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

[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.

[TheZoneWizard]

I always have problems finding books for crafting the items I need. Skill too. Funny how random generation either giveth or taketh away.

I once played a game for 1 year 7 months in game and never came across a few books I needed for a few skills like first aid past lvl3

[Aabbcc]

And what, exactly, is limiting usable weapon steel to only a part of the vehicle going to accomplish?

This ‘focused looting’ you’re speaking of requires considerable luck for getting the right books. This, plus the tools, plus the food for all that reading, construction and crafting time requires, at the very least, half-looting a town.

If the player did that, the player has access to over a dozen cars to loot. If the player can loot that many cars, the player can obtain as much quality steel as they could possibly want, regardless of whether only some of the vehicle is usable or not.

On top of all that, while serviceable at endgame, they aren’t even endgame weapons. They aren’t on fire, they aren’t diamondized, heck, the player doesn’t even have the skill to use them effectively if they monofocused like that, and they definitely don’t have the mutations and CBMs to truly make those weapons shine rather than being ‘pretty decent’.

You’re talking as if the player would be barely a few steps from being as good as they can get, but the reality is that they are still very far from being more than adequate.

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Another way of looking at it is that if they put half the effort and luck in archery, they’d already have high skill in archery, one of the best bows and the best non-explosive arrows.
Put the same effort into a vehicle and they’d have a working and semi-reinforced one even under bad luck, possibly with a couple amenities.
Put half the same effort into cooking and you’d be making high explosives, and be a few steps from making mutagens.

All of these would allow dealing with hordes in direct combat. The PC that went for the melee weapon, on the other hand, cannot do this yet. They don’t have the skill to pull it off, nor do they have the armor.

[Sanehatter]

Haven’t people been forging swords since forever? How is quality steel impossible to make without industrial grade equipment?

[TheZoneWizard]

The aid of scaling and proportion with precise accuracy.

You can only get so precise with out some technology telling you what exactly is in your molten metal. A good katana was more luck than skill because despite the skill in being ABLE to make one. You never knew exactly what impurities would be in the metal you were forging with. Now you can read the portion of metal and know if you have impurities. Refine what you need and test out what works for your need.

[Aabbcc]

All of which you don’t need in order to produce a good blade.

The composition and quality of raw mined ore back then a far, far cry from that belonging to modern things made out of steel. Between that, knowledge from either books or experience, and a little trial and error testing with small pieces, you should be able to make good enough steel.

Will it be perfect? No. Does it matter? No.

[darktoes]

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.

I’m 99% sure attaching quality levels to all materials would be a severely bad time. Plus, it would mean integrating it into crafting, and finding somewhere to use it other than just “Swords need steel of quality 8+” which is ridiculous really, since you could have the finest low carbon content steel in the world, and it would still be mediocre for swordmaking.
It would be far easier to just add a carbon steel item and use that in recipes.

[TheKobold]

And what, exactly, is limiting usable weapon steel to only a part of the vehicle going to accomplish?

Never said this. Just used the new leaf spring item as an ideal and parts of a car as examples of where high carbon steel could be found.

This ‘focused looting’ you’re speaking of requires considerable luck for getting the right books. This, plus the tools, plus the food for all that reading, construction and crafting time requires, at the very least, half-looting a town.

Not really. Exaggeration doesn’t help your point at all.

Another way of looking at it is that if they put half the effort and luck in archery, they’d already have high skill in archery, one of the best bows and the best non-explosive arrows.
Put the same effort into a vehicle and they’d have a working and semi-reinforced one even under bad luck, possibly with a couple amenities.
Put half the same effort into cooking and you’d be making high explosives, and be a few steps from making mutagens.

All of these would allow dealing with hordes in direct combat . The PC that went for the melee weapon, on the other hand, cannot do this yet. They don’t have the skill to pull it off, nor do they have the armor.

Just because I picked a subject dear to my heart and that I have knowledge with doesn’t mean that other parts of the game do not need similar modification.

All of these would allow dealing with hordes in direct combat . The PC that went for the melee weapon, on the other hand, cannot do this yet. They don’t have the skill to pull it off, nor do they have the armor.

I play almost strickly melee characters, I have no problems with dealing with hordes.

[kevin.granade]

My take on this, switching fine melee weapon crafting to using high carbon steel items sounds great, just for flavor as it sounds like it’ll be a non-change balance wise.

Haven’t people been forging swords since forever? How is quality steel impossible to make without industrial grade equipment?

The alternative is years of practice and experimentation. If you want your game to be, “hole up in the woods for 10 years while you figure out bladesmithing”, feel free to roleplay as such, but theres no reason to deal with that kind of thing in the game engine.