Basic Forging Guide

[ironcross32]

In the world of Arad, people need weapons, for fighting the hoards of Infested and Nethrim, as well as other hazards in the wilds. Markets need commodities to survive; so, who and what turns chunks of rock into nails, gears, blades and so forth? You can, if you've the notion to become a blacksmith. I've seen various questions about the process of forging, so I've decided to write this guide. My blacksmith is far from a master, so others who have reached higher ranks than I should feel free to contribute information that may be missing, or delve deeper than I.

First off, let's talk guild affiliation. It is by no means a requirement, but it can help if you are an Artisan of the Western Coalition. By joining the Artisans, you can receive training, and specialize in abilities you can't find elsewhere. This will help you succeed, and give you knowledge you wouldn't otherwise have. Forging isn't all there is to blacksmithing though, you need to procure the raw material to make into something useful. To this end, you probably want to learn mining as well. The Artisans can help with this also. So, if you're set on this course to become a blacksmith, and you know it can help to be an artisan - of course, the choice is up to you - let's jump right in.

The first thing you need to do is mine some ore. You do this by buying a pickaxe or steel pick mattock. You can get one or the other in Shadgard or Haiban. Once you have one, you then head into a mine. The public mines are in Shadgard or Haiban. The Shadgard mines have tunnels you will not be permitted to enter, but some you will be able to enter. Your pickaxe will also be a good point of defense, as shades tend to inhabit these creatures. A shade is a creature existing of nether, and thus, susceptible to weapons made of metal, i.e. your pickaxe or mattock. If you're very new to CLOK, you may have some trouble with these at first, if you seem to be getting hit way more than you are hitting back, its best to retreat, heal up, and ask someone to clear them out for you.

You need to get a quantity of ore, usually copper works best, lead cannot be worked. To that end, its often best to have a handcart. If you do, you can mine and automatically put whatever you chip loose into your handcart. When you're done, you can pull your handcart out of the mine, and either take the ore to be sold at the market, or to a work yard to be processed further.

Also remember to take a lantern with you. Torches don't last a long time, so lanterns are more appropriate. It's also advised to have at least one spare flask of oil. You may also have trouble lighting your lantern at first, and if this seems to be the case, having an extra set of firestones won't hurt because they will eventually wear down to nothing.

Mining in principal is easy. You first type "survey" and that will show you what is in the area. The higher your mining skill, the more you're likely to find. Then you just start mining, by typing mine. For example: mine iron. You will start mining in an attempt to hit a vein. At first, you will have a lot of cave-ins, and gas leaks. You will see messages that warn you of impending doom. In both situations, you want to get out of the area. If you're in a deep mine, you don't have to leave the mine altogether, just the immediate area, then simply wait a time, and come back. After a gas leak, you can simply start mining once again, however, do note that you do not want to be in the area during one, especially if you have a lit lantern. A cave-in is also dangerous, and can lead you to become seriously injured, or cause you to die due to your injuries. After a cave-in, there will be rubble that must be cleared away before you can continue to mine.

Once you've found some veins, you can then mine those veins to extract the ore. You do this by typing mine <name of vein>. For example: mine iron. You can simply type look, and if there are any veins, you will see them. You can also cause gas leaks and cave-ins while extracting ore as well, so do be careful. As noted previously, if a hand cart or wagon is in the area, you will place your ores in it automatically. Just as a quick recap, survey an area first, then type mine to expose some veins. Then, type mine, and the name of one of the veins you've located to begin extracting the ore with your pick.

Now that you know the basics of mining, let's proceed to smelting. In order to work with metal, you need to smelt the ore into bars. This is a process of purification, where the rock is separated from the material within, and the remaining metal is heated together to form a bar. In order to get access to a smelting furnace, you need to find a work yard. there is one in Shadgard, one in Haiban, and one in Mistral Lake. The one in Haiban is particularly nice because it has three cubbies, though I cannot comment on the one in Mistral, as I've never used it. The work yards are paid, but if you are with the Artisans, you will gain a discount to the ones in Haiban.

Once in the yard, you'll want to put some ore in eh furnace. It's important to note that unless you're wanting to smelt an alloy bar, you must only use one type of ore at once. This is best accomplished using the 'transfer' command. For example: transfer copper ore from handcart to furnace. Six chunks of ore will fit into a furnace. You should always look first, however, as sometimes other people will leave things in the furnace that will prevent you from smelting properly, leaving you with slag, or nothing at all. Once the furnace is fully loaded, you can then type "pull bellows" to start smelting. The furnace will become hot, and when it cools, if everything went well, you'll be left with some bars. You can also pull the bellows again to combine these into a larger bar, which some items require.

Now that you have some bars to work with, its time to cut them down to size. You'll want to start out making nails, and to do this, you won't want to waste the extra material by making them using a standard 4-pound bar. So, to cut them down to size, you place them in the bar cutter. Next, "pull cutter", will cut your standard bar in half. You'll then want to pull one of the two bars you get out of the cutter, and repeat. Then, take those bars out, and those tiny bars are what you'll want to work with. You can then cut your second small bar. Let's run through an example just to make sure you have the right idea:
transfer copper ore from handcart to furnace
pull bellows
***wait until its cooled off**
get bar from furnace
put bar in cutter
pull cutter
get small bar from cutter
drop small bar
pull cutter
get bar from cutter (X2)
put bar in handcart (X2)
get small bar
put small bar in cutter
pull cutter


Note that it is possible to continue to cut tiny bars. Don't fall into this trap as they're unusable, and unsalvageable, whereas, if you had small bars or higher, you could then put them back in the smelter, pull the bellows and have a chance at getting a bar back out of it that is of larger size.

You'll now need some smithing tools,specifically, a forging hammer, and a pair of tongs. This is a bit of a hefty investment for a new player to make, especially on top of the fee for joining the Artisans, if you take that route. The good news is, if you keep them safe, they'll last you a long time.

When you have these tools, you can start to work. Put a bar on the anvil, then take out both your hammer and tongs, and type "heat". This will have you put the metal into the forge to be heated so it becomes pliable. To start making nails, you would type forge commodity nail. At some point, the metal will cool down, and you'll have to heat it back up again, and continue by typing forge commodity nail again. You won't be very likely to make a finished product at first, what is more likely is that you'll end up with a lump. These are the Hallmark of an apprentice smith in training. It's important to just keep forging, forging, forging. There's no shortcut, just keep working it.

At some point, you'll start to see some finished nails, although quite misshapen amongst the lumps, then the amount of times you successfully make those will increase, and you'll be less likely to get a lump. Lumps can be discouraging but don't let them be, they're just bumps in the road. If you really wanted to be ambitious, you could keep them and resmelt into a bar, but nail lumps don't often reform, so its best just to trash them.

You will be the nail king for a while, crank them out, and keep cranking out more. I wouldn't start in on making other things until you were consistently making well-crafted nails, but of course you're free to do whatever you want. Making bladed weapons, weapons with heads, and arrow heads are all abilities you must have before attempting them, and they're all separate skills, as well as forging armor. Forging general helps with this, which is why it is advisable to work on that, so you don't go through the lump stage for quite as long, when you move onto more useful things.

You can sell your nails at the market, or see if you can talk someone into ordering nails from you. They're useful in carpentry, and for making supports for player run mines, which is something that's always needed.

As a quick note, alloy smelting allows you to make things like bronze, brass, pewter, steel and more. Some of the work yards have signs that show the recipes for making the more common alloys, for example, bronze being one part tin to three parts copper. That's probably the most common when you're getting started. You would then load up your furnace with one chunk of tin ore, and three chunks of copper ore.

This is just a basic guide, and hopefully it helps those who feel a bit overwhelmed by the process. There is more you can do, but I'll leave that for you to discover.

[preiman]

one note, if you don't wish to mine you can absolutely buy your metal. there is nearly always some in the town markets for sale, if you want to get right to work.