Very Possible! I see steel as a definite possibility in Starbound! Practically this is a "why not" suggestion. Here are my ideas about Steel. Higher overall ratings than iron, Rust resistant (if rusting is added), requires coal to make, aesthetically brighter than iron. Looking at everyone's opinion on this is also quite intriguing. The idea of multiple minerals and ores and combining them to make alloys is a definite possibility. Starbound hasn't stopped adding content yet! After all... it's still in the making.
Yep. In a game like this, where it's mainly randomly generated content, more ability to create variation is good. Steel was a bad example, though.
I actually think steel is a great example. It's soooo important and most people don't even realize it; frankly it wouldn't make any sense if it WASN'T in the game.
Steel is important, I have to agree. I mean it was a bad example for alloys having varying effects depending on what you put into them.
Well, not that I'm the OP or anything, but I think this thread has been talked to death. I move to close it, anyone second? lol
I was reading that Steel is a combination of pig iron, iron ore, and limestone all heated together. The limestone and iron ore combine into a slag. The impurities from the iron are then oxidized and float from the iron into the slag. Then once your carbon content is correct you have steel. Now, we could make it so you have to have an iron bar first, then combine limestone and iron ore to make the slag, then combine the slag and the iron bar to make steel. Or we could simply make it so that slags can be mined from limestone blocks and then combined with the iron bar to make steel.
There's A LOT of ways to make steel, and I don't know most of them, but yours sounds about right. While I appreciate the realism of that mechanic, that would just be too complicated for me personally.
If this game goes like Terraria's valuable materials are better mechanic, then i would love to see white gold, which is gold + silver, and even more rare. I expected Terraria to do that.
I personally loved the variety of minerals and metals in Terraria, in fact I would have like even more. But, frankly, the fact that gold and silver were stronger than iron or even copper was just annoying. I get that it could be tough to think of metals that are stronger than iron but are significantly rarer, but they couldn't have picked worse metals than gold or silver.