OK, as someone who owns some chainmail, and has used it in combat reenactment, I can probably clear some things up. Firstly, you can't make it out of bronze, or at least there's no evidence for it being done. I believe this is because of bronze's properties: it's much less ductile than iron, and thus it's far harder to turn into rings. However, it may just be that they worked out mail after everyone had moved to iron for most things. I do know that you can make it out of brass, though.http://allbeststuff.com/Flat-Brass-Riveted-Chain-Mail-Hauberk?filter_name=brass&filter_category_id=0 Secondly, padding-wise you'd generally have quilted cloth - I can send a picture of my gambeson in the next few days if you really want, though it's currently at a friend's house. Our authenticity team is fairly convinced that leather padding wasn't a thing, as it doesn't provide much padding. It is, however, quite good 'hard' protection, and we use stuff about 5mm thick to help redistribute the force of blows on our gloves, over a layer of cloth padding. You can have leather under the coif, but it's more common to just have cloth, as the main purpose of stuff there is to stop the mail catching on your hair or shredding your skin. I tried wearing my coif with nothing under it beneath a tight helmet, and have the cuts in my forehead to prove it. Most of our padding is built into our helmets instead, although I do own a padded arming cap as well ('cause my helmets are slightly too big otherwise). Third, mail (in fact, armour in general), really does not cool you down. With the padding on underneath, you're actually in serious danger of heatstroke or dehydration if you aren't careful. After fighting for a few hours in mail and padding (with breaks, as otherwise we would have collapsed) on a fairly mild day last week, I took my padding off and literally steamed, so much so in fact that I thought someone had stoked the fire up. On other days, particularly when fighting inside, I've got hot enough that my hands started steaming when I took my gloves off. However, I have survived clubbing in padding and a hauberk at least twice, so as long as you get enough water you'll generally be OK. Fourth, mail is brilliant at stopping slashes and, after some experiments with kitchen knives and a questionable regard for my own safety, stabs. As long as you don't burst the rings, or have a blade pointy enough to stab you even through the padding (one of the knives had a thin enough point to prick me, though none actually broke the skin), you'll be fine. It is, however, as OP noted, really rubbish at stopping blunt force. Far worse than plate, which actually stops it pretty well if you have padding. Fifth, you can and do have mail for the legs and feet. They're known as chausses. Here's a picture of one. Mine still need some work, as I have to sew leather on for the sole of the foot; as far as I know, you never had mail on the sole as well. They're a relatively late invention, and were typically worn without padding, as it's very difficult to bend your legs with padding on. They did, however, sometimes have padding on the outside around the thigh, either to help them stay up or (my theory) to make horse-riding more comfortable. As you can see from the picture, foot protection is integrated almost all the time. A steady trend towards integration was characteristic of the early medieval period, and my hauberk has an integrated coif and will have integrated mittens as soon as I alter the sleeve length and attach them. This provides greater protection and, in the case of coifs, slightly lowers the weight. For this reason, you could theoretically have just two pieces in a full suit of mail, the hauberk and the chausses. However, coifs were separate for most of the period so if the devs wanted to do them like that they could. Sixth, at risk of going into too much detail, you need some specialised tools for assembling rivetted mail. This is the main one I'm not quite sure how you'd make it. Perhaps one ingot for each half, made on the anvil, then assembled in the crafting grid? Alternatively, you could just stick to hammering. It's not how you actually did it, but it does mean one less new mechanic to create. If anyone has questions, do feel free to ask and I'll try to answer. I can also talk about other types of armour, though since I don't own them it's a bit harder. Some of my friends have scale, lamellar and plate, so I've had some exposure and know the basics of construction and what they work against. If I were doing an armour system, I'd probably make the current armours a top layer which provided the greatest protection but have a chance for it to be bypassed which decreased as you went up the tech tree. Chainmail and padding underneath would then stop some of the damage which bypassed the top layer (with padding providing a small amount of slash/stab protection and a fair bit of blunt protection, with mail doing the opposite). This would mean you'd tend to wear mail for wrought iron, steel and black steel armour, but maybe not bother for blue and red steel, as in real life the amount of mail involved did decrease throughout the medieval period as articulation got better, until renaissance plate used almost none.