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Coal is one of the combustibles available in Conan Exiles. With a small number of purposes, this resource is no more than a dark rock that you can find through many places in the game and easily mine.
During your gameplay, you’ll need to perform many tasks like cooking or upgrading your gear, relying on crafting stations that are only functional if you place fuel inside them. Coal can maintain a high enough temperature to help you transform your items and make them ready to use. Follow the next Conan Exiles Coal Guide for all related this useful material
Coal Uses
Coal is a crafting ingredient, mainly used for fueling your furnaces or campfires.
What Can You Craft with Coal?
With this common resource, you can craft several warpaints and Tar.
Learn the Dyemaker Knowledge at level 25 to unlock the Dyer’s Bench, so you can make warpaints inside it to apply to your character’s body.
Here are the warpaints you can craft with Coal (also Plant Fiber and an Inking Brush):
- Black Hand
- Dreams of the East and The Purple Towers (The Imperial East DLC)
- Dreams of Shanpur (Treasures of Turan DLC)
- Neca Pure, Neca Vengeance, and Neca Warpath (Riddle of Steel DLC)
- Necromancy (Age of Sorcery: Chapter 1 – Battle Pass)
- Raven (The Savage Frontier DLC)
- Rule (Jewel of the West DLC)
- Thaumaturgy (Black Lotus Bazaar)
Also, you can add Coal inside a Fluid Press (learn the recipe at level 28) to obtain Tar. 25 Coal units will grant you one Tar over time.
Where can You Find Coal?
Coal is a somewhat abundant resource in Conan Exiles, but surprisingly not something you will find right after you start your journey since Coal nodes are a little scattered through different environments or not present at all in certain areas. Coal is easy to spot by its appearance, though.
There are a few ways of getting Coal, but mining Coal rocks is the best way to get enough of what you need. Mine these rocks with a pick or pickaxe, and try getting high-tier tools or spend points on the Efficient Harvest perk from the Expertise attribute to collect more Coal each time you mine a rock.
If you’re playing on the Exiled Lands map, look for Coal rock nodes mainly in the desert, as that’s where it’s more abundant. You’ll also find a proper amount of it if you go through the Tundra. Coal is also available in other environments (Highlands, Snow, Jungle) except on the Volcano, but in a lower quantity.
On the Isle of Siptah, Coal nodes are present in most areas of the map with a few exceptions. While scattered around the big isle, especially on the western side, it’s down south by the Isle of Dusk (and partially the Isle of Dawn) where this resource predominates.
Like many other items in Conan Exiles, you can find Coal inside loot chests while exploring different locations of the map you’re playing in. Mining is, however, the most reliable source of obtaining it.
Is there any Alternative to Coal?
Depending on what you’re trying to do in the game, there are alternative resources to Coal unless you want to craft the specific items that include it in their recipe.
If you don’t have enough Coal to help you with tasks in your current gameplay, start collecting it early as soon as you get a mining tool and store it in your base for future uses, or look for an alternative to do the same things Coal allows you to make through different crafting stations, by using other resources instead.
Tar
If you’re looking into getting Tar when you don’t own any Coal, transforming animal hide (Hide, Thick Hide, Reptile Hide) into Leather or Thick Leather will also allow you to get Tar inside a Tannery as a by-product.
Here’s a suggested Tar guide that will help you know better about this resource: Conan Exiles Tar Farming Guide
Fuel
With the continuous chore of using fire to transform simple resources into functional items throughout your gameplay, a fuel source is essential to help you get what you need.
It’s important to know all the fuel sources available in the game so you can choose which ones are the most convenient or really the best overall to go for in the long run. Here’s every kind of fuel/combustible item that exists in Conan Exiles:
- Coal
- Bark
- Branch
- Plant Fiber
- Wood
- Dry Wood
- Oil
- Molten Heart
- Flesh of Krllyand
All these fuel sources above can be placed in some crafting stations to make them work once you try crafting something inside any of them. However, some of these stations don’t work with all kinds of fuel, especially the ones that don’t use heat through the crafting process of your items.
Those stations that only work with a limited type of resources and don’t depend on heat/fire to keep running are the tanneries (Tannery, Improved Tannery, Plant-Based Tannery, Precision Tannery) and the Dryer.
Wheels of Pain and Animal Pens use different items as a “fuel source” (food like Gruel or meat and natural resources (depending on the station and type of follower (thrall, pet) you want to convert or raise).
The Dryer and tanneries don’t work with Coal. Use Bark (the only fuel type a Dryer accepts, but you can also use it on a Tannery), Plant Fiber, or Flesh of Krllyand as fuel if you need to craft anything on these stations instead.
You can use different sorts of fuel to light up your campfires or stoves (Campfire, Large Campfire, Bonfire, Stove, Improved Stove). Which fuel sources can you use in these stations?
Stove and Improved Stove:
- Bark, Branch, Coal, Dry Wood, Oil, Wood.
Campfire, Large Campfire, and Bonfire:
- Bark, Branch, Coal, Dry Wood, Oil, Plant Fiber, Wood, Molten Heart.
To keep your furnaces (Furnace, Improved Furnace, Fuel-Efficient Furnace, Heat-Efficient Furnace, Improved Furnace (Kiln)) lit and able to help you craft items, you can use any combustible resource.
Different kinds of fuel will not influence the final result of the item(s) you’re crafting – they will have the same quality no matter how good the fuel source your station is currently working with is (this also applies to food cooked on campfires or stoves).
But is every fuel type working the same way inside your crafting stations? The answer is that each of them leads to the same result, but how efficiently they do it is something we’ll be learning in the next part of this guide (below).
Coal Efficiency
Achieving the same results with different kinds of fuel is possible in Conan Exiles. You can craft many items by lighting up your furnaces, campfires, and stoves, and they will get successfully crafted no matter which fuel you’re using on your stations.
However, not every fuel source is long-lasting or burns at the same rate. You can choose to use Coal inside your crafting stations (that will accept it) instead of other items (low-quality combustible resources) that will burn faster, forcing you to collect them in larger quantities to keep the fire burning (like Plant Fiber, for example).
The Different Fuel Sources
It’s helpful for you to compare all kinds of fuel sources with each other, so you’ll know which of them you should keep investing in during your gameplay.
Note that the fuel burn time of each resource inside a crafting station is better compared if you’re playing in a server or session with the Fuel Burn Time Multiplier option at the default rate (1x).
If you are playing with this setting (Fuel Burn Time Multiplier on the Server Settings – Crafting section) altered, that will make any fuel you use inside your crafting stations burn slower or faster (the higher the rate, the slower the fuel source will burn and you’ll save more of that resource).
The fuel burn time can also be affected by the type of station you’re using: certain crafting stations will burn fuel slower than others, but a low-quality combustible will never burn more slowly than a high-quality one, independently of the station you’re using.
Plant Fiber, Branches, and Wood are the combustible items that burn/get consumed faster inside crafting stations, being Wood the best of these three resources. Bark and Coal are, let’s say, in between, being average in their burn time.
A Coal unit lasts slightly longer (burns slower) than Bark, though. Dry Wood and Oil are the combustible items (also crafting ingredients) to last the longest compared to almost every other previously mentioned.
A Molten Heart is, by far, the fuel source that lasts the longest time of them all. This item is not easy to get though, since the only way of obtaining it is by killing the Avatar of Bokrug boss and looting its corpse.
You will only encounter this enemy inside the Maelstrom area (Isle of Siptah), at the Pools of the Grey Ones (Isle of Siptah) upon summoning it through the Avatar of Bokrug Figurine, or even in some events/encounters happening in both maps like the Blowback encounter (the type of boss spawning on this one can vary, but sometimes is the Avatar of Bokrug that shows up).
Is Coal Worth Using as Fuel?
Even though Coal is not the resource that lasts the longest inside a crafting station, it’s still a quite convenient resource to use as a replacement for low-quality fuel sources like Plant Fiber and even Wood.
With time, you’ll be able to get a few stacks of Coal and not worry too much about checking your stations all the time while they are crafting something.
Coal is abundant, and, even though not as much as Stones, Wood, or even Ironstone, you can find it sometimes among very common resource nodes like Stones and Ironstone and mine them together, or just Coal rocks alone on their own – they are not hard to spot.
Coal is a heavy item in Conan Exiles, and you’ll notice that easily if you start stacking it in your inventory, so investing in anything to prevent your character from becoming encumbered is helpful if you want to bring a lot of Coal back home in just one or a couple runs. You can relieve your inventory weight by:
- Increasing your Expertise attribute;
- Using items that give you extra carrying capacity (like the Elixir of Numbing or armor pieces with the Carrying Capacity bonus);
- Use a follower’s inventory (pet or fighter thrall) to unload part of your inventory (they will carry items for you and not worry about the extra weight on their shoulders).
Wood logs are easier to collect since you’ll find trees in most places on the map, and using Wood to get Dry Wood is worth it, but you can opt for getting Coal once you know where to find it.
Look into upgrading your fuel sources or crafting stations during your gameplay to craft the items you need without wasting plenty of resources. You’ll notice the difference easily when you switch from a basic Furnace to a Fuel-Efficient Furnace.
FAQs
Question: Is Coal the Best Fuel Source?
Answer: Coal is one of the best fuel sources that doesn’t burn quickly and you can find it in several areas, being a balanced, cheap resource with acceptable quality.
Higher-quality combustible resources will burn even more slowly inside your crafting stations, but you’ll get a whole stack of Coal more simply instead.
Dry Wood is a top choice as an alternative to any other fuel – as long as you chop plenty of trees to collect Wood or Branches – you can put these in a Dryer to get Dry Wood instead of looking for tree trunks that drop it, but the transformation of these resources into Dry Wood is slow.
Oil is as good as Dry Wood, but using it just for burning can be somewhat troublesome when you need it for important items during your gameplay and struggle to produce it on a large scale, even though the process is not tricky.
The Molten Heart is the slowest burner, but it’s hard to obtain, taking it off the list as the number one choice.
Question: Will a Worker Thrall Help Control the Coal Burn Time Inside My Crafting Stations?
Answer: Using a thrall in your stations will only help with the items crafting speed. Crafting items faster can indirectly help you save up some fuel (Coal in this case) from your crafting stations, since the faster you craft your items, the less time you’ll need to keep your stations on, meaning you’ll spend less fuel.
Getting high-tier crafting stations and thralls is one of the solutions to save up some fuel.
Question: Should I Opt for Coal to Get Enough Tar for what I Need?
Answer: No. Choose to produce Leather or Thick Leather inside a Tannery (any tier) to get Tar as a by-product instead since this process is a more profitable way of obtaining Tar faster and in large quantities compared with what you get from Coal.
You’ll get just a bit of Tar in exchange for a considerable amount of Coal inside the Fluid Press, and it takes longer to get this resource that way.
Conclusion
Whether or not you choose Coal as the main source of fuel to keep your crafting stations working, you have learned that it is a reliable resource you can count on to keep your campfires and furnaces running for a while, and that it is not a scarce item like some other crafting ingredients you’ll get while playing in the vast lands of Conan Exiles.
This means that Coal is something worth collecting throughout your gameplay if you’re not up to wasting away other significant resources, as they are needed to craft a wide variety of items (compared with what you can make with Coal).
To fuel your journey, grab your best pick and start collecting Coal as soon as you find it!