Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-70.78.7.114-20130908190053/@comment-67.142.183.27-20140419132443

Character level and smithing perks both seem to affect the spawn rate, but Moonstone still seems to be oddly scarce. I am currently playing the unpatched game and ingots available for sale are: 23 Iron, 18 Steel, 8 Dwarven, 7 Quicksilver, 6 Ebony, 4 Oricalcum, 2 Corundum, 2 Silver, 1 Moonstone, 1 Malachite and no Gold. Furthermore, there are 7 Iron ore, 4 Corundum ore, 2 Moonstone ore, 1 Malachite ore, 1 Quicksilver and 1 Silver ore. Character level is 31 and Smithing is 72 with the perks tree advanced to Glass on the Light Armor side and Dwarven on the Heavy side. Moonstone has never appeared more than 4 at a time for me, despite "rarer" materials like Ebony appearing.