[crossfire] Materials

[Mark Wedel]

On 06/26/11 05:28 AM, Nicolas Weeger wrote:
> Hello.
>
>
> In the code is support for "NEW_MATERIAL_CODE".
>
>
> Enabling it randomizes the material for many items, leading to proliferation
> of items with different materials and properties (more damage to weapons,
> different resistances, and such).
>
>
> Material support is half-written for multiple combinations (iron + paper for
> instance), but not totally everywhere.
>
>
> I wonder whether to enable that (extended material) support by default and fix
> issues, or totally remove it.

  Leaf did pretty well summarize the issues, but there was another annoyance I 
found with it:

  For most items, the material made very minor difference.  So following on 
Leaf's example, no only would you have 6 different boots of speed (instead of 
them stacking), but save for maybe 1 point of resistance here or there, or one 
being a little bit lighter, they were all basically the same.

  So you got a lot of inventory clutter for very little gain.  And the way the 
code work, it would find something of 'iron', and then randomize the material 
for all the things that could be iron.  Some materials might make a difference 
for armor, but not weapons, and vice versa, but the material code itself had no 
way to restrict that. so you would have 6 times of metal armor, with maybe only 
one or 2 of the materials being different enough to really care about.

  So I would say that the material logic could be removed.  If one was to 
improve it, these are my thoughts:

1) Make it more like the artifact code, where one can restrict it to different 
items.  Thus, a yew bow may be really good, so you would find normal wood bows 
and the better yew bows, but wouldn't find pine, spruce, etc.  OTOH, this starts 
to look like just another stack of item bonuses, and is it worth it to do it via 
material instead of just making some bows better and in the description say they 
are made from yew?

2) Ability to regionalize materials.  It might make perfect sense in the area 
far to the north where only pine trees grow that the vast majority of wooden 
items would be pine, in a jungle area, bamboo, etc.  That would sort of 
eliminate some of the stacking problem - since you would typically do your 
adventuring within an area and then go to the shop to sell at once, most of your 
items would be made from the same local material.  But even then, I would have 
to ask if the changing of materials really gains that much?