You won't get far in ICARUS if you don't know how to live off the land. One of the most crucial parts of increasing your survival effectiveness is being able to find and harvest valuable ores. Iron is an especially helpful ore if you're looking to gain more powerful tools and craft more useful additions for your base. With that, here we cover how to best find iron ore in ICARUS.

ICARUS Iron Ore Farming Guide

Unfortunately, there isn't a single simple, super-fast way to gather heaps of Iron Ore in ICARUS. However, the key is knowing where Iron Ore spawns so that you can get to it much quicker. All forms of ore spawn within caves. To find a cave, you need to walk along large, rocky walls and cliffsides. Once you see a patch in the wall where the texture is slightly darker and different (like the image above) than the rest of the wall, you've found a cave. Now that you've found a cave, you need to open it by smacking away at this different texture with whatever pickaxe you have in hand. Head into the cave, and you'll find several different types of ore waiting for you. A small text box will appear when you get close enough to the ore to identify it, but Iron Ore will have a brownish-grey coloring. Once you've gathered Iron Ore, you need to take it back to your base and transform it into Iron Ingots to use them. Two chunks of Iron Ore will create a single Iron Ingot. However, you need one of these furnaces to create ingots:

• Stone Furnace: Stick x4, Wood x12, Leather x12, & Stone x80
• Concrete Furnace: Rope x8, Epoxy x12, Iron Ingot x12, & Concrete Mix x20
• Electric Furnace: Glass x4, Steel Screw x8, Steel Ingot x30, Electronics x60, & Concrete Mix x80

Of course, if you're looking to create Iron Ingots, the Stone Furnace will be the only one you can create early in the game. With time, however, you can use either a Concrete or Electric Furnace to create a greater number of Iron Ingots much more quickly.

All Icarus Iron Ingot Crafting Recipes

The majority of recipes you can create from iron ingots require an Anvil Bench. This crafting bench's recipe is unlocked near the beginning of the Tier 2 Tech Tree. If you're looking to turn your piles of iron ingots into useful gear and tools, you'll want to unlock the Anvil Bench recipe as soon as possible. Additionally, you can use your Anvil Bench to repair the tools that you make at an Anvil Bench. Finally, as is the case with most buildables, the Anvil Bench is only usable if it's placed within a shelter.

• Anvil Bench: Iron Ingot x40, Stone x10, & Wood x20
• Iron Nails: Iron Ingot x1
• Iron Pickaxe: Iron Ingot x6, Leather x4, & Wood x5
• Iron Axe: Iron Ingot x6, Iron Nails x2, Wood x5, & Leather x4
• Iron Hammer: Iron Ingot x10, Wood x4, & Leather x4
• Iron Sledgehammer: Iron Ingot x15, Rope x8, & Wood x10
• Iron Knife: Iron Ingot x6, Iron Nail x2, Leather x4, & Wood x5
• Iron Sickle: Iron Ingot x10, Leather x4, & Wood x4
• Shovel: Iron Ingot x6 & Wood x4
• Crossbow: Iron Ingot x5, Iron Nail x4, Leather x4, & Wood x4
• Iron Throwing Knife: Iron Ingot x5, Iron Nail x4, Wood x4, & Leather x4
• Iron Spear: Iron Ingot x24, Wood x5, & Leather x6
• Iron Javelin: Iron Ingot x20, Leather x5, & Wood x5
• Iron Bolt: Iron Ingot x2 & Wood x1
• Taxidermy Knife: Iron Ingot x6, Iron Nail x2, Wood x2, & Leather x4
• Watering Can: Iron Ingot x5, Iron Nail x2, & Leather x4
• Wood Shield: Iron Ingot x3, Leather x5, Wood x15, & Fiber x20
• Biofuel Can: Iron Ingot x25, Wood x100, & Tree Sap x100
• Riffle Round: Iron Ingot x1 & Gunpowder x1
• Glass Jar: Iron Ingot x1 & Glass x1
• Glass Working Bench: Iron Ingot x24, Epoxy x6, Rope x6, Wood x10, & Copper Nails x40
• Kitchen Bench: Iron Ingot x8, Epoxy x20, Copper Nails x20, & Refined Wood x30
• Biofuel Composter: Iron Ingot x20, Copper Ingot x8, Concrete Mix x12, & Steel Screws x20
• Bio Fuel Drill: Iron Ingot x20 & Electronics x5
• Trophy Bench: Iron Ingot x2, Rope x12, Copper Nails x50, & Wood x60
• Basic Fishing Bench: Iron Ingot x5, Rope x10, Copper Nail x12, & Wood x25