Do you think Steel ore should be Iron ore instead?

Started by Vas, February 08, 2015, 02:07:50 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Would you rather the game use the realism of iron ore, or the questionable steel ore?

Iron Ore
Steel Ore

Toggle

Honestly this topic is a year old. Just let it die. 54 people voted yes, a pretty small amount of the community.
Selling broken colonist souls for two thousand gold. Accepting cash or credit.

Vas

Yes, I started the topic.  And 67.5% of the people who voted, voted Yes.  It's only recently that more people are voting no, because all of you come here saying "No steel's fine, screw realism." prior to all you neighsayers coming here to take down my topic, the vote was closer to 75% yes.  And now that it's being talked about, again, I'm not gonna let it drop.  I have tons of suggestions that get ignored because everyone wants to suggest their own thing and even though everyone likes to post 5 word suggestions "I want this thing in game" and is done, I try to balance my idea, explain it in a detailed way, and I make alterations when people point out a flaw.  I do my best to make sure I'm not one of those people who goes "I want z-levels, hover cars, tanks, dragons, etc".
Click to see my steam. I'm a lazy modder who takes long breaks and everyone seems to hate.

skullywag

#77
And thats totally fine but us neighsayers have a voice too and i also try to explain why i dont want iron ore. If the person voting no, agrees with one of our opinions is that wrong? They may have just not seen the post until now or are new to the forums, is any vote on this not valuable. All you need to know is that its not a unanimous outcome. So therefore the decision as it did anyway stays with Tynan to make.
Skullywag modded to death.
I'd never met an iterator I liked....until Zhentar saved me.
Why Unity5, WHY do you forsake me?

Vas

I'm not saying it's not valuable but suddenly a lot of people start voting neigh, it's as if the neighsayers link the topic to people who will specifically vote no.  And you can't say "Vote fails to pass because only 80 have voted".  Obviously there are more people than that who own the game, even if 10,000 own the game, if only 80 participate in the community, then that is the community's decision and the other 10k should have voted if they wanted a say in it.  Not voting, means you don't care what happens therefor the popular vote wins.  It's the same way when voting in a president.  If you don't vote, you let whoever has the most votes win.  (Which this year it seems it's going to be Adolf Trump)

You explain you don't want Iron Ore, because that wouldn't make sense to use with omni tools that can cut through Steel like butter and bring it back from an oxidized rust dust state when it spawns inside rock in an ore like manner.  Right?  Explain how that, what I just said, makes more sense than Iron Ore and an Omni Tool "refining" it as it mines?  Extracting all the stone from it so it's pure iron.

Keep in mind, even if you were mining undamaged, unoxidized, unrusted Steel, your omni tool would have to be much much stronger to mine it than it would be for Iron.  And in both cases you still need to melt it down in order to re-shape it only one requires a much much higher melting temp.  Both are going to require moldings to shape them and harden in the shape you want.  One will take longer than the other to cool down cause it's so hot.  You'd still need to drill holes into it and stuff for screws to hold the frame work together, of course it'll be more difficult on one of them being a much stronger metal.

The request, is to simply rename Steel, to Iron, and treat it as an ore.  We don't actually need to add new steps.  We can use our imaginations to pretend we are smelting it before we use it.  And mods can add a smelter building if they want to add the extra step.  As it stands, Steel is illogical, impossible, and makes it so no mod can replace it the PROPER way.  I made a mod that changed it once, using only the name thing, it was horrible.  I gave up and abandon the project.  The core game must be altered, and then all mods in the world will be incompatible.  Unless of course I add a new steel, then all mods that add stuff will cost a Tier 2 resource.  But anyway.

Iron Ore can be found in rock.  Compacted Steel (Steel ORE based on how it spawns) can not, not would the remnants of a steel building exist a thousand years later.  It'd be a pile of dust, that blew away in the wind, or you'd find an empty pocket of rusty old dust in the mountain you just dug into.  Or you'd dig into a pocket of rusty old dust with disintegrated plastic (plasteel).  But you can always find Iron Ore.

Imagine if all you could find in the game was the strongest substance, Plasteel.  Now how would you make a mod to replace that and go down to the lowest tier if everything assumes highest tier?  You'll require less plasteel to make something than Iron, so all mods would be requesting a different volume than they should for the resource you are replacing with.  So you replace Plasteel with Iron in the names area but not the code part.  Now the game thinks that Def Plasteel is called Iron.  Instead of your bed costing 6 Iron like it should, it costs 1 Iron, because it was 1 Plasteel before.  And don't say "so change that", think about he other mods using that same method that people are about to use with your mod.  It's a complete disaster for modding for realism.  I think I was happier when it was just called Metal, at least back then I could assume Iron.  Now it makes even less sense than ever.

If Tynan wants us to find remnants of past civilizations, he should put remnants of buildings, not stick steel ore and plasteel ore in a mountain.  I disabled the stone remnant buildings in my map generator because it's kinda ugly to have all over the map.  The past civilization obviously used stone buildings and not Steel according to this map generator.  On top of that I'm pretty sure the civilization didn't build buildings in the shape of ore pockets while building stone buildings in the shape of normal buildings.  It's a cluster of DOES NOT COMPUTE, Bender's head would explode if he tried to understand he game logic where the physics literally makes no sense at all.  I'm really quite annoyed I have to keep explaining this over and over and over again.
Click to see my steam. I'm a lazy modder who takes long breaks and everyone seems to hate.

skullywag

its not a case of whats right, sometimes a simple business decision is what drives a function. As a small example, cotton plants drop cloth currently, thats even more far removed from realism than steel in rocks, if Tynan changes to Iron ore its then going to be expected that he goes over all the other stuff like cotton plants and fixes all the realism issues there, suddenly 1 change has turned into 20 and its now pushing other content out the way. Trust me when i say im sure Tynan made the decision with a fair amount of thought, but as stated in general its his decision so until he posts here me and the neighsayers will keep butting heads with you and getting nowhere because we both have an opinion and they dont meld. So yeah lets wait for Tynan....

Also I thought the word "compacted" was used to more easily allow the brain to make the link to ruins, or am i wrong here? i.e the buildings crumbled and the steel compacted together into clumps....no?

and finally no need to get annoyed...im not..in the slightest...i like healthy discussion but if its annoying you that much ill stop as thats not healthy.
Skullywag modded to death.
I'd never met an iterator I liked....until Zhentar saved me.
Why Unity5, WHY do you forsake me?

Vas

Well it isn't like it'll be hard for him to change that.  Someone else already did and theirs is compatible with everything out there.  Changing what the plant drops isn't difficult because you aren't changing something other objects are using.  He changed plants to drop cotton fiber that is required to make cloth out of and everything that takes cloth still takes cloth and was totally unaffected.  Their Tier 0 resource was upgraded to Tier 1, and now you need to take Cotton Fiber, a Tier 0 resource and turn it into Cloth.  It's not that difficult to do.  It doesn't hurt gameplay all that much, it adds a bit more complexity to the game, and made it more fun to play.

At this point in time, I'm not sure how much thought was put into it.  A lot of the things in the game seem to be split second decisions.  For example, 120 day orbit which is absolutely impossible for any life on the planet to be alive because the planet would be 400 degrees, unlivable.  No matter what size star you're orbiting.  I'm unable to determine much on star temp because that seems to coincide with star size so.  Many things thus far seem to be a "Do it and see how it goes" thing where once the game is complete, you'll edit the storyline and make up a new one to fit the game how it is then to explain all the strange events that don't make sense.

And I mean no disrespect Tynan if you are here reading all of this.  I'm just trying to get more realism into the game and make things make more sense.  I don't like that many games completely throw out all physics and logic these days in favor of getting a game done as quickly as possible.  It doesn't take that much research to find out something you're doing is against the laws of physics and in fact, we've already done that for you.

Again, Compacted, makes no sense.  Because you're still going to dig up a pile of oxidized dust.  Steel is also a very strong substance, if a mountian crumbles over on top of it while it's still solid, it's not gonna splatter into the shape of an ore vein.  If it waits for dirt to form around it in order to make a mountain, then its going to crumble away long before it makes a pocket of "compacted steel" and there will simply just be rock there because no steel will exist to be trapped in the rock.

Compacted Steel also makes no sense out in the open where there is no mountain above it or around it.  Just a random pile of compacted steel sitting out there near spawn always when you spawn somewhere.  I get that it's to make sure you have steel to use but yea, that's just another example of illogicalness because that steel would have blown away n the wind, and you'd just be digging up rock.

Stone structures are what lasts through time.  Metal oxidizes and corrodes and other misc affects based on the type of metal its made of.  Say everyone on earth suddenly died right now.  4000 years from now aliens will get here.  THe planet will be covered in forests, life anew, animals plants and everything will be florishing because we are no longer poisoning the world as we do now.  All metal structures will be gone.  Dust in the wind.  Concrete structures will be broken up but still there.  Wooden structures will have rotted away.  You'll likely find a few piles of what used to be houses, sheet rock and stuff being reclaimed by the land growing up through it.  Glass structures will still be there too, possibly just broken up and stuff.  So all metal structures we made will not stand the test of time and without proper maintenance, they will rust and disappear.  I could be a bit wrong, I'm sure there are some metals that may stand the test of time like Stainless Steel which is specially treated but I'm just not sure if it really would stand for thousands of years.  Who knows.

I also know Tynan is a busy person and may not end up reading all of the posts especially since some are quite big.  So he may miss some of the explanations given for why we either want steel to renamed or why we want it kept the same.  I'll do a quick summery below:

Votes for Iron:
1. Because it is more realistic in multiple ways.
2. Because modders can make a tier 1/2 resource after it without odd bizarre issues.
3. It will allow for us to add new tiers in crafting to make the game harder without you (Tynan) having to make super ultra mega uber game killing game ultra lagging raids of massive ultimate doom (Tribe spawns).
4. Steel Oxidizes and rusts away, iron ore is a naturally occurring substance.
5. Steel in the game currently spawns in ore like pockets, making no sense.

Votes for Steel:
1. It would make the game too difficult, assuming you added a new tier to smelt iron into steel.
2. It is somehow more logical to use your ultimate omni magic tool which cuts through steel like butter to make steel structures, than it is to cut through iron and make iron structures.  Yet to be explained to me by anyone.
3. General claims that it's less realistic than Steel because "you have to refine it" when you'd still have to refine steel too, in order to re-use it.

Honestly I can't type out actual votes for Steel because I don't get any of them and the arguments for it sound silly, the only one that has any merit, is people talking about how if things require steel still after it and there is an extra crafting stage to make steel, it would get harder.  Which is a good ting, it's what you're trying to do with your ultimate doom tribal spawns where you lob hundreds of bodies into people's bases in order to force end the game with the ultimate difficult wave so you can keep people from staying on the planet as long as they want.

If someone wants to retype my "votes for steel" thing, I'll copy and paste it into this post.
Click to see my steam. I'm a lazy modder who takes long breaks and everyone seems to hate.

Vagabond

#81
Quote from: Z0MBIE2 on February 04, 2016, 01:22:35 PM
Quote from: Vas on February 04, 2016, 08:29:00 AMuse exploits to survive where sappers murder themselves by grenading their own team.

What do you mean use exploits, kill boxes? Because kill boxes aren't exploits. They're defended entrances to a base.

Also, an answer to the steel is that it isn't OUR steel. It could be another type of material that exists in this 3,000 years in the future. Realism in any game that isn't centered on it is generally just an excuse.

Zombie2,

Kill boxes are indeed exploits. They are exploiting a stupid AI. A real kill box is an area designated for open weapons fire from several directions and modes (A2A, S2A, ect) meant to blanket an area upon PID. Your enemy either knows it's present and don't go in, they know it's there and they think they can break it, or they don't know its there and stumble in (and then into retreat).

It's an exploit because the AI aren't smart enough to avoid them. To claim otherwise is just fanboy naivety.

"Realism in any game that isn't centered on it is generally just an excuse." Has to be one of the silliest things I've read from you thus far. Realistic mechanics are to hard for casual gamers, that is why they are thrown to the sidelines to appeal to a more broad audience. All games strive for realism, but quickly come to the realization that people cry when realism kicks their teeth in to much. There is an entire literary element based on this: Suspension of disbelief. The more you go off the wall, and the less you try to cope your audience to the absurd, the less they will like it. Unless you are looking for an audience of sparkly vampire worshiping girls, then all bets are off - they are down for anything.

There are ways of making the game work with traditional and realistic production lines. Going from iron ore to iron to steel to plasteel, ect. Even Lumber to logs to boards. It just requires the game as a whole to support it. The production line has to have useful items along the whole chain, either in terms of trade or for use. Cutting down a tree and turning the lumber into logs means you can build a log house, for example. Later you can build a framed structure with boards and planks.

Essentially, the game has to work like real life in order to be realistic. At any technology level people can survive. You shouldn't have to rush to electricity to survive the elements. Cultures the world round prove you can survive many extremes at low tech as long as there are animals/food and water. The pre-electricity part of the game needs massive overhaul to allow for survival without it, is what I'm saying. Once that is accomplished, once the game is properly tiered into technology levels for progression and flow, then it'll be an even better game.

It's certain people, those whom think diamonds make the best armor and weapons, that make a good game bad. Those same people are the ones who think it's imperative to abandon realism for the gameplay, even though it isn't required.

Sci-fi is a genre about realism. It is about prediction, about guesstimating, based on what we know and what we can imagine. Simulations - whether life, colony, ect, are about emulating real world processes.

All evidence points to this game needing a hefty dose of realism. Vas makes more good points in his post before mine.

Thanks.
Michael

Toggle

Vas, this thread has become less of a discussion on steel vs iron, and more you telling the devs and everyone else it should be iron because steel isn't acceptable. There's nothing new on adding to gameplay, just the same thing of it should be iron not steel.

Vaga. For realism, that was actually meaning to be when the sole reason for something is realism in a game not focused on it, it's generally an excuse. You can add any number of things to a game without reason but for the sake of realism, when it doesn't really add to gameplay and/or makes it worse or just consumes time for no reason. You could prevent punching trees in minecraft so you just slowly starve to death.

I don't really care, I have the flu, so I'm just going.
Selling broken colonist souls for two thousand gold. Accepting cash or credit.

erdrik

Quote from: Vas on February 05, 2016, 09:59:09 AM
...  And mods can add a smelter building if they want to add the extra step.  As it stands, Steel is illogical, impossible, and makes it so no mod can replace it the PROPER way.  I made a mod that changed it once, using only the name thing, it was horrible.  I gave up and abandon the project.  The core game must be altered, and then all mods in the world will be incompatible.  Unless of course I add a new steel, then all mods that add stuff will cost a Tier 2 resource.  But anyway.
...
Im guessing you missed my post, since it was the last one on the previous page.

Allow me to repost the relevant section here:

Quote from: erdrik on February 04, 2016, 02:11:11 PM
Quote from: Vas on February 04, 2016, 07:57:13 AM
The issue is mods are all based on steel which means it can't be changed by mods without making a mod incompatible with everything out there.
Your coming at the issue from the wrong direction.
Don't change steel. Because, yea, doing so would make your mod incompatible.
But you can always add iron ore as a separate item from the existing steel that the player smelts into iron and can further process into steel. You can even add the iron item to the Metallic stuff category and give it differing rates of deterioration/ health/ ect than steel. Its not that you can't do it, its that you have to use steel as the baseline.

Then all you have to do is change the world gen options to produce less(or even none) "compacted" steel and more iron ore. Some mods will still be incompatible, but it will mostly narrow it down to only other world gen mods.

You don't add a new steel item. You add a new iron item and balance the iron based off of the existing steel.

BBoulanger

this question has so much bias. Learn how to write a question.
There is no try only do

A Friend

"For you, the day Randy graced your colony with a game-ending raid was the most memorable part of your game. But for Cassandra, it was Tuesday"

Squiggly lines you call drawings aka "My Deviantart page"

Zeta Omega

Isnt Steel just Iron with the impurities removed? And I don't see why it would matter, the costs and requirements would still be the same unless they added a station that turns Iron to Steel
Metal = Metal

andrei2000pc

I second for Iron. Every other popular game has gone from Iron to Steel. No reason to start skipping a element to make other processes simpler. I am always for the harder route in life. I want this to grow!:)

Boston

#88
Quote from: Zeta Omega on February 05, 2016, 10:39:38 PM
Isnt Steel just Iron with the impurities removed? And I don't see why it would matter, the costs and requirements would still be the same unless they added a station that turns Iron to Steel
Metal = Metal

No, steel is an iron alloy. Specifically, iron with carbon (and other stuff) added, to make it "stronger" ( really, harder). There are different grades of steel, with different levels of carbon (and other materials). 'Building steel" (that is, the steel you use for the frames of buildings) is different from tool-steel, which is different from stainless steel. You don't really want to use one "type" of steel in place of another, because the final product will probably suck.

Humanity has known about steel for as long as we have worked Iron, or roughly 3500 years. It is just that without the Bessemer Process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessemer_process), Steel is really hard/expensive (same thing) to make. You need to smelt iron with powdered carbon (usually charcoal), at really high temperatures for long periods of time ( HOURS), in order to create steel alloys. In all seriousness, most of the time when ancient peoples made steel, it was a kinda-sorta accident, due to the complexity of the process.  It was only after the Industrial Revolution (when the Bessemer Process was developed) that tools and weapons were made totally from steel. Before that, tools, armor and weapons were made either from just iron (for cheap versions), or from iron + steel laminates (steel for cutting edges, iron for everything else).

Smelting iron into ingots is comparatively easy, and "cheap". There are many different sources of iron (most common metal in the Earth's crust): hematite, bog iron deposits,etc, and it is relatively easy to smelt. Sure, you have to build a smelter, but it doesn't need temperatures as high as steel. Take iron ore/bog iron, smelt it into a bloom/ingots, then forge it into tools. Those iron ingots can then be smelted again with charcoal to turn them into steel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3rjjpuhCLI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuCnZClWwpQ

Another metal I would love to see is copper. Copper, in some areas, can be found literally sitting on the ground in nuggets. These nuggets can be collected, smelted (fareasier than iron can be), and cast into tools. Native Americans used cast copper for thousands of years. Tribals should, in my opinion, be able to make tools and weapons from copper (90% of the time), and iron (10% of the time)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uHc4Hirexc



Vas

I like Boston's post.  Really good explanation on things.  Also shows how much more realistic Iron Ore would be than Compacted Steel *coughsteelorecough*.

erdrik, the issue is that I would have to rename the SteelDef to Iron, so when you go mining a SteelOreDef you get Iron with "SteelDef" definition.  All mods would then use Iron in their base construction because they'd all still have <Steel>1</Steel> or whatever.  The issue is that, Steel is stronger.  I want things to cost more iron to make something or require a mix of iron and steel.  However everything default costing <Steel> (Iron) kinda screws that up.
Click to see my steam. I'm a lazy modder who takes long breaks and everyone seems to hate.