Blacksmithing, Tongs, Heading tool, and the bottleneck. Oh yeah and SPOONS!

[Chronicus]

So, best i've found so far is that with a ton of foraging, and some building i can make a primitive force and furnace. With a magazine i found i can make spoons from an iron bar quarter. I can cut down iron bars with a small saw and a surface. But tongs... tongs are the limiter. To make tongs, i need level 4 metalworking, but to get lvl 4 metalworking i need to make (assuming i have the skill books too) a metric s**tton of spoons to get there. Is this the way? Or am i missing something?

[DrLamp]

Carving skill - Crude Wooden Tongs

That might work.

[kelenas_sarkeen]

You can use wooden tongs or vise grip for some of the early/basic recipes, but in the long run you absolutely need tongs.
But to make the tongs you need to first forge a heading tool, for which you need Metalworking 3, as well as a recipe which you don't seem to learn automatically (at least I didn't, even after I raised my character's Metalworking to 4). Maybe there's some magazine to learn the recipe for that, but I haven't found one (even after ransacking most of the map's book stores/libraries via teleport/ghost), nor have I found any tongs in the world.

So, yeah; blacksmithing seems incredibly bottle-necked right now.

[Silamon]

I'm really not fond of locking recipes behind magazines. One or two, sure. But not ones that are seemingly crucial for a skill to advance.

I thought part of the point of this update was to make it possible to build up society from nothing? Do they expect people to start with the skill knowledge if the magazines are not to be found then?

[DrLamp]

Originally posted by kelenas_sarkeen:

You can use wooden tongs or vise grip for some of the early/basic recipes, but in the long run you absolutely need tongs.
But to make the tongs you need to first forge a heading tool, for which you need Metalworking 3, as well as a recipe which you don't seem to learn automatically (at least I didn't, even after I raised my character's Metalworking to 4). Maybe there's some magazine to learn the recipe for that, but I haven't found one (even after ransacking most of the map's book stores/libraries via teleport/ghost), nor have I found any tongs in the world.

So, yeah; blacksmithing seems incredibly bottle-necked right now.

I think blacksmithing was one of the last new skills to be put into B42. If that's correct, then I'm not surprised that it's rough going right now. Kind of a shame as that's once of the directions I wanted to head.

I haven't looked much into the skill yet but from what I can tell so far there doesn't seem to be a way to prospect ore and smelt it. Is there any way to source workable iron or do you just have to find it in loot?

[Ashley]

Originally posted by Silamon:

I'm really not fond of locking recipes behind magazines. One or two, sure. But not ones that are seemingly crucial for a skill to advance.

I thought part of the point of this update was to make it possible to build up society from nothing? Do they expect people to start with the skill knowledge if the magazines are not to be found then?

So how are people in a zombie apocalypses going to learn a new skill they haven't learned if not from books? I mean I don't like how rare the recipes are either but still

[ッ tenklop]

Originally posted by Silamon:

I'm really not fond of locking recipes behind magazines. One or two, sure. But not ones that are seemingly crucial for a skill to advance.

I thought part of the point of this update was to make it possible to build up society from nothing? Do they expect people to start with the skill knowledge if the magazines are not to be found then?

Thats the plan. Problem is that theres still alot of crafting stuff to make for the other professions. Hopefully 2025 will have the majority of it done along with the many years later map.

[Regular jackoff]

Originally posted by kelenas_sarkeen:

You can use wooden tongs or vise grip for some of the early/basic recipes, but in the long run you absolutely need tongs.
But to make the tongs you need to first forge a heading tool, for which you need Metalworking 3, as well as a recipe which you don't seem to learn automatically (at least I didn't, even after I raised my character's Metalworking to 4). Maybe there's some magazine to learn the recipe for that, but I haven't found one (even after ransacking most of the map's book stores/libraries via teleport/ghost), nor have I found any tongs in the world.

So, yeah; blacksmithing seems incredibly bottle-necked right now.

i haven't found any recipes either, on day 30 with 2-hour days
building metal floors out of small sheets should level welding but it also requires a recipe

[Silamon]

Originally posted by ッ tenklop:

Originally posted by Silamon:

I'm really not fond of locking recipes behind magazines. One or two, sure. But not ones that are seemingly crucial for a skill to advance.

I thought part of the point of this update was to make it possible to build up society from nothing? Do they expect people to start with the skill knowledge if the magazines are not to be found then?

Thats the plan. Problem is that theres still alot of crafting stuff to make for the other professions. Hopefully 2025 will have the majority of it done along with the many years later map.

There still has to be a way to acquire the knowledge without the manual if that is the eventual goal. I kinda think it should just have the level requirement and not need the manual.

[Chronicus]

Alright, i managed to get to level 3 by making somewhere around 200 spoons. Then after getting desperate I decided that I wanted to find out where the bottleneck was and went to debug mode. Spawned in every magazine for smithing, and even at lvl 3 having read every magazine i still lacked the recipe to make the heading tool. So I spawned one in, leveled to 4 by making more spoons (with spawned in iron because at this point it is science to find the bottleneck), and proceeded to make my tongs. (note, i did take nearly 3 irl hours to search every farm shed, garage, and backyard shed i could easily find via teleport to try and find either the heading tool or tongs. I also hit multiple warehouses and storage units. No heading tool or tongs was found.) After making the tongs i proceeded to look into making some other items, yet even after meeting the level and reading all magazines i still couldn't make the fleshing tool for finishing up leather. (though this item does exist in the spawn pools for things like farm sheds, and storage units that i can confirm)

So at the moment, there are recipes that dont exist in book form that are needed to progress down blacksmithing. I am not sure if taking the starting class/trait for metalwork includes this recipes in it's starting knowledge but as a lumberjack i can confirm that reading the magazines and having the levels required does not unlock the knowledge to make at least 2 critical items for other progression.

[Chronicus]

While searching for the tongs and heading tool i also found a "bench anvil" which seems useless at the moment, as it is not able to be used for making the advanced forge and it has no crafting menu itself. As well as an "Electric blower forge" which i can put fuel into and light like a bonfire but it does not appear to have any other uses.

[Chronicus]

Further update : After more testing there are many recipes that are not working in all versions of the forge. Even after reading all magazines, upping my level, and giving myself blacksmith knowledge traits things like the heading tool, and crude blade are not craftable due to not knowing the recipe. At the moment blacksmithing appears to need a bit more work to get it functional.

[kelenas_sarkeen]

Blacksmithing is definitely only partially implemented at this time. In addition to the head tool/tongs bottleneck, there also seems to be a lot of weapon-recipes in magazines that don't seem to actually appear in the crafting-menu at this time (swords, spearheads, maces), as well as additional forging/smelting craftstations (blast furnace, makeshift electric blower forge) with the same issue.

And I whole-heartedly agree that crucial tools/resources such as the head tool/tongs shouldn't require an external resource (ie, skill magazines) to acquire, though from what I read earlier some other crafting-skills/trees (knapping? or maybe carving?) currently have similar issues.

(Also speaking of weapon recipes; is there some way to get recipes for the more complex mcguyvered weapons, like the railspike or sawblade ones? They're listed in the crafting menu, but according to it I lack the recipes for them. Which... kind of defeats the purpose of improvised weaponry?)

Originally posted by DrLamp:

I haven't looked much into the skill yet but from what I can tell so far there doesn't seem to be a way to prospect ore and smelt it. Is there any way to source workable iron or do you just have to find it in loot?

If you build a furnace, you can smelt down certain items you don't need (such as excess spoons, along with a variety of other cooking, crafting, or gardening tools, certain crafting materials, etc) into iron chunks.

Which is where the bottleneck comes back into play, because for the majority of recipes you need iron bars. Those you get by combining iron chunks at the forge, but the recipes to do so specifically need tongs. Crude wooden tongs, vice grips, or metalworking pliers all don't work.

It's another area where metalworking/blacksmithing isn't fully implemented yet, since you can build three different types of furnaces (primitive, simple, advanced), but as far as I can tell there's almost no difference between the three. In terms of smelting metal, all three can process the same items, using the same amounts of ingredients, and resulting in the same outputs. The only difference being that the primitive furnace can't smelt glass.

(I'm also not really happy with the current smelting-system; it splits things into three difference recipes for smelting large, medium, and small items. But what items can be smelted in the first place, and which of the three categories they fall under, seems incredibly arbitrary and weird. Smelting down 2 units of aluminum foil somehow results in the same amount of iron chunks - one (1) - as smelting down 2 dumbbells. Lots of things that you should logically be able to smelt down (empty food/drink cans, barbed and normal wire, screws/nails, empty propane tanks, certain office supplies like staplers or hole-punchers, and so on.

Personally I'd prefer something more akin to how compost is handled, where the various furnaces would have a certain amount of storage-space, you toss in metallic items, light the furnace with the correct fuel, and then wait a couple of hours.)

[Owl]

Originally posted by Chronicus:

So, best i've found so far is that with a ton of foraging, and some building i can make a primitive force and furnace. With a magazine i found i can make spoons from an iron bar quarter. I can cut down iron bars with a small saw and a surface. But tongs... tongs are the limiter. To make tongs, i need level 4 metalworking, but to get lvl 4 metalworking i need to make (assuming i have the skill books too) a metric s**tton of spoons to get there. Is this the way? Or am i missing something?

This is why I'm playing with the blacksmith profession. I feel like that bottleneck is in place to necessitate the need for such a profession, but as with all things it definitely should be included as a sandbox option as I feel some people don't care about this element of realism.

[Chronicus]

Originally posted by Owl:

Originally posted by Chronicus:

So, best i've found so far is that with a ton of foraging, and some building i can make a primitive force and furnace. With a magazine i found i can make spoons from an iron bar quarter. I can cut down iron bars with a small saw and a surface. But tongs... tongs are the limiter. To make tongs, i need level 4 metalworking, but to get lvl 4 metalworking i need to make (assuming i have the skill books too) a metric s**tton of spoons to get there. Is this the way? Or am i missing something?

This is why I'm playing with the blacksmith profession. I feel like that bottleneck is in place to necessitate the need for such a profession, but as with all things it definitely should be included as a sandbox option as I feel some people don't care about this element of realism.

Fun thing is, after doing some more testing the blacksmith profession give you only the xp boost and the starting lvl but no recipes. There is something preventing them from working at the moment. I do understand the boon of the xp gain bonus and the starting lvl, but even planning to grind it out the skill is fundamentally broken at the moment. Without using debug mode there is (as far as all my testing has shown me so far) no way to make tongs as the heading tool recipe is broken. And even if you get tongs (which after hours of teleport mode searching i have failed to find anywhere in the world), most of the crafting recipes (even the ones from magazines) dont work and you cannot make many of the items at the moment.

To clarify, my intent is not to complain about this and I fully understand that this is new content that needs testing. I am detailing my findings in order to figure out as much as I can before i send this over in a bug report. If anyone else has found anything else out that I haven't listed here and would like to add it please do.

[Owl]

Originally posted by Chronicus:

Originally posted by Owl:

This is why I'm playing with the blacksmith profession. I feel like that bottleneck is in place to necessitate the need for such a profession, but as with all things it definitely should be included as a sandbox option as I feel some people don't care about this element of realism.

Fun thing is, after doing some more testing the blacksmith profession give you only the xp boost and the starting lvl but no recipes. There is something preventing them from working at the moment. I do understand the boon of the xp gain bonus and the starting lvl, but even planning to grind it out the skill is fundamentally broken at the moment. Without using debug mode there is (as far as all my testing has shown me so far) no way to make tongs as the heading tool recipe is broken. And even if you get tongs (which after hours of teleport mode searching i have failed to find anywhere in the world), most of the crafting recipes (even the ones from magazines) dont work and you cannot make many of the items at the moment.

To clarify, my intent is not to complain about this and I fully understand that this is new content that needs testing. I am detailing my findings in order to figure out as much as I can before i send this over in a bug report. If anyone else has found anything else out that I haven't listed here and would like to add it please do.

Oh that's an entirely different matter. Kind of disappointed now honestly. Thanks for letting me know.