RimWorld: How to Get Steel (Guide)

Steel is the ultimate resource in RimWorld since it is one of the materials used not only for defense but also to build the structure of your world. Due to its scarcity, it must be used with precise strategic planning if you want your colony to survive and thrive.

Steel may not be used in the early stages of the game but is a crucial material once the game progresses; until then, you have the chance to save a pile till you need it. But if you did not collect steel until mid-game and are now short on it, you don’t need to worry. You are in the right place, and we’ll cover everything you need to know to find steel.

What Are the Uses of Steel?

Steel in RimWorld is an ingredient essential for most building items. Here is how you can utilize steel in different ways.

• Construction: Steel is mainly used in building the colony’s infrastructure, including walls, doors, beds, and other furniture items. Walls and doors made from steel are rigid and offer protection when you are raided. It provides durability for the walls.
• Defenses: You can not only utilize Steel for construction, but you can build traps and turrets for your protection as well. The wide range of defensive materials made from steel contributes to the significance of strategically managing the amount of steel utilized.
• Weapons: It allows the player to build weapons and equipment to aid him in an attack. A variety of weapons can be crafted with the help of this material that, include combat weapons like swords to ranged weapons like guns.
• Trade: You can save the excess steel to trade it with visitors. You can sell resources and even hire new colonists by trading.

Ways to Acquire Steel in RimWorld

Since we have already established that steel is a scarce resource that requires long-term planning by the player for better utilization. In this section, we will discuss multiple ways that you can find steel.

Mining Compacted Steel

This method is primarily applicable if you have mountains on your map. You can mine the compacted steel rocks on the map to gain steel. These will be available on the edges of the mountain block and will display “Compacted Steel” in the left corner when clicked on them. Not all the edges have this element, but most of them do.

You have to go to the Order section and then select the Mine option. Then highlight the edges of the mountain you found compacted steel on, and the colonists tasked with mining will start their job after approaching it. Wait a few minutes, and find the steel placed where you assigned the miners to mine.

Deconstruction

This method effectively gains steel in the early stages of the game. You can identify the walls, doors, or other things made of steel and then have them deconstructed to acquire their raw material again. You can deconstruct the items by entering the Order section and selecting Deconstruct. The colonists assigned will start their work, and after a few minutes, you have chunks of steel.

This is a valuable method because it can help you retain the amount again if you misused the material due to poor planning. For example, you may have decided on building unnecessary steel walls but now want to remove them to make them in another place; that is when this option comes in.

Smelting Steel Slag Chunk

For this method, you can use the steel slag chunks found on the map randomly. If you have built an Electric Smelter, these chunks can be molded into steel. Steel Slag can be found after destroying the drops pods and other machinery. Smelting Raider’s weapons can also be a good source of steel.

Note: This method is effective after the mid-stage of the game since building the smelter also requires 170 steel and two other components.

Underground Drilling

Effective only from the mid to the late stage of the game, this method can net you quite a pretty amount of steel. This requires electricity, ground penetrating scanners, a deep drill, and a colonist to operate it.

Once you have connected the power to the drill, use the ground penetrating scanner to research the area with deposits. The site with deposits will be shown with green highlights on it. Start the drill and place it in the shaded area to start drilling. After a while, you will find the chunks of steel lying that you can collect. This method does take a bit but is worth its time.

Dissemble Mechanoids

The remains of crashed ships and other warcraft can be dissembled on the machining table. This method is slow because the machine shreds one component at a time, and the player may have more parts collected. This method is also applicable from the mid to late stage but is not recommended.

Trade From the Visitors

To start trading, you need an Orbital Trade Beacon. You can find it in the Architect menu under the miscellaneous tab. Once you have bought it for 60 steel, connect it to a power source, and then you need to place the items you want to trade within its boundaries. If you don’t put the things in its borders, the items will not be available in the trading menu.

Next, you will have to construct the Comms Console. Then hire a colonist with high social skills so that he can get you the best prices. You will start getting notifications if any travelers are passing by. Call the ships by summoning the character to Comms Console. Successfully doing so will open the menu for trading with the visitors. You can find steel and swipe left to buy it.

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