Bessemer steel
as of 0.9.9
Bessemer steel is the mild steel that comes out of the converter: pig iron blown down to about 0.2 % carbon. It is its own metal, not vanilla steel, with its own items. It melts at 1500 C and weighs 7820 kg per cubic metre.
What ships
Four stock forms and eight tools:
| Item | Stack | Melts back to |
|---|---|---|
| Bessemer Steel Ingot | 16 | itself, at 1500 C |
| Bessemer Steel Plate | 8 | 2 ingots |
| Bessemer Steel Rod | 16 | 1 ingot |
| Bessemer Steel Nails and Strips | 32 | 1 ingot per 4 |
The tools are Bessemer Steel Axe, Bessemer Steel Pickaxe, Bessemer Steel Shovel, Bessemer Steel Knife, Bessemer Steel Saw, Bessemer Steel Hammer, Bessemer Steel Chisel and Bessemer Steel Scythe. The family is flat: every one of them has 2600 durability, mining speed 9.0 on every material its type works, attack power 2.5 where the type carries one, and mining tier 5 on the axe, the saw, the pickaxe and the hammer, which is vanilla steel's tier. Vanilla steel is not flat, so each tool compares differently.
| Tool | Bessemer steel durability | Vanilla steel durability |
|---|---|---|
| Axe | 2600 | 1800 |
| Saw | 2600 | 2250 |
| Knife | 2600 | 2250 |
| Pickaxe | 2600 | 2500 |
| Shovel | 2600 | 3000 |
| Scythe | 2600 | 3400 |
| Hammer | 2600 | 4500 |
| Chisel | 2600 | 6000 |
Speed and attack differ the same way, and not always in Bessemer steel's favour:
| Tool | Bessemer steel | Vanilla steel |
|---|---|---|
| Axe | wood 9.0, plant 9.0, leaves 9.0, attack 2.5 | wood 11, plant 6, leaves 4, attack 4 |
| Saw | wood 9.0, leaves 9.0 | wood 6, leaves 4 |
| Knife | plant 9.0, attack 2.5 | plant 2.4, attack 4 |
| Pickaxe | stone 9.0, ore 9.0, metal 9.0, attack 2.5 | stone 9, ore 9, metal 9, attack 2.5 |
| Shovel | soil 9.0, sand 9.0, gravel 9.0, snow 9.0, attack 2.5 | soil 7, sand 7, gravel 4.4, snow 4.4, attack 2.5 |
| Hammer | attack 2.5 | attack 2.5 |
The vanilla steel pickaxe also carries ceramic 3.25 and ice 4.25; the Bessemer one lists neither, so it works those at the default speed. The scythe and the chisel carry durability alone in both families.
A Bessemer steel tool is therefore not a better steel tool across the board. The axe, the saw and the knife gain durability, the pickaxe gains 4 %, and the shovel, the scythe, the hammer and the chisel lose: a Bessemer steel chisel wears out in under half the strokes of a vanilla steel one. The speeds run the other way for the knife, the saw and the shovel, and against the axe on wood. It is the end of the route, not a new tier; nothing in the game needs tier 6.
How they are made
Bessemer steel is cast, not forged. The metal is deliberately kept off the vanilla metal list, so there is no work item for it and no anvil recipe: an ingot cannot be hammered into anything.
The route is the converter's pour. The Bessemer process fills a molten canal with molten Bessemer steel, and a mold filled from that canal drops the Bessemer steel version of what that mold makes: an ingot mold gives a Bessemer Steel Ingot, a tool mold gives the matching Bessemer steel tool. Only the ingot and the tools have a mold; plate, rod and nails have none.
A Bessemer charge that freezes in the vessel, and a canal or barrel chiselled out, both give vanilla steel bits rather than Bessemer steel; those bits are also what the converter takes back as scrap.
What they are for
Tools, today. The stock forms are the metal in a carryable shape and they melt back cleanly, but nothing makes them and no recipe asks for them: every machine recipe in siex and Iron Industry Expanded names the vanilla iron or steel plate, rod and nails, and Bessemer steel does not satisfy those.