This mod is made exclusively for the Fabric loader/1.18.2+. I have no plans to add Forge support nor backport the mod. I'm sorry.
Let's admit it - the gap between iron and diamond, at least on the level of durability, is pretty large. Iron starts to seem relatively brittle when the player does things like strip mining, as it could only take a few minutes for an iron pickaxe to break. Although diamond isn't too hard to obtain, it'd be nice to have a somewhat stronger alternative, would it not?
Introducing: steel.
Steel is a new material that is meant to provide a less jarring gap between iron's 250 durability tools and diamond's 1.5K+ durability tools. Steel tools will last you a good while compared to iron, and most of them are even stronger than iron tools as well.
Steel ingots can be made by smelting a steel mold in a blast furnace (NOT a standard furnace). From there, the player can craft just about every material item that can be expected from a new tier, including a sword, pickaxe, axe, shovel, hoe, set of armor, nuggets/steel blocks. There's even some new decoration blocks that can be made with steel plates, the recipes for which are detailed below.
On top of all of this, the ADVANCE version of the mod does even more. It adds a new "mini-tier" of gear made using heavy steel plates, of which can be crafted via 3 steel ingots in a horizontal pattern. While you can't craft any heavy steel tools, you can upgrade steel armor in a smithing table with heavy steel plates into an entirely new armor set that slows the player down while also providing intense knockback resistance and fire resistance. With heavy steel, the player can also make a heavy steel greatsword, which is about as slow as an axe while also being as strong as one.
Recipes:
Steel Mold
NOTE: Coal and charcoal are interchangeable! You can use one or the other.
Also, I'm aware of the fact that using copper in the recipe is unrealistic. It was simply put in as a way to make steel a bit more of a challenge to obtain.
Steel Plate
Steel Plate Block
Steel Girder
Framed Block of Iron
Polished Block of Steel
NOTE: This block in particular can be converted back into 9 steel ingots the same way a standard block of steel can.
I'll try to keep this mod up-to-date, but no promises. I'm not particularly good at coding, and honestly it's a miracle I even pulled this off.
NOTE: This mod is pretty lightweight and out-of-the-way of everything else. If you have an error loading Fabric, there's a good chance this mod is not the problem.