Material science: The Effort post II

[Sundance]

I don't know how i missed this thread until now.

I agree with some of the stuff you mentioned.
Problem right now is that everyone wants the material stuff to conform to their vision of it.
I tried to make everyone happy for a while but it's not possible.
I, too, would also rather not tie chemistry into this. It's too much trouble unfortunately.

Ore quality was meant as a means to provide the overall quality for a resulting item - not the stats of the ore.
I do like the idea of having ore quality determine the stat ranges of the ore though. Will have to take a second look at that.
The ore stats in general are not even close to final. That is neither the values nor the range of different stats we have.

The recombobulator will probably continue to exist in the form of a pure research computer.

Anyhow, I'll see what i can do and i appreciate the feedback - i'm just not sure how to solve this all yet.

Edit: If you have links to other material related stuff you want me to read just drop the stuff in here.

hmm, well there's not really much else I can add that I haven't already said. My vision of material science is very open ended, I don't really have a vision as such other than I would like it to stand out to be a separate science not influenced by any other science. Some may argue that this is goes against cross-departmental research (something that should be encouraged) but it's more than I suppose i'm a bit tired of chemistry having a monopoly on stuff. I'd rather see material science effecting each department rather than each department effecting material science, if you catch my drift.
I think it would would stand out better this way, it would pave the way for more stuff in the workbench. What could help each department with improved metallurgy, and how? Higher capacity this, more resistant that, better strength this, etc.

Another ideal (but perhaps unrealistic?) approach would be to have all items on the station be made out of some material which can be scanned. That doesn't mean replace all existing items with stuff like "mauxite/steel fire extinguisher", having a material prefix on every item would be over the top. Leave items exactly the way they are. But items should be able to be scanned by a material scanner to spit out info on what the general stats of that item is. For example, a fire extinguisher would be made of mauxite (although it wont state this on the scan) but will state all the mauxite variables. Other scans may surprise a player. A scan of a jumpsuit would find it would have the same stats of cloth, but a scan of shoes would find that its stats are between rubber and cloth. A scan of an e-sword may spit some crazy results out.
But why?
Two reasons:
1. It'd be super interesting and add a new dimension to things
and
2. It'd act as a compass when people are making their own items through metallurgy and looming. For example you may have the appropriate materials for making a spacesuit, but you're not sure how and to what ratio. Scanning an existing spacesuit would tell you what variables would be good, and how you could make your spacesuit better (for example reducing the weight)