Recycling Loot

[kiwione]

I have tried searching and not found anything quite like this, however I might have missed it by using the wrong search terms, if so my apologies. However I have discussed this in gossip channel and no one there was familiar with this so I am hoping it is new.

I would suggest a "recycling" system for LOOTED items, please note it is only intended to be usable for LOOTED items. It would be useful to either have a skill or be able to visit a NPC with the skill to disassemble an item in to its components e.g. leather armour into leather pieces, strings etc. This means that "normal" loot would be more usable than to just sell to NPC's. 

Thoughts?

[LigH]

In general, probably a nice idea. But I fear the implementation will be elaborate, the Rules department would have to add huge tables which item can be disassembled into which parts for every thinkable item if there is no way to implement algorithmical rules. And balancing the quality degradation may be hard.

[Rigwyn]

The idea certainly holds some validity. It makes a lot more sense to recycle than it does to mine/harvest all the needed items all over again. Even if you only get say 75% of the materials back, and 25% goes to waste, you might still save some time.

A looted sword when disassembled might yield a full blade and handle of a certain type and quality of metal which could be melted down. Personally, I would not quibble over nicks and scratches, just make it so that a damaged blade and brand spanking new blade have the same amount of metal. The transformation for a sword sounds rather easy.

An axe might yield a very high quality blade and crappy handle resulting an a medium quality axe. Maybe after being disassembled, a very skilled crafter might be able to fit a new high quality handle onto that blade resulting in a very high quality axe?

Now if each disassembled part retained some degree of enchantment, you might end up mixing and matching parts to come up with new types of magic weapons... but lets not get too side tracked for now.

It doesn't sound too hard to replace each looted item with basic materials.

replace long sword with long sword blade and handle?
replace bow with bow and string?
replace gold with gold dagger blade and handle?

Perhaps an enchanted sword might transform to a sword blade, handle and enchanted gem?

[cdmoreland]

Just sell it to a NPC or give it to a player.

In reality all you can hope for when recycling is rags or scrap metal.

[Jawir]

I admit I like a lot this idea, and adding some of the features suggested by Rigwin could be even better: the idea of being able to combine various enchanted parts to get the weapons of my dreams is sooooooo great! 

[Dishmab]

I like this idea.

[Eonwind]

Just sell it to a NPC or give it to a player.

In reality all you can hope for when recycling is rags or scrap metal.

I quote. In reality even the metals, some of the easiest recyclable materials, can hardly be reused to produce good quality goods by using medieval-like technology. More often than not they'd probalby need to be melt with newly produced metal stocks.

[LigH]

But, but ... Yliakum has magic ... their reality is different ... and it is a game ... it is supposed to be fun ... ah, crap, that was just the least important argument.

[Jawir]

  Ligh : exactly!   

[Rigwyn]

I don't really know much about metal working and medieval sword making, but one question came to mind:

How would one know just how superior or inferior a sword really was in terms of the quality of metal used?  How did they know if it was the quality of the metal, the skill of the crafter, or his highly coveted process - which he guarded with his life?

I would think that one's ability to measure this would be rather coarse. During medieval times, people would have been blind to the level of detail that we are now aware of (ie. chemistry/physics) , and I'm guessing that their crafting/testing methodology would probably have been based on experience, observation and somewhat subjective feedback rather than hard core science.

Just as today people still attribute non-existent qualities to items ( for example, a "lucky" bowling ball ) Perhaps a little religious superstition or magical reasoning might have been a factor too when judging the quality of weapons. xD

Hrmm... should I pay 1gp for the standard slice-o-matic, or 3gp for the poly-blessed-slice-o-matic-of-spooky-norse-gods?

I found an interesting article on recycling and stumbled upon this paragraph in the process.  ( yes, its a little off topic, but interesting to read )

http://news.thomasnet.com/IMT/2011/07/26/stories-of-ancient-recycling-minus-the-blue-bin-at-the-curb/

Even the Vikings, those macho, marauding bad boys of early medieval Europe, apparently had an eye for recycling. In 2009, excavators working in the city of York in England found what was ultimately identified as an eleventh-century metalworking site. Closer examination of the smelting pits containing partially melted axes, sword parts and arrowheads revealed that the site was actually a kind of medieval recycling center where Vikings took weapons after battle – both their own damaged weapons and the weapons of their fallen enemies – for reprocessing into new weapons.

[kiwione]

The idea is to make loot worth more than just a few tria, recycling of materials was probably MORE prevalent in medieval times due to scarcity of materials, limited skill base to manufacture goods and distance from resources so it would fit in with the world theme.  There are many ways it could be impleneted from the most difficult (a new skill for players) to the very simple (a NPC who can disassemble loot for a price), I prefer the last option not only for the ease of introduction but it also would act as a tria sink to mop up some of the excess tria floating around now that skills don't have to be bought.  I like some of Rigwyn's ideas on ways it could work and I am sure there are many more out there. The whole idea of posting this was NOT to just see if the dev's will implement but to get feedback on the pro's and con's of the idea so any issues could be addressed and thus make it a more polished concept for the dev's to evaluate.

[Rigwyn]

One more article... that's it. I promise, no more.
http://www.thearma.org/essays/How_Were_Swords_Made.htm#.U6DZQdfWlR8

[bilbous]

I want to recycle my lute into a planter, remove the strings, fill the hole with dirt and we're done! If you break off the neck it can be sharpened into a stabby kind of thrusting weapon too! Two new things from one old one! Heck you can even use the strings for slicing blocks of cheese or whatever...

[tman]

More often than not they'd probalby need to be melt with newly produced metal stocks.

This makes sense to me.  You could combine the looted weapon with molten metal to get more molten metal, maybe with a 50% return rate.

For example, IIRC a steel sabre takes 12 steel ingots (10 for the blade and 2 for the handle).  So let's say you could combine a steel sabre with 12 molten steel into "melting steel sabre" and then melt that in a forge to produce 18 molten steel (the 12 you put in plus the 6 from recycling the sabre).  The quality of the produced metal should be affected by the weapon quality too. 

[kiwione]

More thoughts....you could make the level of disassembly skill related so the more skill the better type of disassembly. Low levels can only get basic materials back and a low rate of return eg sword would break down to steel ingots etc and maybe 50% return rate, higher levels would get option of getting blades, hilts etc with maybe 80% to 90% return. Also would affect enchanted items only higher levels could break them down AND retain enchantment.