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Bioxx

Metal Tiers

62 posts in this topic

I guess its about time we start discussing this topic. Specifically I'd like to discuss the potential procedural nature of metals in TFC2. Let me take this time to go ahead and reiterate that we're planning to use a scaling difficulty system to allow players to have a continual challenge as they play the game.

 

As we were discussing exactly how this would work, we came upon the need to address exactly how the players power level would continue to rise once he/she reaches the pinnacle of the standard TFC metal types. At first I had it in my mind that once you reach the colored steels, magic would take over and would be needed to push the players power level. This however felt like a disservice to metallurgists if we cut them off here. There is still a space for magic alongside this system, but it won't be the only progression mechanic

 

What we've come up with is the basics of a system that, while not completely fleshed out, offers players something new to continually push for as the progress and adds the power ramp that we need. I'm going to put the details as a list of things in no particular order.

 

  • 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.

 

I'm fully aware that using substances that aren't real will be divisive to some members of the community who consider themselves purists and only want things from RL in TFC. For you, the push to Steel will probably be mostly similar to TFC1 as it is today. You're not forced to push further if you're not into that kind of thing. For others however who want something to continue to strive for, I feel that a system like this is the only answer other than to have a few new static metal tiers as we've always had with a defined end point.

 

Feel free to share your ideas and we'll have a discussion on everything presented here.

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I was hopping for a more multiplayer oriented class system.

One where it was not expected that each player had to developed all skills.

Where as in most multiplayer adventure games we would have players with different characteristics,

I did not see the smith to also be the Alchemist.

Not saying it should be impossible, for the sake of single players, just impractical.

Actually maybe is time for the mod to have an option for single or multiplayer. I would be fine with the mod to be totally oriented for Multiplayer.

In tfc one we had the best metallurgic mod, and I was hopping for tfc2 to have the same level of attention and detail to other areas and aspects of ancient civilizations. 

When creating a town or just a party to adventure through the world I wanted people to have different roles.

So instead of magic or alchemy being a continuation of metallurgy I wanted to be a parallel line.

Even though I am able to be a good smith for a town, usually I work better as a miner/procurer I consider myself good with the prospector pick and finding ores. Off course many times I would call the other players to help dig out the ore once found. But I think specialization should be the way to go.

As a last resource the game could be in such a way that if a player want to do everything by himself, even if possible it should take an unbelievable amount of time.  

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I wouldn't say that being a smith and being a metallurgist are the same thing. Nor would I liken it to alchemy. There is plenty of room for magic to be an additional optional advancement technique. How exactly we accomplish this is still open for discussion in another thread. I see metallurgy as its own profession or an offshoot of mining at the least. If anything this means that for purposes of multiplayer, I may go out and mine stuff up and discover an awesome metal alloy that is very good for armor specifically. Now I can make and sell/trade this with other players. At some point there will be so many possible combinations that you really will have something unique that no-one has made before and probably no-one will ever be able to figure out unless you share the recipe.

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That's wonderful! A secret recipe, held only by the greatest armorsmith... Well, that could be a good lore.

 

What about building materials? Will I get harder stone on more difficult islands to protect from the increasingly effective tools and weapons?

 

Nah, make deeper and eastern/western stone harder. That would make an obsidian counterpart from vanilla, for your base protection against more advanced players/factions. The arms race in TFC2 would be tough, I think, with only 7 (max!) islands to share from the start, and the need to conquer more must be fed with the need for better material.

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There's no way that I'm going to do procedural stone. Too many hurdles there, but there is always the option of metal plating your walls with the alloys as a substitute.

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What about a method of naming alloys that a player has made? For instance, Steve makes a new alloy out of material X, Y, and Z. Rather than the name being procedural similar to "Alloy XYZ," Steve gives it a name of his own choosing. This would also make it easier to trace products back to their creator.

 

Personally, I think the idea for procedural alloys is a great idea, and has a lot of potential.

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I forgot that we'd actually discussed that kev12east. I'll add that to the op.

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Would there be Unknown Metal? 

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Probably not. I'll have to totally rewrite how we handle alloys right now as it is. Which isn't a bad thing really because while ti worked, it was really really messy and I should probably handle the whole thing in a better way.

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If there truly is to be infinite progression, then ya, procedural alloys sounds like about the only way to do it.   And I of course love the notion of secret recipes. 

 

Personally I probably would have preferred a system where the difficulty was infinite, but 'technologies' had peaks.   So there'd be a max metal tier, a max magic tier, max alchemy, etc.  Heck, I was hoping automatons might be a thing someday.   So then, any single tech will eventually reach a peak.  And the greatest X advancement would come from combinations of players, with different disciplines, as Tony mentioned, banding together effectively.  Even then, eventually things would just get too hard.  Those with the best combined-arms efforts will go the farthest.  It seems like that might be more of an accomplishment - putting together a well-oiled team and battling against every more overwhelming odds - as opposed to just cooking up the next tier of metal over and over again.  It could actually encourage more grouping and interaction, because the harder it gets, the more it helps to have more people.   But, there's a lot of my own assumptions in there, as far as other professions/techs go.

 

Regardless, I do like the idea of procedural-ness.   Will even the stone that the procedural metals are found in be procedural (not the stones themselves, but which materials are in which stones)?  That right there could be truly exciting, scouring the tier 5 longitudes for the new materials.  At the same time, will there be a risk of all the materials generating in Igneous in some seeds, hence being harder to find, while in another they're all sedimentary and very easy to find?  There will be procedural nuggets on the surface? 

Moreover, what of randomizing all the ore-stone links?  Right now I can look at a dynmap and pick where I want to go based on the stone visible.  Diorite? junk.  Slate?  Trash.  Phyllite?  I'd rather live under water.  Gabbro next to Gneiss?  Yes please!  But if you never knew per seed which ores were in what stones...I don't know, maybe that's too random.  Newbs do benefit from the concrete linkages.  But for the experienced player it would mix things up.

 

What about a change of policy in Y-limiting generation, to encourage caving?

 

And then once found the choice of whether to just go ham harvesting them, or try and figure out if they're useful first.  Will each of these procedural materials be guaranteed to be useful?   Will these "classes" only encompass procedural materials, or standard, or both?  Will procedural materials of different tiers interact with each other, or are only those in the same tier, plus standard, useful for alloying?  It seems like if procedurals can interact with each other the combinations could quickly become overwhelming.    And then there's the case where a certain seed ends up with graphite or garnierite as one of the highly useful allowing materials, while another comes up lead.

 

And then, the alloying.  Right now required percentages can range anywhere from 10 to 90 percent.  Will the procedural alloys have standard ratios, or selected from a set of ratios similar to existing ones?  We've got what, 8 or 9 different alloy ratio combos right now?  Will the number of ingredients always be 3? Or will the player have to discover that as well?  The number of factors could quickly become too much if the system is too random.

Or will it be more of a case where a given material provides something, another takes away, and so it's a matter of finding the ones that only add or do not take?  So procedural 5A adds durability, procedural 5B adds damage, procedural 5C adds a certain damage resistance?  But you can only have one procedural, the others have to be standard materials?  And for tier 5 various ones detract from damage and durability, while other are neutral?  But wait, maybe you can in fact combine two procedurals if you find the one alloying agent that lets that happen?  In a case like that, where each material brings it's own characteristic to the allow regardless of ratio, the player would be trying to optimize the alloy, rather than discover it per se.

 

I like the general notion, I'm just really wondering how it will be done so that it is not too impossible for players to discover them.

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As far as the infinite progression, there will of course have to some sort of hard limit based solely on the range that attributes could generate on a particular metal. Maybe 'Hardness' of a T5 material can only roll between 5 and 10 as an example. and we put a limit of 100 for any stat. That does create an eventual limit and a hard cap while still being far enough removed that there is plenty of reason to push forward.

 

To the question of stone, it would not make sense to limit any of these to any particular stone type. The running idea is that every single island after tier 6 or w/e will have a set of procedural materials in addition to the static ores and minerals that spawn based upon rock types.

 

As far as surface nuggets, that's not a thing in TFC2 quite yet and I'm not really sure weather it will be added or not. The exact changes to prospecting are still under review at this point.

 

It's safe to assume that the current understanding of alloy production in TFC1 should not really be used as a baseline for comparison.

 

As far as ore veins themselves. Veins do not generate like they used to http://prntscr.com/95636g so the Y level issue really isn't an issue. Veins rise and fall as they please.

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Whoa, that is an actual vein. Would be a shame if cave-ins ruin that pretty vein.

 

I think it would not harm to put the limit into difficulty steepness formula instead of a hard stat limit. So a team could only advance through islands with greater care and gear. I think even an impossibly difficult conquest on an island could be considered as a limit.

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I like that veins are going to be actual veins.

 

One of the things I dislike about TFC1 is the fact that you can find pockets of material either in one great big clump, oor simply odd blocks of ore scattered around in lots of stone. (especially as mining is very - imho too - dangerous when mining raw stone)

 

As for the metal tiers, I like the idea of making your own alloys, I'm just not sure how that will work with the availability of metals in general.

There would have to be enough ore to allow for experimentation- which menas failing :)

 

In general I like the way things are going, but don't forget those of us who like to play single-player too.  Things shouldn't be so difficult it's tedious to a point of boredom.  Perhaps a scaling factor when in single player compared to multi-player, I don't know.

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To the question of stone, it would not make sense to limit any of these to any particular stone type. The running idea is that every single island after tier 6 or w/e will have a set of procedural materials in addition to the static ores and minerals that spawn based upon rock types.

So procedural material generates irrespective of stone types?  I just appears wherever it wants, and crosses layer boundaries?  That would mean the player can't really predict where it'll be by stone type after they've found 1 example.  They basically just have to randomly search for it.  Or am I misunderstanding that?

 

 

As far as surface nuggets, that's not a thing in TFC2 quite yet and I'm not really sure weather it will be added or not. The exact changes to prospecting are still under review at this point.

Is that a topic for discussion in this thread?  Without surface nuggets, one then wonders if panning and sluicing will be a fact of beginning life, as oppose to an option.

 

 

As far as ore veins themselves. Veins do not generate like they used to http://prntscr.com/95636g so the Y level issue really isn't an issue. Veins rise and fall as they please.

Love it!  That does look like a huge amount of ore though, is that vein abnormally large?  Will it be a case where you find one vein and you're pretty much set for the game, kind of like how it often goes in current TFC with anything but iron?  I guess if the alloying system is different, maybe quantities needed  may be a different?   Tiered processors? 

That particular picture does make it look like supports will be much less necessary, if the cave-in mechanic still does not trigger on ore blocks.  Since that's pretty much a continuous string of ore blocks which would leave a tunnel plenty large enough for the player to walk in.

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There's no way that I'm going to do procedural stone. Too many hurdles there, but there is always the option of metal plating your walls with the alloys as a substitute.

Right now with the exception of looking for Garnierite most players do not dig really deep. It's possible to find all the ores on the top layer, is kind of an adventure when looking for Gabro to find Garnierite is the only time most people care about the middle and bottom layer.

I think it should be interesting to have some specific metals and or mineral only spawn in the middle and bottom layer.  After all the name of the game is minecraft. A reason to dig deep down would be welcome.

I like the point about making the layers have different durability, because it gives one more reason to upgrade your tools and increase the benefits for high tier tools.

So suppose you need a iron tool to break middle layer and a steel tool to break bottom layer. This would allow for more speed differences between a steel tool and a red/blue steel or equivalent high tier tool.

There's no way that I'm going to do procedural stone. Too many hurdles there, but there is always the option of metal plating your walls with the alloys as a substitute.

Right now with the exception of looking for Garnierite most players do not dig really deep. It's possible to find all the ores on the top layer, is kind of an adventure when looking for Gabro to find Garnierite is the only time most people care about the middle and bottom layer.

I think it should be interesting to have some specific metals and or mineral only spawn in the middle and bottom layer.  After all the name of the game is minecraft. A reason to dig deep down would be welcome.

I like the point about making the layers have different durability, because it gives one more reason to upgrade your tools and increase the benefits for high tier tools.

So suppose you need an iron tool to break middle layer and a steel tool to break bottom layer. This would allow for more speed differences between a steel tool and a red/blue steel or equivalent high tier tool.

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So procedural material generates irrespective of stone types?  I just appears wherever it wants, and crosses layer boundaries?  That would mean the player can't really predict where it'll be by stone type after they've found 1 example.  They basically just have to randomly search for it.  Or am I misunderstanding that?

Islands do not have multiple stone types (mentioned this in another thread). Sea level was placed back down at 64 to allow for more movement of the terrain. There are plans to address this lack of layers in another way that I havent really started on nor talked about yet but is pretty easy to guess at.

Is that a topic for discussion in this thread?  Without surface nuggets, one then wonders if panning and sluicing will be a fact of beginning life, as oppose to an option.

I dont want to totally derail the topic of alloys and whatnot but we can touch upon it a bit here. I've been thinking about it a bit and I'd really prefer to try and come up with some way other than looking for metal scattered across the ground. As we all know this leads to barren areas where there is a large ore vein and no-one knows about it because it's been stripped clean. Panning will have to be a thing for sure, but I'll probably try to turn it into a minigame of some sort instead of a clickfest.

Love it!  That does look like a huge amount of ore though, is that vein abnormally large?  Will it be a case where you find one vein and you're pretty much set for the game, kind of like how it often goes in current TFC with anything but iron?  I guess if the alloying system is different, maybe quantities needed  may be a different?   Tiered processors? 

That particular picture does make it look like supports will be much less necessary, if the cave-in mechanic still does not trigger on ore blocks.  Since that's pretty much a continuous string of ore blocks which would leave a tunnel plenty large enough for the player to walk in.

That is not an abnormally large vein. Veins in some of my tests have been known to run the length of an island. The plan is for each ore block to give significantly less metal overall, which in return encourages the use of transportation mechanics. Part of the reason for large veins is also for the trading gameplay that some players may wish to take part in, instead of the combat advancement (this was something that I briefly mentioned in another thread). These are the types of veins that I always wanted for TFC1 but was never able to do because of the limits inherent in the vanilla minecraft style of generating the world blindly. 

 

As for the cave-ins, rest assured that they'll be taken into account. And yes, you will need supports.

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Islands do not have multiple stone types (mentioned this in another thread). Sea level was placed back down at 64 to allow for more movement of the terrain. There are plans to address this lack of layers in another way that I havent really started on nor talked about yet but is pretty easy to guess at.

 

Oh, wow, I was thinking you'd said the top layer would be the same throughout, and so I assumed there'd be unified middle and bottom layers too.  Did not realize there would only be one layer and sea level would be much lower.   That...changes a lot of things I've been suggesting. 

 

I guess back to alloying.  I'm still fuzzy on the details on how it would work, but it sounds like there's a plan for that so I'll leave that be. 

 

I wonder if it would be fun/possible to have (and maybe this is already planned, idk) a system where not only durability, weight, and damage can be affected by the alloying, but also the resistances to weapon damages such as slash/blunt/pierce (although those could also be governed by armor type, if we ever have different types), but also 'magical' damage types like cold, fire, acid, negative energy.  Maybe an alloy that confers a degree of magic resistance.  Not too much, probably need to leave room for magic to confer better bonuses of these kinds.  Or maybe the types of 'special' enchantments the armor will accept is governed by the alloy type (feather falling, light, water breathing, health regeneration, warmth, coolness etc).  So then the armorer plays the role of setting up the armor to accept the enchantment, but you still need a magician to actually place the enchantment. 

 

Is there any notion right now if the production system for procedural alloys will be a different system beyond the blast furnace (or it's TFC2 equivalent)?  I'd assume that all procedurals will use the same production system, regardless of tier.

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All good suggestions as far as properties are concerned. As far as the exact process that will be used for making/experimenting with alloys is concerned, that's up for discussion. I imagine that it will be similar to current metallurgy but I'm open to new ideas if they don't extremely over-complicate things.

All I know is that I really want to simplify the code behind alloys as it stands now in TFC1. The entire mechanic works pretty well but it was a huge pain to code and get working. Of course, procedural materials isn't going to be easy but I was a huge fan of crafting in Star Wars Galaxies and this system has enough in common with their procedural materials that I can't wait to implement it just for the fun of doing it.

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i love that ore vein bioxx. :) will there be information in the tool tips for the procedural ores that gives any hints as to how they might be used? like ore A is slightly acidic, or ore F oxidizes? or will it be all hit-and-miss?

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I know this is mainly about metal tiers, but has there been any thought towards the tiers before metal? Currently in TFC1 we have just stone, but I think it would be interesting to have several options before metal such as obsidian(Only viable for cutting tools), and flint.

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i love that ore vein bioxx. :) will there be information in the tool tips for the procedural ores that gives any hints as to how they might be used? like ore A is slightly acidic, or ore F oxidizes? or will it be all hit-and-miss?

I'd like to have a way for players to discover these things beyond just random hit and miss.

 

I know this is mainly about metal tiers, but has there been any thought towards the tiers before metal? Currently in TFC1 we have just stone, but I think it would be interesting to have several options before metal such as obsidian(Only viable for cutting tools), and flint.

I'd like to make stone more interesting, but there are not any plans for more pre-metal tiers.

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I'd like to have a way for players to discover these things beyond just random hit and miss.

Like actually making a metallurgy lab?

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Islands do not have multiple stone types (mentioned this in another thread). Sea level was placed back down at 64 to allow for more movement of the terrain. There are plans to address this lack of layers in another way that I havent really started on nor talked about yet but is pretty easy to guess at.

I dont want to totally derail the topic of alloys and whatnot but we can touch upon it a bit here. I've been thinking about it a bit and I'd really prefer to try and come up with some way other than looking for metal scattered across the ground. As we all know this leads to barren areas where there is a large ore vein and no-one knows about it because it's been stripped clean. Panning will have to be a thing for sure, but I'll probably try to turn it into a minigame of some sort instead of a clickfest.

That is not an abnormally large vein. Veins in some of my tests have been known to run the length of an island. The plan is for each ore block to give significantly less metal overall, which in return encourages the use of transportation mechanics. Part of the reason for large veins is also for the trading gameplay that some players may wish to take part in, instead of the combat advancement (this was something that I briefly mentioned in another thread). These are the types of veins that I always wanted for TFC1 but was never able to do because of the limits inherent in the vanilla minecraft style of generating the world blindly. 

 

As for the cave-ins, rest assured that they'll be taken into account. And yes, you will need supports.

If Islands only have one stone type all the way down to bedrock, this got me thinking that it may get harder to find a specific rock for building purposes.

I love the survival aspect of the mod, but I also like to get to the point where I have freedom to actually build magnificent constructions and show off. With 21 stone types as we have right now if it is randomized it may get really hard to find a specific stone.

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If Islands only have one stone type all the way down to bedrock, this got me thinking that it may get harder to find a specific rock for building purposes.

I love the survival aspect of the mod, but I also like to get to the point where I have freedom to actually build magnificent constructions and show off. With 21 stone types as we have right now if it is randomized it may get really hard to find a specific stone.

There are now 16 stone types in tfc2. I reduced the number because those 5 stone types caused at a minimum 4 more blocks. In tfc1 it was 12 blocks due to how I handled the difference between rock types. Because the initial island tiers are going to be guaranteed to have the resources that you need to advance, there will be some predictability that you will be able to find certain stone types by a certain point.

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And now is going to start the cries of "NO Please I Love This or That Stone For My Buildings, Why Ohh Why Would You Do Such A Thing?"

When building I take into account the color of the blocks, like I believe most people.

Could I ask for you to try and maintain a color variety? Example:

Schist is the only Green.

Andesite is the only Blueish. 

Conglomerate is kind of Goldish.

Chert for Reddish.

And so on and so forth.

Yeah I am weird like that. As much as I want the mod to be a real survival challenge, I also want to conquer that and go on to build my Castle with my favorite Stones.

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