Suggestion: Underground metal ore and smelting

[Szczuku]

I feel like it's pretty weird that our characters just go from stone tools to ancient/magic tools with almost nothing in-between.

That's why I'm presenting the idea of ores and such.

They'd be found mostly underground (duh) but it'd be also possible to gather them from the ocean as an underwater junk.

Then there'd also be a smelter or oven or smth like that you'd use to melt these ores into bars. And boom now you have metal tools.

Adding metal would also allow for some new structures  like… barrels or… buckets… maybe a new cooking thingy

[chirsg]

the middle ground between weapons, tools and armor between surface crafts and ruins crafts is between small to non existent.
football helmet's 80% protection isn't so far off from thul crown's 90% protection when it comes to armor. And even at that point, the highest protection armors in the game are made on the surface. I can't imagine metal armors having a place where what we currently have works very well.

Same goes with weapons. Something between a dark sword and a a spear already exists in hambats and the thulecite club.
As for tools, there are too many ways to farm up gold to make metal bars worth the time to fetch for the sake of having nicer tools.

The only way I could imagine metal bars be any sort of practicality in the game is if it were integrated into structures, facilities and crafting stations nearing industrial, but that's for another suggestion tree altogether.

Summing up, in my opinion of all the hours I've played this game, adding metal tools that bridge gaps between endgame weapons, tools and armor will be features in the game that will be toyed with for the first month for the sake of novelty and then ultimately never touched again because what we currently have works fine