Platinum group metals

[Elias Heyndrickx]

I have scourged through the suggestions forum but I have not seen a thread yet specifically about platinum group metals. I think it's a real shame only gold and silver are added while there are are a lot more precious metals to be used and discovered. I am talking about: ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium, and platinum. 

This game goes very indepth with a lot of different gem stones you can collect but there are very few precious metals you can find.

They discovered platinum around the ~1600's and it can be (very) rarely found next to copper ore making it easy (and fittingly thematically) to integrate into the game.

The other metals beside platinum could be added in for modders. It won't clutter up the underground since it is very very rare metal while adding more realism and making it more of a unique vowel game.

It would also open up the opportunity for more blocks, armor sets, maybe tools? 

[Silent Shadow]

Not much point for tools as most of the metals we have now can outperform the platinum group metals. I think most of these metals now a days are used as chemical catalysts, electronic components, or for nuclear applications. None of them are really used for tools. There may be some use as components for jewelry as they are rare, but I doubt most people would seek them out for that. 

[Elias Heyndrickx]

I just found it kind of odd you could have gold and silver but not platinum. Why this arbitrary distinction? Plantinum is stronger the gold. So why gold but not platinum? Same thing with being unable to make tools and gear of only certain metal bars. To be honest I don't really understand why one should limit the player in it's choices about what metal to use for what. It's weird that torch holders have to made from brass, why not iron, copper, ...? Why these arbitrary limitations? I would have loved to make a lead pickaxe, see it's a dumb idea and learn something from it.

Minecraft does this well, you make a golden pickaxe. See it's a stupid idea and learn why because gold is to soft to use on its own. Right now I have to look at a recipe, inspect the "approved" metals and then see if I can find said metals. It completely breaks my immersion.

I was also thinking about jewelery and about gilding armour (a very often done thing back in the middle ages) but that would likely require an entire update in and of itself. But personally I would love more freedom in adding precious gems and precious metals to armor, a bit like how you can chisel certain blocks.

Edited July 27, 2021 by Elias Heyndrickx

[junawood]

7 hours ago, Elias Heyndrickx said:

I would have loved to make a lead pickaxe, see it's a dumb idea and learn something from it.

For that dumb idea that you never repeat again everything has to be in the game. The code, the textures, all the work to create that and all the extra stuff for everyone in the file they download, install and have on their computer...because..."I want to be able to make a dumb mistake"? It's just not worth it.

 

7 hours ago, Elias Heyndrickx said:

It completely breaks my immersion.

If not being able to do everything you can think of breaks your immersion... how can you play games at all? o_O

[l33tmaan]

That's silly. The framework for pickaxes already exists and it's trivially easy to add a new type to it. You can even use the existing lead textures so you don't have to make your own.

Letting the player make their own decisions is a good thing, actually.

[Elias Heyndrickx]

Like l33tman correctly states there is very little work to actually do this. All of the code is already there it is merely copying and pasting some code. Or depending how it is written changing a few lines of code. The texture is just copying a file and changing a color. Neither would it take up a lot bandwidth to download or create "additional code".

Dwarf fortress allows you to make stuff out of everything for example they don't need to manually allow you to do it for every single type of rock or metal. That would be madness.

It's really just a decision of player experience and progression. Should I allow this or not? My guess is the devs don't do it because it breaks a well-defined tiering since it would add lot more options.

But I don't think that's a bad thing, if you discover some new metal you try and smelt it and see if it makes a good tool or armor set. If it does not you never do it again. It would promote experimentation and make the whole thing feel rewarding. You just learned something new!

It would increase immersion by a ton and you would not have to look up each and everytime out of what something needs to be made of. Something which breaks the flow of the game and would be good to go GUI-less.

You could even "unlock" a certain journal/ recipe where it remembers things about said tool so you can look up the precise details if you forgot.

It would also alleviate the problems people have not finding tin, bismuth, zinc, gold, and silver for the bronze age. I am very much in support for adding a  lot more alloys allowing players to make tier 2 pickaxes and tier 3 pickaxes in a lot of different ways.

[Silent Shadow]

Dwarf fortress is about as restrictive as this game when it comes to metal for similar tools and weapons (more so since black bronze is not allowed). Armor metals are similar, while DF has more weapon types (mainly blunt types) that are the only types that can use silver and platinum. As for the decorative items, both games allow more or less the same metals.

I am not really sure what the point would be to allow more metals to be shaped into weapons, tools, and armor, especially rare metals. Some of these would require new smelting techniques just to reach the temperatures needed to melt the ores (tungsten or osmium need well over 5000 degrees Fahrenheit) so the devs would need to code in something beyond a cementation furnace and for what? A metal that takes a lot more processing for no real benefit? I feel like anybody who got this far would know to not make it. You may as well not bother making tools out of lead, gold, or most other metals as they have terrible strength and hardness and would be useless as tools and armor (there is a precedent for lead hammers for smithing, but for a niche application of spreading out soft metals like copper without indenting it, nothing like in the game).

Steel could be improved upon with some allowing agents like vanadium, chromium (for more durability if you want to pretend corrosion resistance is helping the implement last longer), molybdenum, cobalt, etc. or with more involved smithing techniques (quenching, tempering, annealing, etc.) Other tool grade metals can have similar improvements made.

You could add some new materials to make copper a bit more strong like some arsenic (which could be sourced from the cinnabar currently in the game) or lead to allow smelting of copper ore with lead to make a weaker copper at lower temperatures (no charcoal required, great for improving copper's casting ability, maybe reduce the amount needed to fill a mold by a small amount?). That would go a ways to giving some of the less useful ores like lead and cinnabar some use in the game. Gold and Silver already have some uses in the game for improving lanterns and as alloying agents but more could be done. The devs may introduce a mechanic where electroplating is possible like with the "Baghdad batteries" tested by mythbusters; zinc, silver, and gold (maybe?) could be used to coat certain armors and tools to extend their durability a bit and to give sulfur a use other than a generally bad blasting charge. Maybe make acid in a barrel and seal it with an ingot and the metal item? Good way to get more out of the ingots investing into suits of armor currently. Maybe allow lead to act as a solder or a brazing agent to fix certain metal items? Maybe allow welding of steel edges onto iron tools to give the impact/speed of steel but with iron durability? Good way to give borax more than a one time use in the metal industry.

I would like to see more metal decorative items being made from a wider selection of metals. The torch holders are a good example, tools and armors not so much. I think any player would tear their hair out if they invested 20+ zinc ingots into armor only to find out it is worse than wood armor.

TL:DR; Adding more metals alloys than the devs have currently doesn't make much sense, but there is some room for improvement with varying amounts of work. I also agree that decorative items should have a wider base of metals to work with than they currently do but tools and armor is fine where it is.

[l33tmaan]

How can you say "tools and armor are fine" but I can't make a golden sword to match my gold armor?

[Elias Heyndrickx]

That is kind of what I am advocating for, a wider freedom in the uses of metal. I really enjoy the smithing and smelting part of the game so I find it a shame that it is somewhat limited.

Metals with to high of a smelting temperature not being able tot being able to be smelted is understandable albeit a shame.

I think it would make for quite a fun learning experience making a zinc armor piece and finding out it's a terrible idea Something that you can laugh at yourself later for. Just like when you crafted that first golden pickaxe in minecraft. Or just making it for plain fun.

Being able to make nonsensical or just pretty items like a golden sword, or just placing together different metals and making alloys of them and seeing what happens (is this good or bad?) is very interesting.

And of course the guide could still stay the same for people who rather follow a manual then try and figure out stuff themselves.

But I am thinking a lot of people would love making rosegold, whitegold armor sets. Or making an extremely shiny chromium door. Or perhaps even an uranium bucket? Or experiment with alloys.

Also I think gunmetal, electrum, sterling, rose, ferrochrome, ... are currently not possible? So many cool alloys possible.

Alloys are great, metals are great. The smithing and casting is great! This game does it very well, if only more freedom where given.

[Silent Shadow]

Well I think that it would be either a lot of work for the devs to implement within their vision of the game (which I think is realistic/historical with regard to the crafts), or this is something that could be a mod.

So long as it is clear to the player that they will not be making a tool/weapon/armor for practical reasons (perhaps with a tool tip warning them of the non usefulness?) I don't see a reason it should be forbidden.

[l33tmaan]

1 hour ago, Silent Shadow said:

So long as it is clear to the player that they will not be making a tool/weapon/armor for practical reasons (perhaps with a tool tip warning them of the non usefulness?) I don't see a reason it should be forbidden.

Where's the fun in that?

[Silent Shadow]

16 minutes ago, l33tmaan said:

Where's the fun in that?

I see it more as anti-frustration. To prevent players, especially new ones, from wasting their time (think of all the stuff you need to do to make a metal item) just to get a wall hanger sword of no practical value and now they have to start the process over again to progress in the game.

If they want to spend some time to be able to look at a shiny sword that is fine too, so long as they know that's all they'll get out of it.

[l33tmaan]

Armor and weapons already display what stats they have, though. If a gold sword obviously does less damage than even a copper one, then people can make informed decisions without a big gaudy "HEY THIS WEAPON IS BAD DON'T USE IT" warning.

[Silent Shadow]

A new player is not going to be able to look at those stats and be able to say what is good or not. As for the tool tip, just say "weapon/tool grade" or something similar for the suitable metal ingots. 

[l33tmaan]

A new player can't look at a sword and see that one deals more damage than the other? Seriously? There aren't different damage types or multiple ways of using it, there are literally 2 things that matter: How far away you can strike, and how much you hurt. In both instances, higher numbers are better. There are already attack tiers, even. 

The framework is here. We can use it.

[Silent Shadow]

There is also durability, protection tiers (for armor), damage reduction, etc. The bronzes themselves vary in terms of durability, damage resistance, and damage. Do you expect a new player to discern whether an extra 100hp on an item or 0.3 extra damage is better? Should they go for armor with more hp or more damage reduction? If you take protection tiers into account than these stats get even more muddy as the damage will penetrate the armor. Some tools do not care about damage or speed (hammers for instance) so only hp matters.

Some of the metals and alloys that are proposed for tools/weapons/armor would have a high hp, but a terrible damage output or resistance, something that a new player would have no idea if it would be good or not until they spend a lot of time to get it. It is a bad experience waiting to happen, which would be fine if the time invested were not so much. Perhaps someone playing for longer would know better, but new players not so much.

I do not think such minor benefits warrant being in the base game especially since a mod could easily fulfill what is being asked for here.

Edited July 28, 2021 by Silent Shadow

[l33tmaan]

2 hours ago, Silent Shadow said:

There is also durability, protection tiers (for armor), damage reduction, etc. The bronzes themselves vary in terms of durability, damage resistance, and damage. Do you expect a new player to discern whether an extra 100hp on an item or 0.3 extra damage is better?

I do, actually. I think that's where we're experiencing a disconnect.

[Silent Shadow]

We might be. 

I am saying that there are not automatically "better" metals for example, black bronze does less damage and gives less damage resistance than tin bronze but it has more durability (item hp). Which is best depends on what you want out of the item. Introducing more, less suited metals to be usable as tools, armor, or weapons will give new players a bad experience, cost the devs some time to implement in accordance with their vision for the game for little benefit on their end, all while this could just be a mod that someone could make for those who want it for something pretty to have.

Edited July 28, 2021 by Silent Shadow

[Elias Heyndrickx]

I disagree with the statement "it should be a mod". Often when something is implemented as a mod it never makes it into the base game because the mod already did it. It takes options away from devs. Also whoever made said mod has an obligation to maintain it. This often does not happen since people are busy so you end up with a bunch of mods only for an older version of the game. For mods that extend the base vanilla game this can get akward.

Also the suggestion "it should be a mod" can literally be said for ANY suggestion people don't personally like.

I also don't understand the disconnect between wanting more metal choices for decoratives but less for tools and armour. If such a thing where to happen the same question will keep being asked regardless. Why can't x metal be used for Y armour?

It also would not be confusing for new players to be able to make many different armours and tools. People discover a metal first and then try to make something with it. Not in reverse. Nobody will go and try to find gold to make a pickaxe. They might encounter gold and then attempt to make a pickaxe out of it.

But it could introduce clutter like you said with all the different bonuses, which is true. I think just "tiering" certain metals and assigning them a base number tier with some increase or decrease in certain stats would it make very clear what tier or purpose said metal is. Like how you can use different stones right now for different axes. And some are harder then others and give a bigger bonus. I think you should even be able to make a tier 0 chalk axe which can't break anything. "this axe is to soft for wood" but it could be used as an improved battle-axe.

For example, a lead axe could be tier 1 just as their stone axe is. But it would have higher durability then the stone one. A lead pickaxe would be tier 1 so it could not break stone while stating "this pickaxe is to soft for stone".

If all metals are tiered it would be abundantly clear how good or bad a certain metal is. No confusion, more choices, more alloys more decoration more freedom. Less questions ,why X can't be used for Y. More gameplay less looking up recipes.

Also this supposed to be uncompromised survival game, which I like so why all the handholding regarding tool and armour creation? If at any point the player gets stuck (s)he could simply look at the guide and see which pickaxes are tier 0, 1, 2, 3, ... It could even be neatly formatted in some sort of table. So then if the player finds ''any tier 1 metal'' they can advance.

Edited July 29, 2021 by Elias Heyndrickx

[Silent Shadow]

2 hours ago, Elias Heyndrickx said:

I disagree with the statement "it should be a mod". Often when something is implemented as a mod it never makes it into the base game because the mod already did it. It takes options away from devs. Also whoever made said mod has an obligation to maintain it. This often does not happen since people are busy so you end up with a bunch of mods only for an older version of the game. For mods that extend the base vanilla game this can get akward.

 

Devs are free to implement whatever they want, if anything mods are great for them because niche desires (such as this one) can be implemented without work on their part. Furthermore, the changes proposed here do not seem like they would further the Devs' vision of the game. I do think that allowing more metal choices for the decorative items would be some thing that they could do easily though.

2 hours ago, Elias Heyndrickx said:

Also the suggestion "it should be a mod" can literally be said for ANY suggestion people don't personally like.

Same as anyone can say their suggestion should be in the game. Your point?

2 hours ago, Elias Heyndrickx said:

I also don't understand the disconnect between wanting more metal choices for decoratives but less for tools and armour. If such a thing where to happen the same question will keep being asked regardless. Why can't x metal be used for Y armour?

Basically, metal used for decorative items do not require any properties aside from aesthetic ones, so it makes sense to extend that to other metals for more variety in looks (such as the torch holders) and to allow conservation of more useful metals. Weapons, armor, and tools already use the metals suited for them (as well as gold and silver) so there would be no practical reason to make them out of any other metal. The armors can be displayed so gold and silver (with their unique skins) are okay if you want to put in the effort to get those rare materials. Allowing other metals to be used for display armor or weapons would just add a few slightly different colors (lead and zinc look like iron, bismuth looks like bismuth bronze) so you're not getting much out of it.

So say this suggestion goes through. You get some useless tools/weapons and some slightly differently colored armors, meanwhile people just learning the game who don't know the difference between bronze and brass spend of lot of time and resources making functionally useless items for a bad experience. Adding platinum group metals add more competition for actually useful ores, may require the devs to implement a new smelting technique just for them (to reach the high melting points), and all this for a group of metals that don't really add anything to the game. There just isn't much benefit for the Devs to do this work (but if someone really wants it for a mod...)

3 hours ago, Elias Heyndrickx said:

It also would not be confusing for new players to be able to make many different armours and tools. People discover a metal first and then try to make something with it. Not in reverse. Nobody will go and try to find gold to make a pickaxe. They might encounter gold and then attempt to make a pickaxe out of it.

The way the metal industry is set up in this game would preclude that idea. You have to start with copper as the other metals do not commonly spawn above ground in nuggets. From there you can't make iron without bronze, nor steel without a lot of infrastructure. I would bet that very few players, especially new players, are wandering around deep underground and finding random ores. I would also say that they would probably be happy not to be able to spend the gold on a pickaxe when there are far better uses for it.

3 hours ago, Elias Heyndrickx said:

But it could introduce clutter like you said with all the different bonuses, which is true. I think just "tiering" certain metals and assigning them a base number tier with some increase or decrease in certain stats would it make very clear what tier or purpose said metal is. Like how you can use different stones right now for different axes. And some are harder then others and give a bigger bonus.

There is already a system like that in place in the form of damage/protection tiers. At 0 you have the wood armors, at 1 you have gold, leather, and copper, at 2 you have gambeson, silver, and the bronzes, at 3 you have the irons, and finally at 4 you have steel. Most metals already vary in damage dealt/resisted, work speed, and item hp. Simplifying it to only being per tier would be a step back in my opinion as it would mean that only sourcing the materials would be a determining factor in what people used. Right now there are reasons to use different metals for various tools and armor.

As for stone, many cannot be used for tools, while those that can are equal in stats except for flint which is a bit better, and obsidian which is the best. This matches the real world (mostly, edge weapons like knives and spearheads should require flint or obsidian to make).

4 hours ago, Elias Heyndrickx said:

I think you should even be able to make a tier 0 chalk axe which can't break anything. "this axe is to soft for wood" but it could be used as an improved battle-axe.

For example, a lead axe could be tier 1 just as their stone axe is. But it would have higher durability then the stone one. A lead pickaxe would be tier 1 so it could not break stone while stating "this pickaxe is to soft for stone"

A pickaxe that cannot break stone? An axe that cannot chop wood? Again, useless tools for the sake of having useless tools. Why let a new player waste time making useless items? Why would an experienced player choose to make them? Their only point in the game would be to waste time. Also it does not make sense for all materials to be used for tools. Lead for example, cannot hold an edge and would be useless as an axe after a single blow and the Devs acknowledge that in their game.

4 hours ago, Elias Heyndrickx said:

Also this supposed to be uncompromised survival game, which I like so why all the handholding regarding tool and armour creation? If at any point the player gets stuck (s)he could simply look at the guide and see which pickaxes are tier 0, 1, 2, 3, ... It could even be neatly formatted in some sort of table. So then if the player finds ''any tier 1 metal'' they can advance.

Umm... can they not do that already? If you look at any tool/weapon/armor in the in-game handbook it will display the tier it is in.

If you are having trouble getting a "tier 1 metal" (copper) to advance, then you can use your silver and gold nuggets too. You can melt 14 copper nuggets with 3 silver and 3 gold nuggets to make 1 black bronze ingot/pick/hammer. Kind of a waste in my opinion but much faster than searching for all the nuggets needed for a subpar pure gold or silver pickaxe. There is no need to pretend that lead is suitable for tools when you can just turn up the prevalence of copper anyway.

[Sengorn_Leopard]

I dislike when people say "it should be a mod"  as well for a couple reasons. I play multiplayer exclusively, I can't add a mod to someone's server, and I cannot code my own mod. I have to hope something is added to vanilla if I want to play with it, and that usually my goal when I suggest an idea on the game's suggestion forums. When people say 'there is a mod for that' or 'make a mod for that''... i already get that; I'm trying to suggest an addition to the base game not a mod. 

I think being able to craft a tool/armor for every unique metal would just be too cluttered. There is a decent variety with alloys already and I prefer a more streamlined progression from a gameplay design pov. I don't think the clutter this would add to the game file is worth the occasional player making a leaden pickaxe and being disappointed with performance. There are *a lot* of unique metals. Gold and Silver are acceptable, there are plenty of cultural references for such materials being made into mythic weapons for some novelty. 

This does appear to be some post-Apocalyptic world and with the guidebook the Seraphs seem to know how to progress rather than trial and error starting from 0 knowledge

Edited July 31, 2021 by Sengorn_Leopard