Board Thread:Suggestions/@comment-25246516-20140731004507/@comment-24108228-20140802004723

An Observer wrote: We already have enough complicated alloys. If we are going to be mining 5 ores per bronze, no-one's going to use it, because with the same effort and one more use of the 'Craft Item' button, I could make gunpowder. We CANNOT make it more powerful than Mithril, and all those ores are not worth the small boost you could get from any tier between Steel and Mithril without shoving one or the other tiers out of the way. We CANNOT boost Mithril, and we CANNOT debuff Steel.

Cut the steel from the recipie, and most likely the iron too. Bronze could make it if we boosted steel, and put Bronze between iron and the new steel. Mithril doesn't need to be able to cut down three fully decked steelers, anyway.

And even THEN! Coal and Iron deposits often spawn not too far from eachother, and for these two easily accessed minerals, I am already ahead of bronze-users.

I was kinda going to make the thread die, as I always do when I dislike a suggestion but the people who do are stubborn, but sure. I have nothing better to do :P

Working off Observer's bashing of the incompatibility of the metals themself, I'll go point out the flaws in the spawnpoints.

Firstly, the first map. Lead: Deathwater cave, Canyon Tin: Mainland, Magma, Spire Silver: Lynx Copper: Mainland, Magma, Spire

Lead
Ok, so first off, lead is filler. It adds nothing to the game at all. It isn't required, it isn't useful, it isn't even worth the time mining it when I could be moving up the smithing ladder elsewhere. I wont bother going into how rare it is for how useless and terrible the tools are.

Tin and Copper
Tin however, this is something that is required before you can start metalworking with iron and such. So is copper. Since they're effectively identical, I'll cover this simultaneously. Magma and spire are both hard to reach and unforgiving environments, flax island for example (one of our current starter metal hosts) contains freshwater, trees, herbs and flax. Magma is miles off anywhere, and very hard to survive at. It also contains a hostile and powerful tribe frequently. Spire is not only a beacon of fear and hostility for new players, but it also lives up to it's appearance with a plethora of things to fall off, and dark caves (which also just so happen to be the only place with enough space to host your new ores). This leaves mainland.

Mainland obviously would host its copper and tin reserves inside the mountains, which are also very dark. For that you would need a lantern. It also just so happens that mainland is stuffed at one side of the map, so islands like bento, paradise, and rockma are all without any source of nearby copper or tin to get started on. It also happens to be that bento island is one of the most commonly settled on islands in the game, paradise closely following in terms of new players. Bento would normally have rockma island for its metals, but you cant start making steel and iron without making copper and bronze tools first. Ok, so forcing new tribes who don't want to be stuck in the Stone Age to live at mainland isn't the end of the world, but what comes next is.

The issue comes with the fact that mainland cant host all this copper and tin without taking out the iron (or at least the vast majority of it). So now our mainland tribes are stuck in the Bronze Age. Nomadic raiders however, can go as they please. They can make bronze, then go to rockma and get to the steel age. They are also capable of sailing to bento and collecting some armour, a task the vast majority of tribes neglect. After that, they could get mithril, or bluesteel. Now they go to mainland and start attacking a tribe.

Normally, when a nomadic soloist attacks a developed tribe, the tribe can kill them off, with swords, javelins, and crossbows. However, since non-god tribes are now limited to mainland, and bronze, the mithrilite has a large advantage. Chances are they will have no armour, owing to the fact they are very far from bento island, and therefore killing them would be a chinch compared to what it would be if they had freedom to decide their island. Their tools will be even weaker than usual compared to yours, and the tribe would be ruined. The only place with all the ores you would need to stand a chance would be magma (or spire, but you cant build tribes there), which is very hard to live at. Therefore you have just considerably nerfed tribal and social activity, one of the things that makes this game fun.

Silver
Err, silver coins? Yay?

Fillar.

New Map
Tin: Snowpeak (on mountain), Jungle, Cresent Copper: Volcano, (Chromite place), Rockshard Silver: Farmer Covered. Lead: Volcano (Iron place) Covered.

Ok, so let's look at the map here, and what we can do at each island.

Key: Grey : Unobtainable Black : Obtainable, but requires smithing levels gathered elsewhere. Green : Can be used using smithing trained on the island.

Crescent: Copper, Bronze, Iron, Steel, Mithril Basin: Copper, Bronze, Iron, Steel, Mithril Catacomb (MA ISLAND): Copper, Bronze, Iron, Steel, Mithril Rockshard: Copper, Bronze, Iron, Steel, Mithril Farmer's: Copper, Bronze, Iron, Steel, Mithril Harbour: Copper, Bronze, Iron, Steel, Mithril Snowpeak: Copper, Bronze, Iron, Steel, Mithril Jungle: Copper, Bronze, Iron, Steel, Mithril Overhang: Copper, Bronze, Iron, Steel, Mithril Volcano: Copper, Bronze, Iron, Steel, Mithril

Note how only two islands can actually host a tribe that can make metals without previously being a metal hunting nomad or the dreaded "Setting up a Secondary Camp", which fails every time. Guaranteed. One of which is a lovely island with wheat, freshwater, chromium, onions, plenty of wood, and flat building space, and another is an unforgiving mountain with few trees, no food or drink, and no easy way to get to it. This would mean that any sensible person would go to rockshard, and there is only one reasonable option for tribal life.

Tl:Dr: Cant blame you. Basically these ores are simply a buttload of filler and an anti-tribe mechanic.