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Swords! Shields! Blacksmithing?


Forgotten-Six

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  • 1 month later...

Finding swords in the area is much more likely than people might think.

I happen to like the idea ..... so I did a little research.

 

There has been an active SCA group in the Muldrough area since the 1970s.

 

The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) is an international organization dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts and skills of pre-17th-century Europe. These are ordinary everyday people whose hobby of choice is putting on heavy armor and beating each other with rattan swords on the weekends. However a large number of them also own actual metal swords (of greatly differing quality). That's 40 years of hobbyists buying swords, crossbows, chainmail armor ... all sorts of stuff. Which means there are real people living in that community right now that own swords. It might even be in a box of grandpas stuff out in the barn that noone who lives there even knows exists. These people are also much more likely to know how to build a forge from items that are all already implemented in the game already (at least the base materials). Also extremely likely to have tought thier kids a wide range of 17th century skills from cooking to smithing and more.

 

We've already got cement bags, and an abundant supply of trees, nails, and sheets. It wouldn't be perfect, but I could build a forge and bellows out of that on my own. It wouldn't be too hard to fashion a crude windmill to pump the bellows for me.

 

I have several times built a tiny forge in the backyard out of a ceramic pot cemented into one of those giant holiday popcorn buckets and used an electric air mattress pump for air flow. This worked easily good enough to melt copper and lead, and softened steel enough to shape with a hammer.

 

People keep saying that this doesn't fit the theme of the game. I thought the game was about surviving any way you can with what you can find and build with your own two hands. I'm fairly positive that I could find people living in Muldraugh, KY right now that have built a small forge and made thier own machetes.

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Basically, think of this...



Now, you use that melted aluminum to cast arrowheads. That would be a very easy method of "blacksmithing" that literally anybody could do. Aluminum is crap for most everything, but aluminum arrowheads should, in theory, work well for a single use tip to be used against human flesh or decaying human flesh. Or make chunks of aluminum, and machine them into arrowheads, if you have the skill.
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Finding swords in the area is much more likely than people might think.

I happen to like the idea ..... so I did a little research.

 

There has been an active SCA group in the Muldrough area since the 1970s.

 

The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) is an international organization dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts and skills of pre-17th-century Europe. These are ordinary everyday people whose hobby of choice is putting on heavy armor and beating each other with rattan swords on the weekends. However a large number of them also own actual metal swords (of greatly differing quality). That's 40 years of hobbyists buying swords, crossbows, chainmail armor ... all sorts of stuff. Which means there are real people living in that community right now that own swords. It might even be in a box of grandpas stuff out in the barn that noone who lives there even knows exists. These people are also much more likely to know how to build a forge from items that are all already implemented in the game already (at least the base materials). Also extremely likely to have tought thier kids a wide range of 17th century skills from cooking to smithing and more.

 

We've already got cement bags, and an abundant supply of trees, nails, and sheets. It wouldn't be perfect, but I could build a forge and bellows out of that on my own. It wouldn't be too hard to fashion a crude windmill to pump the bellows for me.

 

I have several times built a tiny forge in the backyard out of a ceramic pot cemented into one of those giant holiday popcorn buckets and used an electric air mattress pump for air flow. This worked easily good enough to melt copper and lead, and softened steel enough to shape with a hammer.

 

People keep saying that this doesn't fit the theme of the game. I thought the game was about surviving any way you can with what you can find and build with your own two hands. I'm fairly positive that I could find people living in Muldraugh, KY right now that have built a small forge and made thier own machetes.

 

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with this.

 

I don't think that the fact that there is an 'active SCA group' does not mean that it's going to be easy finding combat ready weapons. I mean, active could mean 3-4 people in the whole area (or less!). The idea that there is a group of medieval hobbyists does not support the idea that knowledge of classical weaponry and blacksmithing is commonplace in the area.

 

As I said earlier in the thread, because of the nature of how we play games, all players will persue a skill if it exists in the game and gives them an advantage. This means on MP servers nearly every player will be an expert blacksmith, running around in a full suit of platemail and wielding a claymore... which, frankly, is just plain daft.

 

If it's something that only one in a thousand people (less, in this case) would have any knowledge of then there is no way it should be included as it'll break the realism the game is going for.

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Ok reading through this topic, honestly the idea of an actual armor/shields in a combat ready state is quite literally plain ridiculous, first of all as someone who knows an actual professional blacksmith who actively makes medieval weaponry, here is a summary, armor and shields on their own in a zombie apocalypse is nonsensical and here is why point by point.

 

Shields, as pointed out by many people unless we are talking about body tall (riot police) like shields, they would not do all that much, those suckers are heavy and impractical to use in any scenario if you are outnumbered and one on one situations aren't the issue at all, if you are alone against a horde or just a smaller group of zeds a shield will only serve as a way for the zeds to "tug" you in their direction, you are essentially becoming a bigger target for them without a clear benefit. Even smaller shields the size of a trash bin lid wouldn't do much your hands can't do already, simply pushing the deaders away from you.

 

Armor, now this is an actual faceplant of a magnitude that is off the scales, first of all, you are talking about making a full plate armor or a chain mail, the first issue with this idea in general is the sheer amount of material, a very SPECIFIC material you would have to find, you can't go and snatch trash cans to melt those down and make armor out of, you would need actual metal bars or something that is made of somewhat similar material, steel girders if you will, now I want to see you dragging those around, in order for it not to break the first time it takes a bash, now being a big fan of that era and its armor designs, even if you by some miracle happened to find those materials somewhere in a rural town, making a functional set of armor requires if anything YEARS of experience in the trade, now time we have a lot of in PZ, so we could say that "eventually" it could happen right? Well...even then, properly crafted and forged set of your shining armor if everything is done right weighs about 20-30 kilograms (40 - 60 pounds) restricts movement massively, obstructs your field of view (if you decide to wear a helm as well), is clunky and LOUD as hell and exhausts the wearer extremely fast and that is if its done by a professional, if it would be done by amateur I would imagine it would be even worse by miles. Chainmail might be less of a burden, but again making would be an absolute pain and unlike plate armor it would not protect your entire body and even then clock in about 13 - 15 kilograms of weight.

 

However, there are certain things that could be made by an amateur to be helpful, metal bracers and pads strapped to the body by leather, something to protect your arms or thighs from getting bitten while not obstructing your movement all that much, now that's as much of an armor you would be able to make (after some time and with materials you can find and with makeshift equipment) in a zombie apocalypse while still being practical enough to be worthwhile.

 

Now weapons I feel like people are critical more than they would have to be, now making an actual sword of course requires a lot of quality metal, a lot of experience and a lot of equipment to make it in the first place. If smithing was to be a skill in the game or "metalworking" rather would be more fitting, early on I would imagine you being able to scrap knives and other small metallic objects into material to use in your own metalwork(probably) and be able to make somewhat the same things, small improvised blade weapons with not a lot of durability probably good enough to "shank" a few zombies stealthily before breaking. Higher up above that would be homemade machetes which are not all that difficult to rig up after all it could be roughly hammered sheet of metal sharpened on one end stuck to a wooden handle held together by glue and some tape, not all that difficult, but not all that durable and practical either. Now all the people want to hear...

 

Could you make an actual sword...first of, there is a bump(there always is isn't it) you need a lot more than just a forge and a stone to hammer the metal on, you would need a small smithy to make the proper steps through and through, forge we can agree is possible and high temp forge might not be needed in the end, you need some kind of a flat surface to hammer and shape the metal on otherwise you are not getting your blade to be balanced properly, so some kind of an anvil (maybe adding it as a "furniture" with a requirement of being skilled in metalwork would work) if you manage to find enough material and a way to mold into proper shape, so we can scratch that, next you need a way to properly sharpen it, sharpening stone unfortunately isn't going to cut this one, you would need a grinder belt to work on, if we are talking places where to find and rig it ...west points factory-like building would probably work and that bastard is going to need power.

 

Now if you manage to get the facilities proper making the actual real sword wouldn't be as difficult if you know what you are doing, given it would be a bit crooked in places probably the first few times you make it, but it would be a weapon worth using, now, would it be good against zombers? Answer against a lot of people's opinion is ...YES it would...Why? A lot of people say it would probably get stuck in someone's guts pretty easily, now here is where that's not true, swords have a bloodcurve or also known as fuller which is an empty space in the middle of the blade which is used to lighten the sword and somewhat allow you to pull the blade out of something (or someone) without ridiculous effort + you WILL NOT be STABBING the zombies rather you will be cutting their heads or other body parts off which is as long as you can use your body weight to swing the blade pretty damn easy...as far as weight is a concern, people... a regular sized sword (we are talking about 40-50 inch/1 - 1.2 metres) weighs less than 4 pounds on average and 2-handers don't go much higher than that either so don't give me the whole "you couldn't lift/swing the thing" bollocks, in comparison, the fireaxe we are all so fond of swinging about weighs around 6 pounds, so in a way if you dedicated the time a well crafted sword might be feasible to make in due time and also be more practical/faster weapon than an actual axe(which is all the more likely to get stuck in someone's brain anyway)

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So *if* you find a supply of high quality metal, *and* a forge, *and* an anvil, *and* a grinder belt, *and* (most importantly) to "know what you are doing".

I mean, how long would it take for the 'average joe' to learn how do that, given thay they'd have to be completely self taught.

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Well, we could forgive a bit of realism for the sake of gameplay, BUT not too much, so lets say your character would be a genius and pretty much be able to MacGyver around anything (which is pretty much the case anyway), so let's assume you can learn the ropes from books, forge could be improvised I mean if we would be really forgiving something such as pilled up rocks held together by concrete with a space in the middle, could probably hold enough heat for you to be able to heat up/melt down metal items (knives, nails that kind of thing) and for the basic items/XP grinding you could use something smaller instead of an actual anvil (flattened/grinded stone), it would probably be enough for you to finagle your basic metal items (knives, machetes, arrowheads etc.), then you could have molds or hell make your own mold for an improvised anvil if you are good enough of a carpenter.

Problem I'm trying to point at isn't probably making the facilities, even the grinder belt could probably be rigged up on some sort of a makeshift structure powered by mobile source of electricity(gas powered generators, car batteries once/if they are in the game...), but really just the obscene lack of proper material you would require for it, since again, trash bins/cans and such would be a no go.

And hey it would probably be somewhat of a "late" game thing to worry about over something you can rig up on the fly...so nobody can't really complain about it taking a long time and we are in zombie apocalypse after all, nobody said it would be easy.

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But armor and shield are too much for me. If you really want to be armored, why not implementing sport protection or riot gears?

 

Now here is an idea, riot gear/police equipment for protection, in west point there is a police station after all with a locker room and an armory in the back of it...you could use that as a means of protection and still compromise on the idea of smithing by being able to make improvised bladed weapons in your backyard.

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