If you’re a new Palworld player just getting your base set up, you’ve probably run into a roadblock pretty quickly: almost every useful upgrade, from metal tools to reinforced walls and Pal saddles, requires ingots to craft. I spent my first 3 hours of playtime hoarding Ore without having any clue how to make ingot in Palworld, and I wasted so much time running back and forth to mining veins before I figured out the basics of smelting. This guide breaks down everything you need to know to get a steady supply of ingots going, from early game setups to late game production lines that run entirely on their own. Smelting ingots is the first step to moving past stone tools and flimsy wooden structures, so mastering this process early will save you a ton of frustration later.
Required Materials and Tools to Start Smelting
You don't need any special late-game items to start crafting ingots in Palworld, all the required materials are available within the first 2 hours of play. The first thing you need to unlock is the Primitive Furnace from the technology tree when you hit level 10, which costs 2 technology points to unlock. Flame Organs are the hardest early material to get for your first furnace, so if you're having trouble finding them, hunt low-level Foxparks near the eastern edge of the starting plateau, they spawn in groups of 2-3 most days.
To build one Primitive Furnace, you’ll need the following materials: 30 Wood, 10 Stone, 30 Paldium Fragments, and 3 Flame Organs. You’ll also need a steady supply of Ore, since each ingot requires 2 Ore to make. You can mine Ore from dark grey rock veins scattered around the map, or assign Pals with Mining suitability to gather it for you automatically. Finally, you need at least one Pal with Kindling suitability level 1 or higher to run the furnace, since you can’t stoke the flames yourself.
How to Make Ingot in Palworld: Step-by-Step Walkthrough
Once you have all your materials gathered and your furnace built, the actual smelting process is straightforward, even for total newbies. First, place your Primitive Furnace down inside your base boundary, and make sure there’s no debris or other structures blocking the front of it, or your Pals won’t be able to access it. Open the furnace’s inventory, and deposit as much Ore as you want to process into the input slot. You can add up to 99 Ore at a time if you have a big stockpile saved up.
Next, assign a Pal with Kindling suitability to the furnace. If you don’t want that Pal to wander off to do other tasks, you can toggle off all other work types in their Pal box menu so they only focus on smelting. Wait 3 to 5 seconds per ingot, and finished ingots will appear in the furnace’s output slot when they’re done. If you're looking to speed up how fast you can make metal ingots in Palworld, you can unlock the Furnace Fuel item later on, which cuts smelting time by 30% per batch. I used to stand around waiting for ingots to finish my first playthrough, but now I just set up a batch and go off to explore while my Pals handle the work.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Making Ingots
Even though smelting is a simple process, there are a few common mistakes that new players make that can slow down production or leave you without ingots when you need them most. I’ve made all of these mistakes myself, so I know how frustrating they can be when you’re in a rush to craft a new tool or repair your base after a raid.
- Forgetting to stock up on Ore before you start smelting: If you run out mid-batch, your Pal will stop working and move to another task, wasting time you could have spent processing more materials.
- Assigning a Pal with multiple work suitability to run the furnace: If your Foxparks is also assigned to watering or harvesting, it will leave the furnace half-way through a smelt to do other jobs, leaving you with half-processed Ore.
- Building too few furnaces for your resource output: If you're mining 100 Ore an hour with a team of Digtoises, one furnace won't keep up, and you'll end up with piles of unused Ore taking up storage space.
- Not using high-tier Kindling Pals for late-game smelting: Higher Kindling levels cut smelting time by up to 70% compared to a level 1 Kindling Pal, saving you hours of wait time for large batches.
Always assign dedicated smelting Pals to your furnaces so you don't have unexpected production gaps when you need ingots most. I used to have my only Foxparks assigned to both furnace duty and campfire cooking, and I'd constantly come back to a full stack of Ore and zero ingots because he kept running off to cook berries. Build at least 2 furnaces by level 15 because you'll start needing ingots for everything from better tools to base defenses and Pal gear, and one furnace simply won't keep up with demand.
How to Optimize Your Ingot Production for Mid and Late Game
Once you get past the early game and start building bigger bases and more complex items, you’ll need way more ingots than a couple of primitive furnaces can produce. Scaling your production is pretty simple if you plan ahead, and you can set up a fully automatic production line that runs 24/7 without any input from you.
First, unlock the Improved Furnace when you hit level 22. It smelts ingots twice as fast as the Primitive Furnace, and uses the same Kindling Pals to run, so it’s worth replacing all your old furnaces as soon as you have the materials to build new ones. Use Pals with Mining level 3 or higher like Digtoise or Astegon to gather Ore way faster than you can manually, they can clear an entire Ore vein in minutes without you having to lift a pickaxe.
If you have a large Ore vein far from your main base, you can set up a small outpost base near it with a few furnaces, so you don’t have to transport heavy Ore all the way across the map. Assign a few mining Pals to the outpost, a couple of smelting Pals, and one transport Pal to move finished ingots to a storage chest, and you can pick up hundreds of ingots every time you stop by. Store extra ingots in labeled chests near your crafting stations so you don't have to run across your base every time you need a few ingots to repair a tool or build a new structure.
For late game play, when you’re crafting hundreds of ingots for assault rifles, metal armor, and advanced base structures, you can set up a dedicated production zone in your main base. Have a team of mining Pals bringing Ore to a central storage chest, transport Pals moving Ore to your furnaces, dedicated Kindling Pals smelting 24/7, and more transport Pals moving finished ingots to separate storage for easy access. I set this up for my last playthrough, and I got over 500 ingots a day without even checking on the furnaces, which freed up all my time to explore and catch rare Pals.
Making ingots is one of the most foundational skills you’ll learn in Palworld, and once you get the hang of how to make ingot in Palworld and optimize your production, you’ll be able to craft every item and structure in the game without running into resource shortages. Start small with a single primitive furnace and a Foxparks, then scale up as you unlock better tools and Pals, and you’ll have a steady supply of ingots whenever you need them. Don't stress if you make mistakes early on, everyone forgets to assign a Pal to the furnace their first time. Just keep experimenting with your base setup, and you'll find a production flow that works for your playstyle.