Making weapons out of regular steel isn’t very sensible, its too soft, and doesn’t hold an edge. We have budget steel weapons that we can find, how about high carbon steel to forge quality weapons instead of the scrap off a car or whatever.
One new item that comes to mind that would be perfect for it is the new leaf spring item. It is generally 5160 carbon steel. .6% steel is pretty good for a sword.
As a hobbyst blacksmith for 5 years i can share my experience.
Nowdays, most blades, even the quality ones, are usually grinded from steel bllanks, and usually forging is limited to minimum. Its the heat-treat that makes all the difference, and to be able to even think of heat-treating, you need good medium-high carbon steel. There are a few common myths about effects of forging on the material, some of them are true, some are not. Does forging make the material better? Kinda.
First, forging has almost no effect on pure iron. If iron has a tiny adition of carbon in it, then we can call it low carbon steel. It cannot be heat treated, and is softer in raw state than raw med or high C.S., but it can be hardened by forging, while pure iron canot. But, heating the steel to forging temperatures, or heat-treating temperatures resets most changes to the blade, including stress - and most effects of forge-hardening.
Now, less theory, and more about what could be included in game.
Right now, even best melee weapons are forged from shit. But they require very high crafting skill (9, while 10 is almost a complete mastery). In real life, even medicore and not so experienced blacksmith could make a mono-steel katana, if he has good tools and starts from huge blank of good steel. But to make a good katana from scrap or even iron ore, carbonise it, remove inpurites, etc? THAT is hard.
Maybe we could make something like this: Weapons of grade above macheette require quality steel, or hardsteel, it can be aquired from springs, some tools, scrapped weapons, found in some material stores, OR can be crafted with high crafting skill (8-9). This way, if you have medium crafting skill, and wand to make a blade, you need to find some quality steel, but it shouldnt be TOO hard. And when youre a master - you can produce quality steel yourself.
Another hobbyist blacksmith! Cool. Me too, I just started forging at the beginning of this year, though I’ve been learning about it for the past several.
I like the idea of having quality steel as a separate material, and having it as a crafting requirement. Letting it be made at higher skill levels would be neat too, although it would need to be a reasonably simple recipe.
Not that hard to do… just a lot of changes need to be made to recipes… and add a few materials like what real swords would use… it would just take time to make really
More like new recipes would need to be added. The ones right now would work just fine if the PC is making the steel.
It is really really hard to make quality high carbon steel, I would liken it to making smokeless powder.
And the skill required to make those weapons is already high.
A few knives ask for fabrication 4, but most things ask for 6, 8, or even 9. The lowest non-‘crude’ sword I can find asks for 7.
At 6, you’re making heroin and diesel with cooking, at 7, you’re making RDX and napalm, at 8+, you’re making mutagen, which I would think is a wee bit harder than smokeless powder.
… Maybe the stats should get updated… Like going 50 not just 10 for stuff…
That would give a lot more room to grade this…
And maybe a swordsmith skill…
It wouldn’t be necessary to add a new item at all. The materials can be number gauged and as such a scale of quality by simply adding such a system.
Items with qaulity needs, Metal, leather, food items for a few examples.
Metal would be 0-10 Scrap to high quality.
Leather 1-3; light, medium and hard. Each being able to upgrade and craft differently.
Food is already measured in days and how much a mid range before turn to spoil.
Motor vehicles oft have the under carriage containing really good steel that I know for a fact many new england hobby smiths go to junk yards for their scrap.
I used smokeless powder as an example because it is one that is made at an industrial scale and impossible for a single person to make, very similar to carbon steel. Also it is one that has had a bit of contention around it and one of points devs have not yielded on.
You can make both, but with out industrial grade equipment or testing you do not know what you have.
Yea a few bits off of cars are decent to good blade steel. Leaf springs, strut coils, and axle shafts.
LEAF SPRINGS! Yes! Thank you, dammit it all, I hate when I cannot remember words!
Kept thinking it was fly leaf or some nonsense. Really hate when I forget proper diction.
Welcome to life, may i take your mind?
No? Too bad already did.
… well however it’s done it should be done… making a katana out of scrap from a zombie attacked cars pannels makes me wanna bang my head into a wall
Well it is actually a key topic though. Parts of a car can be good stock. When other parts of the same vehicle are not.
A pile up maybe coded as all trash. But if you think about it. You would be destroying the same vehicle and smelting the metal good bits any way. So still trash? No really. So if Kevin reads this and discerns the difference because we talk about it. We get a better system.
Even car pile ups or other destroyed by zoms vehicles may be useful =D
This forum got blob emotacons? If so maybe we should make a blob ritual to summon Lord Kevin…
Worked pretty offen on the lilith’s throne chat for summoning our Evil Kawaii Workaholic dev overlord Innoxia…
Smelting steel is not a reality. That is an industrial process. Otherwise you get who knows what.
It makes me cringe when people suggest making crafting more complex. I can only imagine the preparation needed in making a sword. More components means modifying loot tables. Would probably take longer and rebalancing damage on weapons because no-one is going to use a weapon that requires more specific components over one that is easily manufactured but has comparable damage output.
Ore related mistype. I get it. But you also know what I meant if you understood smithing. Take car pile up and know what to extract. A smithy would see the parts they can use from the repair screen and remove those bits.
Pretty straight forward in game terms. Pretty much in real life I suppose too unless the vehicle was wrapped around a bus and then around a tree or something, making much of it indiscernible. But that isn’t in game.
My suggestion isn’t to make it more complex, just rarer. As it is now find a couple tools tear apart a car and boom you have as many weapons as you want.
Mostly its just a material change. Adding a high carbon steel to make quality weapons. Steel that could still be found but would just be rarer.