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What happened to metalworking?


Moss7

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I was looking at metalworking recipes in PZ wiki and couldn't believe my eyes on how uninteresting metalworking is right now. There are 4 recipe magazines and if you're lucky enough you can build a few things that I hardly consider as an added value compared to carpentry.

 

What happened to homemade furnaces and anvils? I thought that this new skill would allow you to craft crucial stuff like nails or bullets or tools or improvised weapons. It had so much potential ! Now what's the point of having metal containers that look nice or armored windows given all the effort necessary to develop this skill. I read around the forum that devs didn't consider metalworking as an outlandish skill in a post-apocalyptic setting and I agree. If a survivor is willing to sit down an learn about electricity then why not metalworking?

 

The way I see it right now is it's a useless skill. I remember when the build on professions was released with the xp modifiers that forced you to keep to a few skills. Well, having a farmer or a forager or a carpenter or an electrician in a group is very useful but who cares about a metalworker?

 

To people who say it would be like Minecraft and all the other survival games I want to say it's already like Minecraft and all the other crafting/survival/sandbox/no plot/no npc games (I'm not criticising of course). and to people who say it would make the game unrealistic I want to say : how realistic is it to be able to build a wooden castle from scratch and by your lonesome after a few in-game months ? or to carry a fridge around in a couple of hiking bags ? (again, not criticising. love the game) It's just a game and it's supposed to be fun it can only be so realistic. being able to smelt a few ingots to forge them into an improvised crowbar or a reinforced baseball bat is not like building an orbital death ray.

Edited by Moss7
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    Differing opinions as to what metalworking should be lead to a toned down version being released, rather than putting it off any longer. It'll be reviewed at some point in the future.

   

    Personally, I dislike the concept of MineCraft-like forging in PZ. The concept of forging ingots seems unnecessary in a world with readily workable metal in appropriate shapes, just as it's odd that lumber has to somehow be sawn from logs rather than harvested from buildings or split with axe and wedge.

   

    As PZ's setting is modern day,  it should reflect this in the crafting systems. Inconsistencies in the current presentation (such as being able to move a fridge with the added capacity supplied by hiking bags) don't justify further deviation from this.

 

Edited by Butter Bot
Toned it down.
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Whatever people thk about Metalworking, it actually need a bit of love. The "nerf" applied on release make the skill a pale copy of Carpentry... Adding something to the game could (at least) need to be of some use, i guess ?

 

FACTS

Carpentry and Metalworking offers the same kind of structures to be made (walls, containers, barricades)

 

But...

 

1) Carpentry offers also some usefull furnitures (composter, rain collectors and stairs). Metalworking lacks that kind of things.

 

So, it could be useful (imo, "necessary") to add the metal variants of these IG OR to give some specifics things to Metalworking to balance the skill (i won't debate about what these things could, would or need to be).

 

2) Even if Metalworking offers the same opportunities as Carpentry (not the case atm), Carpentry still would be better... Why ?

 

Metalworking as level requirement for making items AND receipes knowledge requirements...

 

Carpentry as only lvl requirement... Any character of the game knows everything of Carpentry... This is a severe balance issue imo.

 

To be fair, Carpentry need to have the same requirement on recipes. You takes Carpenter as profession on start and get them, or you need to wander around to found magazines to learn them (for ex. ; The carpenter Mag vol. 1 :  Make Wood Walls/Windows (frame and proper wall/window), Door (including frame), Roof, stairs /  The carpenter Mag vol. 2 :  Make Wood Containers (all of them) / The carpenter Mag vol. 3 :  Make wood Fences / The carpenter Mag vol. 4 : Make Wood "utilities" : Bed, Rain Collector, Composter). You still don't need any skill lvl for barricading.

Edited by agreubill
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I"m pretty sure they are adding the smithing aspect into the game, ive seen all the artwork thats in the games code and there is home made smithing forges, and anvils, also in the scripts theres recipes for melting down metal into workable iron ( which is called "Iron ingot" in the scripts and you can make nails, pots, ect. So don't worry it is coming. Ive even seen the magizines that teach you smithing recipies (not in the game just in the coding, although they could be in-game for all i know).

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6 hours ago, Butter Bot said:

    Differing opinions as to what metalworking should be lead to a toned down version being released, rather than putting it off any longer. It'll be reviewed at some point in the future.

   

    Personally, I dislike the concept of MineCraft-like forging in PZ. The concept of forging ingots seems unnecessary in a world with readily workable metal in appropriate shapes, just as it's odd that lumber has to somehow be sawn from logs rather than harvested from buildings or split with axe and wedge.

   

    As PZ's setting is modern day,  it should reflect this in the crafting systems. Inconsistencies in the current presentation (such as being able to move a fridge with the added capacity supplied by hiking bags) don't justify further deviation from this.

 

I think your problem here is more about the way resources are gathered. I understand why you deem it pointless to cut down a tree or smelt ore to get what you need to craft. After all it's not as easy as people think to cut down said tree or to smelt ore, but it doesn't seem so far fetched to learn about those skills and then do it.

4 hours ago, agreubill said:

Whatever people thk about Metalworking, it actually need a bit of love. The "nerf" applied on release make the skill a pale copy of Carpentry... Adding something to the game could (at least) need to be of some use, i guess ?

 

FACTS

Carpentry and Metalworking offers the same kind of structures to be made (walls, containers, barricades)

 

But...

 

1) Carpentry offers also some usefull furnitures (composter, rain collectors and stairs). Metalworking lacks that kind of things.

 

So, it could be useful (imo, "necessary") to add the metal variants of these IG OR to give some specifics things to Metalworking to balance the skill (i won't debate about what these things could, would or need to be).

 

2) Even if Metalworking offers the same opportunities as Carpentry (not the case atm), Carpentry still would be better... Why ?

 

Metalworking as level requirement for making items AND receipes knowledge requirements...

 

Carpentry as only lvl requirement... Any character of the game knows everything of Carpentry... This is a severe balance issue imo.

 

To be fair, Carpentry need to have the same requirement on recipes. You takes Carpenter as profession on start and get them, or you need to wander around to found magazines to learn them (for ex. ; The carpenter Mag vol. 1 :  Make Wood Walls/Windows (frame and proper wall/window), Door (including frame), Roof, stairs /  The carpenter Mag vol. 2 :  Make Wood Containers (all of them) / The carpenter Mag vol. 3 :  Make wood Fences / The carpenter Mag vol. 4 : Make Wood "utilities" : Bed, Rain Collector, Composter). You still don't need any skill lvl for barricading.

I completely agree. Metalworking definitely needs more love.

2 hours ago, Man_In_The_Purple_Hat said:

I"m pretty sure they are adding the smithing aspect into the game, ive seen all the artwork thats in the games code and there is home made smithing forges, and anvils, also in the scripts theres recipes for melting down metal into workable iron ( which is called "Iron ingot" in the scripts and you can make nails, pots, ect. So don't worry it is coming. Ive even seen the magizines that teach you smithing recipies (not in the game just in the coding, although they could be in-game for all i know).

I'm not so sure. At some point I remember that there would be talk with the devs about how extensive metalworking should be and I fear that skepticists made them decide to tone down metalworking to the bare minimum. So what I'm saying is perhaps they put all that stuff in the code but aren't willing to go further with metalworking after all. I sincerely wish that you're right and they will add all that new stuff in the game. As for the magazines, they are already in the game but they don't teach you any interesting stuff other than walls, a few containers...

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37 minutes ago, Moss7 said:

I think your problem here is more about the way resources are gathered. I understand why you deem it pointless to cut down a tree or smelt ore to get what you need to craft. After all it's not as easy as people think to cut down said tree or to smelt ore, but it doesn't seem so far fetched to learn about those skills and then do it.

 

Smelting ore into meta shouldn't even on the table when purer or stronger metals exist ready-made. There's no need to have it at all. Further, any  hobby smelting I've seen has been limited to trinkets made out of aluminium -- other than arrow heads, what's the point? The only other thing that'd have any value would be brass bullet components but, those tend to require precise machining that I doubt anyone could achieve at home, particularly not primers.  Nails aren't made this way, incidentally -- you'd be better off just cutting cleats from metal sheet.

 

Good luck learning to forge metals on any level greater than trinkets or small items. Why you'd even want to in a modern setting with plentiful sources of metal is beyond me.

 

Smithing existing metal into some basic things is reasonable, though. The system should encourage the recycling of modern items into other items. How you'd do that with self-help and hobby-oriented books due to the non-hesitance of the Internet would be interesting to see.

 

I have no problem with cutting down a tree -- it's the requirement to do it in in a world of timber-frame buildings and lumber yards that irks me. It's the dressing of the resulting log with an impractical tool that bothers me when it should be an axe and wedges.   I doubt traditional handsaws for ripping logs would be remotely common. It should also require wedges. A chainsaw would make more sense considering the year the game is set in, though, and familiar to most.

 

Project Zomboid shouldn't be aiming for iron age survival. It should be aiming for picking the bones of the late 20th century.  It doesn't need to do what Minecraft does or what various mods do.

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I'm just gonna say it.

 

Metalworking, in it's current implementation, is borderline useless and hardly worth it to learn beyond the minimum to barricade windows with metal. That's the only thing you can make with it that is remotely worth the materials.

 

The profession tied to it is also not worth the points hands-down.

 

My suggestions to make people bat an eye towards it:

 

Add a -4 positive trait that adds 1 dot and +75% boost to the metalworking XP tree. I suggest this because a lot of tradespeople can weld, not just people who solely weld and nothing else. So it would make sense that it is a side-skill.

 

Add some other kind of bonus other than recipes to the metalworker profession. Carpentry would be appropriate as would both kinds of melee maintenance skills.

 

My next suggestion is to have the metal walls significantly tougher than the wooden ones, and higher level walls should look nicer. There is only two levels of wall, even at level 10 in metalworking everything is still totally misshapen other than the containers. No, I get why it's multi-colored, but come on, you can weld things better than that... I'm talking in terms of everything being flat and straight. Yes, I get what it should look like. But I'm talking about high levels. This means the ultimate welder. It shouldn't look like the things I made my high school welding class. This applies double for the metal pipe fences. I'm not saying change the texture entirely, but at high levels the poles should at least be straight.

 

Nerfing carpentry also should not be the solution, the idea is that a higher level of carpenter could figure out how to make the simple things. The rain barrel, yeah it would make sense to lock that behind recipe knowledge, just not the rest.

 

It should never be about making Project Zomboid like Minecraft, there are just various things that can make this kind of skill more than just a novelty. It is super inconvinient to try and build any kind of perimeter wall with metalworking as-is.

 

 

Edited by Kim Jong Un
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9 hours ago, Butter Bot said:

    Differing opinions as to what metalworking should be lead to a toned down version being released, rather than putting it off any longer. It'll be reviewed at some point in the future.

   

    Personally, I dislike the concept of MineCraft-like forging in PZ. The concept of forging ingots seems unnecessary in a world with readily workable metal in appropriate shapes, just as it's odd that lumber has to somehow be sawn from logs rather than harvested from buildings or split with axe and wedge.

   

    As PZ's setting is modern day,  it should reflect this in the crafting systems. Inconsistencies in the current presentation (such as being able to move a fridge with the added capacity supplied by hiking bags) don't justify further deviation from this.

 

 

I am with Butter Bot mostly with this.. for me "metalworking" is not about smelting and smithing but "welding", "mill-cutting", "riveting" etc  - if you look what a "metalworker" is doing it is not smelting today but welding some peices together etc.

 

so harvesting already existing components from structures, items etc should be the key to create "new" stuff..

 

for me "metalworking" would make a lot more sense if it would be combined with carpentry.. like you need X level carpentry and y leven metallworking to do item Z.

 

Smelting small bunches of metall for moulding small items like nails or bullet shells should be possible but not the primäry gool of the skill

 

smelting ore like in hydrocraft shouldn't be the way as this game is more about scavaging and not "create new from the beginning" at least in my opinion. So harvesting/scavaging materials inkluding metal in various forms (plates, tubes, rods, bars etc) should be the way to go - and the welding machine the item to work with

 

Problem: it will be much more difficult to include all the items for scavaging/harvesting than just "smelt ore --> build XY" but one can hope :)

 

atm the skill will not do very much indead... but time will show the potential of the skill - which is not in smelting/smithing imo

 

EDIT: I am not concered about metalworking as a skill.. more about the medicin one... were I am not sure it will/can go to

Edited by King-Salomon
medical concern
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I think you guys missed it, but metalcraft isn't in its final or near final form yet. They left a lot of things out that they intended to put in it. If you don't find the skill useful atm, I say give it a build or two and it'll catch up to standards.

Also if you're really interested in metal (rubber/glass/bunch of other making of things), I highly suggest the Hydrocraft mod. It's a ton of fun.*

 

*I don't normally play with mods or promote them, but this mod is worth it imo and adds a lot to the game after you've created your impenetrable farm castle and maxed your blade skill on single player.

 

Edited by Demonic_Kat
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I hope you're right about them adding the real stuff later. I don't really think it's a great idea to release features progressively but rather they should realease most of it and then tune it up but that's another topic I guess.

 

I have to say I'm glad that most people here agree with metalworking being very poor right now.

 

For my part I'm a big fan of the game and I read every mondoid that comes out so when there was talk of including metalworking in the game I got so worked up that I started collecting everything metal (wedding rings, lockets, utensils, broken butter knives, and basically every junk item made of metal) hoping that those useless items would be useful for smelting and creating iron bats and tools and whatnots so I got really excited when it finally came out but the result was very much anticlimactic to say the least.

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On 13/01/2017 at 8:24 PM, Kim Jong Un said:

Add a -4 positive trait that adds 1 dot and +75% boost to the metalworking XP tree. I suggest this because a lot of tradespeople can weld, not just people who solely weld and nothing else. So it would make sense that it is a side-skill.

 

Add some other kind of bonus other than recipes to the metalworker profession. Carpentry would be appropriate as would both kinds of melee maintenance skills.

 

My next suggestion is to have the metal walls significantly tougher than the wooden ones, and higher level walls should look nicer. There is only two levels of wall, even at level 10 in metalworking everything is still totally misshapen other than the containers.

 

I support your 2 first ideas, that's seems only fair. On the 3rd point, i was thinking that metal walls are alrdy stronger than their wooden counterparts at same lvl. I'm dispointed that there's only 2 lvl of metal wall ; sure thing it needs a third one added.

 

On 13/01/2017 at 8:24 PM, Kim Jong Un said:

Nerfing carpentry also should not be the solution, the idea is that a higher level of carpenter could figure out how to make the simple things. The rain barrel, yeah it would make sense to lock that behind recipe knowledge, just not the rest.

 

Well, others skills works that way now (skill lvl and recipes knowledge required). As long as some skills get a different (older) way (and easier access to recipes), they still would be superior. So at some point, you have to "harmonise"...

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17 hours ago, agreubill said:

Well, others skills works that way now (skill lvl and recipes knowledge required). As long as some skills get a different (older) way (and easier access to recipes), they still would be superior. So at some point, you have to "harmonise"...

 

The difference is that once you understand that you can nail pieces of wood together, you can piece together how you would build a table, chair, etc.

 

It's not like welding a crate or container with multiple moving parts or making a wire fence, since those are more complex than a table, crate, fence...

 

To be fair, the game makes the point that your first inexperienced attempts will result in total garbage. So it should be different than welding.

Edited by Kim Jong Un
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6 hours ago, Kim Jong Un said:

The difference is that once you understand that you can nail pieces of wood together, you can piece together how you would build a table, chair, etc.

 

It's not like welding a crate or container with multiple moving parts or making a wire fence, since those are more complex than a table, crate, fence...

I'm not following you entirely on these points.

 

I agree about the "moving parts" thing, but it's also true for Carpentry then (but ok, there's no recipes (from memory) that use something like that). Making table or chair with metal need to weld some metal parts together ; that can't be harder than using nails. I'm not sure it's easier to actually create a wood wall than a metal alternate. 

 

Anyway, i just want to highlight that as long a skill would be (far far far) easier to use (aka ; no recipes required to be find for anything) than the other (which you actually need to find a recipes to do even the little thing...), it will be superior (and prefered). It's more a game balance design than any actual debate about what is easier to use IRL to make furnitures or structures.

 

Maybe a good path is (as you suggested for rain barrel), to have some recipes "free" to everyone (in both skills) and some specific tied to profession choice/reviews. But i honestly think that roof/wall/windows and some basic containers in metal must be opened to all. 

 

PS: At least, Metalworking is fine to fuel your engineer with pipes for bombs !

 

Edited by agreubill
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Sorry Enigma but I dont buy "its not realistic" when we talk about metalworking.

PZ have a way more unrealistic things in than this. How in 1993 anyone would be able to choop a tree with stone and branch just to point one.

 

The big problem of PZ profession system is that a lot of them are usless. Why would anyone pick fisherman, farmer or chief if the benefits you get are close to none.

When RJ added compost I hoped that farmer will be interesting pick, but it requires carpentry skill only.

Jars and lids were introduced, oh cool its good to be chief now ! Wrong, everyone can use that and before you find all that jars lids etc your bags will be full of canned food.

 

Now we have metalworking that is a poor version of carpentry. But you have less options for building and mats are way harder to get.

 

I love PZ but it hurts when i see that devs are spending time on implementing those things that most of us never use. There are some balance problems with current skill system.

 

 

 

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The answer to "there's something that's not realistic / doesn't fit" isn't "let's add even more . . . "

 

Most professions for SP aren't useful. So what? How's that relevant to poor design in metal working and subsequent cuts (some of which shouldn't have been cut, like fire barrels)?

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A real quick and easy way to improve the metal work stuff would be to actually make it stronger than carpentry stuff. I did a load of tests, and in its current state its the same stats for a wooden walls/crate vs the metal ones.

 

Currently the whole thing is very lacklustre, but I'm sure we will see it tweaked in future versions.

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1 minute ago, Butter Bot said:

Yeah, it's definitely not finished right now.  Sorry, I realize I was being a bit of a dick in my last post -- of course it matters.

No problem

But from a selling point etc. In The walking Dead universe after 3-4y groups use blacksmithing, forges etc. For many customers it can be "just like in TWD"

I agree that building forge from day1 is a bit silly but perhapse lvl 7-10 to start is a good way for some end game stuff

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3 minutes ago, Hicks said:

A real quick and easy way to improve the metal work stuff would be to actually make it stronger than carpentry stuff. I did a load of tests, and in its current state its the same stats for a wooden walls/crate vs the metal ones.

 

Currently the whole thing is very lacklustre, but I'm sure we will see it tweaked in future versions.

A fire resistance could be a great addition and increase hp by 5-8 times.

 

Imo the problem is how much effort you need to build 1 metal wall compare to 1 log wall.

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21 hours ago, Zorak said:

A fire resistance could be a great addition and increase hp by 5-8 times.

 

Imo the problem is how much effort you need to build 1 metal wall compare to 1 log wall.

 

Two aspects i agree and support. 

 

Which player (except from RP perspectives once again) want to use Metalworking over Carpentry, when you have

a) to find recipes to build a wall ;

b) to collect metal (that's more painful to get than chopping 2 trees)...

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