So, in the specific case that Dragon Armor had both Light and Heavy Armor variants, we could expect a total of four variants of Dragon Armor:
Light Dragon Armor and Heavy Dragon Armor as defaults, and Scaled Dragon Armor and Plate Dragon Armor with the perk Advanced Smithing.

I think it will probably be 3 types of armor. The base armor, the scaled variant and the plate variant. As we've seen, the companion screenshot has a warrior in hide armor with scales, while some hide armor shots have iron plates attached. Of course, these could just be modifications, and not different versions. Or there could be 4 or even 6 variants. It also appears you should be able to craft iron, leather, hide and chainmail armor at the start of the game, though there could be more, like fur if it hasn't been replaced, and mithril is still likely out there.

I just had a thought- what if crafting all the unlisted armors doesn't require a perk, but instead only requires a certain smithing level? Think about it. The unlisted armors are probably not as strong as ones made from the same materials that require perks to make.

Seems like it. Considering dragons are a headliner for the game they didn't want to cut people out just because they chose light or heavy



This is another possibility, although plate generally seems like a heavy variant. This would mean there are 3+ variants of each material.

light and heavy variants of dragon armor was confirmed in the fan interview.

I was actually thinking this exact same thing. I would imagine that you don't necessarily need to have perks to create certain easier or lesser armor/weapon types, or armor/weapon types whose materials and parts are easier to find. I would hope that increasing your Smithing skill will count for something in Skyrim, even without perks. This way those of us who don't want to invest Perks into the Smithing tree can use them elsewhere but still be able to smith at least some higher-level materials, like Mithril, etc.

Crafting unlisted armors will require that material perk (steel for steel armor, glass for glass armor, etc.). You will most likely be able to improve ANY armor though.

well in MW the caldera mining company mined Ebony and Glass from the volcanic rock of vvardenfell so that would be your glass and ebony. I think Lore states that Vvardenfel was the only area where ebony an glass could be easily obtained tho... perhaps you will only find them in the mountains bordering MW?

Orcish and Elven are probably some sort of alloy of steel armour. Would be great if they brought back the chitin armours of MW and you had to hunt giant insects for the raw materials or something. In MW there was also Dragonscale and Trollbone armour. The sources of those are pretty obvious!

that was Imperial Dragonscale. which, as I've said, is probably named for its appearance, not its composition

Maybe(assuming ebony is stronger)it's because the ending of the OB crisis prevented daedra from coming to Nirn, so it also weakened their magic on Nirn, weakening the armor.

That wouldn't make sense though. As Daedric armor is still enhanced ebony armor, by having the soul of a summoned Daedra infused into it. So even if it was weaker, Daedric should still be stronger then Ebony.

I think you're way off base. Its much more likely that the reason advanced armors has 2 variants is because neither scaled nor plate has corresponding weapons, so they just put them together as a 2-for-1. There are 13 mineable ores.

Glass armor is made of a special type of volcanic glass, like ebony is.