to Cobalt in 1 go, no need for steel. The stone Hammer makes mining fast enough that diamonds really aren't an issue, at least I had no trouble at all to pull more than 11 diamonds from the ground (I also made a few redstone energy cells to power that quarry) and then still leave a ton exposed for when I got my first Fortune pick (enough to get me ~35 Diamonds with Fortune 3). That was with ~8 shafts dug at y12 with 2 blocks between each shaft where each shaft was about as long as the Hammer could dig before needing repairs (~1120 uses for a wood/stone Hammer divided by 9 is ~120 block long 3x3 shafts).
Of course quarrying the Nether is a bit buggy atm and certainly a lame way to get Cobalt/Ardite, but it's still an option if you have enough Diamonds.
btw, Lapis is better to Fortune 3 than Pulverize. The Pulverizer gives you 8 shards of Lapis per ore, Fortune 3 gives you (on average) a 120% increase (on the 4-8 it gives if mined), thus giving you more Lapis (on average).