We have budget steel weapons, should good weapons require high carbon steel to make?

[TheKobold]

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.

[TheKobold]

Yea a few bits off of cars are decent to good blade steel. Leaf springs, strut coils, and axle shafts.

[TheZoneWizard]

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.

[Azure_Soul_Azur]

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

[TheZoneWizard]

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

[Azure_Soul_Azur]

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…

[TheKobold]

Smelting steel is not a reality. That is an industrial process. Otherwise you get who knows what.

[ecchi_squid]

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.

[TheZoneWizard]

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.

[TheKobold]

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.

[TheZoneWizard]

I know it wasn’t my comment. But vehicles do have some quality steel. The cheap ones can still last 20 years even if abused. Why would quality be rare in vehicles when it is every where? This would confuse and confound me in a game. Even a badly made game.

[ecchi_squid]

Seems fine, but what does the game gain by including carbon steel in it? Seems like you’d use carbon steel in creating vehicle parts, but what else would use the material?

[TheKobold]

Most tools, blades, some car parts are made with high carbon steel.

[TheZoneWizard]

My scaling idea attached to current items would sate your request. Attaching to already in game materials and items would be an easy way to discern a good type of steel. Low quality # to a high quality number would be a defacto reference to what it is without adding more items and craft table adjustments for a new item/material.

I do like what you are talking about. Just trying to find a method for the programmers to not have more work for something a # could do the same job.

[TheKobold]

Actually it doesn’t.

[TheMurderUnicorn]

I know that in the ‘Dies the Fire’ book series (it’s not very good), they use leaf springs to make swords. I’m not sure if it’s about the quality of the steel or if it was about shape?

I seem to recall they used a leaf spring on Forged in Fire once? Maybe?

That show’s great, by the way. o_o I’m sure you’d smithing nerds would like it.

[TheZoneWizard]

Explain?

Reference:

Steel Frame
Materials: Steel(Q8)

Q= Quality
Denotes the type of steel and by number a list of what it can and cannot be used to make.

Q7 wouldn’t be in any items 8-10 quality.

[TheKobold]

Leaf springs are 5160 carbon steel. which means its .6% carbon. a decently high carbon content. Knifes you want closer to 1% but swords are great at .6% because its a balance between toughness and hardness. Toughness being the flexibility of the blade, and hardness being the edge retention.

And yea forged in fire is great, despite its many flaws and tv zaniness.

[Aabbcc]

You’re missing the tiny, tiny detail that you need a fuckload of skill to make those weapons. This, unsurprisingly, ups the rarity a lot.

We’re talking about players being capable of making deathmobiles far sooner, we’re talking about being able to craft complex chemicals and even mutagens at relevant skill and time investment, heck, they can make CBMs sooner, and if you don’t have endgame survivor armor by then, you’re pretty damn close.

And exactly how many weapons do you expect the player to ever want to make? Because by the point where you can even build a forge, let alone have the skill to make those blades, they’ve probably looted a couple dozen cars, and this number goes up if they’ve gone scavenging for parts for their deathmobile. I’m sure there’s more than enough quality steel there to make as many weapons as the player could possibly need to arm a faction.

The scavenging hunt you’re suggesting for good steel would just have no effect whatsoever.

[TheKobold]

I never saw skill as a barrier as it is often as easy as finding a book and reading it for a couple nights. So maybe my real problem is with the skill progression.

As it is though my point still stands, I just didn’t add in the obvious part of finding a book or two, then its a couple tools you can’t make and then dismantle a car to make the rest. With some focused looting a player can have made some very difficult and other wise rare endgame weapons in a few days or a week.