Hey everyone, I did some searching and couldn't quite find the information I needed in regards to Smithing. I have a basic understanding of it, but I still have quite a few questions about it. I was hoping someone could either help answer these questions or link me in the right direction. My first question has to do with Ingots. I know that I need them for Smithing, but I was wondering what are some of the best ways of getting them. Are they only relagated to loot found in drops or is there a better way to consistently get Ingots? I know that you can use the Disposable Ingot Press with various drops such as Hemamite to form Ingots, but is the only way to get loot such as Hemamite from drops/chests? My second question is fairly simple, do you only need Smelting and Smithing if you're only planning on using Smithing for crafting or is there still a way to use other crafting such as Grinding or Distilling in order to help with your Smithing? Any advice or helpful links will be much appreciated. I'm currently trying to get into Smithing, but am finding it a bit overwhelming. Thanks in advance, Hex
Crafting ingredients come from two places: loot, and skill effects. Specifically, for Smithing, the effects of Perception and Clockwork Knight. that's all.
A little advice: Perception really is your best friend. To make some of the better items via smithing, you're going to want lots of steel ingots. For example, Full Plate Armour takes a whopping 7 steel ingots. This armor is then used to craft Embossed Serpentine Platemail, Imperial Boilerplate, or Imperial Clockwork Plate. This trend continues in other slots: You need 4 steel ingots total to make a Fine Steel Sword, used to make a wide range of high tier swords, for example. To make a long story short, you need lots and lots of steel ingots, and if you intend to smith the majority of your equipment (and if not, why did you take smithing?), you can never have enough of them. Anyway, perception gives steel ingots.
And at higher levels, perception also gives Bituminous Coal and Chalk (well, it gives black pearls, but those can be ground up into chalk with an ingot grinder) which you can use to turn Iron Ingots into more steel. Also, keep an eye out for crafting vending machines - those let you buy every reagent in the game, assuming the right ones show up in the machine.
And if anything, there are also "rooms of requirement" (the rooms with three places for runes and a lever), where you can get more craft vending machines if you find out what the combination for them is (a given combination always gives the same thing). It's pretty much the best way to use these rooms, unless your build lacks any source of renewable (or semi-renewable) healing, in which case you might (depending on your current situation) aim for the food vending machine instead.
