The Smelter is the other half of mining — and it does two jobs that look nothing alike. Everybody knows it makes ingots. Rather fewer know that thirteen of its eighteen recipes are glass bottles.
Ingots
Ore in, metal out, and the ladder climbs with the profession:
| Ingot | Ore | Level | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron | 10 iron ore | 0 | 1m |
| Copper | 10 copper ore | 1 | 2m |
| Steel | 20 iron ore + 4 coal | 1 | 10m |
| Silver | 25 silver ore | 2 | 3m |
| Gold | 50 gold ore | 3 | 4m |
Steel is the odd one out and the expensive one: twice the iron of an iron ingot, plus coal, plus ten minutes.
These are what the forge presses into tools and weapons — and, with an empty pouch from a basketweaver, into the coin bags a mint strikes into money.
Glass — the half nobody mentions
The other thirteen recipes take sand and a mould and give you a bottle:
| Bottles | Sand | Level | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Five small designs | 2 | 1 | 30s |
| Three potion bottles | 2 | 1 | 30s |
| Five large designs | 5 | 2 | 1m |
If your colony bottles drinks or brews potions, somebody is running a smelter for the glassware. Sand is gathered with a small basket, and a sand box with a large bag gives up 240 loads.
Smelter or not
Anyone can smelt iron, because it is level 0 — that is true at every station in the game. What you give up by not being a smelter is everything else: no crafting experience, no recipe book, and the ingredients typed in by hand every time. Everything above iron needs the profession.
Once you are a smelter and have crafted a recipe, it is remembered — and then you can ask for ten at once instead of one at a time. Crafting several multiplies the time, it does not batch: two ingots take twice as long and pay twice the experience.
Two things that will cost you
Every ingot spoils within a day. The glass does not. So smelt metal to order rather than stockpiling it, and collect promptly — you have about a minute at the station before a finished ingot is ruined, and anyone walking past can take it in the meantime.
A failed craft still eats your ore. Ask for more than you can afford and it tells you what you are missing and ruins what went in. Check your inventory before you press craft, not after.