Realistic Recipes or not?

I totally forgot that ring-mail is cold smith, so you are right on that point.

How ever, historically there is several types of chain mails that do have leather at the end of the sleeves and in the neck. In Sweden somewhere around 1490 a lot of chain-mails had sleeves look like this:


And as I said before it's only leather straps and not complete pieces of leather you need so I see no problem in that part of the recipe. If you want me to I think I can find pictures from the Museum that shows even more leather in the ring-mail then the picture on the replica.

 

hmm... quoting does not work.

Please read what I wrote.

The hip is covered by leather. You can see that if you wear the chain you can craft. So on the left and the right side, there are huge parts of the whole armor made out of leather instead of chain. I dont talk about leather-applications, like the one in the Picture, which sometimes were bound to the chain.
I also do not complain about the fact that you Need Leather-straps for the armor. I just say, that if These things are intended to be oriented on real exisitng, historical armor and should make sense, then the armor as it is shown when worn makes no sense. And if you use leather-straps then, let it be one and not two, and increase the number of chain needed etc....
The Ratio between the materials used is a factor that should be taken into account as well. More Chain,. less leather, no coal But only if NOT Fantasy-style.

Out of the discussion about the game as such:

If you look at pieces in Museums or Pictures, you always have to taken into account that almost every Piece of Equipment was customized by those who used it to fit their Needs. There was some sort of mass-production for some of the parts, and the chain usually Comes as chain, nothing else than chain...... and those who used it adjusted it to fit their Needs. I see People in Chain and plate-armor the whole summer, every year. And even if some of them bought a Piece of armor this year, you can bet that all of those pieces will look different the next year, because everybody altered them to fit their Needs. This is one of the reasons why I am a big fan of sockets on everything. Want to make your chain more secure? Add plate-armor-elements to it, but loose agility that way. Want to be more agile with your armor, add leather-straps, so it will fit better... and so on. The same with all the other parts of the armor. Starting from the Shirt beneath, the gambeson up to the tunica...... Depending on the time those things were used, there were high-tech, or low-tech..... curious Thing is, the chain-male of the romans was Standard, and in our medieval Age, it was high-tech......

 

Steel is just iron alloyed with carbon. Now, I'm no expert so what I write will probably look stupid to someone who is, but I believe the process of annealing is done to reduce the amount of carbon in the iron to a proper amount (at least that's what I remember about it from Archaeology class a very long time ago). I don't know whether you'd need extra materials, but maybe a bellows to increase the heat level in the furnace.


But again, realism is fine but you have to think about the average person on the street and making the crafting system approachable. Right now it's just far too daunting. Right now, it seems the only non-complex tree is the carpentry tree. Everything else seems a little unwieldy. I understand they they might be trying to shoot for realism but my argument is that you simply cannot do that and make crafting user friendly. Sure there will be people who will still be able to use it and pretty much anyone could be a carpenter as it stands now. But I think we're asking the wrong question

We should be asking "Does this make sense to the general player?" Crafting is approachable and useable and enjoyable in many games that are out there. Is the point that the crafters are supposed to be a small elite who have the time, patience and in some cases real world knowledge to be able to create these objects? If so, then you're going to have a lot of upset more casual players on your hands. That's OK if the devs are willing to go that way and it will keep more casual players out. I suppose if you're a crafter that's a good thing. But if recipes don't make sense to the more hardcore crowd, it's not going to be an approachable system for anyone.

Actually, I don't know that the argument is worth the words written since all you really need to do is wait a week and all recipes are going to be posted online anyway. I suppose that's an argument for keeping it as-is. But that feels too much like cheating to me, both for the players and the devs.

 

I would not go that far....

And steel is not "just" steel... there are more combinations possible that would make sense.... and I would not even go as far to separate between water and oil to cool down the iron for hardening......

However, I think the steps are ok so far, as I have seen it. Just the results......

 

Ratios? Just because you use 2 of both materials don't meant there is equal amount of materials. From the way I look at it so are a leather strap much smaller then a cheat of iron chain links.

If all materials in a crafting system should have a 1/1 relationship when it comes to the amount of materials actually used you will have a extremely unfriendly system. I guess we get a better view of the whole relation between materials when proper weights are introduced.

 

I fear jumping into this discussion because of the depth that has already been covered. Nevertheless, wisdom is not my strong suit. I, personally, have no problem with leather being used in the chain mail manufacture (but do take issue with coal during the endless hours of opening and closing links) BUT I would like to again point out that the leather used is straps cut from hardened leather. It would be more logical to be straps cut from supple leather. Hardened leather is, well, hard. Like wooden plate hard. Used in armor like metal plate hard. Turn oncoming arrows and swords hard. Impossible to put on the ends of chain sleeves hard.

In short, the basic principles behind the crafting system work (A + B = C) but some of the recipes could use some tweaking.

 

Mystic had a relevant post in jdrasin's scalability thread.

Sent from my EVA Unit-01 using Tapatalk

 

The lined-chain mail I've made (bikini or no) were just that, lined. The links were never replaced or undermined by leather - that's just plain silly! I will note that the two could be separated from each other - the doe-skin tunic simply being sewn or attached to the chain in strategic areas.

But again, this all is moot if the gods decide to "merge" the two for the sake of ease in artwork and crafting trees.

I do not think we will be actively layering articles of clothing & armor - so yeah, I can see some varied and highly complex recipes to get the desired level of protection & clothing. I'm not about to wear chain, plate or any sort of armor (even Japanese types) without something underneath! Chafing the skin is NOT my idea of a good time. So for the ease of use in a game, it makes sense to have a single layer of clothing/armor. The look (design) of what a toon is wearing, now that will determine the materials for the crafts, eh?

 

You make a bunch of good points, but "steel" is different from cast iron, and carbon steel is different yet. I believe the process is that you heat Iron to melt it, which releases the carbon (if any is present), then you pour the molten iron into a mold to shape it. Then you would heat the solid piece again until it is white hot (but not molten), then you beat the hot piece with a hammer/anvil to compress it's molecules, and this is what steel is, a forged piece. It's much harder than iron alone, and does hold an edge for cutting. To create a much harder steel, you would heat it again, but not to a white hot state, then sprinkle carbon powder on it (what the heating does is expand the molecules so that the carbon molecule can fit inside the steel molecules), then you quick cool it in water to shrink the steel around the carbon. The carbon holds the steel molecules apart making them very ridged, carbon steel holds a cutting edge for a long time.

They use coal & a bellows to create a much hotter fire than wood alone would create, and Asian smiths started folding the steel on itself, and forging it together again and again to create some of the best steel made my hand. Forging actually welds the two layers together.

I for one don't want this much "realism", and most of the forging/smithing was straight forward enough for me, but why we can't get 3 bars or 5 ingots out of a piece of iron is just making things tedious. And why we can't convert 2 ingots into 1 bar, or use ingots instead of bars, or vise verse is just silly. Why does it take so much material to make a sheet of iron? Why so many Bars to make wire? Why so many wires to make chain link? Can't these numbers be tweaked in the Players advantage?

Tailoring was more stumping to me, Why don't I need a needle or thread? I mean after you make a bolt of cloth don't you need a "pattern" and cut the pieces out, then sew them together? Don't you need thicker thread to sew leather? Didn't they have soft leather? Or furs? You can use just about any fiberish material to make thread, but you really need a Spindle to roll it on (yarn was rolled but thread?).

Carpentry/milling were also stumping me, Why use a carpentry tool to mill poles? I would mill the wood into a hex shape then use a carpenters plain or rasp or any cutting tool to form a pole after milling it.

I guess I really don't like experimenting, I would rather read a book or ask someone to show me, so I could learn from them. I'm starting to think that if they do have some exotic recipes, that the players will just hang on to the knowledge and make everyone pay. I think all the knowledge should be somewhere in the game to discover, but not through experimenting. I know everyone will be posting the common recipes, but if there are any 1 in a million or only found in PvP land or Monster land, that's just going to make SotA another UO, IMO.