Just some questions about what comes beyond steel

[Maelstrom]

On 2/21/2026 at 10:31 PM, Teh Pizza Lady said:

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.

I get the idea that end game tech is going to be somewhere in the early (maybe mid) 1800's based on what has been disclosed in the dev's roadmmap.  That makes the current carbon-iron steel alloy the end game tier for equipment.  The alloys you mention weren't developed until the early 20th century (1906) which is the end of the steam age.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

34 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

I get the idea that end game tech is going to be somewhere in the early (maybe mid) 1800's based on what has been disclosed in the dev's roadmmap.  That makes the current carbon-iron steel alloy the end game tier for equipment.  The alloys you mention weren't developed until the early 20th century (1906) which is the end of the steam age.

unfortunately, you are correct LOL.

Which means the alloys I mentioned are probably better suited to a mod.

[Stralgaez]

It's strange seeing anything higher than steel being possibly used in metalworking, which means there might be a more weirder technical angle for this coming from Jonas inventions.

[LadyWYT]

30 minutes ago, Stralgaez said:

It's strange seeing anything higher than steel being possibly used in metalworking, which means there might be a more weirder technical angle for this coming from Jonas inventions.

This would more be my expectation. Steel is just fine for the highest conventional material tier. Jonas tech might use more common materials like lead and copper, however, it also utilizes a lot of expensive stuff, like gold, silver, and Jonas parts, in addition to nickel alloys needing special fuel(coke) to refine. Additionally, Jonas devices seem to rely on temporal gears for power rather than conventional fuel, giving them some extra nuance when it comes to when and where they're used.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

58 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

This would more be my expectation. Steel is just fine for the highest conventional material tier. Jonas tech might use more common materials like lead and copper, however, it also utilizes a lot of expensive stuff, like gold, silver, and Jonas parts, in addition to nickel alloys needing special fuel(coke) to refine. Additionally, Jonas devices seem to rely on temporal gears for power rather than conventional fuel, giving them some extra nuance when it comes to when and where they're used.

We still don't know what Prima Materia is. Given what cupronickel is... I would imagine it's probably highly corrosive.

[Maelstrom]

2 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

We still don't know what Prima Materia is. Given what cupronickel is... I would imagine it's probably highly corrosive.

I didn't see any seraphim jumping into that one vat in the RA.   Might come out as a sear-aph.  

[Stralgaez]

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

This would more be my expectation. Steel is just fine for the highest conventional material tier. Jonas tech might use more common materials like lead and copper, however, it also utilizes a lot of expensive stuff, like gold, silver, and Jonas parts, in addition to nickel alloys needing special fuel(coke) to refine. Additionally, Jonas devices seem to rely on temporal gears for power rather than conventional fuel, giving them some extra nuance when it comes to when and where they're used.

Other than perhaps improving on the steelmaking process to get a higher quality of steel, we should have peaked in terms of using metals for equipment. Anything else falls into development of steampunk/weird science/tech. And that makes me wonder where it ends, since we already got teleporters, rift blockers and night vision masks - While stilling running in 15h century 'tin can' armor and swinging swords.

[InternetDragon]

Meteoric steel

I know it's a modded thing but since meteoric iron is better in durability than regular iron, that same effect should carry on to steel made from it. No increase in power, but just a big durability boost

[Diregoldleaf]

Since heat treatments now exist, would it make sense to make iron less powerful than bronze and buff power gain when quenching 

[LadyWYT]

5 hours ago, Diregoldleaf said:

Since heat treatments now exist, would it make sense to make iron less powerful than bronze and buff power gain when quenching 

No, not really. That's more likely to confuse players. Since iron is the next tier of material after bronze, players will expect it to be better regarding stats; having it be worse is likely going to make it feel rather unsatisfying to obtain. Keep in mind that it already requires more processing than bronze in order to use, since the player needs to construct bloomeries to smelt it, and then work the blooms into usable ingots, which will require bellows and quite a bit of time(even with a helve hammer).

[Diregoldleaf]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

No, not really. That's more likely to confuse players. Since iron is the next tier of material after bronze, players will expect it to be better regarding stats; having it be worse is likely going to make it feel rather unsatisfying to obtain. .

It'd only confuse players at the beginning. Progression doesn't have to be a linear process like it is in the other block game, having it complex adds more depth.

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

Keep in mind that it already requires more processing than bronze in order to use, since the player needs to construct bloomeries to smelt it, and then work the blooms into usable ingots, which will require bellows and quite a bit of time(even with a helve hammer).

Once you get iron, there's such an abundance of it it makes bronze obsolete, which is already difficult to obtain. This makes bronze feel like a temporary stepping stones to iron (the same way copper feels temporary to bronze), and there's little incentive to "enjoy" the bronze age. 

The way I see it, once you get to a new age, it shouldn't be an immediate switch, but a gradual process. The player would have a choice of more powerful bronze, or more durable iron, 

When iron was first used, bronze was stronger and harder, and iron only became widespread due to it's abundance and lack of requirement to trade cassiterite as someone pointed out above. Basically iron mainly became popular because it was more economical. Wealthy people preferred bronze (also cos it was rarer) for their armour (like in the Iliad)

[LadyWYT]

9 minutes ago, Diregoldleaf said:

Once you get iron, there's such an abundance of it it makes bronze obsolete, which is already difficult to obtain. This makes bronze feel like a temporary stepping stones to iron (the same way copper feels temporary to bronze), and there's little incentive to "enjoy" the bronze age.

I disagree. Bronze is cheap, and is still valuable in the late game for making nails, tools to trade, or cheap tools like wood-chopping axes, scythes, shovels, etc. when the player would rather devote the iron and steel to other things. Depends a lot on the player's personal preference as well.

 

12 minutes ago, Diregoldleaf said:

The way I see it, once you get to a new age, it shouldn't be an immediate switch, but a gradual process.

This is how it currently plays out in 1.22, in my experience. Iron is clearly better, but requires more investment to refine in quantity. It's not enough to just dig up the ore, smelt it in bloomeries, and then throw it on the helve hammer. The player will need to work the bellows to heat the iron up quite a bit first before it can be worked, lest they want to constantly juggle the item between the forge and anvil. Thus bronze retains more use for an extended period, and isn't so easily skipped over.

As for quenching and tempering, those are there to make good tools and weapons better, if the player is willing to invest the time. That's one of the main strengths of iron over bronze in the game, but that doesn't mean that iron should just be worse than bronze unless the player puts in that extra effort. If it just takes a single quench for the iron to be better, players are just going to ignore bronze in favor of iron anyway since the first quench is risk-free. If it takes more than one quench, then players are likely going to get annoyed at how much extra processing it takes just to make iron better than a lower tier material, as well as the risk of breaking the item in the process since more than one quench is risky.

20 minutes ago, Diregoldleaf said:

Wealthy people preferred bronze (also cos it was rarer) for their armour (like in the Iliad)

Keeping in mind that the current setting is the late Middle Ages as well, and not the Bronze Age. Bronze was still a useful material in the medieval period, but had been replaced by iron when it came to tools, weapons, and armor. I think that is also why iron easily outclasses bronze when it comes to gameplay--bronze is just a stepping stone in the early game, and not a material that's intended to be relied on long-term for tools, weapons, armor, and other things.

[Diregoldleaf]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

I disagree. Bronze is cheap, and is still valuable in the late game for making nails, tools to trade, or cheap tools like wood-chopping axes, scythes, shovels, etc. when the player would rather devote the iron and steel to other things. Depends a lot on the player's personal preference as well.

  Cheap in what sense, that it's easy to cast? In that case yes, but it's not cheap in the sense that it's rarer and more difficult to obtain. You have a point with nails, cheap tools etc, but I'm talking more about your main tools, eg falx, main pick, main axe etc (the iron/steel quenchable ones). The progression feels too linear for those

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

This is how it currently plays out in 1.22, in my experience. Iron is clearly better, but requires more investment to refine in quantity. It's not enough to just dig up the ore, smelt it in bloomeries, and then throw it on the helve hammer. The player will need to work the bellows to heat the iron up quite a bit first before it can be worked, lest they want to constantly juggle the item between the forge and anvil. Thus bronze retains more use for an extended period, and isn't so easily skipped over.

1.22 only prolongs the process of iron ore to tool, which is absolutely not what I'm trying to advocate for; once you forge an iron pick, your bronze pick becomes obsolete considering iron is like 25% more powerful and lasts 2x longer. You are not really going to switch back to bronze since you're gonna wanna save that for nails etc.
What I'm advocating for about is utilising bronze during early iron age. So now you get the choice of an iron tool or bronze.

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

As for quenching and tempering, those are there to make good tools and weapons better, if the player is willing to invest the time. That's one of the main strengths of iron over bronze in the game, but that doesn't mean that iron should just be worse than bronze unless the player puts in that extra effort. If it just takes a single quench for the iron to be better, players are just going to ignore bronze in favor of iron anyway since the first quench is risk-free. If it takes more than one quench, then players are likely going to get annoyed at how much extra processing it takes just to make iron better than a lower tier material, as well as the risk of breaking the item in the process since more than one quench is risky.

>  but that doesn't mean that iron should just be worse than bronze unless the player puts in that extra effort

It's not worse than bronze though, it still has 2x the durability. The only thing my idea would reduce is the power. I could be wrong but I don't see any progression issues; You use bronze, then unlock early iron and have the choice of powerful bronze and durable iron, finally unlock the forge/bellows and switch to iron.
As for the quench thing, that's more of a "we agree on the idea, now how do we put it into practice" problem :))

 

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

Keeping in mind that the current setting is the late Middle Ages as well, and not the Bronze Age.

I dont see it that way. I see it as us starting in stone age (ignoring the village), and making our way through the different ages. We are not constantly in the Middle Ages, only near end game do we reach it

Quote

Bronze was still a useful material in the medieval period, but had been replaced by iron when it came to tools, weapons, and armor

You are comparing apples to polar bears my dear. Firstly, bronze wasn't immediately replaced, it was still the preferred metal. Secondly, the Middle Ages came wayyyyy after the iron age so it doesn't make sense to compare since I am talking about early iron age here. The forge could be considered middle/late iron age which would make sense for iron to become "better" (in quotation since it is better in durability already) than bronze

Edited February 25 by Diregoldleaf

[LadyWYT]

9 minutes ago, Diregoldleaf said:

Cheap in what sense, that it's easy to cast? In that case yes, but it's not cheap in the sense that it's rarer and more difficult to obtain. You have a point with nails, cheap tools etc, but I'm talking more about your main tools, eg falx, main pick, main axe etc (the iron/steel quenchable ones). The progression feels too linear for those

Cheap as in it's not particularly rare or difficult to obtain in the game. Copper, tin, zinc, and bismuth are all quite easy to find in large quantities, and can also be purchased from traders. Raw iron can't be purchased from the typical trader, and while it occurs in large deposits those deposits can be tricky to find sometimes.

 

11 minutes ago, Diregoldleaf said:

1.22 only prolongs the process of iron ore to tool, which is absolutely not what I'm trying to advocate for; once you forge an iron pick, your bronze pick becomes obsolete considering iron is like 25% more powerful and lasts 2x longer. You are not really going to switch back to bronze since you're gonna wanna save that for nails etc.
What I'm advocating for about is utilising bronze during early iron age. So now you get the choice of an iron tool or bronze.

Right, but what I'm trying to say is that the processing time seems to be increasing a bit in 1.22, meaning that the jump from bronze to iron isn't quite as fast as it was before. Thus to me, it already seems more worth investing in some extra bronze stuff that I wouldn't have bothered with before.

 

13 minutes ago, Diregoldleaf said:

It's not worse than bronze though, it still has 2x the durability. The only thing my idea would reduce is the power. I could be wrong but I don't see any progression issues; You use bronze, then unlock early iron and have the choice of powerful bronze and durable iron, finally unlock the forge/bellows and switch to iron.
As for the quench thing, that's more of a "we agree on the idea, now how do we put it into practice" problem :))

I'll put it this way: I think a better solution to make bronze tier feel more meaningful, is to give players more stuff to do at that tier and give bronze other niches, rather than try to do something like "iron has more durability but bronze is more powerful". The latter really doesn't make much sense, at least to me, and I think in practice it's going to end up feeling like artificial progression gating to players.

That is, if the player has more options in the earlier portions of the game for pottery, farming, livestock, herbalism, etc., they'll need to think about what goals they want to prioritize rather than just focus on jumping straight to iron every time(though they can still do this if they choose). Likewise, if bronze can be used to create things like bells(decorative, useful, or even the contraption kind) or diving gear(brass and copper could see more use here too) or even more advanced cookware, that gives it a special niche that iron perhaps cannot fill.

16 minutes ago, Diregoldleaf said:

I dont see it that way. I see it as us starting in stone age (ignoring the village), and making our way through the different ages.

Sure, but the gameplay still needs to match the story and setting the devs want the game to have, and the story makes it rather clear that the setting is the late Middle Ages. Stone, copper, and bronze are still important to the player's progression, but they're just stepping stones to get to the meat of the game, and not intended to be the main focus otherwise.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

2 hours ago, Diregoldleaf said:

iron only became widespread due to it's abundance and lack of requirement to trade cassiterite as someone pointed out above. Basically iron mainly became popular because it was more economical.

Partially false. A bronze weapon and a cast iron weapon have about the same utility in terms of strength and holding an edge. However Bronze will work harden and become brittle over time making it less desirable for a weapon or tool that needs to hold up over a longer period of time. Iron is also a stepping stone to Steel which is superior to both metals.

The very ancient world was a bronze economy. Trade was critically important. This is one reason the ancient Greeks became so successful; they lived by the sea, mastered sailing early, and expanded their influence anywhere they could sail a boat and find a harbor. All the great civilizations of the ancient world were bronze based - China, India, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Minoan, etc.

When people figured out how to make cast iron (which requires higher temperatures to get the ore out of the rock and to work the metal effectively) there was a huge upheaval. New conquering peoples arose and kicked the butts of the bronze-age civilizations. Greek culture was battered so badly it lost literacy - they literally forgot how to read and write...

Why? Because bronze work hardens and becomes brittle and breaks. The same bronze weapon used over and over will break. The same iron weapon used over and over will bend and get hammered back into shape. Societies that relied on bronze lost a war of attrition as their weapons literally fell apart.

The widespread use of iron meant that research into the metal was cheaper and easier to study. Iron didn't become more popular just because it was more economical, it became better because once people figured out how to work with it, they realized it was just better overall.

Edited February 25 by Teh Pizza Lady

[Diregoldleaf]

1 minute ago, LadyWYT said:

Cheap as in it's not particularly rare or difficult to obtain in the game. Copper, tin, zinc, and bismuth are all quite easy to find in large quantities, and can also be purchased from traders. Raw iron can't be purchased from the typical trader, and while it occurs in large deposits those deposits can be tricky to find sometimes.

I've never had "trouble" finding iron, but I also haven't prospected many times for it so I can't argue against that. Maybe you have a point here, however, I want to point out something which I'll point out in the next paragraph

Quote

Right, but what I'm trying to say is that the processing time seems to be increasing a bit in 1.22, meaning that the jump from bronze to iron isn't quite as fast as it was before. Thus to me, it already seems more worth investing in some extra bronze stuff that I wouldn't have bothered with before.

Yes you have a point here again. There is definitely more time to enjoy/utilise bronze, however, the point I want to make is all of that only delays iron. It's completely 1 dimensional in the sense that it's still a linear process. I'm saying Ages don't have to be discreet, and if they overlapped with one another, it'd be much more interesting, realistic, choice-driven etc

7 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I'll put it this way: I think a better solution to make bronze tier feel more meaningful, is to give players more stuff to do at that tier and give bronze other niches, rather than try to do something like "iron has more durability but bronze is more powerful". The latter really doesn't make much sense, at least to me, and I think in practice it's going to end up feeling like artificial progression gating to players.

That is, if the player has more options in the earlier portions of the game for pottery, farming, livestock, herbalism, etc., they'll need to think about what goals they want to prioritize rather than just focus on jumping straight to iron every time(though they can still do this if they choose). Likewise, if bronze can be used to create things like bells(decorative, useful, or even the contraption kind) or diving gear(brass and copper could see more use here too) or even more advanced cookware, that gives it a special niche that iron perhaps cannot fill.

Again this is only delaying the progress and is keeping it linear. I don't see how it doesn't make sense to have a choice of 2 different metals. That's how it was in real life and to me it makes more sense that way. We all have different ways we view the game. When I first looked it VS, I assumed bronze would be better than early iron and was disappointed to find progression was exactly like minecraft

 

11 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Sure, but the gameplay still needs to match the story and setting the devs want the game to have, and the story makes it rather clear that the setting is the late Middle Ages. Stone, copper, and bronze are still important to the player's progression, but they're just stepping stones to get to the meat of the game, and not intended to be the main focus otherwise.

I edited the original reply to say more stuff, you can check it out
But are you saying gameplay doesn't start until you get to steel? The journey doesn't matter, just the destination? By that logic, why make any developments for anything before steel age?

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 minute ago, Diregoldleaf said:

But are you saying gameplay doesn't start until you get to steel? The journey doesn't matter, just the destination? By that logic, why make any developments for anything before steel age?

I think she said what she said and reading anything extra into it is just projecting what you want to read instead of taking it at face value. NGL, not very nice of you to do that.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

Also the game is set in the middle ages, not the bronze age. Bronze is necessary to give the players something to use until they find a good source of iron. even a copper spear is better than flint if that's all you have. Because when you are first starting out, that is all you will have. Players should be encouraged to progress to bronze and then iron and then steel. adding extra value to the lower tiers only encourages the players to hang out in those tiers longer than they should. You don't stand a chance in soft copper armor wielding brittle weapons when fighting the iron-boned rot beasts of the rust world. You just don't. I haven't won a fight against a Nightmare Drifter in anything less than steel armor. They just hit way too hard.

[Diregoldleaf]

Quote

The widespread use of iron meant that research into the metal was cheaper and easier to study. Iron didn't become more popular just because it was more economical, it became better because once people figured out how to work with it, they realized it was just better overall.

Would you say people figured it out how to work with it due to it's easy of access?

Quote

When people figured out how to make cast iron (which requires higher temperatures to get the ore out of the rock and to work the metal effectively) there was a huge upheaval. New conquering peoples arose and kicked the butts of the bronze-age civilizations. Greek culture was battered so badly it lost literacy - they literally forgot how to read and write...

Why? Because bronze work hardens and becomes brittle and breaks. The same bronze weapon used over and over will break. The same iron weapon used over and over will bend and get hammered back into shape. Societies that relied on bronze lost a war of attrition as their weapons literally fell apart.

Is this not in support of my arguments that late iron age should be better than bronze in terms in power, while early iron age should be a little weaker

5 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

I think she said what she said and reading anything extra into it is just projecting what you want to read instead of taking it at face value. NGL, not very nice of you to do that.

Apologies, I didn't mean it in a rude way, more in an inquisitively surprised way. I don't know what she means here as I most played caveman mode (story mode off), and haven't finished any chapters yet (waiting for 8 chapters to come out in 10 years time so I can do all of them together)

[MKMoose]

1 hour ago, Diregoldleaf said:

Cheap in what sense, that it's easy to cast? In that case yes, but it's not cheap in the sense that it's rarer and more difficult to obtain.

While others have replied to this already, I want to mention that, purely in terms of generation parameters pulled from game assets, bronze is significantly more common than iron, even when controlling for durability. Granted, it can be more annoying to obtain due to smaller deposit size and extremely high deposit frequency in righ areas.

 

1 hour ago, Diregoldleaf said:

1.22 only prolongs the process of iron ore to tool, which is absolutely not what I'm trying to advocate for; once you forge an iron pick, your bronze pick becomes obsolete considering iron is like 25% more powerful and lasts 2x longer. You are not really going to switch back to bronze since you're gonna wanna save that for nails etc.
What I'm advocating for about is utilising bronze during early iron age. So now you get the choice of an iron tool or bronze 

To some extent, this is already the case, though admittedly it seems like an accidental consequence of the system more than a clear design choice. Bronze finds its use primarily in cases where durability is the only parameter that matters. Tongs, hammer, crowbar, chisel, wrench, as well as anything that is intented to be used for crafting. It's doubly useful for the tools that don't have to be forged, because casting in quantity is easier, faster and cheaper.

 

1 hour ago, Diregoldleaf said:

It's not worse than bronze though, it still has 2x the durability. The only thing my idea would reduce is the power. I could be wrong but I don't see any progression issues; You use bronze, then unlock early iron and have the choice of powerful bronze and durable iron, finally unlock the forge/bellows and switch to iron.

Personally, I'm not opposed to the idea of bronze being better in some capacity than iron (I've suggested it elsewhere myself), though I think it might be better to achieve a similar effect by adding work hardening and annealing for bronze (and potentially low-carbon wrought iron as well), to provide effects similar to quenching and tempering (but weaker and/or at the cost of some durability), smoothing out the sudden transition to iron.

If aiming to separate the Iron Age into two parts, I would personally look into splitting it clearly into "Bloomery Iron Age" and "Cast Iron Age" (not real terms, but illustrative enough). Iron obtained from the bloomery process and wrought by hand would contain uneven grain and more slag inclusions, so generally produce much lower quality results, and realistically it wouldn't be quenchable. Iron produced in a much more complex process using a blast furnace (and ideally processed using a powerful helve in a finery forge) would be a much better product in a whole range of metrics, reflecting the actual way iron quality has progressed from being at best a sidegrade to bronze to eventually well superseding it - through gradually advancing metallurgical knowledge as well as improved smelting and forging processes. And that's not even mentioning the benefit of the blast furnace that lies in cast iron.

Edited February 25 by MKMoose

[Teh Pizza Lady]

2 minutes ago, Diregoldleaf said:

Is this not in support of my arguments that late iron age should be better than bronze in terms in power, while early iron age should be a little weaker

No. Read the full context:

18 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

A bronze weapon and a cast iron weapon have about the same utility in terms of strength and holding an edge.

You said:

3 minutes ago, Diregoldleaf said:

I don't know what she means here as I most played caveman mode (story mode off), and haven't finished any chapters yet

That means you're missing a significant amount of in-game context and mechanical explanation that only comes from observing the state of the game world and listening to the stories that the characters have to tell. A lot of this is only made explicit through in the story and progression systems. The state of the game will only fully make sense once you’ve ventured out and experienced that content and get a better feel for the setting and overall timeline. Unfortunately that means that while you're working with the numbers, they won't make sense to you until you have context for them.

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Diregoldleaf said:

You are comparing apples to polar bears my dear. Firstly, bronze wasn't immediately replaced, it was still the preferred metal. Secondly, the Middle Ages came wayyyyy after the iron age so it doesn't make sense to compare since I am talking about early iron age here. The forge could be considered middle/late iron age which would make sense for iron to become "better" (in quotation since it is better in durability already) than bronze

The Middle Ages did come after the Iron Age, however, my point remains that the game is set during the late medieval period. Thus the main focus should be the technology appropriate to the late Middle Ages, and not so much the tech level of earlier times.

 

35 minutes ago, Diregoldleaf said:

Yes you have a point here again. There is definitely more time to enjoy/utilise bronze, however, the point I want to make is all of that only delays iron. It's completely 1 dimensional in the sense that it's still a linear process. I'm saying Ages don't have to be discreet, and if they overlapped with one another, it'd be much more interesting, realistic, choice-driven etc

And my point is that bronze and iron tiers are overlapping more in 1.22 due to that extra processing time. Prior to that, it was very easy for the player to only invest in a bronze anvil and bronze pick, before replacing everything with iron. Copper tools would suffice for everything else, and bronze armor wasn't really worth it since gambeson is much better and it was much easier to farm flax in large quantities. Now flax requires more investment in farming, meaning that the player will probably want to save the linen for a windmill. Iron requires a bit more time and effort to refine, so if the player wants to do things like start the main story earlier, tackle procedural dungeons(supposed to be added in 1.22), or otherwise just be safer while out and about, they'll probably consider investing in some bronze lamellar and weapons while they work on iron.

 

35 minutes ago, Diregoldleaf said:

Again this is only delaying the progress and is keeping it linear. I don't see how it doesn't make sense to have a choice of 2 different metals.

What I suggested is basically just giving the player more gameplay options at that stage of the game, acting as horizontal progression rather than linear. Iron is still better than bronze, but if the player is too busy investing time in things like livestock, herbalism, and other areas of gameplay then that's time they aren't investing into iron working...meaning that they will be reliant on bronze longer. However, the player still has the option to skip bronze and focus on iron if they so wish.

 

35 minutes ago, Diregoldleaf said:

But are you saying gameplay doesn't start until you get to steel? The journey doesn't matter, just the destination? By that logic, why make any developments for anything before steel age?

That is not at all what I said. The game is set in the late Middle Ages, thus the focus is going to be on the technology appropriate to that era, with some early industrial/steampunk thrown in for the very late game. Stone, copper, and bronze aren't worthless by any means, but that's not the tech levels that the player is really intended to remain at for extended periods of time. The idea is for the players to use those as a stepping stone to get to iron, so that they can tackle things like the main story or machinery and whatnot.

 

27 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Also the game is set in the middle ages, not the bronze age. Bronze is necessary to give the players something to use until they find a good source of iron. even a copper spear is better than flint if that's all you have. Because when you are first starting out, that is all you will have. Players should be encouraged to progress to bronze and then iron and then steel. adding extra value to the lower tiers only encourages the players to hang out in those tiers longer than they should. You don't stand a chance in soft copper armor wielding brittle weapons when fighting the iron-boned rot beasts of the rust world. You just don't. I haven't won a fight against a Nightmare Drifter in anything less than steel armor. They just hit way too hard.

Pretty much this. The main reason to make higher tier materials more durable and powerful than lower tier, is to both encourage the player to improve their equipment, discourage them from relying on the cheaper, more convenient early game materials, as well as give them an actual sense of accomplishment when they acquire better materials to work with. Copper feels powerful compared to stone, while bronze feels powerful compared to copper. Same goes for iron. If iron was just a bit more durable but not packing the same punch as bronze, a lot of players would very likely feel that it wasn't really worth the effort to acquire. Some players currently ignore steel entirely for similar reasons, I believe--the durability of steel is better but there's no notable power increase, while the steel itself takes a lot of time and resources to acquire. Thus, those players just skip it and stick to meteoric iron, since it also is more durable than iron but requires less processing(it smelts directly into ingots).

 

25 minutes ago, Diregoldleaf said:

I don't know what she means here as I most played caveman mode (story mode off), and haven't finished any chapters yet (waiting for 8 chapters to come out in 10 years time so I can do all of them together)

I'll post behind spoilers for those who don't want the story spoiled, but I do recommend playing the main story at least once, as well as digging into the lore.

Spoiler

The story takes place in the late Middle Ages, after a plague wiped out most of humanity. The Grand Machine project of Jonas Falx is what stopped the Rot plague from wiping out humanity entirely, at the cost of scrambling the world and causing the temporal anomalies in the present. The player is from that Old World, transported to the present, and is no longer human but a superhuman entity known as a seraph. The player was also part of Jonas's forces, and likely learned a lot about various metalworking process and related medieval technology, meaning that the player is less "progressing from caveman to late medieval period" and more just clawing for their own survival out in the wilderness while working back up to the tech they're familiar with.

Basically, the game isn't really "caveman to cosmos". If it were, Homo Sapiens game mode would be the standard, and I would be more inclined to agree that each level of tech progression should be much more grindy than it already is. However, Homo Sapiens isn't the standard game mode that Vintage Story is balanced around, and there as an option for players who want a purely realistic survival experience only, with none of the lore and supernatural stuff.

Edit: One thing I forgot to mention, is that the minimum equipment requirement for the first story chapter is tier 2, which is bronze/gambeson. Chapter 2 require tier 3, which is iron. For singleplayer games, iron tends to be the recommended minimum even for chapter 1, since it allows the player to make a few more mistakes in an area that can be rather punishing, and they don't have friends that can help them(multiplayer advantage). The story can certainly be completed with lower grade equipment, however, it requires a lot more skill and luck on the player's part. 

Edited February 25 by LadyWYT

[Diregoldleaf]

16 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

While others have replied to this already, I want to mention that, purely in terms of generation parameters pulled from game assets, bronze is significantly more common than iron, even when controlling for durability. Granted, it can be more annoying to obtain due to smaller deposit size and extremely high deposit frequency in righ areas.

Intradesting

16 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

To some extent, this is already the case, though admittedly it seems like an accidental consequence of the system more than a clear design choice. Bronze finds its use primarily in cases where durability is the only parameter that matters. Tongs, hammer, crowbar, chisel, wrench, as well as anything that is intented to be used for crafting. It's doubly useful for the tools that don't have to be forged, because casting in quantity is easier, faster and cheaper.

Yes that is true, but I was arguing more for your main tools 

17 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

Personally, I'm not opposed to the idea of bronze being better in some capacity than iron (I've suggested it elsewhere myself), though I think it might be better to achieve a similar effect by adding work hardening and annealing for bronze (and potentially low-carbon wrought iron as well), to provide effects similar to quenching and tempering (but weaker and/or at the cost of some durability), smoothing out the sudden transition to iron.

If aiming to separate the Iron Age into two parts, I would personally look into splitting it clearly into "Bloomery Iron Age" and "Cast Iron Age" (not real terms, but illustrative enough). Iron obtained from the bloomery process and wrought by hand would contain uneven grain and more slag inclusions, so generally produce much lower quality results, and realistically it wouldn't be quenchable. Iron produced in a much more complex process using a blast furnace (and ideally processed using a powerful helve in a finery forge) would be a much better product in a whole range of metrics, reflecting the actual way iron quality has progressed from being at best a sidegrade to bronze to eventually well superseding it - through gradually advancing metallurgical knowledge as well as improved smelting and forging processes. And that's not even mentioning the benefit of the blast furnace that lies in cast iron.

>I've suggested it elsewhere myself
I may have got idea from you. I've seen it floating around for a while and only recently if this has a chance to integrate into the game with the new quenching mechanics. The word side grade perfectly sums up what I was envisioning early iron, with late iron being the upgrade

[Diregoldleaf]

35 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

The Middle Ages did come after the Iron Age, however, my point remains that the game is set during the late medieval period. Thus the main focus should be the technology appropriate to the late Middle Ages, and not so much the tech level of earlier times.

But you still go through the early iron ages, even if the technology exists, you are utilising early bloomery iron, which wouldn't be all that superior to bronze

35 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

And my point is that bronze and iron tiers are overlapping more in 1.22 due to that extra processing time. Prior to that, it was very easy for the player to only invest in a bronze anvil and bronze pick, before replacing everything with iron. Copper tools would suffice for everything else, and bronze armor wasn't really worth it since gambeson is much better and it was much easier to farm flax in large quantities. Now flax requires more investment in farming, meaning that the player will probably want to save the linen for a windmill. Iron requires a bit more time and effort to refine, so if the player wants to do things like start the main story earlier, tackle procedural dungeons(supposed to be added in 1.22), or otherwise just be safer while out and about, they'll probably consider investing in some bronze lamellar and weapons while they work on iron.

I see what you're saying, but it's less of an overlap and more of a delay. I agree with you that bronze age is now more "enjoyable"

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What I suggested is basically just giving the player more gameplay options at that stage of the game, acting as horizontal progression rather than linear. Iron is still better than bronze, but if the player is too busy investing time in things like livestock, herbalism, and other areas of gameplay then that's time they aren't investing into iron working...meaning that they will be reliant on bronze longer. However, the player still has the option to skip bronze and focus on iron if they so wish.

I think we are talking at cross purposes here? What I'm arguing for is a feature for the sake of realism and less-linearity, not for the sake of extending the bronze age

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That is not at all what I said. The game is set in the late Middle Ages, thus the focus is going to be on the technology appropriate to that era, with some early industrial/steampunk thrown in for the very late game. Stone, copper, and bronze aren't worthless by any means, but that's not the tech levels that the player is really intended to remain at for extended periods of time. The idea is for the players to use those as a stepping stone to get to iron, so that they can tackle things like the main story or machinery and whatnot.

So what I'm arguiing for isn't going to extend the bronze age at all. It'll only optionally overlap it with the iron age, giving the player the choice between iron and bronze tools. It doesn't extend the bronze age de facto, just gives you an option to stay in it if you value the power over durability of iron. Of course players wishing to advance to iron age would continue as normal. I think this wouldn't affect many people

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Pretty much this. The main reason to make higher tier materials more durable and powerful than lower tier, is to both encourage the player to improve their equipment, discourage them from relying on the cheaper, more convenient early game materials, as well as give them an actual sense of accomplishment when they acquire better materials to work with. Copper feels powerful compared to stone, while bronze feels powerful compared to copper. Same goes for iron. If iron was just a bit more durable but not packing the same punch as bronze, a lot of players would very likely feel that it wasn't really worth the effort to acquire. Some players currently ignore steel entirely for similar reasons, I believe--the durability of steel is better but there's no notable power increase, while the steel itself takes a lot of time and resources to acquire. Thus, those players just skip it and stick to meteoric iron, since it also is more durable than iron but requires less processing(it smelts directly into ingots).

You have a very good point with the steel argument and it's defo a genuine argument against what I'm saying. The only thing I can really say is early iron would be a stepping to late iron so there's incentive to progress. For steel, there's nothing beyond that

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I'll post behind spoilers for those who don't want the story spoiled, but I do recommend playing the main story at least once, as well as digging into the lore.

Spoiler

 

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I won't read it but thanks for putting it behind spoilers. I do intend to play the story one day

 

Alas, I was never in the mindset that this feature would be added. I enquired about it more to hear people's thoughts. There is no point debating on this topic as if it's on the fence of being added or not

Edited February 25 by Diregoldleaf

[williams_482]

57 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

The very ancient world was a bronze economy. Trade was critically important. This is one reason the ancient Greeks became so successful; they lived by the sea, mastered sailing early, and expanded their influence anywhere they could sail a boat and find a harbor. All the great civilizations of the ancient world were bronze based - China, India, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Minoan, etc.

When people figured out how to make cast iron (which requires higher temperatures to get the ore out of the rock and to work the metal effectively) there was a huge upheaval. New conquering peoples arose and kicked the butts of the bronze-age civilizations. Greek culture was battered so badly it lost literacy - they literally forgot how to read and write...

Why? Because bronze work hardens and becomes brittle and breaks. The same bronze weapon used over and over will break. The same iron weapon used over and over will bend and get hammered back into shape. Societies that relied on bronze lost a war of attrition as their weapons literally fell apart.

The widespread use of iron meant that research into the metal was cheaper and easier to study. Iron didn't become more popular just because it was more economical, it became better because once people figured out how to work with it, they realized it was just better overall.

We don't have a great understanding of exactly what happened in the Late Bronze Age Collapse, but "new empires using iron weapons overthrew old empires who insisted on sticking with bronze" is not accurate. If anything the increase in iron usage is probably a result, not a cause, of those empires and their trade networks collapsing - armies had to make do with what they had locally, and while essentially nobody had both copper and tin, everyone had iron.

There's a pretty nice and digestible summary of what we do know about the LBAC here if anyone is interested. 

Setting aside the geopolitical inaccuracies, Bronze doesn't wear down over the course of a single battle, and bronze equipment which had been worn down over much longer periods could still be melted down and recycled.