Hydroneer Forge Guide: Forge Drills, Boosters, and Harvesters at Icehelm

Why the Hydroneer Forge Replaced the Machine Shop

In Hydroneer, the forge is not a side activity — it is the only way to get new drills, harvesters, and intake boosters after the 2.0 update. If you have been hunting for a shop that sells machines outright, you will not find one: the Hydroneer forge at Icehelm is now the production line for the equipment that powers your mining plots. Understanding the Hydroneer forge loop matters because every automated setup you build depends on it, and one careless pour can waste ore you spent hours digging.

That shift is deliberate. In a Hydroneer 2.0 walkthrough, creator Hybrid Stealth explains that the old approach — running to a shop with tens of thousands of gold and buying unlimited drills — hid how the game's economy actually worked. Now you spend the materials you dig to expand the plots that produce more materials. Designs are bought once and reused forever, so the real cost is the metal you feed into the crucible.

Where the Icehelm Forge Is and How to Get Inside

The forge sits in Icehelm, a long-abandoned dwarven settlement in the snowy mountains east of Ember Cradle. According to the community-maintained Bridgepour Wiki (captured on 2026-11-14), the settlement hides a colossal magma chamber built around the Forge, with monuments to ancient heroes still standing over the anvil.

Two chutes flank the entrance, and they are easy to overlook:

• The right chute moves resources from the outside into the forge.
• The left chute sends finished machines back out.

Take the lift down through the entrance on the left. A 2022 Icehelm Forge guide notes there is no fall damage in Hydroneer, so impatient players simply drop. At the bottom you will find the anvil, the crucible and hammer above it, and the forge's own shop off to the right, which stocks Masterwork Designs along with pipes, conveyors, and a scale (146 coins at the time of that guide).

Worth knowing: the same 2022 guide prices a vertical dig site sold inside the forge at roughly 7,200 coins.

Step-by-Step: Working the Hydroneer Forge

The full process is short once you know the order, and the wall panel to the right of the anvil repeats it for anyone who forgets.

1. Buy a Masterwork Design. These are the miniature models that define what you can build. Designs are not consumed — one purchase covers unlimited copies of that machine.
2. Place the design on the pedestal at the bottom of the stairs, next to the anvil.
3. Smelt your ore into bars. Bars are far easier to weigh, and a scale tells you exactly how much weight you are holding.
4. Drop the required weight into the crucible at the top of the stairs. You can overshoot — extra metal is refunded, not lost.
5. Pull the hammer lever. The crucible travels along its track, pours the molten metal, and the hammer strikes the Masterwork Anvil. Your finished machine appears on top of the anvil.
6. Collect your leftovers at the front-left corner of the anvil base, then send finished parts out via the left chute.

A Steam community thread from January 1, 2025 captures the most common early stumble: a player could not pull the hammer at all. The answer, from another player in that thread, was that the design has to be on the octagonal altar at the bottom of the stairs before the lever does anything.

Design Prices and Material Requirements at the Hydroneer Forge

Two numbers matter for each design: the coin cost of the miniature itself, and the weight of metal it consumes.

Prices as listed in the gameplay.tips Icehelm Forge guide, published 2022-05-12. The Tier 1 figures match the design board shown in Hybrid Stealth's Hydroneer 2.0 walkthrough.

Tier 1 designs run on iron, which every new plot produces in abundance:

Tier 2 is where documentation diverges. All sources agree the cloutium-tier machines need cloutium, a far rarer ore early on. For reference only: the 2022 base-game guide reports 300 cloutium for the Cloutium Drill, while a 2.0 walkthrough shows 1,000 iron plus 300 cloutium on the drill plate; treat those older conflicting Cloutium values as dated snapshots rather than current requirements. Bridgepour's current Cloutium Drill Masterwork Design entry lists 1,000 iron plus 150 cloutium. Its Lava Drill is a separate Volcalidus design at 500 iron plus 100 cloutium, and a Lava Harvester at 400 iron plus 80 cloutium, so those Lava recipes are not evidence for the Cloutium Drill. Check the design in your own build before committing metal.

Mistakes That Stop the Hydroneer Forge From Working

Most forge failures come down to four habits:

• Leaving the design on the shop counter. Nothing forges until the miniature is sitting on the pedestal.
• Mixing pipe tiers. Iron intake boosters only work with iron intake pipes, and cloutium boosters only with cloutium pipes. The 2022 guide is blunt about this: no mix-and-match.
• Eye-balling bar weight. A 316.3-weight iron bar covers a 300-weight drill, but guessing usually means coming up short. Bars that are too light can go back into a crucible or smelter to be re-cast.
• Dumping different ores into one crucible. A beginner's guide from the Hydroneer 2.0 era recommends dedicated lines for iron, gold, and cloutium so valuable ores never blend into a worthless alloy.

Faster Forging Runs: Practical Tips

A few small routines turn a clumsy forge trip into a fast one.

Smelt everything first. A smelter handles crucible, furnace, and bar cast in one machine, so you arrive at Icehelm with finished bars instead of loose ore. Community reports consistently call this the single biggest time saver.

Haul with a pallet. The Steam thread's most practical tip is to load ingots onto a pallet and take them in as one load, then reuse the same pallet to carry money, machines, and valuables back through the exit chute.

Automate the walk. Anyway you can pipe output into the right-hand intake chute, do it — the chutes exist so you never carry resources one at a time down the stairs.

Build your earnings before chasing Tier 2. The walkthrough's advice is to forge small Tier 1 machines, expand your plot, and stockpile cloutium rather than saving for an expensive Tier 2 design you cannot yet feed.

FAQ

Where is the Hydroneer forge located? It is deep inside Icehelm, a dwarven ruin in the snowy mountains east of Ember Cradle. Descend through the left-hand entrance and take the lift down to the magma chamber.

Why can't I pull the hammer at the Hydroneer forge? Your Masterwork Design is almost certainly not placed yet. Set the miniature on the pedestal at the bottom of the stairs first, then pull the lever after the required metal is in the crucible.

Do I have to buy a new design every time I forge a drill? No. Designs are permanent purchases, which is why a single 184-coin iron drill design covers every iron drill you ever make.

What happens to excess metal in the Hydroneer forge? It is returned to you at the front-left corner of the Masterwork Anvil base, so there is no penalty for pouring slightly more weight than the design requires. For current game details and updates, see Hydroneer on Steam.