Blacksmith Unfinished Workbench Rework (grab it and run!)

[malley]

Hey Hearthfolks -

Several people have been asking for unfinished artworks or assets, and while on a whole we are not sure we want to release “old trash assets” that weren’t put into the game for a variety of reasons - there was one project that we had hoped to do but never got around to finishing, and that is an update to the Blacksmith’s workbenches. It was actually to be the first of a rework for all crafter’s workbenches, but as you may have noticed, we didn’t even finish the first one. That said, we did some work that we are proud of and would love to see someone else take the reigns to finish the original intent (should someone be interested).

I will do my best to walk you guys through our drawings, but please remember that they are just concepts (we never arrived at the point of modeling). And if someone does want to make these, please feel free to veer off concept and make what works for you in the end - and don’t worry about it, going off concept happens all the time ; ).

One piece of context we should provide: part of the idea of this rework was going to be that crafters would “upgrade” their workbenches and unlock new abilities (like being able to smelt silver/gold) - so that’s why there are two versions of these in the end (basic & advanced). Actually making upgrading workbenches would require a lot of data rework/restructuring - however, if you look at the upgraded potter’s wheel & kiln (in the RC mod, they are some of the tier 3 rewards), you can see that we did eventually make a system for using different assets as the same workbenches (so you could fake it if you don’t want to do the whole re-work).

I should also say that we never actually decided on any of these concepts - so I may say this or that was final, but nothing ever is until you’re done right? ; D

And one final addendum - all of the artworks shown here are @Allie 's art (posted with her approval), so all compliments should go to her ; ). I did contribute to these designs, but none of my work ended up being worth showing.

So for starters - we’ve got the basic anvil:

Here you can see Allie’s progress as she went through various iterations of what the basic anvil could look like, and the lowest one on the right is what we settled on.

For the advanced anvil, I wont bother to show you all the work in progress (there was too much and it was all much more unfinished), but this is what we settled on in the end:

The glowy bits inside are just meant to make it look awesome - it would still function as a simple anvil. I think I remember the idea was that this anvil would allow working with steel/silver/gold where the basic anvil wouldn’t. The slits on the side also ended up visually tying to the furnace so they were a little more connected.

Next we have the Furnace.

The layout of this image is a little confusing but bear with me. The top row was us thinking about the basic furnace, and you can see we were playing with what the various shapes could be. In the end we went with the 3rd from the left as it tied more into the larger shapes we were thinking of for the advanced furnace, and we didn’t want too large a jump between shape language (the pot one was cute, but just too different).
For the advanced furnace, I believe the final is the one in the lower center. The two rows of drawings are allie’s explorations on the types of shapes and various attachments which would go well together, and eventually merged into the right side drawing. It is not super clear in these drawings, but the pumpbags on the side were going to swivel back and forth in time with the crank wheel above with “invisible connections” between them - similar to hearthling arms/legs.

And finally, we have some “in scene” drawings of what a workshop could look like in the end. You will notice slight differences between these exploration drawings and the above concepts - its just artist’s leeway ; D. Again, nothing was ever finalized. For a moment we had considered making water buckets where blacksmiths would quench the thing they were working on. You also may notice that many of the shapes of things ended up looking animalistic - this was intentional and was us trying to make the assets cuter : ).

I wish I could say we have more explorations like this, but honestly I think this is it. We never got around to the other crafters - but if you look close you can see the groundwork for what became the input/output bins : D. We hope you guys enjoyed this little peek into development of the game - this was a really fun project that we were sad we didn’t get to finish. Haha, I should also say, this was probably the most organized we ever were in our development, so you definitely won’t ever see this kind of exploration for basically anything else we worked on - because we didn’t go through this process. But just to throw my two cents in, it is totally worth taking the time to explore designs like this - if you’ve got the time to spare ; ).

Cheers!

[DaniAngione]

This is amazing!

I love it
Thank you for sharing

[gonzalandau]

This is something @micheal_handy76_mh could really work with

[DaniAngione]

I already mentioned him in the ACE chat
We’ll probably try to tackle this idea somehow ^^

[DaniAngione]

Hey, @malley and @Allie

Not gonna say anything but this Blacksmith re-imagining might (or might not) be coming along with ACE as a little personal project dedicated to you guys

I’m sorry for missing a couple ACE Tuesdays now… we’ve been very busy working (And not many of us anymore ) - but I hope this little guy here can make up to it!
I know it is not the new furnace but I think I found an use for a crucible since you guys like it so much

Hope you’re all well
PS: Allie your work is wonderful - turning these drawings into voxels felt so damn natural !!! ~~

[Wouter_Sikkema]

That crucible looks awesome!
(dani, ive been splitting off the fireplace stuff and my own adjustments to smiting from my nordlings (everything takes charcoal, not wood, charcoal mounds can be made from wood that can later be harvested for (less) charcoal)
If you want or need any of it, pillage away
https://github.com/Thahat/firemod

(note I haven’t fixed the harvesting icon from the charcoal mound yet, you can harvest it just fine but the icon is inside the mound after you tag it for harvesting)

[DaniAngione]

I’ll admit I never played with Nordlings (shame on me!) but not because I don’t like them or anything - I just really haven’t had the time to play any Stonehearth lately.

i.e: I never properly played a game with my own Glassworks to the end (as in, making cool stained glass, etc… )

That said, I do read/follow your stuff and know about the charcoal mounds although I haven’t seen them - I really love charcoal mounds :3

So ACE has had some reformulation on the field of “fuels” since I wanted to make the idea of fuels more important than a log that you use when crafting with the blacksmith; but at the same time didn’t want to make it overly specific so although you now have different fuel options they’re generally divided in 3 groups - basically “cheap” fuels (for stuff like early blacksmithing or your own firepit); good fuels (for blacksmithing) and awesome/almost magical fuels (for future stuff like the Magmasmith;

That includes Firewood and charcoal, but knowing that you have the charcoal mounds I did make an alternative way of production as to not overlap your work (and it also fits other needs) which is the blacksmith’s kiln - it also makes coke, which is more advanced fuel made from black coal.
And there is, of course, firewood. And the earliest way of obtaining charcoal is, well… your firepit I know it makes no sense but looks cute, every morning your burning log becomes a piece of charcoal

I plan on showing more of these changes in an upcoming ACE-Whatever-the-day video

But yeah, I made sure to try to not overlap your stuff much (I think?) but can’t be sure since - like I said, I didn’t play it ;-;

But I love charcoal mounds! But call it Tar Kiln! It’s quite swedish
(and the tar can be used on boats!)

[Wouter_Sikkema]

Well I don’t really mind the overlap, I can always figure out a way to go “if ace is there, turn my stuff off” or turn ace’s stuff off or rework it or whatever. Though my route is indeed less odd than yours in the grand scheme of things :’) I made a coal resource that the blacksmith uses (so either normal coal or charcoal is OK)
And the mounds can be produced in bulk and burned all at the same time ( maybe @Cirdain still has his image of that when I accused him of being Saruman… )
But yeah, getting charcoal from a campfire, while not impossible, will never ever get you enough for real life purposes XD /blacksmithing pet peeve, its why I made the adjustments in the first place

[DaniAngione]

@Wouter_Sikkema

But yeah, getting charcoal from a campfire, while not impossible, will never ever get you enough for real life purposes XD /blacksmithing pet peeve

Haha, yes - like I said, it makes no sense. But I made this really cute model for charcoal - which is basically the log model but cutely burnt - and it just felt RIGHT to see the log turning into it when the fire goes out.

So it’s like a “free coal” bonus for every day in the game
You can use the Blacksmith’s Kiln to make charcoal more efficiently (and Coke later on) but the idea is that now pretty much everything that required wood before (as fuel) will now accept many other things –

I made several resources but they allow for multiple “groups” of fuels, sort of. Like things that can use ANY fuel, things that require better fuel, things that require good fuel but not waste your best - etc… and although it sounds complicated, it actually plays out quite intuitively and nicely :3

Alongside the blacksmithing facelift + the new gear/weapon/military progression revamp, the idea is to make the mid game longer and more interesting, with a cooler progression through the “metal industry”

as for the overlap, I meant in the sense of acquiring the resources in the same way Of course you can “mix up” your resources (or Ace’s) to fit yours - but both ways of acquiring them will be able to co-exist without the need for deleting one (or the other); charcoal kilns or mounds

[malley]

Lookin’ really cute! : )

[Wouter_Sikkema]

Aah like that :), now I get it.
The only real change is then thst I made it slightly more difficult to do the forging, wheras it sounds like you kept it roughly at default stonehearth, just more diverse
Looking forward to seeing it!

[Allie]

So good ;w;!! Thank you so much!

[DaniAngione]

:3 :3 :3

Going for the regular forge now

[Wouter_Sikkema]

Oké, I - turniping- love that! Wow!

Edit: after seeing the animations though, I kinds miss the bellows the actual default game forge has
Beyond that the hearthling work animation in my mind could better be changed to something else instead of hammering (who hammers inside their forge honestly) but that bothered me in the base game too XD
Maybe see no name can make you an animation of a hearthling stoking the fire with a poker?

[DaniAngione]

Bellows will (probably) make their appearance in a different way
Not entirely sure yet. The Advanced Forge does have it (as Allie’s image shows) so no worries about that

And I was thinking about the same (regarding the animation). Since this started mostly as a personal side project, however, I might take the opportunity to learn animation (finally)

Last ones for today - promise!

Using the Blacksmith’s Kiln to burn charcoal (create fuel)
Since it’s mostly a waiting process, this crafting has a new “impatiently waiting” crafting animation

And the “melting pot” animation for the Crucible, which can be used for making alloys like Bronze and Steel (and can see further use on other things or mods)

[Wouter_Sikkema]

Yeah OK this blows my way out of the water, I love the waiting animation XD
(have you got the recipe set up in bulk? So x wood gives you y charcoal all in one go? That way you can keep a semi lengthy animation while still getting production in making charcoal should take some time )

[DaniAngione]

Yep, there is a small scale recipe on level 2 and a bulk one on level 5. It is also more 5% efficient material-wise, first one uses 4 logs and gets 3 charcoal, bulk one uses 10 logs and gets 8

Your best mid-grade fuel will be coke, tho - which is basically refined coal and much more efficient, 1 coal becomes 3 coke and 3 coal becomes 10 coke

Edit:
Of course these are all “first iteration numbers”, true balance will only be achieved after playtesting, etc.
I feel like I should explain the idea behind fuels though, just to make it clear how “complex” but at the same time simple/intuitive they are:
there are several of them (like 8~) but you don’t really need to concern yourself with them specifically since they are all a single fuel resource now. Some things will require a better (or worse) fuel, however - and the progression is very simple - low, good, high. And inside every “tier” you have a craftable fuel, a “found” fuel and a fuel that turns into more fuel through crafting.

For example: low grade fuels are the log, as usual; firewood (1 log becomes 2 firewood), peat (crafted from clay/stone) and brown coal (found)

The idea is that you can play without caring about it and everything will go on smoothly as it has always been and you won’t notice much difference - but should you wish to go deeper into micro managing your workshops, stockpiling fuel and such, you now have the opportunity to do so (plus the benefits for future mods) with new stockpile filters and such, you can now make some pretty cool setups

Finally, the added value to blacksmiths, larger progression and such makes the mid-game more fun, rewarding and longer - and fuels are a good and useful experience grind that won’t feel useless like spamming windows or something like that ^^

[DaniAngione]

[Wouter_Sikkema]

Time to host forged in fire: stonehearth edition XD

[DaniAngione]

A wild advanced anvil appears!

I gotta say I’m having a blast doing these, following Allie’s awesome concepts and trying to bring that unfulfilled Blacksmith Workshop idea to reality - it’s like one of the most fun things I’ve ever done when modding Stonehearth. I plan to finish the basics tomorrow and then do the not-so-exciting part of reviewing recipes, making sure everything is working nicely and all that :3

In the end my next upload to ACE’s unstable branch is turning out to be quite fun can’t wait to see it all done and functioning!

Good night everyone ~~