I was just wondering, will material value have some affect on your equipment? Like for example my character creating a sword of iron, would be inferior to a steel sword? Perhaps i have just glanced over this and it has already been covered, but regardless I would like to know if there will be material superiority, or even different materials at all. thanks guys 
I should preface this by saying Iām sadly uneducated on the subject but how significant is the difference between an iron sword or a steel sword when itās cutting into your arm?
Or even when itās banging against your breastplate for that matter? As much as I can think it would only be a difference in how often you would have to sharpen or repair it, I doubt an iron sword would shatter striking steel, and any dulling of the blade would be near impossible to accurately represent in a game.
I think that iron weapons were in use 1000 years before that and already replaced by steel weapons in this time period. AFAIK iron is softer and swords of iron should be easy to bend and stay deformed
If you want to get informed there is a great book to read.
The Knight and the Blast Furnace: A History of the Metallurgy of Armour in the Middle Ages & the Early Modern Period
by Alan Williams.
The general idea is that iron is softer than steel and steel is softer than heat treated steel. But within those three categories there are a lot of variables.
Iron armor was still in use during the late middle ages and early renaissance, mostly in (cheap) munition quality armor.
Also it was in history relevant in which procedures the iron was processed. And how āpureā the iron was. Or could be āpurifiedā⦠in about the mentioned 1000 years before KC: D is set, the forged iron was supposed to be kind of rough and -strongly depend of place of the findings- of bad and ādirtyā quality. Also sometimes it was quite expensive to be collected. and/or mined/filtered.
I donāt think such varities of quality will have a somewhat great influence on the game itself. But in case of crafting, there could be some different methods to be learned for refining the iron ore and/or ingots, I imagine, to produce better crafting materials. As far as they were used in the set time and place of KC D -being Bohemian-ish- I could quite imagine some mining places in the vicinityā¦
REALLY donāt want to see this go the DnD or Dragon Age route with weapon materials. Keep it simple, just have your skill level affect the quality of steel you can produce.
As you already know, blacksmithing will be a big part of the game. We are working on it right now but details like the material selection arenāt sure yet. We are still in the developing phase but instead of materials we are focusing on different processing types like hardening right now. These types should influence the quality of your end-product. Summarized: There will be blacksmithing, but in which dimension isnāt sure yet.
Wasnāt assumeing to go for ore quality, though. Different procedures of hardening are quite some realism to me, for that instance⦠
Thanks for that enlightment, Tobi. ^^
Iron is actually more brittle, which is half the problem. Steel can bend to compensate for a powerful swing or when two swords clash - iron is more likely to break.
Youāre a bit backwards, Blepable. Pure Iron is very soft. The reason bronze swords lasted as long as they did was because iron was too soft and prone to bending and twisting. It took the discovery of how to make steel by adding carbon to the iron before a sword blade could be made that was rigid enough to be useful.
However, steel can also be made too HARD, which makes it brittle (this is why you DO NOT EVER fight with a stainless steel sword. Itās too hard, and will snap under heavy impact).
A proper steel blade does NOT bend. It FLEXES. There IS a difference: An iron sword bends, and once bent, it remains that way. However a steel sword flexes, meaning it returns to its original form. You need a steel that has the right amount of carbon. Too much carbon and it becomes too brittle and liable to break. Too little, and once bent it wonāt return to shape.