If you’ve spent your first few hours in Enshrouded running from shrouded creatures and bashing weak flint tools against rock nodes, you’ve probably hit a wall pretty quickly when you try to upgrade your equipment. Most early mid-game gear, building upgrades, and utility items require copper as a core material, and figuring out how to get copper bars in Enshrouded is one of the first major progression gates new players face. You can’t just pick copper bars up off the ground, and the process has a few easy-to-miss steps that trip up even experienced survival game fans. I spent three hours wandering the wrong biomes and wasting ore my first playthrough, so I put together this guide to save you that frustration.
Core Requirements to Get Copper Bars in Enshrouded
Before you head out looking for copper, there are a few non-negotiable items and unlocks you need to have first. Skipping these will just leave you stuck with a pile of ore you can’t use, or unable to mine copper at all when you find it. I learned this the hard way when I found a full cluster of copper nodes 30 minutes into my first run, only to realize my flint pickaxe couldn’t break the rock.
First, you’ll need a Stone Pickaxe or better. Flint tools only work on basic stone and wood nodes, so craft a stone pick first by gathering 4 stone, 2 wood, and 2 twine at your basic workbench. It only takes a minute to make, and it will cut your mining time for all lower-tier nodes in half too. Second, you need to unlock the Smelter crafting station. You get this recipe immediately after rescuing the Blacksmith from his early-game vault, which is located just north of the starting Springlands fast travel point. Don’t waste time mining copper before you have access to this station, because raw ore is useless on its own.
You also don’t need any special armor or high-level weapons to get your first copper, contrary to what many new players assume. The best early farming spots have almost no dangerous enemies, so you can head out as soon as you have your stone pick and rescued the Blacksmith. That means you can get your first set of copper bars within your first 90 minutes of play if you follow this guide.
Where to Find High-Yield Copper Ore Veins Fast
Copper nodes are scattered across most early and mid-game biomes, but some spots have far more nodes clustered close together, so you can farm far more ore in less time. You can spot copper veins easily because they have bright teal-green streaks running through grey rock, so they stand out clearly against regular stone, iron, and salt nodes even from a distance. I always turn up my brightness a little when I’m mining, so I can spot these streaks from further away and avoid wasting time hitting regular rock.
These are the three best early-game copper farming spots I’ve found across 4 separate playthroughs:
- Eastern Springlands hills: 8+ copper nodes within 2 minutes of the first starter base fast travel point, no shroud creatures to worry about, only low-level foxes that won’t attack unless you provoke them
- Southwestern Revelwood edge: 12+ nodes clustered around small rocky outcrops, only a handful of level 4 wolves to fend off that go down in 2 to 3 hits with a basic stone axe
- Abandoned mine north of the first Blacksmith vault: 15+ nodes inside the mine tunnels, no shroud, just a few level 5 bandits that are easy to take out with basic gear, plus coal nodes spawn right next to copper veins so you can grab smelting fuel at the same time
Each copper vein gives between 3 and 6 raw copper ore, so you only need to hit 4 to 6 veins to get enough for a full set of copper tools and a small stack of extra bars for upgrades. Nodes respawn every 10 to 15 minutes of in-game time, so you can always loop back to the same spots whenever you need more ore. I usually set a small waypoint on the abandoned mine on my map, since it’s the most efficient spot for bulk farming later in the game too.
How to Smelt Raw Copper Ore Into Usable Copper Bars
Once you have your pile of raw copper ore, head back to your base to start the smelting process. It’s a simple process, but there are a few small details that new players often miss that can waste your time or resources. First, make sure your smelter is placed on a solid, flat foundation inside or outside your base, it doesn’t need to be covered to work. You need 1 piece of coal or 2 pieces of wood per copper bar, so don’t forget to stock up on fuel before you start smelting. I usually grab coal from the abandoned mine while I’m mining copper, so I don’t have to cut extra wood every time I want to smelt a batch of bars.
To start smelting, interact with your smelter to open the UI, add your fuel to the bottom dedicated fuel slot, then add your raw copper ore to the top input slot. Each copper bar takes 2 raw copper ore and 30 seconds to smelt, so you can walk away and do other base tasks like harvesting crops or building upgrades while you wait. If you upgrade your smelter to level 2 once you have a few extra copper bars, you cut smelting time by 40%, which saves a ton of time when you’re farming for bulk materials for base upgrades later on.
A common mistake I see new players make is putting raw copper ore into the forge instead of the smelter. The forge only works with already smelted metal bars, so you’ll just waste time staring at an empty progress bar if you mix up the two stations. Keep your smelter right next to your forge to avoid this mix-up, it’s a small base layout tweak that saves a lot of frustration.
Smart Ways to Use Your First Copper Bars to Speed Up Progression
It’s tempting to use your first batch of copper bars on decorative building pieces or fancy weapons, but there are a few priority upgrades that will make your entire playthrough far easier no matter what your playstyle is. First, craft a Copper Pickaxe as soon as you have 4 bars available. It lets you mine copper 2x faster than a stone pickaxe, and unlocks access to iron ore nodes that you’ll need for later mid-game upgrades. This is the single best use of your first copper bars, no matter if you’re focused on combat, building, or exploration.
Next, if you’re planning to explore the first mid-level shroud zones soon, craft the full Copper Armor Set. It gives you 30% more damage resistance than basic cloth or leather armor, and adds a small boost to shroud resistance so you can stay in foggy areas 10% longer without taking damage. If you’re mostly focused on base building first, you can skip the armor set and use your first 6 bars to upgrade your workbench to level 2, which unlocks more advanced building pieces and crafting recipes for storage chests and utility stations.
Avoid wasting your first 10 to 20 bars on decorative building pieces like copper roof tiles or wall trim, you’ll need way more copper later for utility stations like the grindstone and the alchemy table. It’s easy to burn through your first stack of bars on cosmetic items, then have to go back mining right away when you want to progress the main story. I made this mistake on my first playthrough, and spent an extra hour running back and forth to the mine just to get enough bars to unlock the next NPC quest.
Once you get the hang of the process, farming copper becomes a routine task you can knock out in 10 minutes between story quests or base building sessions. It might feel like a big hurdle the first time you try to figure out how to get copper bars in Enshrouded, but once you know the best mining spots and have your smelter set up, you’ll have more than enough to cover all your crafting needs. Don’t stress if you mess up your first run and forget fuel or bring the wrong pickaxe, every new player makes that mistake once. The best part is that copper is abundant in early game areas, so you can always go back for more whenever you need it.