smithing in games

[tmone]

When you acquire a new tool, there is always a learning curve. And if you have not had some experience with the more basic tools, the more advanced tools do not work nearly as well.

For instance, if you have not experienced hot to move metal with a hand hammer, the sledge hammer has a much longer learning curve. You need to learn how much effort is needed to make the sledge hammer effictive and not just smash metal.

A team of strikers is the next step up, but all should be at the same level of skill in using sledges. Striking is a learning experience as there is both a rythum and the same effort of impact involved. If someone new joins the striking team with no experience the rythum is way off and you bump hammers. The experienced smith does not use a sledge, but simply indicates where he wants the strikers blow to land and with the force the smith dictates.

There always those tools that are found that look wonderful, and as blacksmiths we bring them home (sometimes at great expense) only to find that they are not complete and no not work, are not suitable for the job, or that (dare I say it) we just do not have the experience for operating the tool properly.

Making armour, making knives, making swords (advanced knife making skills) are all specialities of blacksmithing. You could go as far as giving the horse from the game greater power is the blacksmith were to shoe him. It is a timed power as the horse has to be shod every 3-4 weeks to be kept in good condition. Farriers help us out here.

There are so many ways you can make this game interesting

Can you use the same tools to make armor and weapons? Would you use a different type of anvil? I'm kind of lost on how armor is made as weapons have been my primary focus so far.

[tmone]

Your angle could change from side on when drawing out to bird's eye view for the bevels, then side on with the piece vertical of pommel upsetting, or whichever angle suits what you are doing. Once you are satisfied with how you drew out the bar or whichever stage you are on, you could click a "next stage" button and go from there. You could also have the piece getting cooler as you go, so you have a repeatable "reheating stage" which you can do when and however many times you want.

Good ideas, nice and simple. Thanks.

[tmone]

First, don't make things TOO complicated. Yeah, there are a lot of steps in getting prepared to forge an item, but not ALL of them need to be followed exactly.

Right, we want to simplify it enough to make it fast paced but also keep it fun.

Instead of having a place to mine for fuel, have an NPC merchant that's already done the work. (Although you could leave the option open for players who DO wish do mine or prepare their own fuel)

We thought about something similar. Teams will have to hold control of mines and as long as they are under their rule then npc miners will continuous harvest the fuels and ores and perhaps even include the smelting process at these camps.

Just got a good idead and don't wanna forget it. Each person should start off with very little skill. Only being able to forge basic, low quality items. As they progress, they "learn" to make new objects. This could be done by having a journal or notebook that has the techniques in it for making a weapon or armor. As the player "levels up" in smithing skill, a new entry is automatically added to the journal describing exactly what steps the smith must take in order to make the new item. It might be a good idea to do away with fire managment, as important as it is, and focus on just the hammering part. The ease of moving the metal could be determined by the length of time left in the fire, which has to be lit before each forging session.

Players will have only basic skills, they will be able to try to forge but may take a few tries to make anything decent. The more a player does the more he learns. Be it fighting or smithing or whatever. Also, if the player doesn't keep up his practice in a particular field his skill will degrade.

I'm not sure how important fire management will become and I'm not sure if you just mean keeping the forge hot or keeping your item hot. But, I do think it could add a bit of strategy to have to keep your item properly heated. Trying to decide if you can get those few extra strikes in before it gets too cool. Done properly you could shed precious minutes off of the creation of the item. Remember the teams are in a state of war and every minute counts.

Ok, now for the forging process. Picture this, your screen shows a piece of iron in the fire, maybe just a 1 inch square bar about a foot long, as an example. when you want to take it out, double click it. The tongs are shown taking the iron out of the fire, and the screen shifts over to the anvil, with the bar sitting on it, no tongs holding it (to make the gameplay a little easier in terms of visibility and ease of play. The work is done on only two demensions, for now at least. So you have this orange/yellow bar, and you look at the diagram in your journal, showing the steps required to make, say a dagger. Single click to draw out (make the area longer and thinner), double click to upset (make the ares thicker and shorter). The steps could be a combination of sketches and text, to make things clearer for the player. The steps in making a dagger could be something like:

1) Draw out the blade (with an image showing a series of single clicks [represented by a symbol of some sort] along the upper part of the bar.
2) Upset the pommel (shown by another series of double clicks along the very back of the bar
3)Put a bevel on each side of the blade (shown by single clicks along each side of the blade section to form the edge)

As the steps are followed, the image of the bar changes to reflect what is being done, ending in a finished blade. Further work could be incorperated, such as sharpening the blade, polishing it on a stone, etc.

Good ideas, I'm glad you gave me a visual explanation of what you thought. That is always helpful. Definately jotting that down.

A good thing to do, would be to make sure that the programming only allows pieces to be made by smiths with the appropriate skill. If a smith tries to make something that he/she has not learned, the iron becomes junk, and must be scrapped. And don't make it TOO long between forging level up's, or make sure the player has a few different items he/she could make at each level. (Swords, axes, knives, daggers, spears, helmets, shields, etc.) This way, they aren't just making the same thing over and over and over. I'm sure I could come up with a whole lot more. If you have any questions or need more help, feel free to message me.

It will likely be something similar. Maybe they can pull off making an advanced item but the quality will be so bad that it will be about as good as using a lower quality item. Therefore a waste of resources. I had an idea about how "level ups" may work. After earning enough experience in crafting you can "spend" this experience to "experiment" in a area of your choice. So you could select from weapons, armor, or tools. Maybe even a specific category within those categories. Or keep it simple and upgrade to the whole next tier of every weapon. This way smiths could specilize in different areas, someone on the team could focus on armor while another did weapons and yet another did tools.

Thanks for your input! :)

[Archie Zietman]

Armouring is an extremely specialized form of blacksmithing. As in you don't really do tons of forming on the anvil except maybe for flattening an ingot of steel into a small sheet, or more likely for pushing out the iron/steel/bronze/copper (depends on culture and time period) sheet out from the inside to get some depth and shape quickly under your belt. Then you refine trhe shapes with a hammer like the one pictured below to cram the metal around a variety of stakes in a variety of places and to aggressively push and pull the metal to where you need it, like the brow on an archer's sallet helmet needs to be thick, but the back end of the helmet doesn't need much metal so can be pulled out thin. Stakes used back in the day ranged from T shaped stakes to mushroom stakes with round tops to saddle shaped stakes to stakes shaped like the rough shape of a particular helmet. Articulated lames and such were worked in small flat anvilly like things from the inside or over the pipe stakes, and flutes (ridges for decoration and rigidity) were laid from the outside mostly. Also some forming work was also done cold. Lames and tassets and such.
Once forming is done there is a stage called bougeing where high and low spots are evened out either on a stake, or a small anvil, and then planishing which smooths out the hammermarks on the surface and slightly work hardening the piece if you won't heat treat it. This also means much less work with grinding and polishing.(Judging from the insides of many pieces, a fair amount of grinding was probably done to the outside on big wheels, because the insides are quite beaten up) planishing is done by putting the piece over a ball stake and whacking with a mirror polished perfectly flat faced hammer on the tiny dpot where the workpiece's inside and the ball connect. It takes a long time as every tiny bit of the piece has to be toushed to the ball stake and given a solid whack. This doesn't alter the shape of the piece, just smooths the surface.

Here's a bunch of pictures of various stakes and a hammer or two and some 16th century woodcuts of european armourers from all over the internet including Thaden armoury, and Age of Armour (not affiliated with them at all)
also, ask around at armourarchive.org on the forums. There's a bunch of people wot know lots about raising and far more about the history than I do.
Good luck!
oh, also, you might want to be able to turn around your steel on the stake keeping a sideon view in the game, with a steady hammer beat which you raise up and down with your mouse, and then click a left or right arrow to rotate the piece around the stake a certain amount (say, an eight of a full circle turn)

[tmone]

Archie, thank you for the armouring info and the pics. That is very helpful.

So could it possibly just be broken down to these stages:

1) flatten an ingot into a sheet.
2) form on stakes, reheat as needed.
3) grind/polish to finish

I will do some research on this but if you can answer any of these questions that would be great.

I imagine the armor is made from multiple sheets and fastened together in some way when worn?

Do you reheat the entire sheet or just specific parts of it as you hammer those locations?

It seems armoring is going to be a tougher technique to implement...

[ThomasPowers]

Weapon making is a very specific craft too. You basic "village" smith will not be able to craft a good sword---just as a run of the mill blacksmith today to explain blade harmonics and how they affect the usability of a sword...

On armouring there are two heating aspects: heating a specific point to work hot and heating the entire piece to anneal or normalize before working on it cold. If you work a piece cold too long between heating you can get cracking.

Thomas

[Rantalin]

Armoring would be very tough to include, as it is very tough to do in real life as well. When reheating the sheet, you only heat the area you will be working with. Armor pieces were assembled with rivets, and when they were worn the defferent pieces were held together by leather straps

[Rick Barter]

Tmone,

I would think you want to make sure you factor experience and raw material into it. For example, the smith will need access to ore, coal or wood, etc. Also, if someone is just a beginning smith, they should not have the accuracy or the speed of someone with more experience. For example:

1.) A beginning smith would have a higher miss ratio and may damage the piece.

2.) A beginning smith would have lower skill and might not be able to heat treat material until they gained more experience.

3.) An experienced smith could get more work done in less time than an inexperienced smith.

4.) Smiths have different strength levels. Depending on the character's strength and constitution he/she may not be able to wield a 5 pound hammer effectively. You could adjust their speed and accuracy accordingly.

5.) If two smiths were working together, production could go up significantly.

6.) If the smith were to make more decorative pieces, he might fetch higher prices, but at the cost of time.

7.) If the smith were wounded or tired, his/her productivity could go down as well.

These are just some general things to consider. I like Glenn's suggestion to you: If you REALLY want to get some insight, pick up a hammer and start pounding some hot iron!

Good luck on the game.

rvb

[the_sandy_creek_forge]

Tmone,
There has been a lot of good comment here, (I haven't read them all, but most of them) as far as your research goes might i recommend the following website
The Countryside Agency
type blacksmith in the search box at the top right and you will get a return of several ebook in pdf format about blacksmithing. For your purposes these should be great references, and best of all they are free to view!

As far as the interface and stuff goes, I have no advice as I've been so far out of the gaming loop that my PS2 has become nothing more than a DVD player for the past four or five years ...

[Archie Zietman]

Armour is not only held with only sandard rivets in holes though. Sometimes there is a leather strip which runs down the inside of a series of articulated lames and each lame is riveted to the strap, which addsflexibility. Or the hole the rivet is placed in is a long rectangle, so the loosely set rivet (with a washer on the inside peened end) can swivel up and down,this is, for example, used on gauntlet wrists.
armouring is more difficult than some other blacksmithing "categories" and could be say, a specialty, like how you can in some games be a magician who is specialized in making illusions or in making things dissapear or something, maybe blacksmiths could specialize in armouring once they are at a higher level?

[So-Steve]

I've had a lot of gaming experience and thought I should give some of my ideas. I read through a few of the posts, but not all of them so I apologize if I repeat ideas.

First of all, you might want to seperate different areas of smithing into specific skills the smith would learn or focus on. Like weaponsmithing, armorsmithing, tool smithing, etc etc. Make a stat chart for each of the seperated areas (you might want to make a lot ) and allow the smith to gain experience in the certain areas based on how many projects they've worked on in that specific field of smithing. This would allow a smith to specialize and become better in certain areas so creating an item would become easier and quicker.

Second, you might want to add a difficulty indicator for each item someone would want to create. Not only would this be an indicator of whether one should attempt to create the intended item or not, but based on the above stat system, they could also have the computer create the item automatically if they wish to, with a certain failure percentage of course. The smiths overall experience and knowledge in the needed area of smithing would play into how successful an automatic forging would be. This way, a player wouldn't have to craft a simple hook if their smith already has the experience to create a large and intricate gate. This further expresses the idea of growth in a character and shows just how far their smith has come.

Concerning the automatic creation, make sure there are plenty of items that can be crafted that the player MUST do a manual forging in order to create the intended item. In this way, certain items would be far more difficult to make, far more time consuming, but in the end turn out being more valueable and allow greater rewards (whether that be experience for the smith, or perhaps an NPC striker).

An idea I just came up with now would be computer controlled strikers. These NPC's would of course not be as skilled as the smith themselves, but would level up in a similar way and would have similar stats. However things like hammer precision, strength, endurance, and probably the most important thing, repeating the smith's blows with the same accuracy. This would allow a player to have a helper if none of their friends are online to help out. A project would not have to be postponed simply because someone might be missing.

Also, for large projects and other such things, have a minimum number of smiths that need to be working on the project at once in order to create the desired item. Such items would be like fences of a certain size, or gates or memorials even. Perhaps even sculptural works could be incorporated. This way there is a greater sense of teamwork, as well as a greater necessity when someone wants to attempt a certain project.

Finally, allow the player to display just how artistic they truly are and allow them to just hammer away at a piece of metal and do sort of a custom forging. This could be good for players just to have fun and see what they can make simply by toying around with pieces of metal.

Well, those are all my ideas for now. Hope this game is released, I'd definetly be willing to play it ^^. Good luck!

[tmone]

1.) A beginning smith would have a higher miss ratio and may damage the piece.

Experience will definately be a factor. The quality of work will certainly improve with experience.

2.) A beginning smith would have lower skill and might not be able to heat treat material until they gained more experience.

Heat treating is hardening, correct? So a heat treated piece of armor would withstand more punishment. Is this done with chemicals or just knowing how
to heat the item?

3.) An experienced smith could get more work done in less time than an inexperienced smith.

Right, the more experienced they are the more accurate they are, resulting in a quicker finish.

4.) Smiths have different strength levels. Depending on the character's strength and constitution he/she may not be able to wield a 5 pound hammer effectively. You could adjust their speed and accuracy accordingly.

We might have them gain strength and stamina as they work. So it would go up with experience as well. Also a fighter would build similar traits through combat so would have an easier time with heavy smithing tools but would still need to earn skill in using them.

5.) If two smiths were working together, production could go up significantly.

Yea, I think working together might be fun and definately could give time advantages. As long as it is fun for both players and one isn't just clicking the button mindlessly or something. Needs to involve skill.

6.) If the smith were to make more decorative pieces, he might fetch higher prices, but at the cost of time.

Not sure that currency will be involved yet. Perhaps later but for now we're thinking the smiths will just work for the good of the team. We're thinking it's sort of a clan vs clan competitive game. You will just join a game session that lasts an hour or two maybe and at the end one team will be conquered and statistics will be shown for various things. So there will be leaderboards for the best smiths, such as who made the best weapons, who's weapons inflicted the most damage...things like that.

7.) If the smith were wounded or tired, his/her productivity could go down as well.

This brings up something I was thinking about. A smith could use up his stamina to hurry and make an item that was needed but then he would be too tired to make anything else and would need to rest. So you could sorta toggle a speed mode to work faster but it would burn you out if you used it too much for too long. Wounds could also factor in and the player should seek healing else work slower and produce lower quality items.

These are just some general things to consider. I like Glenn's suggestion to you: If you REALLY want to get some insight, pick up a hammer and start pounding some hot iron!

Good luck on the game.

rvb

Perhaps some day I will do just that but right now it's not really and option.

Thanks for your input!

[tmone]

First of all, you might want to seperate different areas of smithing into specific skills the smith would learn or focus on. Like weaponsmithing, armorsmithing, tool smithing, etc etc. Make a stat chart for each of the seperated areas (you might want to make a lot ) and allow the smith to gain experience in the certain areas based on how many projects they've worked on in that specific field of smithing. This would allow a smith to specialize and become better in certain areas so creating an item would become easier and quicker.

A similar idea was mentioned but yours is good too, thanks. I proposed the smith would earn experience and then when they had enough they could "spend" it to experiment in a specialized field (weapons, armor, tools). This would then unlock basic items in that category. Later with more experience they could choose to unlock the next tier of items in that category or unlock the basics in another category. Still all just ideas right now, maybe these ideas can be combined in some way.

Second, you might want to add a difficulty indicator for each item someone would want to create. Not only would this be an indicator of whether one should attempt to create the intended item or not, but based on the above stat system, they could also have the computer create the item automatically if they wish to, with a certain failure percentage of course. The smiths overall experience and knowledge in the needed area of smithing would play into how successful an automatic forging would be. This way, a player wouldn't have to craft a simple hook if their smith already has the experience to create a large and intricate gate. This further expresses the idea of growth in a character and shows just how far their smith has come.

Depending on the way things are implemented this may be something that needs to be done. Not sure if there will be automatic items or not, maybe if we require simple preliminary items it would work with those.

Concerning the automatic creation, make sure there are plenty of items that can be crafted that the player MUST do a manual forging in order to create the intended item. In this way, certain items would be far more difficult to make, far more time consuming, but in the end turn out being more valueable and allow greater rewards (whether that be experience for the smith, or perhaps an NPC striker).

An idea I just came up with now would be computer controlled strikers. These NPC's would of course not be as skilled as the smith themselves, but would level up in a similar way and would have similar stats. However things like hammer precision, strength, endurance, and probably the most important thing, repeating the smith's blows with the same accuracy. This would allow a player to have a helper if none of their friends are online to help out. A project would not have to be postponed simply because someone might be missing.

NPC strikers could work, that's an interesting idea.

Also, for large projects and other such things, have a minimum number of smiths that need to be working on the project at once in order to create the desired item. Such items would be like fences of a certain size, or gates or memorials even. Perhaps even sculptural works could be incorporated. This way there is a greater sense of teamwork, as well as a greater necessity when someone wants to attempt a certain project.

Interesting, perhaps we could introduce some "uber" items that require a few highly skilled smiths to create.

Finally, allow the player to display just how artistic they truly are and allow them to just hammer away at a piece of metal and do sort of a custom forging. This could be good for players just to have fun and see what they can make simply by toying around with pieces of metal.

While that is an excellent idea and would be very fun to experiment with I think it may be beyond our abilities. But who knows until we try.

Well, those are all my ideas for now. Hope this game is released, I'd definetly be willing to play it ^^. Good luck!

Thanks! I hope so too hehe. Could be a while but it is a game I hope we can accomplish. Thanks for your support!

[tmone]

Tmone,
There has been a lot of good comment here, (I haven't read them all, but most of them) as far as your research goes might i recommend the following website
The Countryside Agency
type blacksmith in the search box at the top right and you will get a return of several ebook in pdf format about blacksmithing. For your purposes these should be great references, and best of all they are free to view!

As far as the interface and stuff goes, I have no advice as I've been so far out of the gaming loop that my PS2 has become nothing more than a DVD player for the past four or five years ...

Thanks, I will look into those.

Armour is not only held with only sandard rivets in holes though. Sometimes there is a leather strip which runs down the inside of a series of articulated lames and each lame is riveted to the strap, which addsflexibility. Or the hole the rivet is placed in is a long rectangle, so the loosely set rivet (with a washer on the inside peened end) can swivel up and down,this is, for example, used on gauntlet wrists.
armouring is more difficult than some other blacksmithing "categories" and could be say, a specialty, like how you can in some games be a magician who is specialized in making illusions or in making things dissapear or something, maybe blacksmiths could specialize in armouring once they are at a higher level?

Thanks for the explanation. I think we are definately leaning toward specialized fields of blacksmithing that the player can pursue.

And thanks everyone else. Everyone is being so helpful here and we really appreciate it. I gotta go for now but will be back later.