Metal Tiers

[Stroam 65]

On 11/19/2015 at 2:16 PM, Bioxx said:

• Once the player reaches a certain tier (probably Steel), they'll unlock the ability to start experimenting in making their own alloys
• Once you've progressed far enough to unlock all of the standard ores and minerals, which should be reached by Tier 4(we count from 0), there will be a need for new types of ores and minerals for the player to find in order to keep pushing further East or West.
  • Each island will generate 2 or 3 procedural ores/minerals which will can be used in experimentation with other ores/minerals/metals to try and develop stronger alloys.
  • Each base material will have properties that affect how they act/react in the presence of other materials. This should allow for the metallurgist to discover what to do with the materials as they gain knowledge.
  • Ores will be named using a procedural naming system. Example: Polymibnub Ore
  • Materials will have some sort of classification system so we can say Class A materials cause Class N materials to weaken when making an alloy. But Class J materials nullify any conflicts caused by Class N materials. This could result in an alloy that has much greater durability than if only A and N materials were used.
  • Ore block/item coloring will be procedural but consistent. There should not be a need for Tile Entity based Ores like we had in TFC1 if done correctly.
• Both ore and exact alloys will be completely procedural after Steel. This means that it will be based to some extent upon the world seed just like meals in TFC1.
• Newly discovered Alloys can be named by the person that discovered it. Admins would of course have a way to police these names.

What's old is new again. Revisiting this topic now we have islands.

It's been touched upon that different damage types will come into play. I'm guessing a mix of physical and elemental. It has been stated there will be a classification system to make alloys more complex which is nice.

You could also give metals past steel a chance to have a random ability and unlock mechanism that goes along with it. An ability such as during a rain storm has a chance to shock or chance in temperature below freezing to deal fire damage. An unlock mechanism could be a requirement such as must be at less than 10% health or be a master cook. Then add in an alloy testing device where you sacrifice some of the alloy and an item to determine what might unlock the special effect. Sacrificing a ***** might tell you nothing. Another sacrifice would say it could be A, B, C, D, or E.  A different sacrifice could say it's B, D, F, G, H.  With enough sacrificing you could limit down to what the trigger effect is. Then when you trigger it, it'll reveal what the special random effect is. The ability, strength of the ability, chance of the ability to go off, and unlock mechanism could be affected not only by the alloy but the order of the metals added to the alloy, This would give you another dynamic of alloy making other than physical and elemental stats.

This idea could use some refining but it should get the creative juices going.

[Bioxx 796]

After letting this topic simmer for a very long time, I think I'm ready to say that I'm formally ditching the idea of procedural metals. Beyond just how much of a pain it would be to implement, my plan now is to allow magic to be the force that augments progression past the steel islands. That said, your ideas are still very valid in some altered fashion Stroam.

[Darmo 303]

3 hours ago, Bioxx said:

I think I'm ready to say that I'm formally ditching the idea of procedural metals. Beyond just how much of a pain it would be to implement, my plan now is to allow magic to be the force that augments progression past the steel islands. That said, your ideas are still very valid in some altered fashion Stroam.

I support this.  I was never enamored with the procedural thing, for reasons outlined previously. 

I do think it'd be worthwhile though, to still have some 'fantasy level' metals.  Mithril and Adamantium are, I think, pretty universal to those who are into fantasy, and meteoric iron is pretty well known to older school D&D folks I think.  Orichalcum is a bit obscure perhaps, but it's historical.  It allows for a few different methods too.  Meteoric could be randomly scattered on the surface in small quantities in boulder-like clumps (except in island with the 'crater' feature, there might be extra-large clumps!).  Mithril could be buried down deep at 'diamond level'.     Orichalcum could generate only under large bodies of water, or even just the ocean, hence being only really obtainable via a lot of branch mining under the ocean, or use of water breath/moving magic.   And adamantium might also be buried at 'diamond level', but also only appear near lava or hot springs or other thermally active 'biomes'.    Any or all could be extra-tough, strongly encouraging the player to use alternate mining methods such as gunpowder or magic, and extra heavy necessitating minecart action. 

They could either be metals in and of themselves, or addons that enhance physical properties and/or enchantments power/max level of steel.  And each could require their own processes and recipes either way.  I think fantasy metals would be great to add value to some of the oddly non-valuable metals of TFC1.  Gold and platinum for instance.  And since these metals would be replacing black/red/blue steel, silver and garnierite will need new 'homes'. Basically a few fantasy metals would allow there to be use for the useless, and continued use for low-tier metals like zinc, bismuth, and cassiterite.  And they don't even all have to be actual ingredients of the new fantasy metals.  Some could be use to make quenching baths (that might be a good use for lead and the bronze additives).  They'd get used up in the process of making, but not be an actual part of the final result.  Some could be post-process.  Powdered and sintered to the surface, for instance.  I think having new processes for these metals, that aren't beholden to real-life processes (and so avoiding people coming in and nit-picking over how a process isn't 'realistic') is a great opportunity for fun, and use of mechanical power.

It might be interesting if the metals affected the magic that can be added to the tool/weapon.  So steel can only accept low tier magics, mithril next, orichalcum higher yet, and adamantine accepting the highest tier enchantments.  Or they might just each have their own properties.  mithril enhances cold and illusion magic, orichalcum electric and summoning, and adamantine fire and transmutation.   Meteoric iron can be added in small quantities (5-10%?) to other metals to enhance damage and durability, but if made into it's own metal (90% MI) it can enhance magic with changes speed and weight.   Maybe even all four could have admixture properties, and then primary properties.  So addmixtures of mithril reduce item weight, meteoric iron movements speed (armor) or swing speed (weapon), orichalcum durability, and adamantium damage in weapons and durability in armor.  There could be three 'tiers' of magic accepting weapons and armor.  Steel would be the lowest tier(s), steel with fantasy admixtures one or two tiers higher, and the pure fantasy metals the highest.  There's just so many options for ways to handle it all!

In summary, I think it's a good idea to ditch the procedural thing, but I still think it'd be good to add a defined amount of fantasy metals, to keep metallurgy important.  At least the historical/established fantasy ones, since people are familiar with them.  But even totally new ones if use can be devised for them. 

Edited 24 Apr 2017 by Darmo

[Mathias Ademar 39]

To be clear, orichalcum was a reddish color. The atlantians (historically proven real, but not yet quite studied) used it as part of the national colors of red black and white, using marble, obsidian, and orichalcum as physical markers of those colors.

[TheSnarkyKnight 11]

4 hours ago, Darmo said:

I support this.  I was never enamored with the procedural thing, for reasons outlined previously. 

I do think it'd be worthwhile though, to still have some 'fantasy level' metals.  Mithril and Adamantium are, I think, pretty universal to those who are into fantasy, and meteoric iron is pretty well known to older school D&D folks I think.  Orichalcum is a bit obscure perhaps, but it's historical.  It allows for a few different methods too.  Meteoric could be randomly scattered on the surface in small quantities in boulder-like clumps (except in island with the 'crater' feature, there might be extra-large clumps!).  Mithril could be buried down deep at 'diamond level'.     Orichalcum could generate only under large bodies of water, or even just the ocean, hence being only really obtainable via a lot of branch mining under the ocean, or use of water breath/moving magic.   And adamantium might also be buried at 'diamond level', but also only appear near lava or hot springs or other thermally active 'biomes'.    Any or all could be extra-tough, strongly encouraging the player to use alternate mining methods such as gunpowder or magic, and extra heavy necessitating minecart action. 

They could either be metals in and of themselves, or addons that enhance physical properties and/or enchantments power/max level of steel.  And each could require their own processes and recipes either way.  I think fantasy metals would be great to add value to some of the oddly non-valuable metals of TFC1.  Gold and platinum for instance.  And since these metals would be replacing black/red/blue steel, silver and garnierite will need new 'homes'. Basically a few fantasy metals would allow there to be use for the useless, and continued use for low-tier metals like zinc, bismuth, and cassiterite.  And they don't even all have to be actual ingredients of the new fantasy metals.  Some could be use to make quenching baths (that might be a good use for lead and the bronze additives).  They'd get used up in the process of making, but not be an actual part of the final result.  Some could be post-process.  Powdered and sintered to the surface, for instance.  I think having new processes for these metals, that aren't beholden to real-life processes (and so avoiding people coming in and nit-picking over how a process isn't 'realistic') is a great opportunity for fun, and use of mechanical power.

It might be interesting if the metals affected the magic that can be added to the tool/weapon.  So steel can only accept low tier magics, mithril next, orichalcum higher yet, and adamantine accepting the highest tier enchantments.  Or they might just each have their own properties.  mithril enhances cold and illusion magic, orichalcum electric and summoning, and adamantine fire and transmutation.   Meteoric iron can be added in small quantities (5-10%?) to other metals to enhance damage and durability, but if made into it's own metal (90% MI) it can enhance magic with changes speed and weight.   Maybe even all four could have admixture properties, and then primary properties.  So addmixtures of mithril reduce item weight, meteoric iron movements speed (armor) or swing speed (weapon), orichalcum durability, and adamantium damage in weapons and durability in armor.  There could be three 'tiers' of magic accepting weapons and armor.  Steel would be the lowest tier(s), steel with fantasy admixtures one or two tiers higher, and the pure fantasy metals the highest.  There's just so many options for ways to handle it all!

In summary, I think it's a good idea to ditch the procedural thing, but I still think it'd be good to add a defined amount of fantasy metals, to keep metallurgy important.  At least the historical/established fantasy ones, since people are familiar with them.  But even totally new ones if use can be devised for them. 

I agree. I think that there should be fantastic metals after steel, but I also think that there shouldn't be a linear progression: imo each fantastic metal should have different characteristics and be more useful in different situations. For example, mithril could be lighter and better for enchanting illusive magic (eg an enchantment that makes you less noticeable by mobs or makes you camo when you press up againsy blocks) but would be less useful for making blunt weapons because of its light weight (think of how adamantine warhammers are awful in Dwarf Fortress because adamantine is too light), while adamantine could be better at dealing damage against monsters ( like dnd's adamantine, that bypasses everything's racial resistance, be them fey, shapeshifter or anything else) and orichalcum would be the most magically conductive, being able to take any and all enchantments the player wishes to put on it. This is of course just an example, the possibilities are endless since they are fantasy metals.

So, all in all, I think fantasy metals should be in TFC 2 and should be considerably different, with each metal offering a distinct experience.

Edited 24 Apr 2017 by TheSnarkyKnight

[Stroam 65]

I see at least a few people support this notion of copper blades have the same cutting potential as steel blades. I like that idea as well but in addition damage should be based off of percent durability. The metal tiers in this instance would increase the total durability making the weapon deal higher damage longer. Piercing would lose durability the quickest followed by slicing. Armor would follow the same trend in that armor made of softer metals would lose durability quicker and provide less damage resistance. This means copper weapons could be half as effective by the end of one fight while steel weapons would still be going strong well into it's tenth fight. You could also add modifiers like heat treating that would add to the durability.

Weapons with less iron could be better for enchantment. So mythical metals and alloys could be a way to have similar durability as steel while still taking on stronger enchantments. I would make extracting and refining these metals be a lot more difficult than it is for steel. Like Darmo mentioned, maybe needing blasting to extract ore fragments, then a process of heating it up to different temperature and pressures adding in reactants at the correct time, finally charging it up with magical energy to change it from inert to something that can be mixed in alloys but becomes too brittle if the alloy percentage is too high.

[TonyLiberatto 364]

I want to agree with Stroan on the whole losing durability Damage and protection faster for low tier metals. My problem is that to make it worthwhile to implement it would need  a Dramatic change between tiers.

In TFC 1 it was hard to make armors. so I think unless we have a way to easily repair armors it would end up really frustrating to wear low tier armors. Like as soon as an armor is half way gone we would need to go around with spares in our inventory.

 

[Darmo 303]

 

1 hour ago, TonyLiberatto said:

My problem is that to make it worthwhile to implement it would need  a Dramatic change between tiers.

It still remains to be seen if Bioxx still likes the idea of the tier vs tier weapon and armor system (and if it's practical code-wise), but if so that system could provide some pretty steep differences.  I do like the idea of item wear affecting things.  In my example tier-vs-tier numbers I used 25% jumps between tier differences, so I could see where relative weapon/armor durability could alter that another 10% or something.  So normally equal tiers is 50% damage, but if the armor is 100%, and the weapon 60%, that's a 40% difference, so maybe a further 4%-ish penalty to weapon damage.  On the other hand if the armor were more damaged than the weapon by 50%, it might be a 5% bonus to weapon damage. 

Or the penalties/bonuses could be even more, and even overwhelm tier differences.  So normally a weapon 2 tiers higher might do 100% damage against armor, but maybe if the weapon is 90% damaged and the armor only 10% damage, the 80% difference x (.5% x percent difference) = 40% damage reduction.  Which would nearly put it down to as if the weapon were the same tier as the armor.

1 hour ago, TonyLiberatto said:

I think unless we have a way to easily repair armors it would end up really frustrating to wear low tier armors. Like as soon as an armor is half way gone we would need to go around with spares in our inventory.

I would be fine with being able to repair armor with appropriate material, depending on how it's crafted.    Here I touched on a system that brings more pieces into the equation.  So you might not craft your armor as a single piece, but as several pieces, and those pieces could be combined with smithing, or combined in the crafting grid.  In that scenario there would exist generic armor plates, chain mail pieces, and leather plates.  It might be that you could carry those pieces and use them to field-repair your armor.  But there could be limits.   Each piece of armor can only be repaired 5 times.  If there's different kinds of armor, each could require a certain type of piece.  Leather leather plates, chain chain sections, and plate armor, armor plates naturally.   If we only have one metal armor progression (like in TFC1 - basically plate armor) then maybe different parts can only be applied so many times.  Leather once, chain twice, and plate twice.  Each application improves the durability 10%.  After that it's an assemblage of patches and you can't repair that piece anymore.  That would allow some flexibility in the field.  You could even differentiate field repaired vs anvil repaired.  So you're in the middle of a dungeon and need a repair, you just put the armor in the grid with the repair piece, and combine, you get one bonus.  But if you do the repair at an anvil, you get double the repair amount.  So 5/10 if you only want best case scenario to be 50% at anvil, 25% in the field, or 10/20, if you want the player to be able to 100% repair the armor if they use an anvil, but only 50% in the field.  now the player has to choose between help now, but overall reduction in the maximum working life of the armor, or risk waiting to repair back at base to stretch their 'armor dollar' the furthest.  Or, hope that the dungeon they're raiding has a blacksmith room.

I think it could be a fun addition to the game, that sets up a couple choices for the player;  field repair vs risk waiting for anvil repair, carry spare leather, chain, and plate for field repair, or save the inventory space.  Armor pieces like these could also be loot in fortresses and dungeons (or even rotten/rusty versions that only repair half of normal).  For that matter, smithing quality could give a small bonus to the repair amounts for a given piece, so another hook for smithing skill.

Edited 25 Apr 2017 by Darmo

[Konlii 53]

3 hours ago, Darmo said:

I would be fine with being able to repair armor with appropriate material, depending on how it's crafted.    Here I touched on a system that brings more pieces into the equation.  So you might not craft your armor as a single piece, but as several pieces, and those pieces could be combined with smithing, or combined in the crafting grid.  In that scenario there would exist generic armor plates, chain mail pieces, and leather plates.  It might be that you could carry those pieces and use them to field-repair your armor.  But there could be limits.   Each piece of armor can only be repaired 5 times.  If there's different kinds of armor, each could require a certain type of piece.  Leather leather plates, chain chain sections, and plate armor, armor plates naturally.   If we only have one metal armor progression (like in TFC1 - basically plate armor) then maybe different parts can only be applied so many times.  Leather once, chain twice, and plate twice.  Each application improves the durability 10%.  After that it's an assemblage of patches and you can't repair that piece anymore.  That would allow some flexibility in the field.  You could even differentiate field repaired vs anvil repaired.  So you're in the middle of a dungeon and need a repair, you just put the armor in the grid with the repair piece, and combine, you get one bonus.  But if you do the repair at an anvil, you get double the repair amount.  So 5/10 if you only want best case scenario to be 50% at anvil, 25% in the field, or 10/20, if you want the player to be able to 100% repair the armor if they use an anvil, but only 50% in the field.  now the player has to choose between help now, but overall reduction in the maximum working life of the armor, or risk waiting to repair back at base to stretch their 'armor dollar' the furthest.  Or, hope that the dungeon they're raiding has a blacksmith room.

Here's a slightly different spin on your idea, though I haven't figured out how to tie field repair into it yet:

Armor is constructed at a special workbench out of its constituent parts, which are themselves made through anvil smithing/leatherworking/loom weaving/whatever.  This workbench has a central slot for the primary armor type, a slot for secondary armor type, a slot for padding, and a slot for joining material.  The primary armor slot determines the type of finished armor, damage reduction, and movement penalties.  The secondary armor slot adds to damage reduction and movement penalties.  The padding slot only accepts cloth and leather, and reduces movement penalties.  The joining slot only accepts cloth, leather, and chainmail, and adds to damage reduction.  The only slots that are required are the primary armor slot and joining material.  All slots add to durability.

All of that adds together to make the finished armor and placing that back into the armorer's workbench repopulates the crafting interface with the individual pieces that you can swap out to regain durability.

[TonyLiberatto 364]

Since it looks like we will have some kind of progression, with Isles having an increased difficulty. I do not believe any player would wear the low tier armor for longer than the time required to get something better.

So is not like by giving the repair we would allow a player to wear the first copper armor forever.

I think the best way would be to allow the player to make only minor repairs on the go, but any major repairs would require an armor bench, with the proper tools and materials, Something that can only be done at the base.

Maybe a maximum of 25% damage on the crafting grid and any damage greater than 50% would require a scrape and complete redone. So the player would get 50% of the materials.

It makes more believable, at the same time if the player is wearing the proper armor against the right mobs he can have the armor for a long time. 

The player still has some work to do, to get the proper resources and manufacturer the materials to fix the armor.

[Konlii 53]

1 hour ago, TonyLiberatto said:

I do not believe any player would wear the low tier armor for longer than the time required to get something better.

That's where my idea comes in.  It makes armor modular.

So let's say you make some leather chest armor and wear it while you're collecting enough copper and such to be able to create a Tier I anvil and some metal plates.  Instead of just throwing away your leather armor at this point, you drop it into the armorer's workbench, move the leather chest piece over to the secondary armor slot and put your new copper chest plating into the primary armor slot.  Then once you have enough materials for a second piece of copper chest plating you can pull your (probably very damaged by this point) leather chest piece out and discard only that one piece.  Conceptually, you are strapping metal plates over the top of your existing leather armor, then eventually moving to full plate armor.

The tricky part on the coding side is figuring out the best way to aggregate the durability of the complete armor when each piece has its own individual durability.  I don't know if you would be able to get away with only calculating it at crafting time or if you would have to keep track of it all the time, modify each constituent item whenever the armor takes damage, and have the armor "break" when any one item reaches 0 durability?

[Stroam 65]

The three layered armor is an interesting idea. If you want to make that work I suggest in your inventory menu you have an additional equip interfaces like baubles and tinkers construct does. The advantage of that is you don't need a special armor bench and you can have the first equipment UI be the under layer and the second equipment UI be the outer layer. You could then restrict what armor types can go in which slots. So you could say this plate cannot go in regular equip slot, it can only go in the second equipment interface slots. You could also intercept the damage event and distribute damage and durability loss as you see fit. If designed correct it doesn't even need any ASM and can be modeled off the code for Baubles. Speaking of which, it could add a third equipment interface for jewelry which can be for show or magically enchanted.

An alternate or even complimentary system could be all armor and weapons have two bars. A durability bar and a material bar. As your item loses durability it also loses material at a slower rate. With the right tool/toolkit you can repair the durability of the item back up to the material level like sharpening a blade. Then when you get back to a black smith you can use some of the same material to raise the material level back up to max and then use your tool/toolkit to raise the durability back up to the new material level.This ca carry over to smithing items. Your product when you are done smithing has no durability, an unsharpened sword, and then you have to use a tool/toolkit (file for sword, toolkit for armor) to raise up the durability to the material level. In addition if you no longer want the item you can melt it down and retrieve the material value back. 

Math details(numbers are for demonstration purposes only and not to be taken as actual planned values)

Spoiler

You have a cooper plate piece that took 100 units of copper to make and has 50 durability. You go out and get it damaged and it comes back with 0 durability, not reducing any damage, but .8 or 80% of the material left. You choices are field repair it with an armor kit up to .8 * 50 = 40 durability out of 50 max which means it would have reduced effectiveness at reducing damage compared to 50 durability. You could have the blacksmith spend (1-.8) * 100 = 20 units of copper to replace the missing material and then an armor repair kit to fix it up to 1 * 50 = 50 durability which would return it to it's full damage reduction potential. Or you could have the smith melt it down into .8 * 100 = 80 units of copper and mix in 20 units of tin and smith you a new bronze plate with the 100 units of bronze and then assemble it with an armor kit to 150 durability.

The two bar system can also be done with bows but instead of effecting damage it increase the chance of the string breaking upon use. The material bar for bows would represent the wood drying out making it harder to use.

All actions with the items that have the two bar system takes energy. As the energy regenerates it makes you hungry. This makes laborious tasks such as cutting down trees and mobs, or hoeing require you to eat more food. Higher tiers of equipment require less energy to use representing the gains from using better materials and crafting techniques.

Edited 4 May 2017 by Stroam