Copper → Iron → Cobalt: The Metal Progression
The fastest route from your first surface copper to a full cobalt kit — ore targets, bench gates, and the exact counts to aim for.
Every metal in the current patch follows the same loop: find ore, smelt ingots at the Furnace, craft the next tier at the right bench. The gates are strict — you cannot skip a tier, because each pickaxe tier gates the next ore.
Phase 1: Copper (day one)
- Punch trees → logs → planks; hand-craft the Workbench (6 planks).
- Build a Furnace (8 stone) at the Workbench.
- Mine surface copper, smelt copper ingots (2 ore + 1 coal each).
- First goals: copper pickaxe (3 ingots + 2 planks) and copper sword (4 ingots).
Phase 2: Iron
- A copper pickaxe is required to break iron ore — do not leave the surface without one.
- Iron gates everything: the Anvil (3 ingots + 2 planks) and the Armory Bench (4 ingots + 4 leather strips).
- Standard loadout before going deep: iron pickaxe, iron sword, iron chestplate (8 ingots).
Phase 3: Cobalt
- Cobalt ore lives in deep layers and needs an iron pickaxe.
- Smelting is coal-hungry: 3 coal per ingot — stock up before descending.
- Endgame v1 kit: cobalt pickaxe, cobalt sword, cobalt chestplate.
Not sure how much ore a full kit costs? Run it through the calculator — it expands any target down to raw ore, coal, and logs with exact counts.