Hello, everyone, I'm new to these here forums, and I wanted to post some ideas I've come up with myself and seen around the forums regarding the expanding the ore/metal hierarchy.
First off, I fully endorse the "multi-smelting" suggestion that many have contributed (the idea that furnaces should have two slots that you could use to smelt alloys), and the way I've structured my ideas revolves around that. That said, I wouldn't be all that disappointed if copper was introduced, but its smelted version was simply called tin, and the likewise with iron and steel.
Here is the prerequisite tree the way I envision it:
1. Wood (lowest durability, with wood you can only mine stone)
2. Stone (low durability, with stone you can make tools to mine coal, copper and tin)
3. Copper + Tin = Bronze (medium durability, with bronze you can make tools to mine iron and the second level of armor, just above leather)
4. Iron (medium durability, with iron you can make iron tools, chainmail, intermediate between bronze armor and steel plate armor)
5. Iron + Coal = Steel (high durability, and you can create steel plate armor)
(between iron and steel, one of them would be able to mine two of the following: lapis lazuli, redstone, silver, gold. i'm not sure which two would make the most sense and preserve balance most effectively. the other would be able to mine all four. these next parts I'm also still a bit undecided about, because it's already unrealistic enough that we're making tools and armor out of precious metals, and gold's uses are already somewhat limited, but I think one could perhaps come up with more uses for these outside of mining)
6. Silver, Gold (I'm not that crazy about the idea of using these for tools- hopefully we could come up with some other additional uses for them at least, but maybe silver would be used for detector rails just like gold is now used for boosters, etc.)
7. Diamond (about the same that it is now- extremely high durability, and ability to mine anything, but can only be mined by silver or gold)
8. Obsidian (I don't really have any ideas for this, but at the moment it's kinda just sitting at the top of the tree and its only uses are for building, some mods allow you to make obsidian tools, and even though it's somewhat realistic, they seem largely extraneous being at the top of the pyramid)
Definitely let me know if you have any input about this. Here is my rationale: Wood and Stone have enough uses in the context of construction that either going obsolete early on in the progression isn't a problem. Copper and Tin would be very common, and copper could be used in wiring as I discuss below, although I can't think of any other uses of tin at the moment. Here is one set of suggestions regarding independent uses for copper and tin:
Quote from Adam222 »
Maybe the upgraded furnace should a brick furnace instead of just two stone furnaces put together? I'm just under the impression that something that allows you access to so many new items should use something a little rarer than common stone.
Tin cans** could be a way to stack food. It could be crafted 16-at-a-time from a bowl/bucket recipe using tin cans, and then you could craft a tin and a food item (maybe only meats?) to make a tin of that item. Tinned foods could be stacked (maybe only to 8 or 16?), and you'd have to place them as a non-solid item (similar to a flower) and either break them with a sword (at a penalty to durability, and maybe about a half-second break time for a mid-level sword) or operate (right-click) them with a can-opener or similar tool (instant and only one point of durability instead of two from a sword) to regain the food inside (and lose the can/get a junk item or an item that has to be processed somehow to be made into something usable). It's not exactly logical, but I can kind of see being able to carry more in a bag full of tinned meat than in a bag full of raw steaks.
I've not seen anyone bring this up, but maybe copper could be used to construct compact gates, as people continually bring up? Combine a redstone torch, a certain pattern of redstone dust and copper, and you get a one-block NOT gate. A different pattern of dust and copper produces an AND gate, different patterns (and maybe multi-step crafting recipes) can produce memory circuits (that is, ones that stay the same even after the additional power source that switched them is removed) and NOR/NAND gates-- and a copper ingot with eight redstone dust around it could produce eight copper wires that could go up walls, and/or have some kind of special requirements for connecting to other redstone (as an example, perhaps only two connections at a time so you could have redstone next to copper wire without it connecting when you don't want it to, for even more compacting of redstone circuits-- and you can still use normal redstone dust when you want a wire to branch off into multiple parts).
The first stumbling block is how to delay the players acquisition of iron so that bronze doesn't go obsolete immediately. The obvious answer would be to decrease the frequency and increase the depth at which iron is found, but worlds are already quite vertically limited. I guess you could just make copper and tin that much more common and therefore that much more accessible early game, but I don't know if that alone would suffice. The only other alternative that I can think of off the top of my head is having a leveling system in regards to smelting and crafting, which would perhaps make more sense with the recent introduction of achievements into Minecraft, but I'm not going to go ahead and directly suggest that a leveling system be implemented.
In this schema, iron would go obsolete almost immediately, but perhaps the player's ability to create steel could be limited by the scarcity of coal. Making steel could also be extremely costly in terms of coal. This is suggested by the following quote, which also argues that bronze should be higher up on the pyramid then iron (but presumably still lower than steel) and be limited by the scarcity of tin. Although that's not how I originally saw it, I'm really not opposed to that, and it would certainly further complicate the interesting dynamic that having more metals would create. In fact, it would make a lot of sense in terms of balance too- you would progress through all the common materials and metal, then move on to their alloys (for which you would need to upgrade your furnace), and finally onto precious metals and gemstones.
Quote from theicychameleon »
Just a few points that have come up in other "more minerals" threads: -Steel from iron + 1 coal is far too cheap, throwing one extra coal into your smelting process is far too easy for a jump to the next tier: who would ever bother smelting iron when they can have steel? Either make the materials more time intensive (I've suggested requiring the player to built charcoal ricks to obtain their carbon scource) or make the smelting process more expensive. -Bronze is harder than iron, strange but true. The disadvantage is that you need two materials to make it, one of which (tin) is quite rare. This is one of the main theories for what sparked the end of the bronze age. -Leave tin out as a tier. If tin were rarer than iron it would easily solve the issue of balancing up that particular tier jump :smile.gif: might mean leaving tin out as a tier of its own though if it were rare and weak. -Quite alot of people have suggested Zinc which would allow for Brass alloys with Copper, not to mention possibly batteries.
Steel would be the best all-purpose material for tools muck like iron is now, but maybe iron would be the most practical for armor given the amount of ingots needed for armor as opposed to tools. Silver and gold could probably each be as common as gold is now without upsetting balance, and I'd love to see more decorative uses for them.
Quote from Tigax »
Silver has many possible uses and may lead to more enemies to defend against, like vampires werewolves and so on. It could also be used for specialty tools, such as gold is with the watch.
Diamond would probably need to be just a bit less common than it is now. With these tweaks in mind, I think that these additions would not only add a new level to progression in Minecraft, but to the the gameplay as a whole, although I'm sure there are those that would feel this to be too complicated. For me, though, the game revolves around mining (and metallurgy, by association), so it only makes sense for the game to be more complete in those respects.
The only other thing with respect to the progression that I would change would be this: Introducing charcoal (and beds), which functions as coal but is produced from logs, makes the first night experience too easy, and maybe you should have to use flint, which is somewhat easy to find and underutilized, to start a fire for the first time, instead of torches magically being lit once you plop coal on top of a wooden stick.
Although, if we're bringing up random nuances, this is another:
Quote from maki814 »
Cobblestone exposed to grass should (after a loooong time) become not sort of like the difference between and . Not really related to bronze, but so what.
Here's a quote from another thread discussing this that I really liked.
Quote from maddog050 »
I'm sure there have been many suggestions of additional materials but I think the addition of a few new metals as well an alloy system would allow a much needed diversity to ground composition as well as adding intermediates between the jump from stone to iron and iron to diamond. The diversity would not only make mining and crafting more interesting and the systems used to create allowing for many more possibilities in the future.
Tin itself is a very soft and common metal. It's possible uses stem from familiar uses in metal tools to food storage(tin cans) and solder for piping and electric circuits. Also offering the ability to be combined with copper to form a bronze alloy.
Copper is obviously a close companion to tin, but demonstrates greater malleability. Its popular uses today are found actual piping and wiring (a better substitute for redstone dust?) and of course tools and bronze alloys.
The alloy system used to create bronze could be as simple as adding another slot to the furnace menu, taking longer to smelt the stronger the alloy. The change could be used to create more variation and depth in the types of materials without stuffing all of these new materials in the natural world.
Potential alloys could be:
Bronze = copper + tin
Steel = coal + iron
...
Ceramic = sand + clay
...
Having intermediate metals and alloys would add diversity to the appearance of metals as well as make crafting metal objects more interesting. Wiring has the potential to be more aesthetically pleasing. Players would also have the option to create more durable materials with what they have, at the cost of time and effort, without needing to hunt for rarer materials.
I especially like the copper wiring and ceramic ideas, and I think he explains it really well.
Here's another long quote of great information and suggestions:
Quote from babuschka »
@Steel and Iron
First off, pure Iron is actually very porous and easy to break - only in an alloy with tiny parts of chrome, carbon or other materials, and without the contaminative materials, iron becomes a very hard and durable material (namely steel). Bronze is a rather flexible due to its copper part, but unfortunately isn't as durable as steel. That would bronze make a better material than iron, though iron in an alloy, steel, is better than bronze. That means: Diamond > Steel > Bronze > Iron > Stone
Steel is manufactured by burning iron with oxygen until the part of polluting material (iron contains parts of silicium, mangan, sulfur and a few others) is almost zero. That means if you want to be realistic, you'd have to put your iron ingots into the furnace and burn it once again (you also need to add some carbon to it later on, but that'd be too much effort, let's keep it simple and forget this part). At this point you could use a special furnace, like a blast furnace in order to burn steel.
@Bronze
Okay I personally like the idea of implementing more ores into the game.
But two things:
1) the color of bronze reminds of wooden tools (already mentioned before, but maybe the color should be more like this )
2) How are you going to use bronze? How are you going to use Tin/Copper and what are their possible further uses? If you have no special use for them other than tools it won't be implemented. Notch will possibly think: "why making an effort to implement bronze if you already have iron?" So I'm gonna list a few ideas here (some were previously mentioned by different people):
@Tin
Usage:
If food is going to be perishable one day, you might be able to make tincans that enables you to preserve food for technically forever.
Tin also could be used to make tin plates that can be placed in your house like paintings for decorating purposes.
Rarity: about as rare as gold
Where to find: near coastlines and rivers, at best near gravel
Ore color: the most common tin ore, cassiterite (SnO2), is black - so maybe a grey or even white ore color is appropriate
@Copper
Usage:
Copper itself could be used to increase the effectivity for redstone circuits (as someone mentioned before).
On your crafting grid, you could also use this material to craft electronic devices of some sort (I'm not sure if notch is gonna like that, though). Maybe you can use iron, copper and redstone to create a flashing light?
You can also use copper to create patterns and art when using acid, for example like this: http://www.evilhell.net/wp-content/elde ... detail.jpg (picture is random, no meaning behind it) Those copper ornaments could be treated like paintings on the wall as well.
Rarity: common, but not as common as iron
Where to find: near the surface of rivers (?)
Ore color: red, green or orange
@Bronze
Usage:
In old eqypt polished bronze was used as mirror (though you could easier achieve this if you've implemented silve into the game) and served as decoration when used in sculptures.
Doors, medals, coins, bells and music instruments are made of bronze. If a bronze door had some special abilities and if minecraft had bronze coins as currency or bronze medals as decoration, this would make bronze certainly an interesting material (apart from the use as tool or armor material). You could say, we can also make coins or medals out of iron, but then you have to consider that iron is mainly used for minecart tracks. So in this case, bronze would make a good alternative.
@Steel
Other than the use in tools and armor, now what could you do with steel?
Well... You could make magnets, for example, but not sure what magnets can be good for. I'm running out of ideas. What it would do is increase the durability of tools and armor significantly - I personally didn't like how relatively fast iron breaks.
Quote from Blue_vision »
It's kind of hard to "flesh out the metal progression a little more" without really adding in a whole tech tree element ... like requiring iron to make an anvil to craft metal tools, and an advanced furnace/forge to smelt bronze, and you've got a far more padded out metal tech tree. Go with my suggestion in the minecraftian geology thread and make rock in general harder to mine, and you've got it even more padded out. Maybe reduce iron abundance in the upper layers, and you've got a wonderfully padded out metalworking tree.
I really like the anvil idea, actually, and I don't think making rock harder to mine in general would be that bad of a step either.
Rather than establish more of a sense of realism in the game- I just know I'll get criticism for using that term with respect to Minecraft, the ores that have been added to the game are similarly arbitrarily selected and fantasy-themed. Lapis Lazuli? I know a blue dye is important, but it seems like kind of a random thing to include in the game, and its uses are even more limited than the use of any new metals that might have been included instead. Soul Sand? Glowstone? Redstone? Netherrack? I don't know, maybe I am in the minority in that I'd have rather seen copper, tin, and silver. Even Obsidian seems like a somewhat arbitrary inclusion, as much as I like it. Redstone obviously is also extremely fun, but as maddog050 suggested above, copper wiring makes more sense, and redstone could still be used as a power source in torches and repeaters and in recipes like compasses, clocks, note blocks, etc. Bag of Shenanigans has a similar idea, which I also quite like:
Quote from Bag of Shenanigans »
I was hoping someone would say this, and perhaps, copper could be used to make copper wire, that can be an alternative to redstone, it could carry electricity an infinite distance, as well as be ran not only on floors, but on walls, making it quite convenient.
I don't know, maybe I'm just a boring person who wants Minecraft to bear more semblance to historical metallurgy.
Now, I know I'm certainly not the first one to suggest these ideas- I would be surprised if these ideas weren't already circulating a year ago- but I guess if nothing else I was wondering why Notch and company wouldn't entertain them, as although I have absolutely no experience modding or coding, it doesn't seem like anything way too ambitious in the context of past updates, and it would only enhance gameplay as far as I can see.
Obviously, with 1.5_01 coming out recently, a lot of mods are out of date, but I was wondering if perhaps there was a mod that has been developed that already fulfills these ideas, and if so I would appreciate it if someone could direct me to it. All of the relevant mods that I can find don't allow you to smelt alloys, and they seem to go way overboard by adding up to ten or fifteen different ores. In my humble opinion, with all due respect to those who have worked on those mods, there isn't much to be gained by having an obscure gemstone for every color of the rainbow. Fantasy-type ores like adamantium and those that are only relevant in a technologically advanced society such as uranium and titanium aren't of any particular interest to me either.
I guess I should apologize for being so wordy (tl;dr), but I wanted to confront the issue in detail. So, I then ask you, why do you think that Notch hasn't implemented any of these materials/features into the vanilla game (some have said that there is a finite limit to how many blocks are in the game, and that there are better suggestions- which is probably true- but certainly these are largely more useful than what is currently occupying the space)? If you know of any mod that you think would serve these purposes, please do let me know. Also, if you have any ideas of your own regarding the progression in Minecraft, please share them. Last but not least, if anyone decides that they would be interest in creating such a mod, they would be my hero forever. Nah, I know that I'm pushing my luck there, haha...
I like your idea! Check out the mod i'm working on! I might add Obsidian Fragments to make it craftable.
Here is my thread: viewtopic.php?f=1039&t=311350
*NOTE*: This is not spam but a suggestion. I might add it to my mod with your permission, or possibly add you to the development team.
First off, I fully endorse the "multi-smelting" suggestion that many have contributed (the idea that furnaces should have two slots that you could use to smelt alloys), and the way I've structured my ideas revolves around that. That said, I wouldn't be all that disappointed if copper was introduced, but its smelted version was simply called tin, and the likewise with iron and steel.
Here is the prerequisite tree the way I envision it:
1. Wood (lowest durability, with wood you can only mine stone)
2. Stone (low durability, with stone you can make tools to mine coal, copper and tin)
3. Copper + Tin = Bronze (medium durability, with bronze you can make tools to mine iron and the second level of armor, just above leather)
4. Iron (medium durability, with iron you can make iron tools, chainmail, intermediate between bronze armor and steel plate armor)
5. Iron + Coal = Steel (high durability, and you can create steel plate armor)
(between iron and steel, one of them would be able to mine two of the following: lapis lazuli, redstone, silver, gold. i'm not sure which two would make the most sense and preserve balance most effectively. the other would be able to mine all four. these next parts I'm also still a bit undecided about, because it's already unrealistic enough that we're making tools and armor out of precious metals, and gold's uses are already somewhat limited, but I think one could perhaps come up with more uses for these outside of mining)
6. Silver, Gold (I'm not that crazy about the idea of using these for tools- hopefully we could come up with some other additional uses for them at least, but maybe silver would be used for detector rails just like gold is now used for boosters, etc.)
7. Diamond (about the same that it is now- extremely high durability, and ability to mine anything, but can only be mined by silver or gold)
8. Obsidian (I don't really have any ideas for this, but at the moment it's kinda just sitting at the top of the tree and its only uses are for building, some mods allow you to make obsidian tools, and even though it's somewhat realistic, they seem largely extraneous being at the top of the pyramid)
Definitely let me know if you have any input about this. Here is my rationale: Wood and Stone have enough uses in the context of construction that either going obsolete early on in the progression isn't a problem. Copper and Tin would be very common, and copper could be used in wiring as I discuss below, although I can't think of any other uses of tin at the moment. Here is one set of suggestions regarding independent uses for copper and tin:
The first stumbling block is how to delay the players acquisition of iron so that bronze doesn't go obsolete immediately. The obvious answer would be to decrease the frequency and increase the depth at which iron is found, but worlds are already quite vertically limited. I guess you could just make copper and tin that much more common and therefore that much more accessible early game, but I don't know if that alone would suffice. The only other alternative that I can think of off the top of my head is having a leveling system in regards to smelting and crafting, which would perhaps make more sense with the recent introduction of achievements into Minecraft, but I'm not going to go ahead and directly suggest that a leveling system be implemented.
In this schema, iron would go obsolete almost immediately, but perhaps the player's ability to create steel could be limited by the scarcity of coal. Making steel could also be extremely costly in terms of coal. This is suggested by the following quote, which also argues that bronze should be higher up on the pyramid then iron (but presumably still lower than steel) and be limited by the scarcity of tin. Although that's not how I originally saw it, I'm really not opposed to that, and it would certainly further complicate the interesting dynamic that having more metals would create. In fact, it would make a lot of sense in terms of balance too- you would progress through all the common materials and metal, then move on to their alloys (for which you would need to upgrade your furnace), and finally onto precious metals and gemstones.
Steel would be the best all-purpose material for tools muck like iron is now, but maybe iron would be the most practical for armor given the amount of ingots needed for armor as opposed to tools. Silver and gold could probably each be as common as gold is now without upsetting balance, and I'd love to see more decorative uses for them.
Diamond would probably need to be just a bit less common than it is now. With these tweaks in mind, I think that these additions would not only add a new level to progression in Minecraft, but to the the gameplay as a whole, although I'm sure there are those that would feel this to be too complicated. For me, though, the game revolves around mining (and metallurgy, by association), so it only makes sense for the game to be more complete in those respects.
The only other thing with respect to the progression that I would change would be this: Introducing charcoal (and beds), which functions as coal but is produced from logs, makes the first night experience too easy, and maybe you should have to use flint, which is somewhat easy to find and underutilized, to start a fire for the first time, instead of torches magically being lit once you plop coal on top of a wooden stick.
Although, if we're bringing up random nuances, this is another:
Here's a quote from another thread discussing this that I really liked.
I especially like the copper wiring and ceramic ideas, and I think he explains it really well.
Here's another long quote of great information and suggestions:
I really like the anvil idea, actually, and I don't think making rock harder to mine in general would be that bad of a step either.
Rather than establish more of a sense of realism in the game- I just know I'll get criticism for using that term with respect to Minecraft, the ores that have been added to the game are similarly arbitrarily selected and fantasy-themed. Lapis Lazuli? I know a blue dye is important, but it seems like kind of a random thing to include in the game, and its uses are even more limited than the use of any new metals that might have been included instead. Soul Sand? Glowstone? Redstone? Netherrack? I don't know, maybe I am in the minority in that I'd have rather seen copper, tin, and silver. Even Obsidian seems like a somewhat arbitrary inclusion, as much as I like it. Redstone obviously is also extremely fun, but as maddog050 suggested above, copper wiring makes more sense, and redstone could still be used as a power source in torches and repeaters and in recipes like compasses, clocks, note blocks, etc. Bag of Shenanigans has a similar idea, which I also quite like:
I don't know, maybe I'm just a boring person who wants Minecraft to bear more semblance to historical metallurgy.
Now, I know I'm certainly not the first one to suggest these ideas- I would be surprised if these ideas weren't already circulating a year ago- but I guess if nothing else I was wondering why Notch and company wouldn't entertain them, as although I have absolutely no experience modding or coding, it doesn't seem like anything way too ambitious in the context of past updates, and it would only enhance gameplay as far as I can see.
Obviously, with 1.5_01 coming out recently, a lot of mods are out of date, but I was wondering if perhaps there was a mod that has been developed that already fulfills these ideas, and if so I would appreciate it if someone could direct me to it. All of the relevant mods that I can find don't allow you to smelt alloys, and they seem to go way overboard by adding up to ten or fifteen different ores. In my humble opinion, with all due respect to those who have worked on those mods, there isn't much to be gained by having an obscure gemstone for every color of the rainbow. Fantasy-type ores like adamantium and those that are only relevant in a technologically advanced society such as uranium and titanium aren't of any particular interest to me either.
I guess I should apologize for being so wordy (tl;dr), but I wanted to confront the issue in detail. So, I then ask you, why do you think that Notch hasn't implemented any of these materials/features into the vanilla game (some have said that there is a finite limit to how many blocks are in the game, and that there are better suggestions- which is probably true- but certainly these are largely more useful than what is currently occupying the space)? If you know of any mod that you think would serve these purposes, please do let me know. Also, if you have any ideas of your own regarding the progression in Minecraft, please share them. Last but not least, if anyone decides that they would be interest in creating such a mod, they would be my hero forever. Nah, I know that I'm pushing my luck there, haha...
Here is my thread:
viewtopic.php?f=1039&t=311350
*NOTE*: This is not spam but a suggestion. I might add it to my mod with your permission, or possibly add you to the development team.
My channel: http://www.youtube.com/TheMudpenguin
Oh, really? I didn't realize that the stuff I'm quoting from other people's suggestions had already been suggested...
Derpity derp derp...