I wanted to put this suggestion out there to Bethesda to change half of the existing iron ore nodes into more corundum ore nodes instead. My wife and me have been both playing the game for a fairly long time and have come to the conclusion that there is a issue with the availablity of corundum ore. We play the console version of the game and think that for those people going down the crafting portion of such there simply isn't enough steel avaiable to upgrade the amount of gear you find in game.

Off the top of my head I can think of at least a half dozen places to mine six or more iron nodes in one shot. For corundum ore it is spread far an wide across the whole of the map. One node here, two nodes there, and so on. While the higher tier ores may be in smaller pockets than the iron or corundum ores but they are far more concentrated. Meaning that I can go there and get at least 6-12 ingots without having to travel to more than one loaction (orc strongholds as a perfect example).

I know some may think this is a fairly minor change in the larger scheme of the game but I think it may discourage some novie crafters from wanting to mess with crafting. All I'm asking is that you take a look at such and tell me what you think.

Thanks!

Well Corundum is still the most plentiful after Iron. And I've encountered a few places where there are several Corundum ore veins just hanging around.

But lets be honest, it's much easier to just buy ingots, the smiths always sell them and usually more advanced ingots too. Kinda svcks that you never really HAVE to mine anything but still.

I know the vendors do carry the ore/ingots but to me that doesn't really feel like crafting if your not getting the resources yourself. It seems like there should be more corundum ore "in the wild" than what there is currently.

Corondum is usually more hidden. I didn't encounter nearly any of them on my 1st character, but once you know that they are hidden, finding plenty of them (especially around riverwood) isn't a problem anymore. Sure, one ore vein in mines (that are now iron mines) could change to a corondum vein.

Yah I've noticed that. It reminds me of the one camp just behind Whiterun with the mammoth in it. A ton of iron ore and one corundum node behind the bed/bookshelf. I was like really?!? I feel like every time I find one I get an image of the old guy from the first Zelda game going "Its a secret to everyone" LOL

There's at least one corundum mine, and it has quite a few veins.
But you're right. It may be the only one, so smelting steel is actually probably harder than smelting Dwarven ingots!

Heh, that's just a bit of an understatement as Dwarven is by far the easiest metal to come by in the game. Clean out a single Dwarven ruin and you can pick up enough scrap metal to smelt well over 100 ingots from a single dungeon run.

As for the thread topic, Corundrum is indeed fairly rare in the current layout of the mineable ores. Best bet it is to always carry a pickaxe with you at all times and search around in the tundra fields and hills of Whiterun hold as that's where I've seen it most often. Somewhat tedious to do a search like that I agree but at least you're in one of the safest areas in the game.