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Longsword


Konrad Knox

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I think that a very simple compromise can be made here...just have ONE sword in the game. The odds of finding a real sword in any given neighborhood in the real world is pretty low it seems, but it's possible to have one or two. Maybe have it placed in a house or perhaps somewhere notable (like a blacksmiths forge, something else that would be quite rare, I'd imagine). You shouldn't be able to make a sword because the odds of knowing how plus having the proper ingredients would be lower than finding a sword in the first place, but you could maintain it relatively easily. And once it's gone, it's gone. 

 

And a machete is what happens when you mix an ax's mass to a sword's blade length. Much more common than a sword.

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I think that a very simple compromise can be made here...just have ONE sword in the game. The odds of finding a real sword in any given neighborhood in the real world is pretty low it seems, but it's possible to have one or two. Maybe have it placed in a house or perhaps somewhere notable (like a blacksmiths forge, something else that would be quite rare, I'd imagine). You shouldn't be able to make a sword because the odds of knowing how plus having the proper ingredients would be lower than finding a sword in the first place, but you could maintain it relatively easily. And once it's gone, it's gone. 

 

And a machete is what happens when you mix an ax's mass to a sword's blade length. Much more common than a sword.

Just having one sword is a terrible idea, so much so that you probably would never find it, ever.

It wouldn't be worth the effort to design and implement it, just make the spawn chance around 05% - 10%

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Just having one sword is a terrible idea, so much so that you probably would never find it, ever.

 

It wouldn't be worth the effort to design and implement it, just make the spawn chance around 05% - 10%

 

One sword somewhere notable would be easy enough to find, I think. I see people reference places on maps here all the time. I may not know the maps yet, but plenty of other people do.

 

But I see you point about not being worth the time to develop if there's only one.

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That's a foil/saber/epee shop (and fencing instructor) :P Their weapons are typically blunted and so springy they're unlikely to penetrate bone.

*Coughs and looks at ground awkwardly* Ahem... I knew that... yeah... just testing you... A+... yeah... that's what happened... *Shuffles away slowly*

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If you cannot find a sword, you could make one?

Without the proper training and equipment, not a very good one.

 

Your message does not provide an explanation of why not.

Disclaimer: I am not a smith and have never made a sword.

There is quite a lot of quite pure steel available, and so I imagine you would be able to make a sword better than a Viking sword. There are some people who already have a basic knowledge of how to make a sword despite never having made one before, and if our average Joe doesn't happen to be one of those people, but one of those people who knows a lot about... um... nothing...... then he can find a book about it in a library, like a book on blacksmithing, or a book on sword-making, or a history book, or a copy of Encyclopædia Britiannica (or American equivalent). After that, practice makes perfect.

"But Gaffa Tape Warrior, you said that the steel was pure, but actually, steel is Iron with impurities."

"Yes, I meant steel with hardly any slag unlike primitive wrought iron."

 

I'd argue the "obscenely low" part. Without more advanced machinery, the only type of sword blade you could make would be a soft edge smithed around a hard core. While this would give you a large and durable bladed weapon, it would have to be re-tempered quite often, unless you wanted it to become more of a club...

That said, making a sword per se might not be the best solution, when we consider the fact that we have the logging company around. Indeed, the circular sawblades used in the wood industry are made of high quality alloy steel - beyond anything else you could find around a typical town... Why not use these ? :D

Could you not heat some suitable steel (like a crowbar even) and hammer it into a blade? Or even cut and grind a blade out of a larger piece of steel? Then you could end up with a blade of homogeneous steel. You could then temper it. You could look it up in a book, or experiment yourself until you find the tempre you want.

 

This forum's got quite a lot of non-expert and uninformed opinion, and so if anyone reading this is an actual smith or has made swords, then your true knowledge could help.

 

PS: I just thought of a problem - what if the average Joe's been playing computer games, like World of Warcraft? Then he might try to make a 20lb sword with a "blood groove" and a misshapen handle and a spiked crossguard. (I know that our Average Joe is meant to know basically nothing unless more than 99.999% of everyone else also knows it, but still)

 

 

Another PS:

"But Gaffa Tape Warrior, steel is not Iron with impurities, steel is Iron with controlled impurities."

"Avoided one misunderstanding and caused another. Yes, I know that already, but thank you for saying so just in case, and for saying so for anyone who does not already know."

"But Gaffa Tape Warrior, heating up steel only makes the carbon harder."

"What?"

Edited by Gaffa Tape Warrior
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Steel isn't iron with impurities. Steel is iron with very specific impurities (carbon, to be exact). It doesn't make for very high quality weapon material because of that. The carbon makes steel hard but rigid. Less malleable. Doesn't bend or give like regular iron. That makes it much more likely to shatter when under stress. Even more so if you try and shape it with a heat source (and good luck doing that without), as the extra heat would make the carbon even harder, reducing the ability to give even further and making it that much more likely to break when used.

 

Honestly, if we introduce metal working like that I'd rather just use the steel to make a crude spear head or knife blade and fix it to a wooden handle. Less resources wasted. Easier to make. And the end result would be just as effective if not even more so.

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Yeah I'm gunnna call 'bullshit' on there not being swords. I am a person completely disinterested in swords, and I know 3 people who have battle ready swords and amour. There are more then enough geeks in the world who partake in reenactments to have a few sword laying around in any decent sized town.

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There's a difference between prop replicas used for LARPing and real, combat ready swords capable of cracking open a skull or slicing through the vertebra of a neck. The vast vast vast majority of the swords you'd see in modern day America are the cheap knock off replicas made from low quality metals designed simply to look good or withstand mock play.

 

I myself own nine swords I've collected over the years and I wouldn't trust a single one of them in a real fight. Purely for decoration, they are. Anyone who tells you their's is the real deal is either a lying jackass or was willing to shell out hundreds or even thousands of dollars to have a custom one made right and proper. Making an actual, combat capable sword that won't break when put to use is a lot of work.

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You offer me a fork, spoon, frying pan and a LARP sword to take on zed, and I know which one I would pick.....

 

Also, crowbars break in the game, something that my 15 year old bar would never do, so I dont see any reason why a sword that can break is out of place.

 

Also, I just dont see why something like LARP swords wouldnt be in it also. A whole bunch of crappy replicas, and a chance, at a certain location, to find a real one. Would add some variance to the MP so that the people I see aren't always wielding that same weapons. Would be interesting to bump into that one guy who raided the antique weapons store and came out with some medieval armour and a real sword, instead of 'guy with pistol and fire axe'

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You offer me a fork, spoon, frying pan and a LARP sword to take on zed, and I know which one I would pick.....

I know which one I'd pick, too. None of the above. I'd rather just run for it or, if I really had to fight, just push the zed down and kick it in the neck with my steel toe boots until it couldn't move anymore. Unless it's one of those old cast iron frying pans. Those things are heavy as hell. I could see myself breaking a skull with one of them.

 

You're severely overestimating the durability of replica swords. I once broke one on a stick while testing to see how much punishment it could take. A regular old stick I found in the woods. The metal of the blade bent out of shape after fifteen minutes of testing, and that was just against sticks and branches. When I tried to bend it back into place with some tools it shattered. You'd get maybe one kill out of a replica sword before it got bent out of shape or cracked in half while breaking the zed's skull and that'd be it. Not worth picking up and carrying around. If anything I'd probably just smash them into pieces on purpose and shape the fragments into spear heads, arrow heads, and knife blades for use as a cheap tool. That's the only conceivable reason I'd think for having replica swords in the game. Except maybe for the relative glee I'd get from watching new players try to take on a zombie horde with their "Badass" Katana™ and dying horribly because of their shitty choice in weapon.

 

All that said, though, if there's one sword weapon I'd actually think should be allowed in the game, it would be a civil war era cavalry saber. Rather rare, but unlike all the other sword types it's the only one to have any sort of historical significance in America and thus could logically be found. I doubt they'd have the punch necessary to kill a zombie outright, but they'd definitely be more durable than a replica. Would be a good anti-survivor weapon if it came down to melee vs melee.

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This is all ignoring how utterly terrible slashing weapons are against zombies. There wouldn't be much point, because making a spear or blunt weapon is just... way more effective. Despite what the movies and TV shows tell you, getting a clean decapitation while slicing at a living, moving person is almost impossible unless you're wielding something giant and unwieldy like a headsman's axe or sword (incredibly heavy and extremely wide blades; basically don't exist anymore). You get your piece of crap sword stuck in a zombie's neck, and guess what? You're dead.

 

@Gaffa, that's not really how smithing works. I've known several smiths who made real battle-ready weapons (as I said previously, of the dozens of "smiths" that come to the rennaissance festival here (one of the biggest in the world) only the one group actually make battle ready weapons and they're exorbitantly expensive. You can't really just hammer a big chunk of steel into a sword shape. Even if you had something like a ball-peen hammer that's meant for shaping metals, steel is incredibly hard and it would just take months of consistent hammering to get even the ugliest of "swords". You also would have weakened the material in the process. Add to that, what do you do for the hilt? Having an awkward grip on a sword is a good way to end up losing grip of it- something very easy to do in the heat of combat with even the best made hilt. As far as heating goes... without power, it's virtually impossible to heat up steel enough to work with easily (and do it safely) with just random shit you find. It's not impossible by any means, but it's highly unlikely. We're talking consistent 1,000+ degrees Farenheit here. You'd also be surprised how uncommong books on sword smithing (or smithing in general) are. I lived in a big-ish town (about the size where it stops being a town and starts being a city) for years, with a college in it, and our public library had exactly zero books on smithing in it. I was extremely interested in smithing and swordwork as a young adult and was devastated by the lack of information (other than the internet, of course).

 

In general, I think it's best to remember this fact: Things are always harder than they seem. It's good advice across the whole suggestions forum; there are plenty of people interested in this kind of thing, but it's very, very hard to do and that's why so few people do them.

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Could you not heat some suitable steel (like a crowbar even) and hammer it into a blade? Or even cut and grind a blade out of a larger piece of steel? Then you could end up with a blade of homogeneous steel. You could then temper it. You could look it up in a book, or experiment yourself until you find the tempre you want.

Yes, you could, but the steel for common tools is ...not of the highest possible quality to say the very least. Even so, you would end up with a partially sharpened rod of metal - pretty much a blunt weapon rather than a sword. Breakage might not be that much of an issue, but deformation would be a major problem - the "rod" would get bent, twisted and distorted really fast.

 

Construction steel is marginally better, but it's still crappy and the quality alloy steel would be extremely hard to work without damaging it severely. Seriously, take those sawblades from McCoy and fashion them into polearms - these could be a really scary weapon with some thoght...

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Steel is iron with very specific impurities

Yes.

It doesn't make for very high quality weapon material because of that.

What?

The carbon makes steel hard but rigid. Less malleable. Doesn't bend or give like regular iron. That makes it much more likely to shatter when under stress. Even more so if you try and shape it with a heat source (and good luck doing that without), as the extra heat would make the carbon even harder, reducing the ability to give even further and making it that much more likely to break when used.

Does heating the iron up make it harder then? Doesn't it make it a lot easier to work with? Aren't steel swords better than non-steel iron swords? I've only seen videos of it and read of it, but here is what I think I know: Heating the metal up to a good red heat (I don't know what red) hot un-does any hammer-hardening and tempering previously done to it, and allows it to be shaped much more easily than cold metal. I don't believe you.

Honestly, if we introduce metal working like that I'd rather just use the steel to make a crude spear head or knife blade and fix it to a wooden handle. Less resources wasted. Easier to make. And the end result would be just as effective if not even more so.

That's a good idea, but I would not go around carrying it myself, because I would want to have my hands free. I'd use one for stabbing between the window-planks. I also wouldn't want to have to extract my weapon after each attack. A sword can be carried conveniently in a scabbard.

 

Could you not heat some suitable steel (like a crowbar even) and hammer it into a blade? Or even cut and grind a blade out of a larger piece of steel? Then you could end up with a blade of homogeneous steel. You could then temper it. You could look it up in a book, or experiment yourself until you find the tempre you want.

Yes, you could, but the steel for common tools is ...not of the highest possible quality to say the very least. Even so, you would end up with a partially sharpened rod of metal - pretty much a blunt weapon rather than a sword. Breakage might not be that much of an issue, but deformation would be a major problem - the "rod" would get bent, twisted and distorted really fast.

 

Construction steel is marginally better, but it's still crappy and the quality alloy steel would be extremely hard to work without damaging it severely. Seriously, take those sawblades from McCoy and fashion them into polearms - these could be a really scary weapon with some thoght...

 

That is something interesting about the steel of common tools being so soft, but that I do not believe you fully in your broad generalisation. As for the McCoy polearm idea, that is an excellent one! You could make some curved swords too to cut through zombie heads.

 

It's not letting me post my reply to Rathlord right now. It's saved on notepad for another day.

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You may not find longswords in Kentucky, but you'll probably find machetes in homes of survivalists or hunters. Katanas? The chances of finding a real one is extremely low, most of them are either plastic replicas or made of some other weak materials.

 

 

... if only there WAS a way to find longswords in Kentucky. :<

 

 

 

EDIT: If I wanted to die, I'd fight you in a duel(And probably get decapitated during the first 5 seconds). Seriously though, you look badass.


I've been bugging the devs for machete and hatchet for several years now, so hopefully we'll see them someday.

I was supposed to bug them about a Machete, but ever since I was bugging them to add cookies so I can be grandma(snort snort). I didn't take the risk to get my butt banhammer'd.

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Had a response typed out but the forum ate it and I don't feel like typing it all up again.

 

Short version: reheating the steel to work it into a blade hardens the carbon. This is bad, because harder is the opposite of better. Harder steel is brittle and more likely to fracture. This is basic chemistry. You find a source of steel and heat it up to shape it into a sword and it's gonna have the durability of a butter knife. You can't just take some steel, already premade for a specific purpose, and reheat it to shape it for some other purpose without doing severe damage to quality of the material. Taking it and making a sword out of it would not only be hard work, but the end result would be like blindfolding yourself and trying to hit a pinata inside of a glass factory. It's only a matter of time (sooner rather than later) before you hit something too hard, shattering the sword and cutting yourself on a multitude of flying shrapnel. It doesn't make sense to go to all of the effort for sub par results and high risk of personal injury when you'd get better results for less effort by simply using the steel for other weapon designs that require less metal.

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You offer me a fork, spoon, frying pan and a LARP sword to take on zed, and I know which one I would pick.....

I know which one I'd pick, too. None of the above. I'd rather just run for it or, if I really had to fight, just push the zed down and kick it in the neck with my steel toe boots until it couldn't move anymore. Unless it's one of those old cast iron frying pans. Those things are heavy as hell. I could see myself breaking a skull with one of them.

 

You're severely overestimating the durability of replica swords. I once broke one on a stick while testing to see how much punishment it could take. A regular old stick I found in the woods. The metal of the blade bent out of shape after fifteen minutes of testing, and that was just against sticks and branches. When I tried to bend it back into place with some tools it shattered. You'd get maybe one kill out of a replica sword before it got bent out of shape or cracked in half while breaking the zed's skull and that'd be it. Not worth picking up and carrying around. If anything I'd probably just smash them into pieces on purpose and shape the fragments into spear heads, arrow heads, and knife blades for use as a cheap tool. That's the only conceivable reason I'd think for having replica swords in the game. Except maybe for the relative glee I'd get from watching new players try to take on a zombie horde with their "Badass" Katana™ and dying horribly because of their shitty choice in weapon.

 

All that said, though, if there's one sword weapon I'd actually think should be allowed in the game, it would be a civil war era cavalry saber. Rather rare, but unlike all the other sword types it's the only one to have any sort of historical significance in America and thus could logically be found. I doubt they'd have the punch necessary to kill a zombie outright, but they'd definitely be more durable than a replica. Would be a good anti-survivor weapon if it came down to melee vs melee.

 

 

.... So I couldnt just poke zeds in the eye socket? Because its a 'sword' i have to weild it like one? Also, you instead of picking any weapon, even one with only a few uses, you would go unarmed? Seems like a surefire way to get bit. But the point I was making was that we can wield a fork, spoon or butter knife ingame, why not use a replica sword? I feel they would be more battle worthy then any of those items, with some additional reach.

 

And yeah, I know exactly how crappy the display models can be, but I was suggesting the LARP ones that are designed to actually be smashed onto other peoples armour. The one my mate owns only cost him a few hundred dollars, and I was able to wail that into his chest plate for a while without damaging it.

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Short version: reheating the steel to work it into a blade hardens the carbon.

And cooling it in a controlled manner can decrease or nullify this effect. Of course, if someone were trying to recreate a sheet of metal that was sword like, I'd hope they knew that already. More likely, most people only know of quenching metal in water. None of this dismisses your point that the result would likely be poor performing and unpredictable, for anything but a simple machete (appropriately thick sheet metal with an edge).

 

This is all ignoring how utterly terrible slashing weapons are against zombies.

Stick them with the pointy end.
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This is all ignoring how utterly terrible slashing weapons are against zombies. There wouldn't be much point, because making a spear or blunt weapon is just... way more effective. Despite what the movies and TV shows tell you, getting a clean decapitation while slicing at a living, moving person is almost impossible unless you're wielding something giant and unwieldy like a headsman's axe or sword (incredibly heavy and extremely wide blades; basically don't exist anymore). You get your piece of crap sword stuck in a zombie's neck, and guess what? You're dead.

I've read some historical accounts in a book called "Swordsmen of the British Empire" of heads being cut in two from the crown, and being cut deeply through the side of the head, and having the tops of their heads cut clean off, and even of one easterner with a very good talwar cutting off people's heads. If you like I can find some for you. Seeing as Konrad Knox studies historic medieval European martial arts, I expect he might be tempted to give more information.

You can't really just hammer a big chunk of steel into a sword shape. Even if you had something like a ball-peen hammer that's meant for shaping metals, steel is incredibly hard and it would just take months of consistent hammering to get even the ugliest of "swords". You also would have weakened the material in the process.

Are you talking about cold-working the steel? I was talking about working it hot.

Add to that, what do you do for the hilt? Having an awkward grip on a sword is a good way to end up losing grip of it- something very easy to do in the heat of combat with even the best made hilt.

Yeah, I did not think the hilt important enough to mention, just like I forgot to mention aprons and gloves and ear-protectors and food and water and scabbards and whetstones and WD-40.

As far as heating goes... without power, it's virtually impossible to heat up steel enough to work with easily (and do it safely) with just random shit you find. It's not impossible by any means, but it's highly unlikely. We're talking consistent 1,000+ degrees Farenheit here.

I've seen two clay ovens before, so "random shit you find" can be quite effective. I hope that if you found a book on it you would be able to make a furnace, but this speculation does not gauge exactly how long it would take. We have contradictory opinions, therefore one or both of us are wrong to some degree. I am now aware of a thread called "Smithing/metallurgy; shields; campfires" which is locked, and one called "Swords! Shields! Blacksmithing?" which is not locked. Perhaps that would be a good place to compile and compare knowledge and opinions. What it would take to make a forge and then make a sword.

You'd also be surprised how uncommong books on sword smithing (or smithing in general) are. I lived in a big-ish town (about the size where it stops being a town and starts being a city) for years, with a college in it, and our public library had exactly zero books on smithing in it. I was extremely interested in smithing and swordwork as a young adult and was devastated by the lack of information (other than the internet, of course).

I've been in a small library and seen a few books on metalurgy and one on shields. It seems libraries vary on what they contain. If only someone in Kentucky could visit every bookshelf in the real place and report on it...

 

 

 

Short version: reheating the steel to work it into a blade hardens the carbon.

And cooling it in a controlled manner can decrease or nullify this effect. Of course, if someone were trying to recreate a sheet of metal that was sword like, I'd hope they knew that already. More likely, most people only know of quenching metal in water. None of this dismisses your point that the result would likely be poor performing and unpredictable, for anything but a simple machete (appropriately thick sheet metal with an edge).

 

Is there some important aspect of metalworking I am unaware of? You can work it cold, and you'll hammer-harden it. Too much hammer-hardening can make it brittle, but some medieval helmets were hammer-harnened because the smith didn't know how to temper steel, or because the iron could not be tempered. You can anneal the iron, by heating it up and waiting for it to cool down. If it cools down slowly, the iron be soft.

You can otherwise quench it in water to make it cool down really quickly, and the hotter it is before you quench it, the harder it becomes. The metal is then very hard but also very brittle, and so you should anneal it from a cooler heat than you quenched it from to preserve some hardness while making it much less brittle. This is tempering.

You can also work it hot, which is quicker than working it cold and repeatedly annealing it, because when the metal is hot it deforms much more easily and quickly, and you do not need to stop to anneal, because it stays really hot, but you can't touch it with your hands.

Where does reheating steel hardening carbon fit into this? Hardening the "carbon"? I have absolutely no knowledge of this, and if it is true then please explain.

 

 

 

 

Before we had better steel, the wrought iron we had had more slag in it, and I believe modern steel has much less slag than viking-age swords, and if the Vikings could make swords out of lesser quality impure iron, then it should be possible to make better swords out of modern steel that has little slag and is more pure. In fact, there is even carbon steel available to us that we can temper, possible even some steel good enough to be the blade of a German longsword.

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