Blacksmithy & Stone setting

[Magitex]

So after the introduction of the new blacksmith mechanics (which are great), it came to my attention that the system could be doing a few neat extras without too much work (okay a little).

If you've ever looked at the basic sword model, it's rather spiky and jagged. Clearly not your finest work!

• After you complete an item on the anvil, we could re-heat the finished item and work it again to trim off the 'bad' voxels of the model to improve the statistics and/or change the appearance of the item.
• We could also use the same system to customize our work and add voxels to items - superior metals might improve damage or gemstones might give effects or give item specific bonii, or an increase in trade value.. or just customize our work like a chisel does to a block!
• The system could also be used to 'rust' or deteriorate parts of our items instead of using fixed durability systems (or in combination). It would also blend well with grind stones and the like also because we could physically look at the tip of our weapons to determine what condition they are in and improve the specific locations on a grind stone or using a hammer and/or nuggets, rather than use a crafting grid. You could get into a lot of realistic detail if all the voxels on each item were mapped out, factoring in different type of hilt/handle materials, broken bits or better quality materials affecting different statistics of the item.

The main issues around this system:

Vintage Story would need to support dynamic models and a system for networking the modified models/dynamic items. The good news is, I believe the blacksmith system is already doing this, although the resolution for the forging system would have to be more variable, and a fair bit higher for certain items. The items might also require a special batch call system or polygon optimization system because generated models could be slower than ordinary items (not likely to be a huge issue but it's still something to be taken into account, the game is probably already dealing with this with anvil work and clay). It's also a little more data heavy and it might add up if you have a large collection of customized swords and armors.. it's probably not as bad as chiseled blocks but its even more to deal with!

I've been infatuated with ideas like this, ever since I saw a similar mechanic in Cubeworld. While it was pretty arbitrary in Cubeworld, something like this would be a great fit with Vintage Story's new blacksmithy system and would give us something to do with all those gem stones and loose nuggets.

Maybe now isn't the right time to add MORE blacksmithy specifically, but I'd love to see more depth to working with our items and greater customization/material depth to crafted goods in general.