Not sure about that. A crucible for steel, maybe. But mithril/wolfram/titanium? Doesnt strike me as fitting. A lone guy living in a cave or wooden cabin, with a fully sized industrial metalworking complex in his basement?
Added Workbench (Butcher), for megabeast corpses and living rock.
Understandable sentiment. The reason why I requested it is because I was fortunate to embark with Raw Mithril (and it was the only material available which could make an anvil T_T), and it would have been nice to utilize it. There was also Tears of Armok, but I died before I could see if any of the kajiggers available could utilize it.
Personally, I feel it makes a certain amount of sense. In my mind, the big industrial processes would be the stuff like the armory, weaponry, greatforge, steam engine etc. But a lone artisan in the wilderness, producing limited quantities of excellent arms and armor for his own use? That makes sense to me.
And about Alchemy, I think that the uses you listed make sense to me. I don't see much of a use for artificial gems myself, but transmutation could be invaluable with the limited options available to a hermit, and ironbone/bloodsteel could be fun if you're going for a more necromancer flavor of hermit.
But...... It's a one man fort. How hard can it be to micromanage? o.O
I don't know about you, but I do a heck of a lot more micromanagement with one guy doing all the work.