Just some questions about what comes beyond steel

[DitaDataDita]

I was really wondering if there was anything more coming beyond steel like an even better alloy or maybe some more types of automation added? There is so many different pieces of technology found around the resonator for example like the lights, the boilers, the cogs, power thingymabobs. It's really interesting and i wish there was more we could do with it cause currently, temporal gears are only for teleporters a recorder and the tuning spear. Also there is so much that i know is missing and i know potentially will be added to the rotational powered machines. I also have a slight suspicion that we might be able to do more with maybe the temporal rifts or anything temporal related, maybe a dimension that basically is our world, but temporal? Or just a completely different place all together? Also maybe more would be added with the various humanoids found around the place like the nadiyan villagers or the merchants? Maybe something about making them do stuff for you or expanding their homes for them in exchange for that? Or maybe not even related to them at all, but the various mechanical creatures like the locusts, maybe some more advanced creatures that require better technology to hack or whatever? I know that maybe would require a lot of cupcronickle, but that's not a problem, right? Idk it's the middle of the night and i just really started to wonder and really wanted to figure out some stuff. 

[EnbyKaiju]

4 minutes ago, DitaDataDita said:

I was really wondering if there was anything more coming beyond steel like an even better alloy or maybe some more types of automation added? 

In short, not yet.

They have put in a lot of ores in place that they intend to be used later down the line. But at the moment steel is the top of the pops when it comes to metal tiers.

 Automation wise we've only just reached the age of water wheels, I think it's gonna be a little while before the devs move on to the age of steam power. But I'm excited to see how they implement that. Going from stone age to railway baron sounds like a pretty damn fun long term goal.

[LadyWYT]

First off, welcome to the forums!

1 minute ago, DitaDataDita said:

I was really wondering if there was anything more coming beyond steel like an even better alloy or maybe some more types of automation added?

Late game tech is still one area that needs more fleshing out. Steel is supposed to be the last tier of material, I believe, aside from the Jonas tech contraptions. There's a few Jonas tech devices that can be crafted already, such as the rift ward, nightvision helmet, and terminus teleporter.

 

3 minutes ago, DitaDataDita said:

I also have a slight suspicion that we might be able to do more with maybe the temporal rifts or anything temporal related, maybe a dimension that basically is our world, but temporal? Or just a completely different place all together?

Spoiler

I'm guessing we'll more likely see more time jumping like we saw at the Devastation Tower of chapter two. Maybe a brief venture or two into the Rust World, however, I'm not really expecting the Rust World to be anything like Minecraft's End and Nether, in that it becomes a dimension that the player can visit whenever they wish. Personally, I wouldn't want to see it become like that either, since a large part of why the Rust World is so interesting and mysterious is the fact that we know next to nothing about it.

 

1 minute ago, EnbyKaiju said:

 Automation wise we've only just reached the age of water wheels, I think it's gonna be a little while before the devs move on to the age of steam power. But I'm excited to see how they implement that. Going from stone age to railway baron sounds like a pretty damn fun long term goal.

Automation I would expect to be similar to the helve hammer, Archimedes screw, and other machinery bits we have already. That is, the player can semi-automate the more tedious processes, as well as build some rather elaborate contraptions, but there's not really any fully automatic processes like one might be able to achieve in the other block game.

[Kanenas]

1 hour ago, EnbyKaiju said:

In short, not yet.

They have put in a lot of ores in place that they intend to be used later down the line. But at the moment steel is the top of the pops when it comes to metal tiers.

 Automation wise we've only just reached the age of water wheels, I think it's gonna be a little while before the devs move on to the age of steam power. But I'm excited to see how they implement that. Going from stone age to railway baron sounds like a pretty damn fun long term goal.

At the moment steel and various alloys of it are the best thing we have for many tools in the real world as well, titanium is softer, and tungsten is too hard to work with and brittle

the only upgrade option i can think of for vintage story is whatever the material of the temporal gears is

 

There does seem to be stainless steel planned, which could be a use for chromium. I assume it would be used for more complex machinery as in our world

[ItzWalterino]

That would be interesting, we already have titanium ore and such yeah, but i doubt we'll get that anytime soon

[Teh Pizza Lady]

Steel is so universally used even today that it really is the end-tier material for a lot of things.

HOWEVER

There are alloys that are harder/better than steel for certain tasks.

1. Tungsten alloys
   1. Tungsten Carbide (WC) - extremely hard and is used for cutting tools and drill bits. Very brittle and can break under stress.
   2. Tungsten heavy alloys - Mixture of tungsten with nickel/cobalt/iron. Very dense and strong, but hard to machine
2. Titanium alloys
   1. Ti-6Al-4V is stronger than steel and resists corrosion very well
   2. Softer than WC but very high strength to weight ratio
   3. Can be flexible without breaking
   4. Useful in aerospace and medicine
3. Nickel-based superalloys: Inconel and Hastelloy
   1. Extremely heat-resistant and strong. Maintains strength even at high temperatures
   2. Used where precision is necessary under high heat conditions such as jet engines and steam turbines
4. High performance tool steels - A2, D2, M2
   1. Harder than standard steel
   2. Can be alloyed with Tungsten to increase wear resistance
5. Ceramic-Metal composites, aka Cermets
   1. Basically metal powder mixed with ceramic
   2. Much harder than steel and extremely wear resistant
   3. Used for cutting and machining tools made of other metals (like WC, Titanium, Inconel, and tool steel) and as bearing material in industrial machinery.

If you want my honest opinion, cermets are the next step to create machines that can handle Nickel alloys, especially Inconel which is almost viable with the metals we have in the game now. See https://wiki.vintagestory.at/index.php?title=Metal for a full list of current and planned metals.

[Vexxvididu]

20 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Steel is so universally used even today that it really is the end-tier material for a lot of things.

HOWEVER

There are alloys that are harder/better than steel for certain tasks.

1. Tungsten alloys
   1. Tungsten Carbide (WC) - extremely hard and is used for cutting tools and drill bits. Very brittle and can break under stress.
   2. Tungsten heavy alloys - Mixture of tungsten with nickel/cobalt/iron. Very dense and strong, but hard to machine
2. Titanium alloys
   1. Ti-6Al-4V is stronger than steel and resists corrosion very well
   2. Softer than WC but very high strength to weight ratio
   3. Can be flexible without breaking
   4. Useful in aerospace and medicine
3. Nickel-based superalloys: Inconel and Hastelloy
   1. Extremely heat-resistant and strong. Maintains strength even at high temperatures
   2. Used where precision is necessary under high heat conditions such as jet engines and steam turbines
4. High performance tool steels - A2, D2, M2
   1. Harder than standard steel
   2. Can be alloyed with Tungsten to increase wear resistance
5. Ceramic-Metal composites, aka Cermets
   1. Basically metal powder mixed with ceramic
   2. Much harder than steel and extremely wear resistant
   3. Used for cutting and machining tools made of other metals (like WC, Titanium, Inconel, and tool steel) and as bearing material in industrial machinery.

If you want my honest opinion, cermets are the next step to create machines that can handle Nickel alloys, especially Inconel which is almost viable with the metals we have in the game now. See https://wiki.vintagestory.at/index.php?title=Metal for a full list of current and planned metals.

You're correct.  If you need something hard enough to hold a sharp edge but tough enough to get beaten with a hammer, a good carbon steel is hard to beat!  A lot of people think titanium is stronger which isn't quite true...  carbon steels are harder and hold a sharp edge much better.  Titanium is just more strength to weight and corrosion resistance.  Tungsten allows are actually stronger but MUCH heavier.

Many materials will advertise they are X times stronger than steel, but they are not telling you what kind of steel they compare it to!  Generally not a good carbon steel.

...which just means you have to get into magical substances for a big upgrade after steel!  Not sure if the game wants to go that route or not.

Edited February 21 by Vexxvididu
adding information.

[MKMoose]

22 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

There are alloys that are harder/better than steel for certain tasks.

1. Tungsten alloys
   1. Tungsten Carbide (WC) - extremely hard and is used for cutting tools and drill bits. Very brittle and can break under stress.
   2. Tungsten heavy alloys - Mixture of tungsten with nickel/cobalt/iron. Very dense and strong, but hard to machine
2. Titanium alloys
   1. Ti-6Al-4V is stronger than steel and resists corrosion very well
   2. Softer than WC but very high strength to weight ratio
   3. Can be flexible without breaking
   4. Useful in aerospace and medicine
3. Nickel-based superalloys: Inconel and Hastelloy
   1. Extremely heat-resistant and strong. Maintains strength even at high temperatures
   2. Used where precision is necessary under high heat conditions such as jet engines and steam turbines
4. High performance tool steels - A2, D2, M2
   1. Harder than standard steel
   2. Can be alloyed with Tungsten to increase wear resistance
5. Ceramic-Metal composites, aka Cermets
   1. Basically metal powder mixed with ceramic
   2. Much harder than steel and extremely wear resistant
   3. Used for cutting and machining tools made of other metals (like WC, Titanium, Inconel, and tool steel) and as bearing material in industrial machinery.

If you want my honest opinion, cermets are the next step to create machines that can handle Nickel alloys, especially Inconel which is almost viable with the metals we have in the game now.

If I recall correctly, Tyron has said relatively recently that they don't really have any plans for anything beyond steel, and at most they may add some specialized steels for certain narrow use cases. The problem of sorts with all of these materials (stainless steel, specialized alloy steel, a variety of other stuff), is that most of them only became known and used in the late 19th or 20th century, often due to rising need for advanced materials for new machinery functioning in increasingly demanding conditions. That especialy applies to the more modern materials that you've listed here, which are generally used for very specialized purposes, many of which aren't in the game and almost certainly will never be added, except maybe in very limited capacity as part of some Jonas tech shenanigans.

This kind of metallurgy is generally a modern thing driven by modern needs, so implementing something like that while at this point we still have almost no signs of the Industrial Revolution in the game would be frankly quite absurd. Granted, there's already a bunch of somewhat anachronistic features like chromium tanning or the cementation furnace, but they're not that modern.

Edited February 21 by MKMoose

[Teh Pizza Lady]

2 hours ago, Vexxvididu said:

If you need something hard enough to hold a sharp edge but tough enough to get beaten with a hammer, a good carbon steel is hard to beat!  A lot of people think titanium is stronger which isn't quite true...  carbon steels are harder and hold a sharp edge much better.

That... is tool steel which I mentioned:

23 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

4. High performance tool steels - A2, D2, M2

1. Harder than standard steel
2. Can be alloyed with Tungsten to increase wear resistance

------

2 hours ago, Vexxvididu said:

Titanium is just more strength to weight and corrosion resistance.

I didn't mention the weight, but yes... corrosion resistance was also mentioned.

2 hours ago, Vexxvididu said:

Many materials will advertise they are X times stronger than steel, but they are not telling you what kind of steel they compare it to!  Generally not a good carbon steel.

Try machining Inconel, WC, or even Titanium with tool steel. It's nearly impossible because tool steel, while having a hardness of about 700HV, loses it's cutting edge at around 200-300 degrees Celsius. Titanium is a much softer metal, especially Ti-6Al-4V (Grade 5 Titanium) having about half the hardness (HV). However tool steel is HIGHLY inadequate for machining it because titanium wants to heat up to about 600-900 degrees when cutting. That is far beyond the temperature at which carbon tool steel holds its hardness. It will destroy the cutting tool almost instantly. Inconel is designed to resist cutting and maintain hardness under heat and pressure and has to be machined using cermet cutting tools. WC requires diamond abrasives to machine. Both Inconel and WC hold their hardness at temperatures up to 1000 degrees C.

So if you want to talk about being stronger than steel, then put tools made of all 4 materials up against each other and see which ones last the longest. WC and Inconel will be your clear winners with Titanium striking a clear victory over steel the instant any sort of meaningful work is required at any temperature over 300 C. If you're looking for durability at lower temperatures, tool steel will win over titanium, but will eventually succumb to rust in a sufficiently humid environment.

For vintage story, you might not need the other alloys, but the question wasn't if they were viable or if they were practical, but where we might go from here given the abundance of different types of machinery that stood the test of time without falling apart. Your nickel alloys are going to reign supreme here with cupronickel being the chief alloy. Perhaps with time Inconel could be introduced, but it is very much a modern super alloy that would not be achievable by any means in medieval times. Stainless steel might see some use, and we might find a way to chrome-plate things to increase durability/weather resistance, but for now, the only real feasible step up from steel would be a high carbon steel or nickel alloy.

Likely what we see in the RA are Fe-Ni and Cu-Ni alloys with both having high strength, temperature and corrosion resistance, and a wide variety of uses thanks to their different properties. Likely what we see in the RA is actually Cupronickel and some sort of Chromium Permalloy which is a mixture of iron, nickel, and chromium due to chromium's natural oxidation resistance that it lends to the alloy when mixed.

Now look... you've gone and made me look a bunch of stuff up and ramble about material sciences on a saturday when there are cartoons to watch while consuming copious amounts of pizza. Shame on you... or me... not sure which at this point. 

[Ravensblade]

Personally i would like to make something more before clean steel. Especially for bronze age.

With upgrades of smithing i would like to see some way to strengthen bronze tools and weapons. Early iron should not be so much stronger. It wasn't so in history. Iron was just much more abundant and easier to produce then bronze that required wide trade network. So I think it would be great if we have same intermediate high bronze age, where we have access to iron but at the same time access to much better bronze tools. 

A gate for proper iron age could be producing iron anvil for example. 

[LadyWYT]

49 minutes ago, Ravensblade said:

With upgrades of smithing i would like to see some way to strengthen bronze tools and weapons. Early iron should not be so much stronger. It wasn't so in history. Iron was just much more abundant and easier to produce then bronze that required wide trade network. So I think it would be great if we have same intermediate high bronze age, where we have access to iron but at the same time access to much better bronze tools. 

I think one of the problems of iron vs. bronze is also just how each metal behaves. Bronze might be able to be "stronger" in certain cases, however, it also shatters more easily when stressed. Iron, on the other hand, is more likely to deform than shatter, meaning that it's much easier to repair after a battle. Iron is also lighter than bronze while maintaining its strength, which is highly valuable when it comes to making tools, weapons, and armor. A lighter tool or weapon is much easier to swing for a longer period of time, and lighter armor is less taxing on the individual wearing it.

For the game balance, I think it's fine that iron is stronger than bronze. Bronze still has uses in the later portions of the game, but the player does need to make progress rather than become too reliant on the earlier tiers of material.

[MKMoose]

1 hour ago, Ravensblade said:

Personally i would like to make something more before clean steel. Especially for bronze age.

With upgrades of smithing i would like to see some way to strengthen bronze tools and weapons.

Doesn't seem to be too many ways to do that, realistically. The simplest solution in cold-working and annealing would probably be a good idea, in line with quenching and tempering for ferrous metals, though it could also end up just being the default for all bronze tools and not a way to extend the Bronze Age.

There could be a number of sub-types of bronze alloys (a fourth one made with arsenic may not be a terrible idea, and it may be worth to allow using different ratios), each of which could be better for a different range of applications and potentially similar to iron in certain cases, making it more useful to invest into multiple types of bronze with different alloying elements instead of rushing to iron. It could end up a bit complex, though.

As things stand, though, iron unlocks a significant chunk of progression, and developing iron would probably be a more worthwhile idea either way.

 

1 hour ago, Ravensblade said:

Early iron should not be so much stronger. It wasn't so in history. Iron was just much more abundant and easier to produce then bronze that required wide trade network. So I think it would be great if we have same intermediate high bronze age, where we have access to iron but at the same time access to much better bronze tools. 

The argument about the durability and strength of iron is kind of difficult to realize in-game, because almost the entirety of it is reliant on metalworking knowledge and the processing methods used. The only real way to translate that into gameplay would be to introduce a couple types of iron of different quality based on how it's smelted, whether some additional flux is added, and whether it's wrought by hand or using a helve, and I don't know if we want to go that route.

It may be a decent idea to introduce bog iron as a source of small quantities of iron for inefficient smelting in bloomeries to reduce the hard gating of progression. At the same time the cost of processing iron blooms into iron could be increased, to drive players to keep using bronze for longer until they progress enough to reduce the workload of iron processing.

Also, a significant addition which I would expect to be introduced eventually is cast iron alongside a blast furnace, which would unlock a range of cast iron items, including tools (for certain purposes similar to wrought iron, but very brittle so not useful for many other applications) which could be produced in potentially greater quantity than even bronze, as well as higher-quality wrought iron if that is of interest. It could serve as a second progression milestone related to iron, with a bunch of other unlocks like cast iron stoves and cookware.

An extra addition which I would be interested in would be rust, which would degrade power of ferrous tools if not oiled after use and would need to be removed at a cost of durability. Increased need for regular maintenance (though only when putting tools away in this case) could be a neat tradeoff for unrealistically high durability, though admittedly it probably wouldn't be the most popular change.

 

38 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I think one of the problems of iron vs. bronze is also just how each metal behaves. Bronze might be able to be "stronger" in certain cases, however, it also shatters more easily when stressed. Iron, on the other hand, is more likely to deform than shatter, meaning that it's much easier to repair after a battle. Iron is also lighter than bronze while maintaining its strength, which is highly valuable when it comes to making tools, weapons, and armor. A lighter tool or weapon is much easier to swing for a longer period of time, and lighter armor is less taxing on the individual wearing it.

For the game balance, I think it's fine that iron is stronger than bronze. Bronze still has uses in the later portions of the game, but the player does need to make progress rather than become too reliant on the earlier tiers of material.

Bronze has much higher Vickers hardness than wrought iron and can be even somewhat higher than some steels, which generally means superior resistance to wear and generally higher durability where the use case favors it (at least over the iron more typical to the Middle Ages - modern iron and steels are much better). I feel like it would be ideal to discard the idea of tiers to some extent, and make bronze outright better than iron for some applications and worse for others. This way, deciding which metal to use would be less about "pick the best tier of metal that you have" and more about "pick the most suitable metal for this specific purpose". Don't wanna make a whole mess of the system, of course, but for example bronze knives and garden tools could be better than iron equivalents (still worse than steel, to be clear).

Edited February 21 by MKMoose

[LadyWYT]

38 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

I feel like it would be ideal to discard the idea of tiers to some extent, and make bronze outright better than iron for some applications and worse for others. This way, deciding which metal to use would be less about "pick the best tier of metal that you have" and more about "pick the most suitable metal for this specific purpose". Don't wanna make a whole mess of the system, of course, but for example bronze knives and garden tools could be better than iron equivalents (still worse than steel, to be clear).

The main issue I see there is that's likely to result in some player confusion and complaints over why a tier 2 material is outclassing a tier 3 material in some cases, but not in others. That's not to say that it couldn't work, however, I think the current system is better in terms of keeping things a little easier to understand. Iron makes for better stuff, but there are cases where the player might not want to invest iron into certain things, either because they don't yet have much iron or the item in question isn't something they use very often or otherwise needs replacing frequently(like a firewood axe). In that case, the player might opt for bronze because it's cheap, and save the iron for items that need the stronger material.

 

43 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

An extra addition which I would be interested in would be rust, which would degrade power of ferrous tools if not oiled after use and would need to be removed at a cost of durability. Increased need for regular maintenance (though only when putting tools away in this case) could be a neat tradeoff for unrealistically high durability, though admittedly it probably wouldn't be the most popular change.

I actually do like this idea, though I also agree that it wouldn't be a popular change at all. 

 

43 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

the cost of processing iron blooms into iron could be increased, to drive players to keep using bronze for longer until they progress enough to reduce the workload of iron processing.

I feel like 1.22 has already accomplished this, to some extent. I wouldn't say that the material cost has really increased, as much as the processing itself takes a little more time due to being a little more involved than it was before. I suspect basic bronze armor and other equipment will be more attractive options to use now, while the player is working on setting up the infrastructure needed for efficiently processing iron ore into something usable.

[Chuckerton]

I wouldnt really imagine there being any metal tier beyond steel and its alloys. What I would assume though is that we would get more items/tech in steel tier though. Steam boilers and crankshafts, better resource processing tech and automation, etc. Maybe even simple firearms? 

Because were still just one guy in what is basically a medieval style world. I dont see our tech level rising beyond early steam power and gunpowder. Id honestly love if they just gave us more things in each tier. Valheim kinda did this, typically new material tiers give you some new tool or crafting station that you can work with. I'd love if you got more "tech" once you make it to a material tier. For example, maybe you get bronze nails, and now you could make a mechanism that lets you hook up a tame moose to a mechanical shaft, and it can drive the shaft for a few minutes for on-demand mechanical work, then you get to iron, and now you can make an animal driven plow for your fields. I think it would really help with the feeling of "every tier is a waste of time until iron" because now you can make new inventions at each tier. 

Alot of the ideas discussed here sound like amazing mods though. Id love an industrial revolution mod for this game or something. 

[Vexxvididu]

4 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

That... is tool steel which I mentioned:

------

I didn't mention the weight, but yes... corrosion resistance was also mentioned.

Try machining Inconel, WC, or even Titanium with tool steel. It's nearly impossible because tool steel, while having a hardness of about 700HV, loses it's cutting edge at around 200-300 degrees Celsius. Titanium is a much softer metal, especially Ti-6Al-4V (Grade 5 Titanium) having about half the hardness (HV). However tool steel is HIGHLY inadequate for machining it because titanium wants to heat up to about 600-900 degrees when cutting. That is far beyond the temperature at which carbon tool steel holds its hardness. It will destroy the cutting tool almost instantly. Inconel is designed to resist cutting and maintain hardness under heat and pressure and has to be machined using cermet cutting tools. WC requires diamond abrasives to machine. Both Inconel and WC hold their hardness at temperatures up to 1000 degrees C.

So if you want to talk about being stronger than steel, then put tools made of all 4 materials up against each other and see which ones last the longest. WC and Inconel will be your clear winners with Titanium striking a clear victory over steel the instant any sort of meaningful work is required at any temperature over 300 C. If you're looking for durability at lower temperatures, tool steel will win over titanium, but will eventually succumb to rust in a sufficiently humid environment.

For vintage story, you might not need the other alloys, but the question wasn't if they were viable or if they were practical, but where we might go from here given the abundance of different types of machinery that stood the test of time without falling apart. Your nickel alloys are going to reign supreme here with cupronickel being the chief alloy. Perhaps with time Inconel could be introduced, but it is very much a modern super alloy that would not be achievable by any means in medieval times. Stainless steel might see some use, and we might find a way to chrome-plate things to increase durability/weather resistance, but for now, the only real feasible step up from steel would be a high carbon steel or nickel alloy.

Likely what we see in the RA are Fe-Ni and Cu-Ni alloys with both having high strength, temperature and corrosion resistance, and a wide variety of uses thanks to their different properties. Likely what we see in the RA is actually Cupronickel and some sort of Chromium Permalloy which is a mixture of iron, nickel, and chromium due to chromium's natural oxidation resistance that it lends to the alloy when mixed.

Now look... you've gone and made me look a bunch of stuff up and ramble about material sciences on a saturday when there are cartoons to watch while consuming copious amounts of pizza. Shame on you... or me... not sure which at this point. 

I wasn't trying to contradict or correct you, was just adding to your post and agreeing with you.  The main point of my post was to say that I think the only thing that makes sense as a direct improvement over carbon steel is magical materials.

[Maelstrom]

Considering steam technology is going to be the top tier, end game tech; I doubt we'll see any tools of a higher tier than steel.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

3 hours ago, Vexxvididu said:

I wasn't trying to contradict or correct you, was just adding to your post and agreeing with you.  The main point of my post was to say that I think the only thing that makes sense as a direct improvement over carbon steel is magical materials.

I didn't think you were, I was just trying to clear up any confusion since prior to looking it up, I thought that high carbon steel was somehow different than tool steel, so I went down a material sciences rabbit hole to make sure they weren't two different things and then came back and summarized my findings.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

3 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Considering steam technology is going to be the top tier, end game tech; I doubt we'll see any tools of a higher tier than steel.

Perhaps not, but I would like to see some iron-nickel-chromium alloys because those would be great in steam applications, having high durability even in high heat, resisting corrosion, and generally just robust enough to withstand the pressures of steam technology which reached up to 300 PSI in some of the boilers out there.

[MKMoose]

13 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

The main issue I see there is that's likely to result in some player confusion and complaints over why a tier 2 material is outclassing a tier 3 material in some cases, but not in others. That's not to say that it couldn't work, however, I think the current system is better in terms of keeping things a little easier to understand.

Fair enough, it would probably have been better for me to say that bronze could be better than iron for certain applications in terms of the ratio of end result to cost, which would still likely end up worse than iron when comparing the stats in isolation. It could also be better in some regards and worse in others, especially in the form of higher speed but lower durability (largely just for the sake of more interesting gameplay balance). To some extent you can see what that could look like with tin bronze and bismuth bronze, of which the latter has higher durability in everything besides armor, which makes it outright better for tools where speed or damage doesn't matter (though it can be more expensive), while tin bronze tends to be more preferable for pickaxes, falxes, spears and the like. In the current balance the differences tend to be small enough to not matter most of the time, but exaggerating a bit for the sake of gameplay variety might not be a bad idea.

 

13 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Iron makes for better stuff, but there are cases where the player might not want to invest iron into certain things, either because they don't yet have much iron or the item in question isn't something they use very often or otherwise needs replacing frequently(like a firewood axe). In that case, the player might opt for bronze because it's cheap, and save the iron for items that need the stronger material.

Saving iron and continuing to use bronze for certain applications is just not something that I've found useful in my own gameplay, because getting fire clay and iron ore is a progression gate more than it is a significant cost for every iron ingot. Once you have all the resources, then even manually working blooms can often be more worthwhile in terms of the reward to effort ratio than using bronze. That at least goes for the tools that can't be cast directly - maybe bronze could be useful for some things like axes or shovels, though personally I haven't found it really worthwhile regardless due to how scarce the alloying elements for bronze can sometimes be and how large the jump to iron is. The durability is usually roughly doubled, and the improvement to mining speed is typically ~20-35% with the only notable exception being the shovel at ~10% (and that's not counting quenching with 1.22, which done once at no risk gives a nearly free buff on top of this, further widening the gap). At that point, I feel like the only real purpose of bronze once you have iron is for tools that you know you're not gonna use past the durability of a single bronze item anyways, but frankly, that's kind of a lame purpose.

Either way, the main idea is to make the transition to the Iron Age more gradual with only inefficient, small-scale production at first, and this is just one small component which could additionally contribute but isn't really integral to it.

 

13 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I feel like 1.22 has already accomplished this, to some extent. I wouldn't say that the material cost has really increased, as much as the processing itself takes a little more time due to being a little more involved than it was before. I suspect basic bronze armor and other equipment will be more attractive options to use now, while the player is working on setting up the infrastructure needed for efficiently processing iron ore into something usable.

I don't find this to be the case at all, though we'll see if it changes further before stable. In the current balance, a single risk-free quenching with a fairly small up-front investment into bellows (3x nails and 6x leather for the small ones) should allow to increase the power (i.e. damage and mining speed) of most ferrous tools by 10%, or durability by 20% when covered in clay. If you take out the iron out of the bloomery fast enough then you don't even have to use bellows for at least one or two tools, if going for a power increase (even easier with meteoric iron or repurposed bits since you get ingots directly - I feel like that should be changed eventually). To me, this is just further incentive to make the jump to iron as fast as possible. Maybe I'm optimizing a little too much, but either way it's an added buff on top of everything else, while the baseline time and cost of ironmaking are nearly unaffected.

Edited February 22 by MKMoose

[Vexxvididu]

8 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

I didn't think you were, I was just trying to clear up any confusion since prior to looking it up, I thought that high carbon steel was somehow different than tool steel, so I went down a material sciences rabbit hole to make sure they weren't two different things and then came back and summarized my findings.

Tool steels are carbon steels but not all carbon steels are tool steels, yes...  You didn't post anything that was wrong. I didn't mean to make you feel questioned, haha.  I just wanted to express my belief that within fantasy games, the natural progression from a good steel is MAGIC!!!

Also.... though it is true that many tool steels are harder and more wear resistant than plain carbon steels, they generally aren't as tough (Impact resistant).  Especially the REALLY hard ones.  Incorporating things like tool steels and more advanced alloys into fantasy games feels awkward to me.  Which is why I'd like it if the next advancement from steel in VS was just some sort of magical alloy. (If they even want something better than steel).

Edited February 22 by Vexxvididu

[LadyWYT]

4 hours ago, MKMoose said:

I don't find this to be the case at all, though we'll see if it changes further before stable. In the current balance, a single risk-free quenching with a fairly small up-front investment into bellows (3x nails and 6x leather for the small ones) should allow to increase the power (i.e. damage and mining speed) of most ferrous tools by 10%, or durability by 20% when covered in clay. If you take out the iron out of the bloomery fast enough then you don't even have to use bellows for at least one or two tools, if going for a power increase (even easier with meteoric iron or repurposed bits since you get ingots directly - I feel like that should be changed eventually). To me, this is just further incentive to make the jump to iron as fast as possible. Maybe I'm optimizing a little too much, but either way it's an added buff on top of everything else, while the baseline time and cost of ironmaking are nearly unaffected.

Oh for sure. By no means is the new system bad!  I'm running behind a little in my current playthrough since I've been pretty lax about some of my strategies, however, my initial impression is that the meta might shift a little for players who aren't pushing to min-max everything or otherwise playing at a slower pace. Bronze gear isn't necessary, but I think it could be valuable to make a lamellar chestpiece for a little early game protection, if iron is being a little slower to stockpile or the player otherwise wants to be working on some other things with a little less risk involved. Procedural dungeons may or may not shift that dynamic a little more, depending on how difficult they are and the rewards they offer.

So far my experience with working the blooms manually is that the fuel use is more efficient, but a little more care is needed for working the bellows, so the process is perhaps a little slower than before. It's probably possible to operate two forges at once, but that's likely more micromanagement than what the average player will enjoy. A helve hammer will certainly be more useful here and likely make working two forges at once more lucrative, but we'll see. For now though 

On the quenching, the first quench is always worth it, since it's risk free. The risk starts accumulating after that, but so far I've had success quenching 2-3 times to increase tool power without breaking anything in the process. Quenching for durability...I'm still not entirely sure how that works. I've figured out how to do it, but I'm not sure if it's bugged or not since the durability numbers remain the same post-quench. I'm guess if it's not bugged, it probably works like the Unbreaking enchantment in Minecraft, in that the tool's base durability is the same but it has a chance to avoid the durability decreasing while the player uses the item.

[MKMoose]

42 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

So far my experience with working the blooms manually is that the fuel use is more efficient, but a little more care is needed for working the bellows, so the process is perhaps a little slower than before.

If you're working with charcoal, the bellows don't really do much at the moment, until you need to go past the default temperature limit for quenching. They slightly increase the rate at which temperature rises and allow you to heat up the item further tobe able to work it for longer before having to put it back in the forge briefly, but both effects are not particularly significant. If you're working with brown or black coal, then the bellows are necessary for ironworking, but still only particularly useful once you need to increase the temperature above the maximum to reach the minimum for ironworking.

 

47 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Quenching for durability...I'm still not entirely sure how that works. I've figured out how to do it, but I'm not sure if it's bugged or not since the durability numbers remain the same post-quench. I'm guess if it's not bugged, it probably works like the Unbreaking enchantment in Minecraft, in that the tool's base durability is the same but it has a chance to avoid the durability decreasing while the player uses the item.

I tested it recently and wanted to report it, and just as I was about to open my own issue, it was reported in #8365.

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, MKMoose said:

If you're working with charcoal, the bellows don't really do much at the moment, until you need to go past the default temperature limit for quenching. They slightly increase the rate at which temperature rises and allow you to heat up the item further tobe able to work it for longer before having to put it back in the forge briefly, but both effects are not particularly significant.

That's mainly what I was getting at, or at least, trying to say. When it comes to working iron blooms, the forge will heat them hot enough to be worked without bellows, but the player doesn't really have a lot of time to work the bloom before it becomes too cold to work. Thus I've found it more efficient to heat the bloom up a bit via the bellows so I can finish it without needing to reheat, leaving the forge free to begin heating the next bloom.

[ArgentLuna]

Corrosion resistance could be interesting since we are dealing with creatures from the rust world.

People seem to want to stop the portals, well what about going thru them and sealing local area's with high end rust resiatant gear and facing the horrors at home

[Vratislav]

10 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

When it comes to working iron blooms, the forge will heat them hot enough to be worked without bellows, but the player doesn't really have a lot of time to work the bloom before it becomes too cold to work. Thus I've found it more efficient to heat the bloom up a bit via the bellows so I can finish it without needing to reheat, leaving the forge free to begin heating the next bloom

Similarly when making tools from ingots. Without pre-heat using bellows, maybe very quick recipes ( pickaxes, shovels, axes ) are possible (I did not try without bellows). Medium difficulty items like scythes or saws are possible in one go when pre-heated using bellows, and the most complicated recipes (scissors, arrowheads, shield elements, crowbar) definitely require re-heating during process (unless you are a genius smith, maybe). I speak about charcoal, of course, because trying to smith anything iron on brown coal requires re-heating using bellows at least once more.

Edited February 23 by Vratislav