Alloys: early/middle bronze, mithril, steel

[rbdyck 8]

I like the idea, but wonder about your alloys. In real life, "black steel" means just steel directly from the forge. After it has been hot worked, it's black. That's due to a patina of iron oxide that doesn't have any moisture. Iron oxide with moisture is rust. "Blue steel" is just steel with a protective coating. You can read about that in Wikipedia: Bluing (steel)

And why alloy steel with precious metals? That just produces a soft, weak alloy.

Real steel is iron carbon alloy. Mild steel has low carbon content, resulting in a tough but soft alloy. High carbon steel is hard, good at retaining a cutting edge or preventing bending/denting from use. However that hardness comes at a price: it's brittle, easy to break. Highest quality swords blend the two, use high carbon steel for the cutting edge and mild steel for the blade core. There are various patterns to combining the two metals: Japanese katana, Norse herringbone, Arab Damascus, and others. The point is strength vs hardness. Temper is another way to balance these two: annealing will soften steel, quenching will harden it, tempering uses both techniques to achieve the desired degree of hardness.

Impurities weaken steel. Even small quantities of sulphur will weaken steel. Modern steel is very pure. Silicon is the primary element of rock so is usually seen as an impurity, but small quantities can toughen steel. Fine sand is often used as flux when forge welding. Wrought iron is made by forge welding iron, using flux to lower melting temperature on their surface. I notice your list of flux is the old forms, containing compounds that can remove some impurities while working.

Modern alloys add interesting properties. For example, adding both nickel and chrome will make it stainless. Although it takes a minimum of 10.5% chrome and about 0.5% nickel to do so. Better quality stainless has more.

• Molybdenum adds greatly to both toughness and hardness.
• Vanadium retards grain growth, producing fine grained steel. Vanadium steel absorbs shock better.
• Tungsten (Latin name Wolfram) also produces tight grain structure, and keen cutting edge when used in small quantities. It increases a tool's ability to retain hardness at higher temperatures, but that also makes it harder to temper.
• Nickel increases strength and toughness, but not hardness.
• Chromium increases depth of hardening, use only 0.5 to 1.5% chrome when not making stainless steel.
• Manganese is a deoxidizer, adds strength and response to heat treatment, usually only 0.5 to 2.0%.

I have a book about bladesmithing. It lists several real alloys you can use for blades. It includes how to make a Viking broadsword, Japanese katana, and many others. Concentrations of metals are listed for alloys, as well as their properties.

[Jed1314 420]

-snip-

Interesting post, and quite true, but you forget that we need to provide a progression level above regular steel. Sure you could divide it into HC and LC steel, but even then, you need like 3 more tiers

The reason that Bioxx implemented red + blue steel was to give an end game, hard to get, alloy set for advanced players. They're fictional metals, just like mithril

[rbdyck 8]

I'm also intrested in the form of bronze used in the Early and Middle Bronze Age. The highest quality of this form of bronze is "mithril". I posted about this on another forum, I'll repost here:

The book "Lord of the Rings" introduced mithril, written by J R R Tolkein. He was a linguist and historian, obsessed with history and how culture and language intertwined. His world was based on late bronze age England, when iron was first being introduced. At that time there were stories of a legendary metal, difficult to make and knowledge lost to time. You see, during the middle bronze age they didn't make bronze with copper and tin. They used copper arsenic alloy. And the best bronze was copper arsenic and antimony.

This stuff just doesn't ever corrode. Archaeologists have found knives and spear points made of this stuff, one knife has low concentration of arsenic/antimony in the core of the blade, and high concentration on its outer skin. That's because bronze with low alloying metal is durable, but with high alloying metal it's hard and retains a sharp edge. The best steel blades of the medieval age and the Japanese katana use this idea, but they mix low carbon with high carbon steel. But this bronze knife is almost 6,000 years old! And it's still good today, because arsenical bronze just doesn't corrode. That's it's technical name: copper arsenic alloy = arsenical bronze. But I believe mithril is arsenical bronze. There's a maximum amount of arsenic that will dissolve in molten copper, but much more antimony will dissolve. With over 10% arsenic and antimony the metal gains a silvery sheen, with 20% alloy it turns completely silver in colour. Based on this I believe the "mithril silver" described in "Lord of the Rings" is actually this arsenical bronze with antimony. It's 30% harder and stronger than copper.

Ore is weathered tetrahedrite with tennantite, the first is copper antimony with sulphur, the second is copper arsenic with sulphur. Smelting gets rid of the sulphur. Tennantite ore is green, like corroded copper statues. However, pure tetrahedrite is bright blue. So I would colour the minecraft ore with both green and blue streaks. Give the metal a silver hue with slight bronze tint.

One of the nice features of any bronze, including arsenical bronze, is work hardening. That means beating on it just makes it harder. So chopping with a bronze axe or mining with a bronze pickaxe just makes it harder.

Ancient people changed to modern bronze (copper tin) because of problems working with it. Arsenical bronze just lasts forever, but molten arsenic produces arsenic oxide vapour. Breathing that gives you arsenic poisoning. The ancient Greek god of the forge was Hephaestus, he was supposed to be lame (walk with a limp). This is a known symptom of arsenic poisoning. It takes years for this arsenic poisoning to build up, and it's only from smelting it in a furnace, so I wouldn't include that in the game. After all, arsenical bronze was used from 3,200BC to about 1,200BC. And antimony bronze is much harder than tin bronze, which means much less likely to be bent by use, and a cutting edge can withstand much more wear.

Here are a couple images. The first is the copper antimony ore that I talked about, called tetrahedrite. The white stuff is quartz.

The next is tennantite, which is copper arsenic ore. The green streaks are the stuff, the grey junk is rock.

There's also a form of tetrahedrite that is contaminated with iron, it actually forms gold coloured crystals. They look pretty, but that's not what you want. You can't just smelt in a furnace to separate iron from copper or arsenic, and it isn't as light as copper arsenic antimony alloy. So the gold stuff is a cheaper grade of mithril, it isn't "mithril silver".

The description of mithril given by Gandalf while passing through the deep mine called Khazad-dûm:

"Mithril! All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper, and polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make of it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel. Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim."

tetrahedrite and tennantite occur in hydrothermal vents. For the game that means they will occur where both lava and water are present. Not right in the lava, but in the area.

And if you want to be really picky, have a furnace that smelts this ore produce a toxic gas. If it's contained, you get poisoned like cave spider poison. If it's outdoors or a well ventilated area, have the gas dissipate. Hmm, how would you do that? Have the gas flow with similar physics as water, but just up-side-down? Arsenic gas flows up, but if there's an obstacle it pools under the ceiling? As soon as the furnace is no longer smelting mithril, the gas source stops? Could be done, but not sure how to program it. Is that too much detail?

In game, cave spider venom can be cured by drinking milk. In real life arsenic oxide poisoning is slowly removed by the body, expelling it in urine. But eating garlic can increase the rate of expelling arsenic by 45%. Medical doctors think it's due to sulphur compounds binding to arsenic. Since bone meal doesn't cause trees and mushrooms to just grow more quickly, the game causes them to instantly mature, similarly you could have garlic cure arsenic poisoning.

[rbdyck 8]

The reason that Bioxx implemented red + blue steel was to give an end game, hard to get, alloy set for advanced players. They're fictional metals, just like mithril

So mithril isn't really fictional.

[Jed1314 420]

So mithril isn't really fictional.

Hmm.. Fair do's, that was actually really interesting.

But my point still stands, Bioxx seems to have put a lot of research into this mod, so I suspect he didn't include fictional metals lightly

[rbdyck 8]

My point was something like Vasco Wear steel is very advanced. Very tough and highly wear resistant. Abrasives barely cut it, once the edge is put on a blade it simply does not get dull. It's easy to force, the difficulty comes after hardening. At this point vasco becomes super hard, tough, and difficult to work.

carbon: 1.12%

chromium: 7.75%

manganese: 0.30%

molybdenum: 1.60%

silicon: 1.2%

tungsten: 1.10%

vanadium: 2.4%

wear resistance: highest

toughness: high

red hardness: medium

distortion in heat-treating: low

forging: 1,800 to 1,900°F

austentite forging: yes

hardening: 1,550 to 1,600°F

quench: oil

tempering: 300 to 500°F

Rc hardness: 62 to 58

The fact this alloy requires a number of metals, each with a different ore, and quenching is done in oil instead of water, adds enough for advanced players. Adding silicon requires using sand as flux.

[EstebanLB 183]

IMO, all this is too complex to be fun

[Enzer 60]

Items, especially armors, need to be revisited for balance before even more tiers of metal are added. Right now, a full set of bronze armor makes you pretty damn hardy. By the time you get bronze armor, creepers, tnt, skeletons, zombies and spiders cannot damage you faster than you naturally heal. When you get to steel armors and beyond, they cannot damage you at all even on hard mode. The only thing I found that is a threat with armor still is fall damage and fire. I understand that the balance to armors is that they require a lot of materials and a long time to produce with plenty of steps to produce armor with weak initial durability, but as it stands they are still way too overpowered unless hostile mobs get their strength levels equally increased.

When talking about swords, all swords past bronze are more or less the same when I did my testing, killing creepers, spiders, zombies and skeletons on hard mode with two hits. Endermen took 3-4 hits from bronze-wrought iron and 2-3 hits for everything beyond that. At that point it is about durability.

For tools, there is not much point in producing tools of higher quality than steel since material cost begins to sky rocket at that point and you begin losing out what you put in. The only difference I can tell between a steel pick and a red steel pick is simply how many blocks it can mine and steel pick will last you pretty damn long (have tested something like 3,000 gabbro blocks before breaking).

So yeah, adding new metals is neat and all, but unless everything gets balanced to the current metal tiers and then rebalanced for new metals, I do not much see a point.

[Just_Another_Guy_:) 1,066]

let's start by saying the obvious...

Have the gas flow with similar physics as water, but just up-side-down? Arsenic gas flows up, but if there's an obstacle it pools under the ceiling? As soon as the furnace is no longer smelting mithril, the gas source stops? Could be done, but not sure how to program it. Is that too much detail?

So, so much guys wanted gases implemented in-game. First, smoke from fire related objects, and now poisonous gas from smelting some things. And to all of them, the response seems to be the same: no, because it's very hard to code, and gives too little back to the gameplay aspect.

Then, something i note in this suggestion, and the usual response: Terrafirmacraft isn't looking to be just like real life. Yep, those metls seem to be pretty cool, and it may be nice to add them. But the process for making them is very hard, compared to the simplified method we use for Terrafirmacraft metals -3 parts of copper and 1 of tin doesn't make bronze in real life, does it?-. If you could simplifie the method for making those metals you talk about, in order to fit the tech level without getting to far from reality, from the believability TFC goes for, then they may be added to the game.

About new tiers, i'm with Enzer in this. Once you got to wrought iron, you don't really need to advance to red/blue steel, unless you want to look like a real TFC pro. Soem of these alloys could fit, however, in the already existing TFC tiers, which ones could be added and then rebalanced along with the metals/alloys TFC already has in those tiers.

A last thing, try not to talk about things that were only discovered and produced from 1600 and foward. Bioxx has said nothing after that year will be in the mod,so it's pretty much pointless to suggest things from after that time.

[rbdyck 8]

IMO, all this is too complex to be fun

I came here when someone claimed my post about mithril was too complex. He said the level of realism and complexity that I talked about belongs in TerraFirmaCraft. And I recommended just a single ore for mithril, just a single block with two colour streaks: blue and green. The only real complexity was where to find the ore, and the fact it produces a toxic vapour while smelting.

The point of mithril is to fill the gap between iron and diamond. As the author of the metallurgy mod said, that's one hell of a gap. But I argue that normal tin/copper bronze should be less strong and less durable than iron. Mithril is more, but significantly less than diamond.

My recommendation for fancy and real steel alloys is an alternative to the fictional black, blue or red steel. I haven't played TerraFirmaCraft yet, so I don't know their durability. I can look up real metals, and help translate that into game terms.

Besides, have you read the list of trees? And you claim what I wrote about metals is too complex!

[EstebanLB 183]

I came here when someone claimed my post about mithril was too complex. He said the level of realism and complexity that I talked about belongs in TerraFirmaCraft. And I recommended just a single ore for mithril, just a single block with two colour streaks: blue and green. The only real complexity was where to find the ore, and the fact it produces a toxic vapour while smelting.

The point of mithril is to fill the gap between iron and diamond. As the author of the metallurgy mod said, that's one hell of a gap. But I argue that normal tin/copper bronze should be less strong and less durable than iron. Mithril is more, but significantly less than diamond.

My recommendation for fancy and real steel alloys is an alternative to the fictional black, blue or red steel. I haven't played TerraFirmaCraft yet, so I don't know their durability. I can look up real metals, and help translate that into game terms.

Besides, have you read the list of trees? And you claim what I wrote about metals is too complex!

If you could summarize your post into the practical suggestion for the mod and take out all the real life facts, then we can analyze it better. But right now, all that wall of text about metallurgy is simply too much for this mod.

[bsb23 303]

We appreciate your expertise in this matter that was definitely an interesting read. I honestly don't think smithing this will be too complex rather your back story was just extremely detailed. So we can clear the conversation, if we were to implement this what would the metallurgy table recipe be (what metals would be used) or were you suggesting this should be an ore that part confused me. The steel is a great idea that can't be implemented quite yet but hold on to that idea because we will need it when we reach that time period.

[Srgnoodles 1,030]

oh man i so wannna have mithril stuff!

ps is it technically mithrill or mythril?

maybe if we do start adding fictional metals we could do stuff like adamantium too?

also, just to throw this out there

Titanium, any remarks?

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

You guys are all missing the absolute best elemental metal to alloy into steel: Iridium.

Iridium steel is harder than regular steel, but also has enough give to prevent fracturing and dulling. It's far more sturdy than regular steel, and nearly completely corrosion resistant, even at the temperatures it can be forged. Iridium is also the second densest element next to osmium, meaning a weapon made of it has a much heavier swing and would deal significantly more damage than plain steel.

And its incredible rarity in crustal rock (about one part per billion) means that iridium ore would be the new 'diamond' of TFC. The quintessential endgame material.

Iridium ore would yield both iron and iridium in a bloomery, at probably a 5:1 ratio respectively. It would also be intensely rare, spawning in veins of maybe 4-5 blocks at a time, and with 1/10th the spawn rate of the current least common metallic ore.

Irridium steel would be produced by alloying 7 liquid unshaped steel, 1 liquid unshaped wrought iron, and 1 liquid unshaped iridium, and would yield 9 ingots of iridium steel instead of the usual 4

Also, I am pro-Arsenical bronze

[lakeel 5]

i like the mithril idea :3 noty only is it scientifically real but its bad**s too :3

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

i like the mithril idea :3 noty only is it scientifically real but its bad**s too :3

...scientifically real?

...as opposed to fictionally real?

[Jasnatdic 85]

The alloy and smithing system is not something among the many aspects of this mod that needs tinkering with, other than a few codeing tweeks to work the kinks out. To put it simply, do you want smithing to be overhauled everytime someone has a new idea on how it should work, or would you like to see the mod progress toward a more complete experience?

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

The alloy and smithing system is not something among the many aspects of this mod that needs tinkering with, other than a few codeing tweeks to work the kinks out. To put it simply, do you want smithing to be overhauled everytime someone has a new idea on how it should work, or would you like to see the mod progress toward a more complete experience?

Yes.

[kotoroshinoto 97]

IMO, all this is too complex to be fun

its a higher-tier copper alloy, super materials shouldn't be fun & easy, red & blue steel already are a pain in the ass to obtain.

[rbdyck 8]

Ok, started producing a proposed alloy matrix. Now I have some questions. First what I got...

Bronze:

• Introduce mithril ore. It would be an ore block with 2 streaks: blue and green. Smelt in fire pit or bloomery to produce mithril metal bars. Only spawns when both lava and water are nearby.
• Alternative: tennantite and tetrahedrite ore. They spawn in the same area, and only spawn when both lava and water are nearby.

• Tennantite ore smelts to form unshaped arsenical bronze. This can be shaped like any other metal into an ingot. The ingot can be made into tools. Properties of arsenical bronze are the same as bronze.
• Tetrahedrite ore smelts to form unshaped antimonal bronze. This can also be shaped like any other metal into an ingot, and then made into tools. Antimonal bronze is as hard as iron so tools are just as effective, but durability is as bad as copper.
• Unshaped arsenical bronze and antimonal bronze can be combined at the metallurgy table to form mithril. More durable than steel.

Note: This replaces current tetrahedrite. The real mineral is copper with antimony, not copper with silver.

The more research I do, the more I'm impressed by TerraFirmaCraft. The technology involved in the bloomery is impressive. I could argue that an historic bloomery produced sponge iron rather than pig iron, which wasn't as good quality. But addition of a bellows turns it into a Catalan forge or stückofen. That's an improved bloomery, the first blast furnace. It can produce pig iron. Ok, so leave that as is.

I stumbled upon some ancient alloys, things that people didn't realize at the time. Paktong white copper was made in China between 1700 BC and 1400 BC. Modern analysis discovered it's actually an alloy of copper and nickel.

In medieval Germany a copper mine found a red ore mixed with their copper ore. When smelted it wouldn't produce copper, so they named it for a mischievous sprite of German miner's mythology, Nickel (similar to Old Nick). They called the ore "Kupfernickel", German for "copper nickel". We now know it as nickeline or niccolite, which is primarily nickel arsenic with small quantities of sulphur, iron, and cobalt. In some ore the arsenic is partially or mostly replaced by antimony. The ore is actually pale copper red (looks like copper metal), which is why the miners mistook it for copper. Nickel antimony ore is orange-brown.

This raises my big question. Smelting nickel requires a lot. You can start with ore that doesn't include other metal, nepouite. That occurs with serpentine or kaolinite. Smelting requires 1453°C, produces something called matte plus slag. Matte can be refined by combining liquid (unshaped) matte with "calcine agglomerate" and hydrogen chloride at 850°C to 950°C. That sounds like another bloomery operation. As far as I can see, "calcine agglomerate" means gravel that's been baked. This requires hydrogen chloride, which is dry hydrochloric acid. Making hydrogen chloride with electricity is easy, it requires electrolysis and burning. You can make it without electricity, but it requires salt and dry sulphuric acid, and has to be baked at 200°C. This is getting into chemistry, and I haven't looked up smelting for the other alloying metals yet. The question is do we want a chemistry lab in the game?

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

Ok, started producing a proposed alloy matrix. Now I have some questions. First what I got...

Bronze:

• Introduce mithril ore. It would be an ore block with 2 streaks: blue and green. Smelt in fire pit or bloomery to produce mithril metal bars. Only spawns when both lava and water are nearby.
• Alternative: tennantite and tetrahedrite ore. They spawn in the same area, and only spawn when both lava and ware are nearby.

• Tennantite ore smelts to form unshaped arsenical bronze. This can be shaped like any other metal into an ingot. The ingot can be made into tools. Properties of arsenical bronze are the same as bronze.
• Tetrahedrite ore smelts to form unshaped antimonal bronze. This can also be shaped like any other metal into an ingot, and then made into tools. Antimonal bronze is as hard as iron so tools are just as effective, but durability is as bad as copper.
• Unshaped arsenical bronze and antimonal bronze can be combined at the metallurgy table to form mithril. More durable than steel.

Note: This replaces current tetrahedrite. The real mineral is copper with antimony, not copper with silver.

The more research I do, the more I'm impressed by TerraFirmaCraft. The technology involved in the bloomery is impressive. I could argue that an historic bloomery produced sponge iron rather than pig iron, which wasn't as good quality. But addition of a bellows turns it into a Catalan forge or stückofen. That's an improved bloomery, the first blast furnace. It can produce pig iron. Ok, so leave that as is.

I stumbled upon some ancient alloys, things that people didn't realize at the time. Paktong white copper was made in China between 1700 BC and 1400 BC. Modern analysis discovered it's actually an alloy of copper and nickel.

In medieval Germany a copper mine found a red ore mixed with their copper ore. When smelted it wouldn't produce copper, so they named it for a mischievous sprite of German miner's mythology, Nickel (similar to Old Nick). They called the ore "Kupfernickel", German for "copper nickel". We now know it as nickeline or niccolite, which is primarily nickel arsenic with small quantities of sulphur, iron, and cobalt. In some ore the arsenic is partially or mostly replaced by antimony. The ore is actually pale copper red (looks like copper metal), which is the miners mistook it for copper. Nickel antimony ore is orange-brown.

This raises my big question. Smelting nickel requires a lot. You can start with ore that doesn't include other metal, nepouite. That's occurs with serpentine or kaolinite. Smelting requires 1453°C, produces something called matte plus slag. Matte can be refined by combining liquid (unshaped) matte with "calcine agglomerate" and hydrogen chloride at 850°C to 950°C. That sounds like another bloomery operation. As far as I can see, "calcine agglomerate" means gravel that's been baked. This requires hydrogen chloride, which is dry hydrochloric acid. Making hydrogen chloride with electricity is easy, it's requires electrolysis and burning. You can make it without electricity, but it requires salt and dry sulphuric acid, and has to be baked at 200°C. This is getting into chemistry, and I haven't looked up smelting for the other alloying metals yet. The question is do we want a chemistry lab in the game?

Alchemy was the precursor to modern day chemistry.

Perhaps alchemy labs wouldn't go amiss

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

we are aware of how metallurgy works in real life, this isn't a fuck up.

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

Alchemy was the precursor to modern day chemistry.

Perhaps alchemy labs wouldn't go amiss

since "al" means "the"

alchemy -> the chemy -> the chemistry.

[rbdyck 8]

While I wait for more people to answer my question, I have another conversion to game terms.

I gave temperatures in degrees. My bladesmith book has temperature for metal colours while working steel on an anvil. It's in fahrenheit, so I have to do a couple conversions. The chart is for the anvil, not smelting, so it only goes to yellow-white. There's a couple warnings: when working tool steel never get it hotter than orange. Above that the carbon starts to burn. That causes the metal to spit like a firework sparkler, and carbon content drops. It says never heat 440C stainless steel above 2100°F (yellow) for the same reason.

Oh, I also have a coal forge and anvil at home. I tried forging myself. Got a couple lessons by a master blacksmith. I did once leave a piece of metal in the forge too long. It came out shorter, so the end completely melted off, and the end did spit. Good thing I practiced with scrap metal. Judging colour is tricky, the master smith promised to take me on as a student. I offered to pay him. Each time I talk to him he says he will, but still hasn't. A number of years ago I met another individual, a master bladesmith. He gave me a tour of his shop and sold me a video of him making a pattern welded sword. Yup, hand made with coal forge and anvil.

Anyway, back to game stuff.

1200°F = 649°C = dull red

1400°F = 760°C = red

1500°F = 816°C = cherry red

1600°F = 871°C = full cherry red

1800°F = 982°C = orange

1900°F = 1038°C = orange yellow

2000°F = 1093°C = yellow

2200°F = 1204°C = full yellow

2400°F = 1316°C = light yellow

Ok, that has more graduations than the game. I interpret that last one as "yellow-white". Smelting nepouite ore is off the scale, so let's interpolate: 1453°C = 2647.4°F, and the jump from red to orange is 400°F, and from orange to full-yellow is another 400°F, so this looks like white. But cassiterite requires one notch above brilliant-white, so let's go with that. That means smelting nepouite requires the same temperature as cassiterite, pretty simple.

Refining matte to make unshaped nickel does not require as much heat. It should drop at orange.

And reacting salt with sulphuric acid to make hydrogen chloride only requires 200°C. That isn't even a colour, that's just "hot" on the firepit scale.

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

since "al" means "the"

alchemy -> the chemy -> the chemistry.

hence the etymology of the word chemistry

slightly different goals, however, lol