Vintage Story Wiki
Progression Guide
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Progression Guide
The desire to learn is the basis of all human progress
Stone Age
Craft stone tools through knapping, make fire, forage for food and build a shelter. See also: Starter Survival Guide
Pottery Age
Learn and master pottery. Find and dig up some clay. Craft yourself clay vessels, for storage, pots and bowls, for cooking and eating meals, as well as a crucible and tool molds, to prepare for the copper age. This is also a good time to start farming.
A wood lamellar armor set (head, body, legs) provides some additional protection against low tier foes. Or gamboised armor is excellent if you have a lot of flax.
Early Copper Age
Time to craft a copper pickaxe and hammer! Clay form a pickaxe mold and hammer mold and fire it. Find 40 nuggets of copper. You can find them loose on the ground, which also indicate an underground deposit. You can also find them in cracked vessels, through panning sand and gravel or by purchasing them from traders. Acquire charcoal and smelt the copper on a firepit. See also: Smelting Guide. Pour the smelted copper into the pickaxe and hammer mold. The hammer allows you to crush copper ore, which you can collect using your shiny new copper pickaxe.
Late Copper Age
Mine enough copper deposits and create an anvil mold. Once you have cast an anvil, you will be able to create fine tools like a saw, which will let you craft wooden boards.
With boards you can, among other things, create shields, and barrels, which let you preserve vegetables and produce leather for leather armor.
Bronze Age
Acquire one of the 3 types of bronze:
- Tin bronze: Find tin ore and mix it with copper
- Bismuth bronze: Find zinc and bismuth ore, mix them with copper
- Black bronze: Find gold and silver ore, mix them with copper
Ways to find these ores:
- Tin: Underground, very rarely on the surface, from traders, rarely from cracked ore vessels or from panning.
- Zinc, bismuth: Underground, rarely from cracked ore vessels or from traders
- Gold, silver: Inside quartz deposits, but requires either bombs or a bronze pick to mine; rarely in cracked ore vessels
Use the prospecting pick, to help narrow down locations, when searching for underground ores.
Iron age
Find iron, mine iron-bearing ores and build a bloomery base and chimney from fired fireclay bricks. Make sure you have enough coal or charcoal. Place the iron ore nuggets and coal into the bloomery and then ignite it. About one in-game day later, the bloomery will stop burning and you can break it to acquire iron blooms. Iron blooms have to be worked on the anvil to create wrought iron ingots, which in turn can be worked into tools. The anvil must be bronze tier or higher. Ferrous metals need higher temperatures to be workable, so you'll also want a bellows to raise the temperature.
Refining iron blooms can be mechanized with a helve hammer.
The bloomery can also be used to make glass from quartz. Glass has decorative uses, can be used to craft lanterns, and you can create greenhouses to extend the types of crops you can farm.
Late iron age
If you have encountered meteoric iron along your journey and you have a firm grip on iron working, it might be wise to construct an iron anvil through smithing, which allows you to work meteoric iron, for a roughly 20% boost in tool durability.
Steel age
Steel tools grant a hefty bonus of 2.5x the durability compared to iron, but the creation of steel is a complex and time intensive process. Head over to the steelmaking guide once you feel ready to achieve this feat.
The desire to learn is the basis of all human progress
Stone Age
Craft stone tools through knapping, make fire, forage for food and build a shelter. See also: Starter Survival Guide
Pottery Age
Learn and master pottery. Find and dig up some clay. Craft yourself clay vessels, for storage, pots and bowls, for cooking and eating meals, as well as a crucible and tool molds, to prepare for the copper age. This is also a good time to start farming.
A wood lamellar armor set (head, body, legs) provides some additional protection against low tier foes. Or gamboised armor is excellent if you have a lot of flax.
Early Copper Age
Time to craft a copper pickaxe and hammer! Clay form a pickaxe mold and hammer mold and fire it. Find 40 nuggets of copper. You can find them loose on the ground, which also indicate an underground deposit. You can also find them in cracked vessels, through panning sand and gravel or by purchasing them from traders. Acquire charcoal and smelt the copper on a firepit. See also: Smelting Guide. Pour the smelted copper into the pickaxe and hammer mold. The hammer allows you to crush copper ore, which you can collect using your shiny new copper pickaxe.
Late Copper Age
Mine enough copper deposits and create an anvil mold. Once you have cast an anvil, you will be able to create fine tools like a saw, which will let you craft wooden boards.
With boards you can, among other things, create shields, and barrels, which let you preserve vegetables and produce leather for leather armor.
Bronze Age
Acquire one of the 3 types of bronze:
- Tin bronze: Find tin ore and mix it with copper
- Bismuth bronze: Find zinc and bismuth ore, mix them with copper
- Black bronze: Find gold and silver ore, mix them with copper
Ways to find these ores:
- Tin: Underground, very rarely on the surface, from traders, rarely from cracked ore vessels or from panning.
- Zinc, bismuth: Underground, rarely from cracked ore vessels or from traders
- Gold, silver: Inside quartz deposits, but requires either bombs or a bronze pick to mine; rarely in cracked ore vessels
Use the prospecting pick, to help narrow down locations, when searching for underground ores.
Iron age
Find iron, mine iron-bearing ores and build a bloomery base and chimney from fired fireclay bricks. Make sure you have enough coal or charcoal. Place the iron ore nuggets and coal into the bloomery and then ignite it. About one in-game day later, the bloomery will stop burning and you can break it to acquire iron blooms. Iron blooms have to be worked on the anvil to create wrought iron ingots, which in turn can be worked into tools. The anvil must be bronze tier or higher. Ferrous metals need higher temperatures to be workable, so you'll also want a bellows to raise the temperature.
Refining iron blooms can be mechanized with a helve hammer.
The bloomery can also be used to make glass from quartz. Glass has decorative uses, can be used to craft lanterns, and you can create greenhouses to extend the types of crops you can farm.
Late iron age
If you have encountered meteoric iron along your journey and you have a firm grip on iron working, it might be wise to construct an iron anvil through smithing, which allows you to work meteoric iron, for a roughly 20% boost in tool durability.
Steel age
Steel tools grant a hefty bonus of 2.5x the durability compared to iron, but the creation of steel is a complex and time intensive process. Head over to the steelmaking guide once you feel ready to achieve this feat.