If you’ve spent even a few hours building bases or upgrading tools in Palworld, you’ve probably hit a wall where you can’t craft the next tier of gear without more metal. I’ve been there before, stuck 3 ingots short of a flying Pal saddle and having to run halfway across the map to scrounge up enough to keep progressing. Figuring out how to get ingot in Palworld doesn’t have to be a frustrating grind, even if you’re still new to the game and don’t have a squad of high-level Pals to help you farm. I’ve tested every method over multiple playthroughs, and I’ve narrowed down the fastest, most consistent ways to stock up on this core resource without wasting hours running back and forth across the map.
Core Method: How to Get Ingot in Palworld via Mining and Smelting
This is the most consistent way to get ingot in Palworld long-term, and it works for every stage of the game once you unlock the primitive furnace at level 10. First, you need to collect raw ore, which spawns in rocky biomes, especially the mountain areas northwest of the starting plateau. You can mine it with any pickaxe, but a metal pickaxe cuts mining time by 60% compared to a stone one, so it’s worth crafting as soon as you unlock it. Each full ore vein gives you between 8 and 12 raw ore, so a single 20-minute mining run can give you enough raw material for 50+ ingots.
Once you have raw ore, you need a furnace to smelt it down. Each regular ingot takes 2 raw ore and 1 piece of wood or coal to make. You don’t have to stand around watching the furnace work either—assign a Pal with the Kindling work suitability to your base, and they’ll run the smelting for you while you go explore. Kindling Pals with level 1 skill are enough for basic smelting—save your higher level Kindling Pals for cooking or more complex crafting tasks. The best early option for this is Foxparks, which are easy to capture near the starting beach and have perfect level 1 Kindling for primitive furnaces.
Don’t build more than 3 furnaces early on unless you have multiple Kindling Pals, because you’ll end up with a backlog of raw ore that never gets processed. Raw ore stacks up to 50 per slot in your inventory, so you can carry a lot back to base before you need to empty your bags, but you don’t want it sitting unused for days while you’re off exploring.
Fast Early-Game Ingot Farming Without Smelting
If you don’t have a furnace unlocked yet, or you just need a few ingots to craft your first metal tools, you don’t have to spend time mining and smelting right away. These looting spots are perfect if you need to get ingot in Palworld quickly without setting up a base first. I use this method all the time when I start a new playthrough, because it lets me skip the first hour of slow mining and get straight to building better tools.
Bandit camps respawn every 10 in-game days, so you can loop back to your favorite spots regularly to restock if you don’t want to set up a smelting operation yet. Just make sure you don’t take on camps with bandits that are 10 levels higher than you, because they’ll one-shot you and you’ll lose all the loot you collected.
Late-Game AFK Ingot Farming Setup
Once you hit level 25 and have a stable base with 10+ Pals assigned, you can set up an AFK farm that gives you hundreds of ingots every hour without you lifting a finger. The first step is picking the right base location. The best spot I’ve found is the flat area near the large mountain range at coordinates (-127, -352)—it has 8 separate ore veins within 50 feet of each other, plus plenty of coal veins nearby for smelting refined ingots later on.
Next, assign 3-4 Pals with the Mining work suitability to your base, ideally ones with level 2 or 3 Mining skill to speed up collection. Digtoises are the perfect option here, since they spawn in the same mountain area and have natural level 3 Mining skill. Then build 4-6 improved furnaces, and assign 2-3 Pals with level 2 Kindling to run them. You’ll also need 2-3 Pals with Transport skill to move raw ore from the mining spots to the furnaces, otherwise your ore will pile up on the ground and despawn after a few minutes.
Make sure you build a storage chest right next to the furnaces so your Pals have somewhere to put finished ingots once they’re done smelting. I left my game running for 2 hours while I did chores last week, and came back to over 800 ingots waiting for me. The only downside to this setup is that you’ll have to defend your base from occasional bandit raids, so make sure you have a few defensive Pals like Grizzbolt assigned or some wall-mounted crossbows set up around the perimeter.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Farming Ingots
Even if you follow all the farming steps, you might end up wasting time if you make these common errors I’ve run into over dozens of playthroughs. First, don’t use coal to smelt regular iron ingots early on. Coal is way more valuable for making refined ingots and gunpowder later, so stick to wood for your basic smelting needs until you have a dedicated coal farming setup. Never use high-level Kindling Pals for basic smelting either, since they’re better used for high-temperature crafting tasks that lower level Pals can’t complete.
Second, don’t ignore your Pal’s work suitability stats. A Pal with level 1 Mining will take 3 times longer to mine a vein than a Pal with level 3 Mining, so it’s worth swapping out low-skill Pals for better ones as you capture them. Third, don’t build your smelting area far away from your mining spots. Your Transport Pals will waste so much time running back and forth if the furnaces are on the other side of your base, and you’ll end up with way fewer ingots per hour.
Another easy mistake to miss is forgetting to repair your pickaxes regularly. A broken pickaxe will make mining take 10 times longer, and you might not even notice it's broken until you’ve been hitting a vein for 30 seconds with no progress. I keep 2 spare metal pickaxes in my inventory at all times just in case one breaks while I’m out exploring. You can move your base once every 24 in-game hours for free, so don’t be afraid to relocate your entire operation if you find a better ore spot later on. I made the mistake of building my first base on the starting plateau early on, and relocating to the mountain area doubled my ingot output overnight.
At the end of the day, the best way to stock up on this core resource depends on how far you are in your playthrough and how much time you want to spend actively farming. Whether you’re looting bandit camps for quick early-game ingots or running an AFK smelting operation for late-game builds, there’s a method that fits your playstyle. Now that you know how to get ingot in Palworld, you can stop stressing about resource shortages and start building the base and gear you’ve been planning. Just don’t make the same mistake I did early on and sell all your extra ingots for quick gold—you’ll always need more later for upgrades, even if you think you have enough right now.