Several Suggestions for More Uses of the Smelter

[TheOnlyGuyEver]

The Smelter is a pretty cool structure, I think, but unlike the Oscillating Fan and Sprinkler, which all have a neat secondary function (drying you off and speeding up crops, respectively), the Smelter only does one thing: make Alloy. It's very mediocre for the investment it requires. Here're some ideas to make it a much more versatile and interesting item:

Item fortification and repair

Now, I have two ideas as to how this could work, so I'll give both.

Version 1: Tools and chest slot items would be able to be repaired by putting the respective tool or chest slot item into the Smelter, along with Iron or Alloy. Each item's repair cost would be different depending on its rarity/expensivity, as well as how much it is repaired by; common tools and armors like Axes and Log Suits could be repaired to 100% durability with only a couple Iron, whereas items such as Weather Pains or Thulecite Suits would require Alloy.

Version 2: Tools and chest slot items would be able to be repaired by putting the respective tool or chest slot item into the Smelter, along with their "main" crafting ingredient. Axes could be repaired by Smelting them with Flint, Luxury Axes with Gold, Obsidian items with Obsidian, Thulecite items with Thulecite, and items which feature Gems prominently with Gems.

NOTE: Ideally for each of these versions, the Smelter would tell you the required ingredients once you put the tool or chest slot item in it

Gem Smelting

The idea is simple: you'd be able to put in Gems of various colors and get different colors out of it. Mainly Yellow + Red = Orange and Yellow + Blue = Green, but I suppose you could do Red + Blue = Purple, despite that being a crafting recipe. Maybe make Nightmare Fuel a requirement too. Though this would be a powerful function, it still would require a rare Yellow Gem to begin with, and would give people some things to do with their overflowing chest full of Gems.

Iron Tools

We finally have iron alloys in the game and yet we're still looking like cavemen with these crude stone implements! While not necessarily an idea for the Smelter so much as an idea for what it makes, it'd be really cool and handy if we could make iron tools. Perhaps they'd have a durability somewhere between Gold and Obsidian tools?

[FreyaMaluk]

I like the iron tools and somehow a repair feature, but I don't think Iron tech necessarily works with gems

The gems combine option is still a valid suggestion but I would added it to the refine tab as the purple.