The logic of the game annoys me sometimes. First, it said I needed Iron Ore and Corundum or to smelt Steel. Everyone alive knows you need iron ore and coal to smelt steel. Corundum (rubies and sapphires) is aluminum oxide. Maybe you could smelt it to some beneficial result, but it doesn't make steel.

Now it's telling me I can't make alloys of any kind with ingots. Only ore. I have iron ingots, and charcoal (hell I have corundum ingots for that matter), why can't I smelt steel with that? Ingots are even EASIER than ore to smelt. I mean you don't have to be a metallurgist to know that. It's just common sense.

And before someone goes prattling on about how it's stupid to look for real-life logic in a game about magic, the game is based/on in real-life. Everything about the game except the races and the magic is based in real life. And not being able to smelt ingots is stupid.

I can't see how it overbalances the game somehow.

seems like a pretty minor problem compared to some of the other stuff right now...

The short answer is that crafting was tacked on, and not very fleshed out. The long answer is... the same.

Yes...Everybody alive knows you make steel with iron and...coal...

I was thinking the same thing, but I guess it's just "fantasy", because glass armor and weapons are made of malachite (I think), which should change into black copper(II)oxide when heated. And elven is made of moonstone etc.

It's illogical that you can make better weapons and armor than the legendary epic artifacts of legendary epicness after a few weeks of stitching together leather shoes. This means your average sweat shop worker could probably make the greatest armor in the world if you just gave him/her a couple of metal bars and some shoelaces.

Um... so?

You know this in't exactly the most logical game in the world.

Normally you would be correct, but you see, this is no ordinary steel...

You are forging magical, Tamrielic steel...yes...

Has your mind been sufficiently blown!?

I like the crafting system overall, although I wish you could use various things to customize armor. I can see the issue where you should be able to mix two ingots together to create an allow, although are there any other alloys other than steel? Also, while I don't know if corundum steel actually exists, there's are varying alloys of steel; they aren't all just iron with a trace of carbon.

But admittedly the misuse of the term corundum became a minor annoyance when I found out it's a real material. Very minor, though.

Fail argument.

Everything else in Skyrim is based in real life in the same way that everything in Minecraft or GTA games are based in real life; by which of course I mean they're not.

Looking like things we recognise from real life and being able to pursue activities we can theoretically do in real life =/= based in real life.

It has nothing to do with logic, it was a game decision to separate iron and steel armour without adding too much depth to the system.

Weeell. I'm not a metallurgist and I don't really pay attention to the requirements for making anything in the game. Honestly though, you do have to consider that glass is stronger than Elven armor in this game. I'm not exactly sure they are going for realism. At all.

Based on real life - yeah, besides the land the races the magic the religions the history...

Yeah, Ebony is sooo a type of metal that's nearly unbreakable.

Based on real life doesn't mean it's real life.

But if you use real life metals like iron and steel, you really should make the effort to get the components of steel correct.

That's the thing though. They aren't using real life metals. Just like they aren't using real life ebony, or real life glass, or real life silver, or real life quicksilver. None of them are based on their actual equivalents.

BECOZ MAGIC.

Iron + Coal = Steel?????

What the hell have you been smoking son? go back to runescape.

Basically this. You have to suspend reality and allow the rules of the game's universe take over.

This is a good point. For someone to claim the game is based in real life they've clearly overlooked that glass and quicksilver are not representative of their RL equivalents. Quicksilver for starters is an old name for Mercury IIRC, which would mean it's a damn liquid and room temperature.

zomg smithing illogical!!!!1

Well crap! I haven't bothered with actually making any steel yet since I'm doing light armor with my stealthy type. I actually thought that iron and charcoal would make steel.. simple and chemically accurate. Go figure <_<

it took me ages to realize that the coal ingame wasnt for smithing, but was just a clutter item and was actually a charcoal stick for writing :sadvaultboy: .

but really, when i saw that i needed corundum to make steel, i took that as beth saying "its wholly impractical to make an engaging crafting system based on real life. shut up and make your magic steel".

sure its illogical, but a moth wing making you invisible takes the cake in my book. but i can understand your problem... corundum, really? steel is just iron with a purer smelting process... or something like that. you need a perk to make it, why just have it use 2 iron ore or something if material was the issue? introducing CORUNDUM to make steel really stretches suspension of disbelief, and unnecessarily so; they could have done it in so many other ways.

There's no such thing as ebony and glass gear in real life. So they can make up whatever metal you need to make them. Notice the OP isn't complaining about ebony and glass.

But iron, steel and corundum are indeed based on real life. They went through all the trouble to introduce them in the game, so they should get it right. There's no excuse for them to make a mistake.

Well, I disagree. That's not the way I see it. I don't think they "have" to get anything right. I don't see it as right or wrong to begin with.

It's one thing to support the company who has brought you great games despite some bugs. But it's quite another to completely overlook mistakes and excuse them.

Like I said though, to represent steel forging, which is essentially just changing the carbon content of iron, they'd have to include some kind of extra depth that is just unnecessary; besides, plenty of steel variants contain other elements for the sake of desired properties, I suppose their reasoning was that, in a smithing mechanic not based on real life, surely adding a hard material to steel would simply make for better steel.