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jake_the_odd

Rings and things: Chainmail armor and related items

Your thoughts?   28 members have voted

  1. 1. If this was put into the mod, would you use this at all?

    • "OF COURSE!"(Major Bison from the Steet Fighter Series)
      16
    • Until I had enough for the other armor, yeah.
      3
    • Depends on circumstances
      7
    • Meh, not really...
      1
    • No way, I'm sticking to the other armor!
      1

Please sign in or register to vote in this poll.

37 posts in this topic

My eyes are bad, hence the font size.

 

Post of inspiration: http://terrafirmacraft.com/f/topic/4823-combat-revamp-opinion-poll/

 

For the lazy: This suggestion is for adding the following: metal wire, a ring jig, metal rings, chains, chainmail, chainmail padding, and improved armor to the game.

 

For the rest that like reading, let's get started!

 

Metal Wire:

To make the wire necessary you'll need your trusty anvil and you basically hammer the wire out while it's still malleable until the smithing arrows line up and what results from the smithing would be 10 lengths of wire.

 

Ring Jig and rings:

To make a ring jig: you'll need 3 wooden planks(P), 2 wooden lumber(L), and a stick(S).

 

S  L  O

O  L  O
P  P  P

 

You would then right-click it with wire in hand and coils of the metal wire will drop while 1 wire is removed from your inventory. Next, simply put the coil and a pair of shears in the crafting interface and you will get 64 rings (split into 4 stacks) of the metal you used from that one wire.

 

Chains:

You now have a pile of rings in your inventory that you can heat all together to working temp, then put them all into the crafting interface and fill the entire thing with the heated rings to get an unfinished chain square that you can then take to the anvil and hammer to completion. Then, you will do that again with the squares to get a sheet of mail (Total cost for a sheet is 81 rings and the fuel used).

 

Sheets and squares of mail will be used for armor, for a more miscellaneous use you can make them into unfinished lengths of chain by simply taking the unfinished rings and put them into a line in the crafting interface to get a length of wire (you can combine them up to a length of 30) for enhanced storage as well as a possible currency for role-players.

 

Inspiration for currency use: http://youtu.be/qjDtXF8eC8U?t=4m39s

 

Chainmail armor:

A full set of chainmail armor comes in 3 pieces (made of chain, not the padding) consisting of the coif (hood), hauberk (torso and leg armor), and chausses (shin guards).

 

Here are the following patterns for the chainmail:

Chain Square (SQ) | Chain sheet (SH) | Nothing (O)

 

Chainmail Coif: 99 rings to make it

 

O  SH  O

SQ O SQ

O   O   O

 

Chainmail Hauberk: 567 rings to make it

 

SH  O  SH
SH SH SH

SH  O  SH

 

Chainmail Chausses: 324 rings to make it

 

SH  O  SH

SH  O  SH

O    O    O

 

Chainmail Padding:

Now, the padding is very simple to produce, just put 2 cloth in the crafting interface to get padding pieces. Then, do the same pattern of the armor you are trying to pad for the padding itself.

 

EXAMPLE: To make padding for the Chausses, use the same pattern that you would with the chains with padding pieces regardless of if the chain items were sheets or squares.

 

Once the padding is made, just put it and the appropriate chainmail armor piece in the crafting interface and now you have functional armor.

 

Improved Armor:

To make improved armor, just take a chainmail hauberk, the hauberk's padding, a chestplate, and the legplates and you now have a set of improved armor. Keep in mind that the metal for the chainmail and the plate armor have to be the same kind, otherwise you're just being silly.

 

Armor Stats:

In reality, chainmail was made for deterring slashing damage, and it was weak to crushing and stabbing based attacks. With this in mind, its stats would be around this area.

 

Also, if I did my math correctly, the metal required to make a suit of chainmail is 1.5 ingots. That alone will make chainmail a very cheap armor to produce for players, so there will be some balancing that must be done if this is included.

 

Those that know armor production will realize "HEY! It takes WAY much more rings than that to make a suit of the stuff!" and they are right because:

 

A: it doesn't have to be realistic, just has to be believable to work

                    and

B: I also make the stuff,and it is a very long and tedious process.

 

 

I would like to thank everyone who decided to read this post as well. Have a good day!

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Wow, what a well-prepared suggestion!

It sounds interesting in general, but I have some issues with it :P

First of all you're adding plenty of new blocks to the game. As far as I know more complexity usually means longer development and thus lowered chances to get it into a game.

Especially the process of making coils, I think coding a block just for that is a bit wasteful, and making it more simple would be a good move.

Also I don't know how tedious thos process will be in-game, and how better the upgraded armor will be.

I think to make it work iron or bronze chain should be at least a little better than leather for it to work.

Also due to engine limitations I don't think a proper hauberk is possible, and am sure that chainmail trousers, as stupid as it sounds, may be a viable and believable enough option :)

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Wow, what a well-prepared suggestion!It sounds interesting in general, but I have some issues with it :PFirst of all you're adding plenty of new blocks to the game. As far as I know more complexity usually means longer development and thus lowered chances to get it into a game.Especially the process of making coils, I think coding a block just for that is a bit wasteful, and making it more simple would be a good move.Also I don't know how tedious thos process will be in-game, and how better the upgraded armor will be.I think to make it work iron or bronze chain should be at least a little better than leather for it to work.Also due to engine limitations I don't think a proper hauberk is possible, and am sure that chainmail trousers, as stupid as it sounds, may be a viable and believable enough option :)

The only actual block would be the ring jig, the rest would simply be inventory items. As for the coils, the devs could probably use them later on for improved beds/something that uses coils, or something of the sort, but I do agree with you because if this was implemented it'd kinda be a waste if it were just the coils for chainmail. Irl the process is long and boring, but in the game it'd be quicker and the only thing that would be difficult is figuring out how many rings you'd really need (from my point of view).

 

I definitely agree with the bronze and iron chain being better than leather, because copper is very easy to break. Historically, they did actually have a sort of chainmail trousers, all they were was a skirt of chain that was held onto the body by tying it onto a belt. The use of the chain skirt was to protect the groin area in plate-mail armor because that area wasn't strongly armored and needed protection.

 

Yeah, if this was implemented it'd need some balancing and refurbishing...

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So since I'm the guy who always rains on parades by using math, let's do some now.

 

1 ingot -> 10 lengths of wire

1 length of wire -> 64 rings

10 lengths of wire -> 640 rings

 

So, the chest piece costs ~88.9% of a bar, the legs take ~50.6% of a bar, and the coif takes 15.5% of a bar.

Gosh that's cheap. A full set of armour from 1.5 bars of metal? (Also, why no boots?)

If I'm reading the wiki correctly, a set of regular armour (-boots) costs:

2 x metal sheet (2 bars)

4 x double metal sheet (16 bars)

So 18 bars vs. 1.5 bars. That's a bit TOO cheap if you ask me.

ANother issue I see is storage. You split 64 rings into 4 stacks, so 16 rings per stack. Meaning that if I want to build a full set of armour, I need 62 inventory slots just to hold all the rings. (990/16= 61.875)

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This is something that I've wanted to get to for quite a while. However I've decided to put this on the back burner until some of our more long standing commitments are in place which necessitate new forms of armor. As it stands now, there isn't a whole lot of in game purpose in expanding the armor types. That said, this is a good suggestion and well thought out. When the time comes, I'll probably come back to this.

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I support this too. As well as the idea that wearing armour made out of metal cools you down. Protection vs survival. First we need player body temperature implemented tho...

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Wearing metal armor cools you down? Well, if it's cold, maybe. But padding prevents that most of the time. The real problem is when it hets too hot- sitting in a metal can on the sun is not so great idea :P

That's why crusaders wore mostly white cloth over their armour- so they won't heat up as easily :)

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So I was fiddling around in my forge when a thought hit me: In the middle ages, they didn't really have much plate armor going around. Mostly just Chain Mail and Scale Armor.

post-17729-0-70137100-1427225152_thumb.jpost-17729-0-76816200-1427225166_thumb.j   Come on. You have to admit that this looks pretty sweet.

So, I thought: why not add it to TFC? We could have it so you could make mail out of everything Iron and up, and you could put that on Leather stuff, and then stick metal plates on over that. It would probably have a higher Piercing and Slashing resistance, but lower Crushing. If this is added, though, then I think the Piercing resistance of plate armor should be lowered. This would be even better with the Archery Overhaul stuff (http://terrafirmacraft.com/f/topic/5922). If anybody else has any more ideas for this, that would be great.

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Merged with this existing relevant topic. As per rule #1 please use search before posting suggestions.

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*Looks at top right hand corner* *Sees search bar* *HeadDesk*

 

EDIT: I just realized that, as is, this post has nothing to do with the topic. So, without further ado:

I think that chain mail should be, not a weaker, cheaper version of regular armor, but an alternative with its own pro's and cons, as stated in my above post.

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Overall, I love this suggestion, and I find that as it stands it is an adequate abstraction of what was likely done historically.  Frikkin' A+!  But, I have a few suggestions for the OP if there is any desire to get more realistic. 

Wire for maille was not generally made just by hammering stuff out.  It was done using a drawplate.  In short, from my understanding (and this is true for at least a few specimens of maille), the metal was made into a long sheet of about the right thickness, thin slices of the sheet were cut out, and these thin slices were then drawn through holes of the draw plate to get the metal to form wire of reasonably circular cross section and consistent guague. 

So, perhaps a drawplate might be something to add if we wish to go for realism.  Then again, would this really add to gameplay?  I think it could if there were more uses for wire.

Also, if we want to REALLY get into realism, perhaps we ought to include rivets for riveting the maille rings shut, a drift (as one of the tool requirements) to make the slit the rivets go through in the rings, and the use of swaging tongs to set and squish the rivets during construction of the final piece. I think this would just add tedium, though...

And...

 

Armor Stats:

In reality, chainmail was made for deterring slashing damage, and it was weak to crushing and stabbing based attacks. With this in mind, its stats would be around this area.

 

Also, if I did my math correctly, the metal required to make a suit of chainmail is 1.5 ingots. That alone will make chainmail a very cheap armor to produce for players, so there will be some balancing that must be done if this is included.

 

I think for gameplay reasons this is cool, but at least historically chainmaille would not have necessarily been cheaper than producing, say, plate armor.  The amount of metal needed would have been easily as much as plates covering the same areas.  Also, chainmaille is absolutely fantastic at defending against stabs and does pretty well defending against crushing blows, and it was made for deterring damage from those kinds of attacks as well!  That said, yeah, plate maille does end up being better against stabs and crushing (and anything, really) if we hold weight equal for the given area protected and assume decent quality, case-hardened iron.  But in Western Europe at least, plate was made to supplement maille rather than replace it (not that anyone here said otherwise).  With better quality steel, plate did eventually replace maille for everything except for covering joints and other flexible areas... 

Also, like Xenolith166 says, the armour should have its own pro's and cons. Ideally, balance would be struck just by virtue of its real-life pros and cons, but even this detailed of a mod doesn't have the features necessary for this, I don't think...

 

Sorry for the excessive information... this got me excited.  :)

EDIT:  Chainmaille is not really all that protective against blunt force, at least not if it is sitting directly against something.

Edited by Andeerz
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Just in case you missed it Andeerz, TFC isn't going for realism.

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I like the idea, but think that it should require more metal - maybe one ingot for a coif, two for the greaves, and at least two for the hauberk.

Because you'd need so many inventory slots for the rings, either make them stack to 32 (or even 64), or reduce the number required for the various items.

Another possibility would be to have some sort of "loom" where you put, say,10 wires (or springs) - which would then be coiled (if wires), cut and twisted into a mail square.

 

The armour padding is a good idea, and that might be able to be added to leather armour to give a *little* more protection to crushing damage.

Not sure how you'd go about adding it though - maybe simply crafting the two items together. 

Then, of course, the padding could simply be worn "as is" for almost no armour value, but mostly for decoration :)

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It's not like I don't like this idea. Anything that adds to the game is welcome. My concern is that we already have several armors in the game. Do we really need one more kind? There are so many other areas of the mod that need the Dev's attention.

Again I think is a good idea, just don't see it happening in the near future. I may be wrong though, since I am not a Dev.

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Just in case you missed it Andeerz, TFC isn't going for realism.

Of course!  :)I just figured that it wouldn't hurt to point out how a more "realistic" portrayal of maille construction might look in the game.  Though I think with chainmaille it likely won't ever be the case regardless of its implementation, having an idea of how to model stuff realistically can provide additional ways to balance something in believable, relatively non-arbitrary ways if it ever becomes needed.  That seems to be how TFC does so with just about every facet of gameplay, no?

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Well I think f there should be different types of armor I think it should give different types of protection like jake said. Plate armor: it would give alot of protection to all stats, but would cost alot mor and wokuld give you a slight slowness. Chain armor: Realitively cheap and light plus protects you from slashing damage, but it would have a debuff like being weak from both other types of damage. Plated mail: This would be a mix of both giving good protection from all types of attacks, like about 3/4 of a full plated armor metal cost and gives a lighter slowness, but requiers alot more steps, like make a chainmail unfinished level 2 and then weld a plate on and there your done

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I have a suggestion that perhaps might fit better in another thread altogether, but I think it would represent adequately the reasons chainmaille was used as it was IRL, actually give chainmaille a believable reason to exist in this game, and enrich gameplay.

This would require a bit of a rewrite of how armour works in general.  And before any claims that this is off-topic, this has a LOT to do with chainmaille, though it applies equally to (soft) leather and cloth based armours should they ever make it in the game.

I propose that each armour slot except for the feet (and hands if that ever becomes a thing) have two layers.  I also propose that armour be categorized as either flexible or rigid.  Either one armour slot can be occupied by a piece of armour, both occupied with one piece each of flexible armour, or one slot with a flexible piece and the other with a rigid piece.

In addition, I sugges that rigid pieces not be able to prevent 100% of critical hits.  This critical hit chance would reflect the inability of rigid pieces (generally) not being able to cover flexible areas.

 

Flexible armour can be placed under or over rigid pieces to cover the places they (almost) never could effectively (i.e. the groin, inside of the elbows, back of the knee).  As such, they would reduce this critical hit chance or eliminate it altogether if that is deemed appropriate for balancing reasons.  Chainmaille would be the most protective variant of these flexible armours.  Cloth (if that ever makes it in) and (soft) leather would also be considered flexible.

The effects of armour would be additive (or maybe additive up to a point... or something else).  Of course this would require some re-balancing.

 
So, here we have what I think is a system that will give a believable reason to have chainmaille (along with other flexible armours).  What do you think?

Oh!  And also, I suggest chainmaille be available as bronze (EDIT: brass) and wrought iron at the very least.  Those two materials were definitely used for chainmaille.

Perhaps they should have the following armour values if we are going with the current system:

 

Bronze:  piercing=400 slashing=600 crushing=200
Wrought iron:  piercing=500 slasing=700 crushing=200

I am not entirely sure if IRL they actually had much of a difference in performance, but I think this ought to be cool for gameplay's sake.

Additionally, if weight of the armour factors into anything ever with any sort of rewrite of how armour works... it would give an excuse for making maille voiders instead of full shirts/hauberks, chausses, etc. (which would be lighter, though less protective) for use with higher tier armours.   

Edited by Andeerz
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Great ideas, but how would you fit both pieces of armor into the same slot? Would there be new armor slots specifically for these other armors? For the chain mail, my personal opinion is that it should be made of wrought iron or higher. It could also be mounted on leather armor for additional protection. On how to make the actual armor, you could work an ingot into a sheet of mail, which you could then combine with a few others to make whatever piece of armor you want. In addition, you could work a metal sheet into metal scales, which you could weld to the mail to make scale armor. Scale armor would be sort of an upgrade to chain mail, with a 15% higher piercing/slashing resistance, and a 20% higher crushing resistance.

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I would fit both pieces by adding additional slots for each body part.  These slots can have any armour (flexible or rigid) of the appropriate body part placed in them.  The only limitation is that you cannot have two "rigid" armours on the same body part. 

Chainmaille ought to be made out of bronze (EDIT:  brass, NOT BRONZE) as well, as it was made of such material IRL.  As for what it should be mounted on... I think that could be abstracted out.  I am on the fence about this.  In reality, if maille was used as the outermost protective garment without supplementary plates, there would be some thick cloth (normally not leather as far as I have read) garment underneath.  By thick, I mean something like 7 layers of heavy weight linen or some other bast fiber fabric (stuffing doesn't help as much as additional layers when it comes to protecting against piercing!).  Though, a thick garment wasn't necessarily used all the time, the protection offered by the combination of fabric and maille was synergistic, with modern destructive tests showing that they work much better together than alone... which is why I am on the fence.  With plates put over chainmaille, the fabric garment underneath is often thinner, though over vital areas it still would have a few extra layers of fabric, or at least that is what I remember from my research a while back.

Oh,  there are also several extant written accounts of what has been interpreted as people wearing two layers of chainmaille as well, for what it is worth... which makes the idea of layering two maille items over the same body part in the game seem more believable.  :)

As for scale armour... this is tricky to justify as a separate armour in my opinion.  Plus it depends what you mean by scale armour.  There are quite a few period illustrations and at least one period monument depicting scale armour apparently serving the same role as chainmaille with what would have to be scale armour with small scales (as in, each scale roughly a cm wide or so).  I guess it could be more protective, but I am not aware of anyone who has properly tested that.  Two things are for sure: it wasn't used as much, and, since there are no extant examples of this kind of armour (as far as I am aware), we have little idea how it was constructed.  So, how would we model this thing in the game?  Perhaps we could justify it as an alternative to chainmaille by having it be a bit heavier and require more metal?  And in order to make it, one would have to punch out scales from sheets and then sew them onto a cloth backing (unlike the piece you show above... which was put together with jump-rings which makes it ridiculously heavy for what it should be)?

If you are talking about scale armour with scales any larger than the scales in the picture posted above, I would say that ought to function as a rigid piece.  Ain't no way you are going to have any other armour sit over that practically.    

Edited by Andeerz
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So with the armor slots you would have the first layer accept only flexible armors and the second accept both types? Or would there be a better way of doing it? I didn't really think about this kind of system, it seems pretty cool. I don't mind what materials it would be made of, but I do think that around the bronze-iron area it should become available. For the scale armor, I got the pictures off of the internet, so I only know that they look somewhat like what I'm talking about. For scale size, 1 cm is pretty small, not to mention the time and work it would take to make them. I think around 2-4 inches (5-10cm) would work better. You know, kind of like Thorin's from The Hobbit. I think it should be a sort of middle ground between the different armors, kind of a plate armor that's more flexible, or a chain mail that's thicker and stiffer. Like you're welding sheets of metal to some chain mail for added protection. Besides, who says we have to exactly follow what history was like? Maybe in the world of TerraFirmaCraft, armor development took a slightly different turn. I, for one, think it would be a great improvement to regular old chainmail to stick some more metal on it. Plus, it looks pretty cool, don't you think?

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Yeah!  With regard to the armour slots, that is pretty much what I was saying.And about scale size, I see what you mean.  And I agree with you.  I mean, ultimately, size of scales or rings shouldn't matter, as that is too much detail and we shouldn't have to explicitly make 35000 rings for a hauberk or however many thousand scales for this or that armour.  :)  I just wanted to point out RL considerations just in case they might be a believable way to balance stuff if they are amenable to gameplay.And Thorin's armour looks a lot like some real armours (with embellishments of course).  But, yeah, we don't need to follow what history was like.  That said, a lot of armours in (good) fantasy settings like LotR, though they might seem outlandish, did have their real life counterparts, and just about anything you can think of with regard to armour was probably tried.  Oh, and sticking metal directly on chainmail was done and it looked pretty wicked!!!

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Very true, very true indeed. I am still of the opinion that you should be able to mount the mail onto leather, though. I believe this was referred to as either leather-backed mail or mail-backed leather. Perhaps placing the mail sheets mentioned in an above post in the typical minecraft chestplate pattern with a leather chestplate in the spare slot? The same basic principal would apply to the other pieces of armor. You could do something with raw leather gear to harden it, boil it or wax it or something, rendering it even more protective, maybe even add some wool cloth for padding and even more damage resistance! That'd be pretty cool, don't you think? Just imagine, a fully maxed out piece of Blue Steel Scale Mail armor, complete with Hardened Leather Backing and Wool Padding!

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Hmmm... I will look into whether backing chainmaille with leather was a common practice (it was, I think, done for pieces covering the neck).  But I do know that it was most definitely done with fabric.  The underlying fabric would often be a separate garment that wasn't necessarily secured to the chainmaille directly. But I guess we could have discrete leather or fabric-backed chainmaille items.  For example, we could combine, say, a chainmaille hauberk with a linen gambeson and get a finished piece of armour to protect the chest.Or... I wonder if there shouldn't be a third layer for "padding" or foundation garments?  That might satisfy your concern about chainmaille having some sort of backing.  Part of me thinks this might be superfluous, but these foundation garments were not trivial components of armour and represented a significant part of one's protective ensemble both in function and cost.  Perhaps a stout linen gambeson or whatever one would want to call it could be worn underneath chainmaille.  Such an addition of fabric based defenses in the game would give an additional and meaningful purpose to cloth in the game!!!      OR!!! Yet another alternative could be that we keep the armour slots as they are now, but have armour pieces of the same corresponding body part able to be mixed and matched within the crafting grid to create a final composite piece (or "harness") that fits in the slot.  The template crafting recipe would call for a optional fabric foundation garment, and up to two (maybe three?) additional armour pieces.  I would suggest that only one of the additional armour pieces be allowed to be rigid. These would be combined to make a complete "harness" for that particular body part it is meant to cover, with its protective values taking into account the protective values of the separate pieces alone (either additively or synergistically) as described in one of my previous posts.  For example, for the chest, one could combine in the crafting grid a linen gambeson, and one or two chainmaille hauberks.  Or two gambesons and one hauberk.  Or a gambeson, chainmaille hauberk, and chest plate. Or alternatively, one could just wear either the chest plate or hauberk alone.  One would not, however, be able to wear a piece of armour in lieu of an absent foundation garment.  For example, one wouldn't be able to wear three hauberks with one of the hauberks taking the place of a foundation garment.   I will emphasize, though, that whatever kind of amour system changes happen, weight really ought to play a role eventually and affect some aspect of movement or fatigue or something.  For my suggestion, this would give believable and realistic tradeoffs in some armour configurations beyond simply the resource costs.   Oh!  And with regard to hardened leather... examples abound of chainmaille being worn with (likely) hardened leather pieces over it, though I cannot recall evidence of such hardened pieces being worn under it.  That is not to say it wasn't done!So, I could certainly imagine a fully maxed out piece of Blue Steel Scale Mail armour with hardened leather pieces over it and a wool-padded garment underneath it all.Also... I really ought to make a suggestion in a separate thread about leather armour... I have some ideas!

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With the hardened leather armor, I was thinking more along the lines of having it under the metal armor, you know, to give it more stiffness and resistance to crushing damage. Because if it were worn above the armor, it would be shredded after every fight, am I right? The whole "harness" thing is looking pretty sweet, maybe even have another tab on the anvil specifically for assembling them. It could have three slots on the left where you put the layers of the armor piece you're trying to make in the order of which layers they'd be on, so for the top one you could put your base piece of armor, let's say hardened leather, for the second one you could have an Iron Chain Mail hauberk, and for the third you could have a set of Iron Scale Mail, the resulting item would say in the item's tooltip something like "Layer 1: Hardened Leather, Layer 2: Wrought Iron Chain Mail, Layer 3: Wrought Iron Scale Mail"  You could even have another slot to put some wool padding under everything, and the item would have the word "Padded" in its tooltip as well as whatever else is there.

Warning: This Spoiler contains a slightly off-topic rant. You have been warned.

Ok, so you know all those threads about repairing stuff that had the idea of just sharpening stuff to give it more durability? That's just strange. "Oh, no, my sword broke in half! Guess I'll sharpen it, that'll fix it right up!" NO. Just weld a stupid ingot to it and beat it with a hammer! I mean, really, people! Oh, sure, you can have some kind of sharpening thing, but not to repair items with! If anything, sharpening would just make your weapon do more damage. If you want to fix your splintered sword blade, you're going to have to reforge it.

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I see. Hardened leather armour, though, is very robust to all manner of damage.  It isn't as protective as steel of equivalent weight in several respects, but think of it like a hard plastic.  I guess hardened leather could be worn under chainmaille, but ideally one would wear something a bit more flexible, like buff leather or, better yet, something made of fabric that is lighter and that actually breathes.  The give of the chainmaille links and their mass, if over a flexible backing, deaden the impact of anything trying to pierce or cut it and is a big part of what makes it so protective.  But if the links are laid out over something too rigid, this feature is lost in large part.  Think about it this way... what is harder to cut?  A piece of fabric that is pulled taut, or a piece of hanging fabric that can move as you cut it? But for the purposes of this game and the present suggestion, I figure putting chainmaille over something rigid could just behave as if it was under it.  I do know it was done on occasion according to effigies and period art.  So, I am not sure if it is worth going into too much detail about structural characteristics and protective attributes of armour with regard to what is layerd above or below it.  I have a feeling it would enter too much speculative territory that would end up becoming a bit metagamey.

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