I've finally got around to actually trying this... and the anvil does not appear for me to craft, even when I check all the requirements (I checked in the code). What am I doing wrong?
Edit: AND, I've just noticed that crafting the prongs causes the game to hard lock up. Maybe this is because Ashfall has added in time taken to craft recently..?
I've often thought that the ability to craft something to be able to do some field repairs was needed in Ashfall (for those of us who use Realistic Repair, which is a great mod that really changes game dynamics). So this sounds good. BUT, can I suggest: instead of stone, why not have a very small anvil that is crafted from scrap metal? Same with the prongs: metal rather than stone.
I chose to make the anvil stone mostly for accessibility (metal is a little hard to come across compared to stone), because truth be told it would have been easier to just add a metal anvil, considering I had to retexture a metal anvil into a stone one for this mod. But I couldn't think of a way to justify the actual crafting process for a metal anvil. How are you shaping scraps of metal into an anvil? For prongs, sure, bending some scrap metal together and fastening it with wood wouldn't be a problem, but an anvil is a hunk of metal and a piddly wood campfire is not going to melt iron down enough to mold it. I have plans to add a craftable forge, which would open an opportunity to enter the Iron age, so to speak, but for now I feel the Stone Anvil fits with Ashfall's bushcrafting loop a bit more; the tools to carve a flat bit of rock you can use to maintain your equipment were already there.
I know. It's potentially quite a rabbit hole, isn't it? Ashfall is already most of the way towards providing the functionality of something like The Long Dark (love that game), so it's hard to know when to stop. Merlord still hasn't implemented my idea of a solar still though! A few scathcraw leaves, some stones, and a wooden bowl! Job done! Water in the barren ashlands!
The anvil shouldn't be so easily crafted in the first place, in my opinion. Yes, we need a way to repair our items away from civilization when using Realistic Repair, but it kind of takes away from the point of Realistic Repair if you make an anvil easy to make/maintain to the point there would be very little reason to seek out a repair station at all. Something like building an important station like this should be harder to build just anywhere, so the town anvils are still important. EDIT: Also there are tons of scrap metal that just sits around unused. Simply visit a Dwemer ruin.
You need to do a bit of work to get the anvil. - Armorer needs to be 25, and you need a high enough level Bushcraft skill to craft a workbench, which takes a bit of time. - You need to craft, find, or buy a hammer and chisel - You also need to craft/find/buy a pickaxe and harvest a ton of stone, or go around picking it off the ground
Now, is any of that especially difficult? No, but neither is walking 5-10 minutes back to Balmora to repair. It takes roughly the same time and effort to make the anvil as it does to head back into town.
That being said, I do plan on adding a health bar to anvils to limit the amount of repairing one anvil can do. It wasn't implemented in this initial release because getting the damn anvil to activate Realistic Repair was hard enough lmao
I was thinking about this some more today and I was also thinking that giving anvils a usage limit (innately or as an optional feature) sounded like a good idea too. I'm gonna try this out as it is now regardless.
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Edit: AND, I've just noticed that crafting the prongs causes the game to hard lock up. Maybe this is because Ashfall has added in time taken to craft recently..?
- Armorer needs to be 25, and you need a high enough level Bushcraft skill to craft a workbench, which takes a bit of time.
- You need to craft, find, or buy a hammer and chisel
- You also need to craft/find/buy a pickaxe and harvest a ton of stone, or go around picking it off the ground
Now, is any of that especially difficult? No, but neither is walking 5-10 minutes back to Balmora to repair. It takes roughly the same time and effort to make the anvil as it does to head back into town.
That being said, I do plan on adding a health bar to anvils to limit the amount of repairing one anvil can do. It wasn't implemented in this initial release because getting the damn anvil to activate Realistic Repair was hard enough lmao
Kudos.