Rethinking Ores

Copper is abundant, and due to this fact, you need to create copper plating to make it usable in the form of tools and armor - this can be made using 4 Copper ingots, the rest is the same as default recipes. Copper is a tier between stone and iron, making it a fairly decent starting tier for armor and tools before you farm iron in more dangerous environments.

Copper Plating can be used in order to upgrade golden tools/armor to make it more durable while retaining the same enchantments you might find around your world - simply place the golden tools/armor into a smithing table alongside copper plating and you'll be ready to use more durable, but similarly performing golden tools/armor!

Steel can be made by refining and forcing more carbon into iron in the form of smelting iron ingots into Pig Iron, which then smelts into Steel. Steel is 60% more durable than iron and slightly more enchant-able.

Platinum is a fairly abundant ore down below y=128 and only gets more frequent the lower down you go - used in the same way as any other smelt-able ore is. Platinum is a big step up from Iron, but is about 60% less durable (iron being 85%) than Diamond, but is the most enchant able material, even more than gold, alongside some diamond-tier perks.

Titanium is more frequent than diamond but less so than iron, or platinum, found anywhere under y=64 - used in the same way as any other smelt-able ore is. Titanium is an even bigger step up from Iron, but again, is about 50% less durable than Diamond, but does have certain characteristics of netherite tier tools/armor.