Soloing the Blast Furnace

Armed with the info that I gleaned from RuneHQ, I've been soloing the Blast Furnace the last few nights. For now, I've been making mithril arrowheads, these are the exact steps that I've been taking :

I enter the Blast Furnace wearing only boots of lightness with 100k in my inventory. I pick up the hammer that is laying on the ground as well as the shovel. I now have 25 free spaces in my inventory.

I trade the ore salesman. If he has 100 coal or more, I buy as much as I can hold (25) and put it on the conveyor. I do this a second time so that there is now 50 coal on the conveyor. I buy 25 mithril and put that on the conveyor as well.

There is now 75 ore on the conveyor. This is the maximum amount of ore that can be put there at a time.

I run to the bike and pedal until the ore plops into the furnace.

I start shoveling coke into the furnace until the "grid" on the top of the furnace turns violet in color. RuneHQ recommends 8 shovelfulls of coke, I usually do about 10.

Next, I start pumping and adjust my view so that I can see the bar dispenser. If all goes well, you can see an orange explosion at the dispenser when the bars are done - There is no need to look at the temperature gauge while soloing. If, while pumping, a pipe breaks, I fix it, and then go back to pumping. If too many breaks occur and the dwarf says that I'm low on fuel, I'll put more coke in the furnace. I ignore the dwarf's complaints about the conveyor.

After I see the orange explosion, I grab the bucket, full it with water, and use it on the dispenser. I drop the bucket and the shovel and then remove all bars from the dispenser. I smith the bars into arrowheads and then repeat the process.

Notes:

You can check on the amount of coal in the furnace by looking at the bar dispenser. The bar dispenser will also let you know if you need to add coal (you have ore in the furnace, but not enough coal)

You can store as much as 210 coal in the furnace at a time.

You can store 30 bars in the bar dispenser at a time.

The more ore that is at the store, the cheaper it is. Some people bring noted ore, sell it to the store, and then buy it back. I've found that too many people world hop and then buy out the ore (coal) to bother with this.

You can save money by showing up at the furnace with the items I mentioned at the beginning *plus* a full load of mithril (or whatever the most expensive ore you will be using is).

The Blast Furnace

A bunch of my friends decided to organize a visit the Blast Furnace this past weekend. I had never been, but I was anxious to check the place out. My smithing was only 50 and I had been told that 60 is required if you want to smelt and smith bars for free. I went on an absolute smelting / smithing rampage (gold ore with goldsmithing gauntlets can't be beat!), and after many hours at Port Phasmatys, I finally attained 60 smithing.

Feeling rather smithed out, I was finally ready for the furnace. On the big day, everybody was mulling around the furnace, doing their own thing. I hadn't read up on the furnace like I should have so I just started pumping away. Parts would break and I'd fix them. Sometimes I'd stand at the guage and bark out the colors. I had no idea what I was doing. Oh yeah, and there was the "coke". I'd shovel some coke from one place and deposit it into another. Whatever! After frantically running around doing these activities for a couple of hours, I finally got the bright idea of actualy putting some ore into the contraption. Woah, cool, I ended up with bars and made steel knives. Finally, I had the thing figured out.

I'd sell 21 coal to the dwarf who deals in ores and then buy it back. I'd deposit the coal on the conveyor and then do the same with iron (sell 21, buy 21, deposit).

I'd jump on the bike and pedal until my ore plopped into the furnace.

I'd shovel a few shovel-fulls of coke from one container to the other.

I'd pump and repair for a while.

I'd full a bucket with some water and then use it on the bar dispensor.

I'd grab my bars and smith them into steel knives.

That's really all there is to it. I realize that my fumbling-in-the-dark first attempt at the Blast Furnace was highly inefficient.

Post Blast Furnace trip, I decided that it'd be a good idea to read a guide. The guide over at RuneHQ ( http://www.runehq.com/RHQMiniQuestsView.php?id=00579 ) was very, very informative. There are some steps in the guide that detail how to smith and then alch steel plates at the furnace, I think I'll give them a shot tonight.

Abyss Nature Crafting

A long time Runescape goal of mine has been to craft nature runes using the abyss. I've accomplished that goal and recently posted an account of my experiences to the Tip-It forums in the hopes that it would help someone out. Here is the post:

I'm fairly new to abyss nature crafting, these are my impressions so far:

Before crafting natures, I decided to get pouches. I wore rune plate, rune legs, a ring of wealth, an anti-dragonfire shield, a gnome amulet, family crest gauntlets, and boots of lightness. I wielded a dragon long. I had an ectophial in my inventory, a prayer potion, and lots of food.

I entered the wilderness unskulled thinking that if I were attacked and things started going bad, I could protect item and keep my rune armour, my dragon long, and the ring. I'm a big chicken like that. I never verified this by checking prices at the shop, I just assumed that it would work out this way. You may or may not want to be more careful than I was.

Once I was in the abyss, I ran counter-clockwise until I hit a large group of leeches. There are "nooks" in this area and if you go up in them, only one leech can attack you at a time. This is the place to be, you might have to experiment a bit to find them. I never needed to use my prayer potion and turn on protect from melee, the food I was using was tuna.

I got a medium pouch after killing about 10 leeches, I was probably lucky. This is all I can use right now, so I teled out.

Now that I had my pouches, I was ready to craft natures using the abyss. This is the process that I used and continue to use:

Starting at the Castle Wars bank, I withdraw and equip red d'hide body and legs, family crest gauntlets, a gnome hat, an elemental shield, a gnome amulet, and boots of lightness. I would wear a cape if I had a god or legends cape, but since I don't I don't bother. I wield a bronze pickaxe and I keep an ectophial, a shark, and my 2 pouches in my inventory at all times. Some people grab a prayer potion as well, I haven't been bothering lately, maybe I should though.

If I die while nat crafting, I'll lose my hides, but the rest of my equiment is quest stuff and can be very easily replaced.

Still at castle wars and with "walk" on, I withdraw a glory and telly to Edgeville. I walk to the Edgeville bank, deposit my glory and withdraw as much ess as I can hold (withdraw, fill puches, withdraw again).

I head ne from the Edgville bank, cross the bridge, turn on "run", and then follow the river nw. When I see the mage, I right click him and then select teleport.

Note : If you see trouble, attack a skeleton (there's usually one there) as this is not a multi-combat area and a potential pker will be unable to attack you.

Once in the abyss, I start heading counter-clockwise and I look for things that look like "teeth", more specifically, big 'ol molars. I click them to mine and then wait. It takes me anywhere from 1 to 3 tries until I am successful - You will get a message if your mining attempt fails, I can't remember if you get one when you are successful.

Using the equipment I mentioned above, I don't get hit much in the abyss, I have yet to have to resort to eating a shark in there so far.

Once I've managed to mine my way into the inner portion of the abyss, I start breathing again and switch to "walk". The portal to the nature altar is just west of the path that leads to the dark mage. Just mouse over the portals, it will show which is which. This is the easy part, there is no danger here.

After entering the portal, I find myself at the nature altar. I craft my runes, use my duel ring to tele to castle wars, and then repeat. Use a games necklace to get to the champs guild to recharge glories as needed.

Remember to eat if you took damage in the abyss. No glory amulet were harmed during the execution of these steps. My combat level is 70.

Hope this helps.

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A couple of additional notes:

Switch private chat to either friends or off. This will prevent people from monitoring which world you are on.

As always, be sure that auto-retaliate is off. Leaving this on can be a fatal mistake.

The gnome amulet that I wear isn't providing any magic protection. I think that I will switch to an amulet of defense.

I'm learning that time of the day is an important factor when it comes to danger of being pked. I've been nat crafting on weekday nights (after 10pm EST) and have yet to even be attacked (knock on wood). I may revisit the green dragons as my last pker-a-licious visit to them was on a *Saturday night* (I'm guessing that this is prime pking time).

I can see that I'll soon grow tired of using the duel rings and eventually will start bringing glory amulets into the abyss. This will be much akin to tossing the floaties or losing the training wheels. :)