i believe you need iron, corondum and steel ingots to make steel equipment. so this is prob correct.

tbh i couldnt care less about this, if i wanted realism i'd go outside

Maybe armors are made of stainless steel, I mean who wants to rust out there in the colds.

Stainless Steel is made of Iron and 11% chromium, corundum ore contains chromium, there you go.

For gods sake. The glass they use for weapons and armor =/= regular window glass. Its volcanic glass, which is naturally very sharp and very hard, mixed with metals to give it strength. So, while they may not be going for realism overall, in this particular aspect, yes they are.

EDIT: And to everyone saying "Coal + Iron doesn't make steel, go back to runescape", steel is an alloy comprised of iron, carbon and trace amounts of some other minerals. Coal is primarily carbon, with some other minerals. Because coal would have been the easiest way to attain large amounts of carbon in medieval/TES times, they would probably have used it to forge steel.

Nah, go to the smelter in Whiterun, just to the right of where you enter/fast travel. That's where you make ingots. And it says to make a steel ingot, you need corundum ore and iron ore. You never use ore to make equipment, only ingots, leather and leather strips.

AH ok! Thanks. I looked up corundum, and it said that when it wasn't being sold as rubies and sapphires, that it was used mainly as an abrasive material. Also mentioned that it was very hard. Harder than mosts (or maybe all), metals. The article i read did not say explicitly that it was used to cut metals...but that would make sense. It also said that there could be trace amounts of Vanadium and Chromium in the ore. Which are used to smelt various specific kinds of steel.

And for all of you that, I knew, would start griping about "it's a MAGIC game". As I said in the first post. The game is based in reality, with only a few things changed for "magic". Smelting fictional ore, ok. Smelting real ore, get it right. That's how I feel. If you're willing to let them slide on that, that's cool. It's not like the game svcks because of it.

But it's ANNOYING to me right now, that I can't smelt an alloy using ingots. That's just stupid.

It's impossible to draw in the way they suggest, but it's feasible for it to be carried that way if it were to have a strap of some kind - that much in game can be shrugged off as cutting out a lengthy animation.

The thing I find annoying is the fact that you're unable to use a regular hand and a half-sized longsword with a two handed grip..

Lol I very much doubt volcanic glass could be made in a regular forge, as well as being mixed with metals.

And no, you don't add carbon to iron to make steel, you remove it. The only use for coal in this process is to heat the metal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel#Steel_production

I'm surprised nobody is complaining about how Tamrielic smiths managed to get quicksilver (mercury) in an ingot form.

And subsequently use it for weapons and armor.

Much of Skyrim's smithing is odd. Just file it under "magicks be here" and keep your smile on.

Spock is illogical!!!

That doesn't mean it should be left that way.

BTW the OP is correct, Iron + Coal = Steel...

BEHOLD!!!!

http://www.wowwiki.com/Steel_Bar

... o wait...

Sorry if I interpreted this wrong… What type of things do you want to make? Steel armors, weapons, boots? The charcoal is never used for smiting in the game. Ore is smelted into Ingots that will be used for the making of the armors and weapons. Some of the Ingots need 2 Ore pieces to make 1 Ingot.

You will need different types of Ingots for different types of armors in the game and the higher your smiting level/perk, more types of armors/weapons will be unlocked. I guess you know this already. You also use the Ingots for improving weapons and armors on the Workbench and Grinding stone.

AND just to clarify I don’t know anything about smiting in general so don’t judge so harshly.

You can't. But you can make steel in real life.

When alluding to real things, people or events, then being correct makes the fantasy all the better.

A little bit of salt in your brownies makes all that sugar taste much better. (read the ingredients, there's salt.)

The game is mostly real with a tiny bit of fiction to make the fantasy better. There are no daedric weapons. But there are weapons. That there are weapons is real, what the weapons are made of is not, in the cast of ebony weapons or daedric weapons.

Now...the game explained how "glass" armor and weapons work. I'm cool with it. I'm cool with Ebony, even though in real life it is wood...not ore. "Ebony" is a type of wood.

But this is all philosophical crap. What really pissed me off is that I wanted to make some steel ingots and I didn't have any corundum ore. And the idea that I needed corundum ore to make the steel ingot, made it even more irritating. And Then I got over it 2 minutes later.

Exactly, games are all about suspension of reality. If I were, for example, riding a horse in the real world, I wouldn't expect a lone wolf to start viciously attacking me, or a fox to happily run alongside me - they'd both leg it. But I let that slide.

Material 2 > Material 1, therefore Material 2 requires more, and more rare, ingredients. And for me, that is enough.

Complaining that smithing doesn't work exactly like real life, yet no problem with dragons in the game.

I wish you had started with that statement. I would have stopped right there and been spared the rest of the post.

:sadvaultboy:

"Everyone alive knows you need iron ore and coal to smelt steel".

how many out there are then undead like me?

HA HA HA HA HA!!!

is it logical to apply real world concepts to a fantasy world game? spock says no. LOL couldn't resist.

Steel is just Iron with a controlled level of carbon and other alloys.

"Iron" is about 70% iron, 25% carbon, and 5% junk.

I'm guessing they use Corundum as an alloy to make the steel more corrosion-resistant and shiny. They also mention it makes it much stronger.

And people really need to learn the meaning of "Verisimilitude" - Suspension of disbelief.

However, I roll with the "Steel" used in the game, because I (apparently) know more about steel than the OP.

There are many kinds of steel. Apparently, the type used in making weapons and armor in Skyrim is an Iron/Corundum alloy, giving it the tensile strength, hardness, strength, corrosion-resistance, and elasticity needed to kill dragons. Why Corundum? Because that's the alloy needed to give the Iron the desired qualities. Non-Corundum based steel apparently needs repairs after every fight, if the previous games are anything to go by. If the Smiths in Cyrodiil knew to use Corundum and Iron mixed while still ores, many repair hammers could have been saved.

Uh, actually yes. Iron + charcoal = steel.

Thank you very much!

Keep in mind: it's not corundum used to make steel ingots - it's corundum ore.

Chemistry/Metallurgy in Tamriel isn't very advanced: The smith's don't know the metallic elements they need - they work with the elemental "bundles" found in ores. (Kind of like building decks with Booster packs in CCGs instead of buying Single cards)

Mixing corundum ore with iron ore in the smelter makes a better sword/armor-grade steel, likely because of the corrosion-resistant Chromium, and hardness of Corundum (Don't want a blade that can't scratch dragon hide!)

Orichalium is just a different form of Iron Ore with other metals that lead to an even stronger type of Steel than chromium(corundum) steel, that picks up a green tinge from its trace elements.

Ebony isn't steel at all: It's glass. Very strong, resilient glass: It has to be heated and softened before it can be worked with: otherwise, it just shatters. Of course, the force required to shatter it requires either persistance (caused by ineptly trying to repair it) or ridiculous impact.

It also helps to read the book on the subject: They explicitly mention that Corundum is added to the ores to strengthen the "Steel".

I was happy that steel doesnt made from "Steel ore", at least.

I'm surprised that the OP is tweaking out about this, instead of the concept of Glass armor and weapons.

I know right? Also everyone knows that demon hearts aren't harder than steel. WTF is up with that??

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