Tin is an important resource in the Core Keeper game that can help you upgrade your gear, tools, backpacks, and workbenches once you find and smelt it.
Resources are an important part of game progression in Core Keeper and gathering as many resources as you can, can help you craft better gear and items throughout the game.
Tin is one of the most important resources in Core Keeper and although it can be difficult to find tin ores in the game, smelting them to generate tin bars can help you upgrade many of your items and tools.
The importance of resources in Core Keeper
As a sandbox type of survival game, you need to gather resources like food and gear throughout the game. As you level up your skills, you can craft better items and gear, which will help you progress even further in the game’s storyline.
In Core Keeper, higher level resources are not hidden until certain levels of the game are reached or in underground locations, but there are several locations that you need to find to access these resources on the fat map.
Core Keeper: Tin
Tin is one of the resources you can find and use in Core Keeper. Tin ores are one step up from copper ores, which are likely the first types of ores you will come across in your game. Finding and mining tin is a good way to level up your gear before you fight any of the bosses in the game.
It can, however, be quite difficult to find tin deposits, as Core Keeper allows you to dig in all directions to expand your map.
This means that you may need to take some time before fighting the first boss, Glurch the Abominous Mass and the second boss, Ghorm the Devourer, to search for and mine tin ores. This ensures that you have better gear and tools like traps when you do eventually enter these fights.
Tin ores are procedurally generated, which means that they appear in different locations in every player’s game. However, tin can always be found in the Clay Caves Biome, which can be difficult to locate, but has a distinctive, telltale, pinkish soil colour.
It is important that you find and mine iron in Core Keeper, as this can help you upgrade your gear and to craft other items like tin anvils, armour, an alchemy table, and a railway forge, as well as many other items that are useful throughout various challenges in the game.
Where to find tin in Core Keeper
Tin ore can be found in the Clay Caves Biome, but this is not its set location on the map and will be in a different place for every player. The best way to find the Clay Caves Biome is to take some time to dig in one of the cardinal directions on your map.
The Clay Caves biome should not be far from where you start in the game at the Dirt Biome. If you discover a wall that cannot be broken by your standard copper pickaxe, you can run back to the Dirt Biome and choose a different direction to tunnel in.
You will know that you have found the Clay Caves Biome when the music changes, the colour of the soil changes, and an announcement pops up on your screen.
Converting tin ores into tin bars
Once you have found the Clay Caves Biome and have mined enough tin ore, you need to convert your tin ores into tin bars for which you will need a furnace.
If you do not have a furnace, you can craft one on the workbench for 20 dirt walls. Then, you can place your new furnace anywhere in the core to start smelting your tin ores into tin bars. One chunk of tin ore is equal to one tin bar when you are done.
Why is it important to mine tin?
Tin is an important resource in the Core Keeper game, because it can help you craft many other items like workbenches, tools, weapons, and traps. Some of the most important elements that tin can be used for are:
| Category | Items | Amount of tin bars needed |
| Crafting benches | Tin workbench | 15 |
| Tin anvil | 8 | |
| Alchemy table | 5 | |
| Painter’s table | 5 | |
| Railway Forge | 8 | |
| Carpenter table | 8 | |
| Weapons | Tin Sword | 7 |
| Tin Dagger | 7 | |
| Slingshot | 3 | |
| Traps | Spike Trap | 1 |
| Shields | Wooden Shield | 5 |
| Backpacks | Explorer Backpack | 5 |
| Tools | Tin Pickaxe | 3 |
| Tin Shovel | 3 | |
| Tin Hoe | 3 | |
| Tin Fishing Rod | 4 |