Thoughts about Copper, Tin, Brass, Bronze, and other "useless" stuff...

[Baron Samedi]

    As a player working on crafting skills, I see a lot of potential for the use of materials other than steel in producing items...

1) One could use 1 steel and 1 brass ingot to make a handle for a sword. Such a sword would show a yellow crosshilt when wielded.

2) Maybe certain metals and materials take to particular magics more easily...so if you are a "Red Wizard", maybe your magic sword would hold more powerfull magics if it were made of copper, rather than steel...

3) For any crafted items....swords, helmets, axes, shields....I see potential for adding "accents" to the crafting process. Maybe one could choose brass, gold, silver, or even ruby and emerald "accents". This would be brass banding on a shield or the facegaurd of a helm..gold plated "blood groove" on a sword, or a gem studded pommel or helmet.
   It seems that this would be fun, add to the economy, increase the value of crafted objects, lend itself to originality, and make the game more diverse if the proper graphics could be made to reflect the "Accents".
   Say you make a round shield...it has a metallic ribbing around the edge and criss cross the front of the shield. Every round shield looks the same.  If you use brass or gold accents, this band would be golden in color, much like choosing hair color on an avatar. If you use rubies and diamonds, it would show red and white studs along the bands. If every round shiled was identical in appearance, but for these accents, it would still show great variety and ascetic perference.

[LigH]

I am pretty sure the developers already thought about such possible features; the problem is just: Someone will have to develop
- the additional code to handle all the allowable combinations
- some additional artwork to show the difference
- additional database entries (wich is the real kernel of the game, therefore "well protected")...

According to the time it already took to develop weapon crafting in general, I would expect other different crafting techniques (herbal, alchemy, cooking, jewelry) before implementing more diversity to the weapons.

[Baron Samedi]

   I am afraid I know nothing about coding, so some things that would seem to be easy to me, may not be easy at all.

   I just think it's a waste to have all these other materials available in game, without any use for them.

   And also the thought of custom made armor, shields, and weapons that would all have complimentary accents would be a really cool way of showing one's personal tastes.

edited to remove unsuitable language

[steuben]

planned(tm)
dupe/search
wait for the lock

[yolantha]

Ok, the first thing missing in this is crafting of brass. Zinc and copper gives brass whereas tin and copper gives bronze. Lots of chances to craft different items with brass like musical instruments, armor, cutlery, ...

I really like the idea. Good thoughts.

[neko kyouran]

topic moved.

[Jeraphon]

We'll have uses for them soon. Whether that use will be in armour and weapons or something else...who can say? 

[Garile]

hmm personally I hope they will be used for something else first

Way to much emphasis on the fighting right now so we definately need some other skills.

*blinks*

Nooo I wasn't thinking of poisonmaking. Well.... ok perhaps a little. 

herbology would be fine

*imagines finding those rare poisonous plants and extracting the usefull parts*

Cooking would be good to.

*thinks of a poisonous pie*

or tailoring

*thinks of a great new dress.......................... with a place to hide poisons*

 

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

In time friends, in time.

[Garile]

*shakes head*

The proper term is .... *drumroll* ....  soon (tm)

 
(yep didn't use enough of those yet  )

[aersixb9]

How about a system where you mix the metals to get a final metal (so iron might be rated @ 100, while steel is @ 300, and a zinc-steel mix might be, uh, 350 or so? Or maybe even use more than one number to describe the material, like tensile strength and density and type (stone/metal/plant/animal...) then when you mix the metals (maybe mix in some rare piece of metal you found somewhere or mined to increase the numbers) you then start building a standard looking sword (maybe you get to choose the appearance, which will affect the numbers?) with maybe a few different texture maps to select from depending on the materials used (so bronze would look one way, and steel another way), and then your sword would have custom numbers for its weight, sharpness, etc...

I've got some stainless steel swords that say "440 stainless Taiwan" on them...is that 440 some kind of real world rating system for hardness of metals??? I've seen other 440 stainless items, and I've also seen some metal items with the numbers 1060 and 6600 on them...could we use that rating system for the quality of metals, and keep it simple with one number attached to the quality of the material of the weapon/armor? For armor there would be things like thickness and weight...

Then again, CTBB&OUS might be useless because steel is the good metal, and most things should be made of steel since it's the best and the game is trying to be authentic? (It would be kind of silly to make a bronze sword in the steel age...) But if that's the case, WTF is up with magic???

[Baron Samedi]

    Smiths could craft items for holy staves or other objects out of various materials, depending on properties.

     I particularly think different alloys for different types of magic would be very interesting. With the raw metals and the various alloys available, coming up with 7 metals for 7 magics would be easy.

    Also, maybe there would be a realm in Planeshift where the atmosphere is highly corrosive, so non ferrous weapons, armor, and items would be very desireable, as they would be immune from environmental degradation. This would make a very interesting challenge to those adventuring there.

[Kaerli]

    Smiths could craft items for holy staves or other objects out of various materials, depending on properties.

     I particularly think different alloys for different types of magic would be very interesting. With the raw metals and the various alloys available, coming up with 7 metals for 7 magics would be easy.

    Also, maybe there would be a realm in Planeshift where the atmosphere is highly corrosive, so non ferrous weapons, armor, and items would be very desireable, as they would be immune from environmental degradation. This would make a very interesting challenge to those adventuring there.

There already is one: the lake at the bottom will corrode (most) metal objects.  (oxygen + water + iron = rust)  I wonder if someone in Yliakum has discovered chromium yet...stainless steel anyone?

[Jawn]

About silver being useless.....

I have a char that can smelt gold. I had him mine silver today. Now why would i do something stupid like that? Simple. Gold is hard to get, and i needed him to get better in mining on the soonish side of things, but i didn't want to make steel stocks - can be a pain to try to sell to players. So i mined silver. It's pretty easy to get, and pays better than steel with NPCs. And know what? i ranked And payed my level, too (and then some).

Basically: silver is quick and easy.

I ~do~ look forward to being able to use other metals in weapons crafting, though 

.

[Jeraphon]

Thanks for your story, Jawn. You just proved something that I've tried to get across before: PS is constantly changing, and if people assume that what was true when they started playing is true now (ie: gold and iron are the only two metals worth mining, or whatever else) then they'll be missing out. Explore! Experiment! Encourage newbies to do the same: guide, but don't tell them what you think is necessary for success. Maybe some will stick with gold, maybe some won't, but there ARE other options!