Metalworking and furnaces

[Hydromancerx]

Honestly if people have such a bad opinion about it then perhaps it should just be removed. For me it just means one more thing i have to shoehorn to work into Hydrocraft's crafting system. However I do like the fact they have a Metalworking skill. So maybe that should stay.

[Zorak]

If its possible then I dont see reason to remove it. Remember that we have skill lvls in PZ., If its not a common knowlage just make it 7-9 lvl in metalworking

[Bidule]

I don't think it should not be implemented, I think it may benefit to be approch differently so that people don't associate it with minecraft-like mecanics. 

[Blasted_Taco]

11 hours ago, Zorak said:

If its possible then I dont see reason to remove it. Remember that we have skill lvls in PZ., If its not a common knowlage just make it 7-9 lvl in metalworking

 

That the thing that lemmy dosent want tho, if so we could potentially see a player smelting 100 spoons or crafting 100 knifes.

 

Same thing with Carpenter, with people making miles of wooden floors.

[Zorak]

1 hour ago, Blasted_Taco said:

 

That the thing that lemmy dosent want tho, if so we could potentially see a player smelting 100 spoons or crafting 100 knifes.

 

Same thing with Carpenter, with people making miles of wooden floors.

But that don't have to be same knife as we're finding now.

Right now we can craft "axe" but somehow no one is complaining about them ;-).

 

 

[GOGOblin]

15 hours ago, Hydromancerx said:

Honestly if people have such a bad opinion about it then perhaps it should just be removed.

It must not be removed, smithing is VERY USEFUL but RARELY USEFUL (because there is still a lot of cool stuff in crates and wardrobes).  

Full-sized smithing (a big furnace, charcoal pits) will be fine for "postapoc" societies. While small DIY furnaces are ok for some surviving enthusiast, who needs some proper arrow heads or details for a trap or I dunno what small things he wants.

 

The one thing for sure: you will never build a stone furnace to make a shitty tent peg. There must be a realy good reason to dive into industrial-tier smithing.

Edited August 1, 2016 by GOGOblin

[NebNebber]

Did someone mention CROSSBOWS!!!  

I wanna ride that hype train!

[EnigmaGrey]

3 hours ago, Zorak said:

But that don't have to be same knife as we're finding now.

Right now we can craft "axe" but somehow no one is complaining about them ;-).

 

 

I can if you like.

Which axe are we talking about?

[Zorak]

4 minutes ago, EnigmaGrey said:

I can if you like.

Which axe are we talking about?

Stone axe

So axes, knives etc from metalworking can also be balanced.

[EnigmaGrey]

6 minutes ago, Zorak said:

Stone axe

So axes, knives etc from metalworking can also be balanced.

Oh don't get me started on the stone axe . . .

 

Dear Spiffo, I hate it both for its ease of creation, poor durability, and its placement in the tech tree . . . Right up there with digging with hands (that almost always injures you, crippling you, being totally pointless) and somehow turning perfect planks from logs / having to sustain construction through the  harvesting of trees.

 

It's balanced in the sense that the mechanic is so frivolous that I'm surprised people even use it instead of harvest doors with melee weapons, or something.

Edited August 1, 2016 by EnigmaGrey

[Zorak]

3 minutes ago, EnigmaGrey said:

Oh don't get me started on the stone axe . . .

 

Dear Spiffo, I hate it both for its ease of creation, poor durability, and its placement in the tech tree . . . Right up there with digging with hands (that almost always injures you, crippling you, being totally pointless) and somehow turning perfect planks from logs / having to sustain construction through the  harvesting of trees.

 

It's balanced in the sense that the mechanic is so frivolous that I'm surprised people even use it instead of harvest doors with melee weapons, or something.

Haha I know they are bad , I only use them when I have 1 or 2 melee weapons left, then they are good to choop 1-2 trees to get planks for baricading.

My point is even if we get a chance to smelt spoons into shivs/knifes, metal parts to axe head etc it still can be ballanced.

In the same way that stone axe didnt replace normal axe, the metalworking weapons/tools dont have to replace them.

 

 

Now something new,

After a bit of testing I dont see much use for metal walls. Dismantling items to get metal parts takes so long, it gives you just a little bit (compared what you need for single wall section) and I did some axe testhing - they dont seems to be that strong.

Wooden walls are way faster to build and just slightly weaker.

[pershgn]

 

No matter how hard you try to balance metalworking (or carpentry, or any other for that matter) you will have some people that level said skill in the easiest, but gamiest way possible. In no way am I saying that's somehow wrong, just pointing out that it is going to be a fact of life no matter how delicately the system is balanced. As far as metalworking goes I think I would be far more likely to mass produce nails than knives, which seem more genuinely useful than gamey. Although I do love my knives, and never seem to have enough.

 

Personally I think the lower levels of metalworking should be very simple objects (nails, tent pegs, what not), and repairs to some metal objects. The current repairs don't seem to repair very much and require me to collect that many more random things, I'd rather just collect more weapons. Being able to do a somewhat better repair, but nowhere near full, through metal working would be nice. It would be time consuming to do, and it would require its own resources (wood or coal for fuel). If repairs require just fuel or a small amount of scrap, and making new objects requires larger or heavier or more specific pieces of metal and more fuel and time, you will have people lean much more to repairing existing items to level than creating new, so you aren't left with people flooding the world with 100's of new knives.

 

At higher levels, and again with larger and more limited resources and more time producing more new items would be more reasonable, but you run into a slippery slope of what you can and can't make. Personally I would lean towards essential utilitarian items that are in limited supply without loot respawn; for weapons they should definitely be a more primitive, lower condition and damage version, maybe slightly increasing in condition as you get higher level, but still not matching a pre-apocalypse factory made version. I also don't think theres anything wrong with a skill being difficult to level, especially to master, as long as it isn't made to seem essential (like carpentry with water barrels). 

 

Is it 100% realistic to repair a screwdriver over whatever type of furnace with a piece of scrap metal, a hammer, and tongs? No, but is it in the same neighborhood as welding with a propane torch or sawing planks from logs by hand with a single saw, or using a sheet rope attached with a single nail 100's of times? I think so. The realism in the game is the big draw for me, but at the end of the day its a game and there are some concessions you make due to the fact that you cant program for the full spectrum of human creativity with trade skills like carpentry and metalworking. Project Zomboid is unbelievably fun, a real zombie apocalypse I have to imagine not-so-much, these little concessions are the difference (and the whole it not being real, but hey). 

 

 

@Zorak I thought the metal walls were a little weak as well. I feel like they should be costly in terms of resources and time to build, but the durability does seem low in comparison to the less costly wooden walls. On a related (but OT) note, would love to see log walls as multi stage, needing a shovel to dig, then place and tie logs, fill trench. Maybe require cement also. Yes, hauling logs is tedious, but the costs are really low for the strength of the wall.

 

@GOGOblin Love the little pot furnace, I imagine you would be able turn some other small metal object into a nail with that, with enough time.

 

 

 

 

[Keshash]

5 hours ago, GOGOblin said:

Full-sized smithing (a big furnace, charcoal pits) will be fine for "postapoc" societies. While small DIY furnaces are ok for some surviving enthusiast, who needs some proper arrow heads or details for a trap or I dunno what small things he wants.

After reading many threads about it, watching some videos, praising to The High Judge Spiffo and listening to heavy-metal for better inspiration, imho, this GOGOblin's suggestion is the best variant.

 

If you want to turn a spoon into an arrowhead, wasting the half of it in process - make DIY furnace.

If you want to forge something actually useful - gather up your metalworkers-friends and find a factory with a normal, industrial furnace.

 

BTW, I tried to search for a factory in Kentucky - and most of them are in Louisville. The biggest city in the state. I can imagine someone forging something, while fighting off hundreds of hungry zeds.

[Hydromancerx]

What is the new Crafting Category name exactly?

[Gaffa Tape Warrior]

There's no need to worry, Minecraft did not exist in 1993, so no survivor need fear being Minefrafty. I think it's good to have smelting as a separate skill because it makes sense.

[Millitron]

Smelting != metalworking.  I totally think it should be possible to forge things; reshaping and/or forge-welding things are both totally possible for someone to do by themselves, especially if they have access to salvaged equipment from modern society.  There's really not that much to it; heat up metal, hit with hammer.  Sure, there's quite a bit of subtlety when it comes to heat treating and tempering, but that's actually a good thing.  You could have the quality of the heat treatment scale based on your skill level.

I would even say smelting should be possible, though I'm not sure it's that useful.  We already have a huge amount of metal we can recycle, we don't need to smelt ores.

 

For reference, check out these links:

 

 

For metalworking and forging, check out Forged in Flames.  It's a reality TV show in which blacksmiths make swords.  Sometimes they even recycle modern items to make them; in one episode they used chain, in another they used a big ball-bearing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forged_in_Fire_(TV_series)

 

For smelting, check out the show Living in the Past.  It was a BBC show in which 12 people were dropped in an Iron Age era village and had to live as they would've back then.  They even did their own blacksmithing using ye olde methods.  This kinda disproves the whole argument that a modern person would be unable to do it because they wouldn't have the traditional knowledge.  These people only had a couple months of training in iron age life. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_in_the_Past_(TV_series)

 

For more smelting, check out Primitive Technology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVV4xeWBIxE