Iron mining feels wrong

[Lizzard]

This feels so out of place in a game that has such a beautiful and unique natural environment to it, and even uses that nature to buff and debuff you. You go into an "instanced" dungeon, get what you can, then ignore it forever as it's now dead space. The scenery is exactly the same, resources don't regrow, enemies don't respawn, the environmental effects sty exactly the same.

Feels like iron mining just puts the entire game on hold. And it's not the Swamp that's the issue, it's the finite supply found in crypts, which themselves are randomly placed. It's a waste to build a base in the swamp to collect the iron, when you could be done with that area within an hour.

The environment is tedious and boring and unlike the over world, you can't make your mark, customize it, or make it look and feel better. You don't carve paths through the crypts. You don't pave over the floor of the crypts. You don't build roads through the crypts. And whatever you do place in the Crypt, will be forgotten about forever once you mine it dry. While if you build those things on the overworld, you can still access and use them beyond whatever the original purpose was.

It also sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the other resources. For the amount you need and the length of time it takes to acquire, the primary source isn't buried in the dirt, doesn't run in veins of rocks... no. The primary source for some reason, comes from piles of garbage in crypts? How and why is it we have to "dumpster dive" for iron, while the rest of the resources occur on nature? Where did the original iron come from that then became "scrap"?

[VulcanTourist]

There's a mod that makes new trees (re-)grow in the same spot when you remove the stump. There's also mods that remove some or all build restrictions, meaning you could build inside forbidden places like troll dens and crypts; I'm doing that right now, putting portals in well placed troll dens and crypts just because I never have to worry about defense (well, unless I deliberately leave one of those bone-pile spawn points in a crypt).

There's also Muddy Scrap Piles buried randomly in the swamps, but you're very very unlikely to find them unless you have the Wishbone.

As for your last question, the answer might be rather obvious if you've paid attention to the Lore: there have been countless generations that preceded you on this world, some more advanced than what exists in the game's timeframe, so perhaps what natural iron existed was already fully exploited by those who came before. Landfills on Earth may very well become a significant source of raw materials in the distant future, if humans survive that long.

[Tom]

What I don't understand is why we can't take the weapons off of draugr and melt those down for scraps. Basically the same thing as fulings. Far less tedious than mining and plays into the games core aspects, being adventure and fighting.

[knighttemplar1960]

Burial grounds in the Back forest behave the same way. Real logging does deplete tress in an area unless you plant tree seeds and let them grow over a 20 year time frame. Real copper and tin deposits play out over time. IRL copper deposits only contain about 1% copper the rest is waste stone. It took 3 men working 3 - 12 hour days to mine and smelt enough copper ore to get a 1/2 pinky sized plug of 25% pure copper.

Iron is similar. It doesn't exist in nature as "ore". The iron we mine is various types of iron oxide. In the late bronze age and early iron age most of the iron deposits that were reachable had less than 30% iron in the deposit (today we can find deposits that are up to 60% iron). Most of the iron deposits that were used then were coluvial deposits (same as tin) that washed into a river. Once the iron oxide is mined/sluiced it takes far higher heat to smelt it than copper or tin (even higher and a blast furnace if you want to make steel). Of you want an idea of just how long it would take to mine and smelt iron watch these videos and count how many days go past just to get the tiny handful of iron pellets he gets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPIUMpiV0IY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTzMqWaoqYw

These videos don't even take into account the time it takes to find/cut suitable wood and to make the charcoal.

The place a Viking would get a large amount of all ready processed (but now rusty) iron ore would be to raid the tomb of some wealth person that had their funeral goods buried with them and the garbage piles put up after the burial to keep intruders out. Pretty much what you see in the crypts.

Originally posted by Tom:

What I don't understand is why we can't take the weapons off of draugr and melt those down for scraps. Basically the same thing as fulings. Far less tedious than mining and plays into the games core aspects, being adventure and fighting.

The Draugr aren't using good quality materials using. They are using old and rotting equipment from the hundreds of years ago that they were alive. Bronze doesn't rust so the weapons they are using are made of wood scavenged from the swamps and bronze heads/tips. Iron in that environment would have disintegrated by now. Even in the Bronze age flint, bone, and ivory were the preferred heads for arrows. Bronze was too valuable to be used for a throw away weapon.

[tyrael]

Originally posted by Lizzard:

It also sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the other resources. For the amount you need and the length of time it takes to acquire, the primary source isn't buried in the dirt, doesn't run in veins of rocks... no. The primary source for some reason, comes from piles of garbage in crypts? How and why is it we have to "dumpster dive" for iron, while the rest of the resources occur on nature? Where did the original iron come from that then became "scrap"?

All you said is valid as a criticism but that applies to all the dungeons. Ill focus on the quoted part tho.

You can find scrap piles in the dirt of swamps. They simply are less convenient to dig out.
It's a bit of a deduction on my part:
Q: How and why is it we have to "dumpster dive" for iron, while the rest of the resources occur on nature?
A: We dont have to. You can do it the hard way. Crypts tho are the most conveniant for the time you need iron. That said, possibly cos previous races or civilizations have exhausted those, if you mean ore. With one exception. All you can do is recycle.
so we know of 4 more people who used iron: those now called draugir (got punished hard but odin iirc hence the dumpster), dvergir (dwarves, the ruins of bridges in which iron is used), the jotun (giants, whose giant rusted armor pieces and weapons are scattered all over mistlands), the ulv (you get iron from breaking their doors).

Q: Where did the original iron come from that then became "scrap"?
A: The only real proof i know of are... fish. You can fish for iron ore, not scrap, ORE. swamp fish can give you that as a bonus to catching them.

Lore wise my explanation is this. Iron throghout the millenia has been so needed that various "civilizations" had mined every little bit there was. That is assuming it ever had huge concentrated ore deposits akin to other metals. I like that concept of building from and on the proverbial ashes of previous civilizations, gives the game some more flavor and depth. Enriches the world.

Gameplay wise it's probably to break linearity of the game and swap things around so in the iron age you need to mine in the crypts instead of simply getting a few cores to start you of. Maybe the intention was to break the "oh great, another boring rock to dig thru.". Or maybe they realised how dangerous and annoying digging on the surface was had to change it. Crypts are much safer after all. Plus there is this gatekeeping aspect, or a try, that you need a boss key right? For silver it's the easy way out design wise cos more ore. The ore veins thing is again broken with black metal. Btw you can ask the same question here for black metal, where does it come from in nature? How did fulings get it? Mistlands went bonkers with not even using a new type of metal but eitr so the "pattern" is gone here almost entirely. Then again you do sorta need to dig again, ore or not, so there is that.

[Karax]

And how do you fish for Iron? Im new to the fishing stuff, never fished before

[avatar.zero]

Originally posted by Karax:

And how do you fish for Iron? Im new to the fishing stuff, never fished before

Each time you catch a fish there's a chance that it will also add a piece of something to your inventory, with the exact item depending on what type of fish you catch. The fish you catch by Swamps has a 1:6 chance of giving a piece of Iron Ore (functionally the same as the Iron Scrap you get from Muddy Piles).

[tyrael]

Originally posted by Karax:

And how do you fish for Iron? Im new to the fishing stuff, never fished before

Each biome has it's own unique fish. To get iron you need to go to the coastal waters of swamp where Giant herring spawns.
To fish in general you need 3 thing: a rod, bait and high stamina food. Prior fishing exp will help a lot too. To fish for the herring tho you need a bait for it in particular, a sticky bait. Technically you can find a rod but it's very very rare and in the mountains so i wont get into details.

The "chain" starts at haldor. You buy the rod (350g) and normal bait (10g for each 20). In the cauldron you make the sticky bait by "cooking" normal bait with abomination trophy.

Advice:
1st get normal bait and fish in the meadows to learn and get some exp. Valheim's fishing is quite unique in a sence that if you see fish you can fish em out, if you dont you most likely wont catch anything. Dont bother casting anywhere but rather where you can actually see fish. You can ofc fish from a boat too. Dont cast far at 1st if you want to successfully catch fish, stamina drain is quite insane. Unless you wanna exp asap it's the reeling in that gives exp NOT actually geting the fish. Experiment, try, enjoy the time and chill. If you're in a hurry try some guides on YT, some got outdated in part but the core mechanic is the same.

[jonnin]

ok, instances can't be converted into homes, and i also wish they could, but you can certainly cut paths (hoe is your friend) through the swamps and make a fine base there (even using the indestructible large sideways trees as a foundation).

[Soulstinger]

Also Orange Slimes can drop scrap Iron

[VulcanTourist]

Originally posted by Of Iron and Gold:

You could get Valheim Plus and only enable the part that lets you build in caves. The mod does a whole lot of stuff but it's all customizable.

Build Restriction Tweaks[www.nexusmods.com] also allows that, as well selectively removing other restrictions.

[Steve]

Swamp is one of my favourite biomes! We build paths in our swamp runs with the hoe. makes a big difference for mobility. No homes/bases save small shelters w/ a campfire in various places to restore your rested buff, and usually one forward operations base near the coast housing a portal where we can dock our boat to bring ore back from.

As for iron, you can get it in crypts, outside of crypts by mining in the swamp (requires a special item or a sledge hammer to find), fishing giant herring, and killing the large orange/brown slimes.

You can get 3 more (plentiful) sources once you get to mistlands as well (2 of these require a mining pick, the other requires a stonecutter)

[gerzald]

Fishing in that nasty swamp water? The very idea!

[tyrael]

Originally posted by Steve:

Swamp is one of my favourite biomes! We build paths in our swamp runs with the hoe. makes a big difference for mobility. No homes/bases save small shelters w/ a campfire in various places to restore your rested buff, and usually one forward operations base near the coast housing a portal where we can dock our boat to bring ore back from.

As for iron, you can get it in crypts, outside of crypts by mining in the swamp (requires a special item or a sledge hammer to find), fishing giant herring, and killing the large orange/brown slimes.

You can get 3 more (plentiful) sources once you get to mistlands as well (2 of these require a mining pick, the other requires a stonecutter)

No way! someone else who enjoys the swamp?! Oh man, noice. It's i think my favourite biome, followed by black forest.
For people who are lurking there and dont know the items mentioned there, to be able to google it etc:
special item - wishbone
sledge hammer or the stagbreaker, both are 2h mauls
orange slime - ooze