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Steel Industry

Steel is the turning point in CIW progression. It unlocks firearms, oil drilling, radar, and aircraft.

Steel recipe

Steel is made by heated mixing iron ingots with charcoal dust. To craft steel, you need:

  • 1 iron ingot
  • 1 charcoal dust
  • A heated Create mixer (use a blaze burner or lava source)

The mixer produces 1 steel ingot.

Steel unification

CGS and Create Big Cannons steel are unified. All steel items and blocks are converted to the Create Big Cannons variant via KubeJS recipes.

Steel plates

Steel plates are made by pressing steel ingots through a mechanical press. To craft a steel plate, you need:

  • 1 steel ingot
  • A mechanical press

Steel plates are required for:

  • Industrial firearms (machine guns, automatic shotguns, sniper rifles)
  • Aircraft components
  • Advanced ammunition (.50 BMG)

Radar recipes use Power Grid circuits, brass casings, and precision mechanisms instead of steel plates. Check JEI for each radar recipe.

Charcoal dust production

Charcoal dust comes from processing charcoal. You need a steady supply. Follow these steps:

  1. Grow trees (oak, birch, spruce — any tree works)
  2. Smelt logs into charcoal
  3. Crush charcoal into charcoal dust using a Create crushing wheel or millstone

Crushing wheel vs millstone

Method Speed Power usage Best for
Crushing wheel Fast High (2048 stress) Large-scale production
Millstone Slow Low (512 stress) Early game, small quantities

Use a crushing wheel for bulk charcoal dust production. Use a millstone when you are starting out.

Tree farm → Mechanical saw → Furnace (smelt to charcoal)
    → Millstone (crush to charcoal dust)
    → Mixer (iron + charcoal dust → steel ingot)

Heated mixer setup

A heated mixer needs a heat source to make steel. Place a blaze burner below the mixer. Feed it blaze cakes or use a lava source.

The heat requirement is "heated". The mixer will not produce steel without heat.

Steel production line

Mechanical Drill → Raw Iron → Washed → Smelted → Iron Ingot
                                                          ↓
Charcoal → Millstone → Charcoal Dust ─────────────→ Heated Mixer
                                                          ↓
                                                    Steel Ingot
                                                          ↓
                                              Mechanical Press → Steel Plate

What steel unlocks

Category Items
Firearms Machine guns, automatic shotguns, sniper rifles, minigun, RPG
Ammunition .50 BMG, 40mm grenades, RPG rockets
Oil Pumpjack components, distillation controller, oil scanner
Radar Radar receiver, radar bearing, monitor, fire controller
Aircraft Smart propeller, advanced airframe components
Ammunition Steel-cased rounds for industrial firearms

Drill tier upgrades

Steel also enables drill upgrades for rare ores:

Drill Materials Unlocks
Basic 5 iron ingots + 1 shaft Coal, copper, iron, lead, sulfur, zinc, gold, redstone, lapis
Diamond 1 diamond block + 5 diamonds + 1 basic drill Diamond, emerald
Netherite 1 netherite ingot + 1 Netherite Upgrade Smithing Template (smithing table) Ancient debris (Nether-only, needs lava)

Tips

  1. Automate charcoal dust. It is consumed in bulk for steel production.
  2. Force-load your steel mill. Steel production should run continuously.
  3. Stockpile precision mechanisms. You need them for the oil scanner, which is the next gate.
  4. Steel plates are the bottleneck for warfare. Every industrial gun requires multiple steel plates.