Goonhub
04-16-2015, 09:03 AM
..Hopefully keelin will take a gander at this...
I've gone and done a good bit of material research in my procrastination free time, and I've compiled a bunch of (hopefully) solid suggestions that will improve metallurgy and material science as a whole.
As most of ye know, material science has been in WIP for quite a while now, and it's rather a grey area with most people on what does what and if x stuff behaves like y. I've researched every material I could get my hands on (meaning gold and rare stuff like iridium and starstone is not included) and put it in this pastebin:
http://pastebin.com/zKHEmjNh
Some following things to take note, these are observations that I noted when researching it, which goes towards my following suggestions. I'm putting it in a spoiler to manage the amount of room on my post:
So what would be good way of approaching material science? What needs to be done when it gets done? Here's a bunch of suggestions from what I gathered while toying around with it:
1. Remove the Material Recombobulator entirely.
Too much shit has chemistry in it these days and material science has the potential to be unique rather than just being kuru shovels as it once was. I'd rather see more unique ores and smelting properties, than ores effected by chemical know-how. Chemistry should stay in chemistry, and metallurgy should stand out in its own right. Not only that, it would be easier this way, as the amount of chemicals and effects would require so much tweaking and balancing when combined with ores.
2. Fix quality prefix, make items matched with items on the station (technical babble incoming)
Currently smelting takes the average of stats. While this is good in some cases, it can be counter-intuitive in others. Read the paste-bin and you'll realize there's no real functional way of making a spacesuit, or replicating bomb suit armor or replicating a biosuit. The whole idea of metallurgy was that you could, after time, make your own armored spacesuit, but that's not an option with the variables that are currently. Quality prefix variables in ores should vary the desired quality of the ore.
For example, uqill which stands out with in toughness, should also stand out in sheer (explosive) strength. The range of this should vary between 70-100% toughness and 40-70% sheer strength, dependently entirely on the quality of the ore. That said there should be an ore with 100% sheer strength (better explosive resistance than industrial armor) but with shit stats that you'll have to balance out with the appropriate smelting ratios.
While, koshmarinite, that stands out reflectibilty (of laser projectiles) and tensile strength (bladed damage) should vary the same.
This way, you could smelt both ores, and continue smelting to get the right ratio for an armor that suits you. Currently it's somewhat like this, but the percentages are far too low, and there's no variation in them. An armor that you spent 20 minutes on should match if not be better than the standard sec armor.
3. More ores! New stats!
Some stats are ... meh. Some ores are .. meh. Viscirite and char just tends to clog up the ore satchel.
First off, make erebite drop. I don't know if the % rate of it dropping is very low, but after 2 hours of mining unless I was exceptionally unfortunate, I still dont see it.
Secondly make cytine come in various colors. See the post below to see why.
New ores could have funky new effects and add in stats in other ores.
ORE: Honetite [SPRITE PENDING] is a honeycomb ore that is has luminosity (no ores have luminosity, even though it's a stat). It's a precious ore that will sell well to the right trader (bzz), has stats similar to cytine, but is otherwise treasured for the fact that it glows. Other ores that could have luminosity are erebite and cerenkite, but honetite is more deserable for the fact that it is neither explosive nor radioactive. It will glow white, unless smelted with a different ore.
STAT: Acuteness. How sharp the ore is, or can become if manufactured.
STAT: Weight. Simply the weight of the ore. Could be used to balance out stuff, such as an armor which is significantly robust may also be quite heavy causing the player to walk slower.
STAT: Electrical Capacity. How much energy it can store. This has obvious effects.
ORE: Predesteel Chunk [SPRITE PENDING]. Material used by the forerunners, this silvery metal unnervingly floats. It is a rare ore drop. Its an anti-gravity material, having negative weight. Could be used to combat weight issues. If the weight stat is in negative, wearing negative weight armor will cause the player to float akin to a revenent, meaning the player can move quite fast.
STAT: Radiological protection. How much radioactiveness it protects. An armor with high tensile and this stat could resist a radbow to the chest. Armor with high radioactivity and this stat could walk around radiating everyone without repercussion to themselves.
4. Add in a new machine to replace the recombobulator: An electroplater [SPRITE PENDING]
The electroplater basically makes use of ores that gives a desirable look, but without the stats of an ore, and also you get more out of the desirable ore.
For example, adding in gold into the electroplater, and then dipping in uqill armor will create gold-plated uqill armor. The armor will have the properties of uqill, but be shiny like gold. With the above suggestion you can do this with cytine, making various different colored armors, or make a red cytine+gold+honetite smelted ore to make a shiny armor that glows red. The ore that is used to plate can get x amount of uses, meaning that you can make various plated objects from the one ore (a nod to real life electroplating)
I've gone and done a good bit of material research in my procrastination free time, and I've compiled a bunch of (hopefully) solid suggestions that will improve metallurgy and material science as a whole.
As most of ye know, material science has been in WIP for quite a while now, and it's rather a grey area with most people on what does what and if x stuff behaves like y. I've researched every material I could get my hands on (meaning gold and rare stuff like iridium and starstone is not included) and put it in this pastebin:
http://pastebin.com/zKHEmjNh
Some following things to take note, these are observations that I noted when researching it, which goes towards my following suggestions. I'm putting it in a spoiler to manage the amount of room on my post:
So what would be good way of approaching material science? What needs to be done when it gets done? Here's a bunch of suggestions from what I gathered while toying around with it:
1. Remove the Material Recombobulator entirely.
Too much shit has chemistry in it these days and material science has the potential to be unique rather than just being kuru shovels as it once was. I'd rather see more unique ores and smelting properties, than ores effected by chemical know-how. Chemistry should stay in chemistry, and metallurgy should stand out in its own right. Not only that, it would be easier this way, as the amount of chemicals and effects would require so much tweaking and balancing when combined with ores.
2. Fix quality prefix, make items matched with items on the station (technical babble incoming)
Currently smelting takes the average of stats. While this is good in some cases, it can be counter-intuitive in others. Read the paste-bin and you'll realize there's no real functional way of making a spacesuit, or replicating bomb suit armor or replicating a biosuit. The whole idea of metallurgy was that you could, after time, make your own armored spacesuit, but that's not an option with the variables that are currently. Quality prefix variables in ores should vary the desired quality of the ore.
For example, uqill which stands out with in toughness, should also stand out in sheer (explosive) strength. The range of this should vary between 70-100% toughness and 40-70% sheer strength, dependently entirely on the quality of the ore. That said there should be an ore with 100% sheer strength (better explosive resistance than industrial armor) but with shit stats that you'll have to balance out with the appropriate smelting ratios.
While, koshmarinite, that stands out reflectibilty (of laser projectiles) and tensile strength (bladed damage) should vary the same.
This way, you could smelt both ores, and continue smelting to get the right ratio for an armor that suits you. Currently it's somewhat like this, but the percentages are far too low, and there's no variation in them. An armor that you spent 20 minutes on should match if not be better than the standard sec armor.
3. More ores! New stats!
Some stats are ... meh. Some ores are .. meh. Viscirite and char just tends to clog up the ore satchel.
First off, make erebite drop. I don't know if the % rate of it dropping is very low, but after 2 hours of mining unless I was exceptionally unfortunate, I still dont see it.
Secondly make cytine come in various colors. See the post below to see why.
New ores could have funky new effects and add in stats in other ores.
ORE: Honetite [SPRITE PENDING] is a honeycomb ore that is has luminosity (no ores have luminosity, even though it's a stat). It's a precious ore that will sell well to the right trader (bzz), has stats similar to cytine, but is otherwise treasured for the fact that it glows. Other ores that could have luminosity are erebite and cerenkite, but honetite is more deserable for the fact that it is neither explosive nor radioactive. It will glow white, unless smelted with a different ore.
STAT: Acuteness. How sharp the ore is, or can become if manufactured.
STAT: Weight. Simply the weight of the ore. Could be used to balance out stuff, such as an armor which is significantly robust may also be quite heavy causing the player to walk slower.
STAT: Electrical Capacity. How much energy it can store. This has obvious effects.
ORE: Predesteel Chunk [SPRITE PENDING]. Material used by the forerunners, this silvery metal unnervingly floats. It is a rare ore drop. Its an anti-gravity material, having negative weight. Could be used to combat weight issues. If the weight stat is in negative, wearing negative weight armor will cause the player to float akin to a revenent, meaning the player can move quite fast.
STAT: Radiological protection. How much radioactiveness it protects. An armor with high tensile and this stat could resist a radbow to the chest. Armor with high radioactivity and this stat could walk around radiating everyone without repercussion to themselves.
4. Add in a new machine to replace the recombobulator: An electroplater [SPRITE PENDING]
The electroplater basically makes use of ores that gives a desirable look, but without the stats of an ore, and also you get more out of the desirable ore.
For example, adding in gold into the electroplater, and then dipping in uqill armor will create gold-plated uqill armor. The armor will have the properties of uqill, but be shiny like gold. With the above suggestion you can do this with cytine, making various different colored armors, or make a red cytine+gold+honetite smelted ore to make a shiny armor that glows red. The ore that is used to plate can get x amount of uses, meaning that you can make various plated objects from the one ore (a nod to real life electroplating)