Iron: Worth more than gold?

So I recently got back into starbound and was really looking forward to the new update. I did (eventually) grind my way to endgame and now I'm using my god-tier ship and equipment to build a massive facility under water on an ocean planet. (Will eventually get the balls together to do this on a lava ocean planet too.) But I'm getting away from the point. In all my travels and doing unspeakable things to worlds I have come to one conclusion. In my universe; Iron is worth more than Gold.
I have had a surplus of almost everything since I started, hell, even platinum I have nearly a full thousand of. God knows how much titanium I've blown through on durasteel. But I have, at no point the entire game 'till now, had more than 100 iron bars in my inventory. It used to be that you just wander off to some desert for fifteen minutes and leave with hundreds of bars worth. Does anyone know where it all went? Like seriously, I don't mind a little challenge and all, but I went to a desert world last night and just mined. All. Night. Long.
127 Iron bars, that's what I left with. The only time I've ever had more than 100.
Copper, on the other hand, nearly a full thousand. Sitting at well over 500 gold. I'm practically drowning in silver.
Since when did iron become as rare as plutonium? Granted, plutonium can only be found on moons and you don't need much of it, but still. I got more plutonium in two hours than I did iron in eight. Something about that sentence just sounds wrong to me.

Please, someone tell me. Where is it? Do I have to eat whole worlds to get it? And which demon do I have to sell my mothers soul to to get this information?

 

Your mistake was using a desert world. I don't think ores can spawn in Fine Sand like they used to, which reduces the amount of available land that you can mine iron out of. Try Forest worlds instead, or indeed any non-desert planet witha "Mostly Harmless" rating or lower. Dig between the core layer and the last 3-5 screens of the cave layer, vertically speaking, for the highest concentrations.

I accept payment in blood, souls, gold, ensorcelled metals, angel or demon wings, dragon's teeth, cockatrice wattles, and doomsday weapons.

 

You do not have to eat whole worlds, and you need not enter a binding contract with a demon. You have to simply understand a few very basic things about the different types of ore and the current way the universe is categorized.

First, for Starbound's sake, ores can be broken down into three groups. Precious Metals, Industrial Metals, and Radioactives.
Precious Metals include copper, silver, gold, platinum, and though technically not metals, diamond and coal. They can be categorized as such because they exist on all planets, of all difficulties, except for current moons, asteroid belts, and barren worlds. These materials are mostly used in sparse amounts, and generally serve as the bulk of any refining for pixels operations.

Industrial Metals include iron, titanium, rubium, aegisalt, violum, and solarium. I categorize them as such because they only exist on words of their corresponding difficulty ratings. You will only find iron on Harmless and Mostly Harmless worlds. You will only find Titanium on the next two difficulty levels. You will only find rubium, aegisalt, and violum on the two highest difficulty level worlds. With current world generation mechanics, this means that Iron only exists on Garden, Forest, and Desert planets. Titanium only exists on Ocean, Arid, and Snow planets. These metals are used much more frequently because they can be used to make building blocks and decorative items.

Radioactives are just uranium and plutonium. And plutonium is debatable in the context of the game, since you can safely harvest plutonium from any moon well before you get your radiation protection suit. Uranium on the other hand only exists on planets with the "highly radioactive" description, which is currently limited to Tropical, Alien, and Poisonous Ocean worlds.

tl;dr

You'll only find Iron on lush Garden worlds, Forest worlds, and Desert worlds. All worlds you will likely overlook as you advance up through the tiers.

 

It doesn't matter whose souls right? Next time I stroll through a Florian outpost I shall sacrifice....well let's be honest, all of them in your name. Looks like Madisel doesn't want any souls though, so more for you.

But it's basically as I figured, although it is nice to have an excuse to visit the forest planets (some of my favorite) again. Personally I think highly used resources should spawn on all planets and leave the other ones to tiers. But what do I know? Ah well, who are we to question the gods that play with the universe as they see fit. Time to roll up my sleeves, put on my hard hat, and get to the old mining hole. If there is one consolation it's that the maximum matter manipulator can just chew through those worlds like a hot blade through Florian skin.

 

Just remember a few simple rules when it comes to mining.

• The deeper you go, the richer the loot (Get down into the caves - listen for the music to stop and watch for the local monsters to change. You'll find some iron on the way down, but it's at the caves where it's easiest to mine.)
• The more dangerous the world, the more frequent the ore (since Iron doesn't spawn above Mostly Harmless, this means you should not expect crazy-huge veins of the stuff)
• The brighter your light, the further it penetrates (so place Cheap Lights next to walls to see further into them, and use your Matter Manipulator's glow to scan walls)
• Weight mining speed versus vein thickness. A small vein might not be worth it if it's buried into hard rock, like volcanic cobblestone, magmastone, or obsidian.

Hope this helps.

 

i think iron is waaaaayyyy more usefull then useliss gold

from what i know all you can really make from gold is a gold pickaxe/drill

 

For now, but who knows, in a future update we might see additions like being able to make solid copper, silver, gold, or platinum blocks. Maybe even a decoration item like stacks of gold bars or something.

 

that would be a game changer

 

well, right NOW you can turn gold into pixles, so it has that as a use.

 

Only gold ore, though. Bars are pretty much a waste once you have the portable pixel printer and all your matter manipulator upgrades.

 

I distinctly remember feeding bars, so bars should still work unless that was nerfed for some inscrutable reason.

 

Bars aren't usable in the refinery without mods. It's been that way since Koala, unless that got changed in Upbeat Giraffe and nobody told me. Will test it when I have a free moment.

EDIT: Well I stand corrected. Not only can gold and other precious metal bars be used in the refinery now, but also hard metal ores and bars can be refined, too. When did this change?

The return of EDIT: Okay, apparently the refinery is currently selective in what it will and won't refine. All precious metal ores and bars, as well as diamonds, work. Iron ores and bars work too, but not steel, titanium, durasteel, aegisalt, violium, rubium, or their compounds. No radioactive materials (uranium, plutonium, solarium) work.

 

I'm pretty sure i have feed bars into as well with latest stable. You could go check that out to make sure. I would do it myself but i don't feel like waiting a million years for the main menu to load just to check something like that xD

Edit* I see, thanks for testing all that. Good to know :O

 

The one thing I would like to point out is that you could refine bars in Koala edition. Granted it was copper to platinum + iron. titanium you could not. Something I knew I had to check cause I remember actually doing bar in that thing.

 

It sounds like the only changes that have happened since Koala (with regards to refining) is that more ores/bars were classified with the Titanium+ ores that couldn't be refined, yet were used for crafting arms and armor.

In koala:
Early ores (copper, iron, silver, gold) could be refined, including bars.
Late ores (titanium, aegisalt, cerulium, violium) and smelted versions could not be refined.
Precious metals (diamond) could be refined.
Fuel ores (uranium, plutonium, solarium) could not.

I think it's a good plan that the "heavily used by builders" materials should not be refineable, like Titanium (skyrails) and the T5+ stuff (furniture and armor). I kinda like the idea of being able to melt some of the early ores if you're close to the pixel quota for the next boss and have a few extra bars, but I'd also like to see some ores that are purely for cosmetic purposes or refining (earlier precious metals).

Anyway, it looks like the OP suffers from iron deficiency and should check out some "one a day" vitamins. Or whatever Starbound has instead.

 

Well Iron was pretty simple to get... Then again might just be how my planets generated. That and iron is not found on every planet like the precious metals. So I would expect having more of the precious ores than a low tier ore.

yeah looks like they expanded the list in the giraffe version. good/bad that is debatable to the individual. For me it does not really matter much, as long as there is a use for the refinery.

 

Pixels are great and all, but I'd still like to see a selection of solid metal decoration items. Solid gold doors, a platinum bed, giant silver spoons, and of course blocks. Because I can't be the only one that occasionally wants to live in a solid gold house.

 

I would imagine gold would be a principal ingredient in crafting Avian Tomb blocks.

But yeah, I want every crafting ingredient in the whole damn game to have some decor/furniture stuff to make from 'em. Not jsut the metals, I'm talking Monster Plate and the like. If it's a crafting ingredient, I should be able to make at LEAST a chest out of it.

 

Maybe not gold personally, but platinum stuffs... Having the option of it each would most definitely be nice for those that want to. Many of the thing as mentioned above seem to not have much to do with them, and would be nice for each to be a component in some set of things or something simple. Having more decor options is always a nice thing to have.

 

There's a mod for that. MoreBlocks.