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Darmo

tools & weapons & armor - case hardening for increased durability

6 posts in this topic

Didn't find any particular relavent previous posts to this idea.  I was going to propose it as part of my chemistry suggestions, but this could be a free-standing idea anyway without chemistry, and is in keeping with the 1 idea rule, so I made this standalone topic.

 

TFC will not do enchantments, awesome. But, I think we could still have a way to improve tools and weapons which is very in-theme. One such idea might be, Case Hardening.  Judging from wikipedia, this technology has existed as long as bloomeries.  In a nutshell, a metal item is baked in box of material,  introducing more carbon to the surface, hardening the surface, while the underlying metal remains lower carbon (and hence less brittle). 

 

The way I imagined it, there would be a new 'tool block', the Hardening Furnace, Case Oven, whatever.  Perhaps involving a bloomery block and fire brick blocks.  either crafted into one block (bloomery center, eight FBB around) or actually built physically surrounded by either 5 FBB (all but the front side) or 'cubed' in by FBB (a 2x3 footprint 3 blocks tall, minus oven block, 17 FBB total).  In the actually built form, there would obviously be a separate recipe for the Case Oven itself.  The oven  block would be used to activate the GUI.

 

From what I've read about the process, you take the item to be hardened, pack it in a cake of material, and put it in the furance.  In ancient times, bones and charcoal, both of which conveniently exist in TFC already.  Wikipedia mentions four more processes though, all of which could be a good tie-in to chemistry.

 

I envision the GUI being simple - 3x3 grid, similar to crafting. You take you freshly minted tool/weapon PART (i.e BEFORE the handle is on) put it in and place around it 8 'carbon cakes', with perhaps additional types depending on how thorough you may want to be.  If there are different tiers of cake, you could allow each cake to add a certain durability, depending on what it is.  So a simple bone-charcoal carbon cake might add 10 durability per cake, while a cyanide cake might add 20 durability per cake (these numbers would need to be balanced to make it worthwhile obviously)  Maybe you can mix cakes, but probably not.  My impression was this is normally done on thicker metal, but maybe higher levels chemistry-obtained cakes could case-harden armor. Higher tier metals could also require higher tier cakes (and not be back-compatible), since adding 80 durability to a 2500 durability pick is not going to be worthwhile, but adding 800 durability to a 400 durability pick might be op. Lots of details there that could be worked out. 

 

If there is a desire to not use a GUI, similar to Bloomery and Blast Furnace, you could basically build it like a 1-level blast furnace, with the Case Oven as a bottom, and fire bricks on the sides.  You toss the cakes into the 'hopper' with the single metal item, and bam, case block. 

 

After you have your piece and the cakes in the GUI (no empty cake slots allowed) you light the furance just like how you do the Bloomery or Blast Funace.  X hours later, you have a case-hardened item with improved durability. The resulting item would have the prefix 'hardened' and could not be case-hardened again.

 

Once you add the handle to a non-hardened item, you can no longer case harden it.  Maybe armor would have to be done during the intermediate step where you've welded on the last piece, but before doing the last bit of smithing.  That's not necessarily 'realistic', but if it is desired that people plan for case hardening rather than doing it opportunistically, it would be a good way to require that planning.  This would also intrinsically prevent case-hardening of tools, armor, and weapons, that have been used.

 

And that's the idea.  It could even be adapted to improved weapon damage or tool speed, but I think those would be better done in a different way.

Edited by Darmo
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As a side-note just in case you didn't know, you can already increase the durability on your tools/armor/weapons and the damage that your weapons deal by just having a higher smithing skill.

 

As for your suggestion itself, is this something that would work on all metals, or just iron/steel based? I would think that carbon baking wouldn't have much affect on say copper armor.

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Right, ya it would be a separate improvement over and above skill.  And you're correct,  I think irl it would only work on iron and up. Whether or not there was another recipe using the same tool to improve copper and bronze, or a different tool, or it just becomes another reason to move beyond copper and bronze, idk. 

 

There's the whole beleivability vs realism thing.  That game already has several fantasy metals which I get the sense are more for game progression.  So I personally could see there being a stretch of reality to allow it.  But I could also see it not.  I honestly would kind of expect people to not bother on copper and bronze, but I've not had to deal with copper scarcity.  I guess I'd expect it to be based more on what the devs saw as best for gameplay.

 

fwiw a quick google search indicated there may be ways to harden copper or bronze (nothing definitive like a wiki article) but they sound pretty modern. Edit: And also hardening copper is basically turning the surface into bronze anyway apparently.  Might be a little useful if they have only one of zinc/bismuth or silver/gold. 

 

Edit: I would also point out, if the Case Oven recipe involves FBB, then the player has fire clay, hence a crucible, and already is probably working feverishly toward steel. Copper is probably a distant memory.  But they are probably still using some bronze tools, and are still wearing bronze armor.  I would think it'd be best to not allow it in that scenario, give them more of a push to higher tiers. 

 

*if* it were decided to allow hardening of tier 1 and 2, the Case Oven recipe would probably need to be attainable without graphite.

Edited by Darmo
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Another way to handle the construction: The Case Oven is a set of doors, like the bloomery.  Behind those doors must be an air block, again, like the bloomery.  But there's no chimney.   The doors and air block must be surrounded by something on all sides, FBB perhaps.  Except that the block above the air block can be anything, including air (this is to allow the chest placed inside in the next step to be opened)

 

The player must place in the air space directly behind the door a wooden chest.  In the chest they place the item(s?) to be case hardened.  They can then also place as many cakes as they like in the chest with the item (cakes may not be able to stack, or have very low max stack, to limit the amount), with perhaps a certain minimum, such as 6 cakes.  So up to 17 cakes (if they don't stack).

Alternatively, use vessel - this would allow the air block to be solid above.  Cakes would have to stack higher to allow similar total amount to wooden chest.  But might be a bit too much, since four vessels could be placed  in there.

 

They then close the doors and 'light' the doors.  Again, similar to the bloomery.  X hours pass.  Then those cakes are added together for the increased durability that is added to the item(s?).  If more than one item is allowed, the hardening is divided evenly between them.  End result is something like a bloom block, that is picked out and hops into the player's hands.  Maybe it is instantly the tool, or maybe its a block that as to be put in the crafting grid, with a hammer or something.  Avoids the oven-specific GUI, and could maybe reuse a lot of code from the bloomery?

 

I like the greater fidelity to the 'wooden box of stuff' from wikipedia, but the probable stack limits required of the cake to limit the number in the chest/vessel might seem a bit hokey.

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Great idea!

 

Why all complicated new GUIs and blocks? Just put a tool head into a large fired clay vessel, add tons of coal/cyanide inside, put into a kiln and fire it :)

 

Maybe gems could be used as "cakes" for case hardening. :) Or the unused ores.

 

I read long ago that in ancient times iron/steels were doped (alloyed) by adding a secret mixture of various herbs into the molten metal, so the tiny amounts of rare elements from the herbs improved steel. Could be a new use for flowers :)

Edited by heptagon_ru
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Why all complicated new GUIs and blocks? Just put a tool head into a large fired clay vessel, add tons of coal/cyanide inside, put into a kiln and fire it :)

A definite possibility.  I was thinking of it as a significant step for a blacksmith's shop, so I thought it should be on par with the bloomery at least, in terms of having to invest some time and material in making it, rather than being more akin to 'clay-tech' technology associated with tier 1 and 2 metals, especially if tier 1 and 2 metals cannot be case hardened.  I'm kind of a sucker for the complicated setups, I'll admit, even though the disappearing iron sheets of the blast furnace enrage me. 

 

There could be both - pit kilned for middle tiers, special setup for upper tiers.

Edited by Darmo
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