Suggestion: Synth-Metal

1st Official Post

    Name: Synthetic Metal


    Description: It's bugged me for a long time now being an Industrialcraft, Buildcraft, RedPower user that i'm
    essentially a caveman with a microwave. I build huge power grids and miles of piping to run items from here to
    there, and yet it is all encased in stone walls. It would be nice to make my buildings out of something that goes
    along with this theme, such as iron. But as everyone knows, iron is simply too valuable to waste on structural
    projects, especially with the high demand for it from the three mods. Maybe there should be some way to make
    a type of syntheitc iron, which would be much easier to produce, looks like iron blocks, but can't be used for the
    production of iron dependant items. Maybe you could mix one iron dust and 2 or 3 tin dust to make 2 nickel dust
    or something which would smelt into nickel bars, and use 4 nickel bars to make a nickel block that looks like iron
    blocks but has no use other than building structures with. Just a suggestion, as I'd like to get out of the caves.


    (and before anyone says it, I'd like to preempt them by saying yes, i realize nickel is a base element and not
    an alloy. It was just the first thing that came to mind. The name of the synth-metal means little to me.)


    Recipes:


    Nickel Dust (2)


    I T _ _ T _
    TT _ or _ I _
    _ _ _ _ T _


    I = Iron dust
    T = Tin Dust
    _ = Nothing


    Nickel Block


    NN _
    NN _
    _ _ _


    N = Nickel Bar
    _ = Nothing

    I kind of like this idea, though I usually build a basic house until I have access to bronze, then build a new base with Reinforced Stone, but my only gripe is the recipes for the nickel, perhaps Nickel should be a generated ore around the rarity of Iron or Tin, but take longer to mine in this form. Smelting takes a little longer than anything (aside from Uran), but uses the 2x2 crafting idea for block form.

    This sounds quite interesting. I too usu. just use a couple layers of stone(I'm experimenting with water as a between substance, as it cancels out normal explosions I think) until I can make a bunker/fortress using reinforced stone/glass. But I think what would be a great use of the new Nickel could be using it to make new, iron block resistance, blocks with different textures based on the formula used. I was think something towards metallic brick blocks, for starters. This would fit in with the greatly increased/expanded IC² systems. I also had an idea of having a unit of Advanced Alloy to replace refined iron to give much stronger blocks, possible having a reinforced stone colored edge to the block to differentiate them.


    A few could be:
    (T=tin, C=copper, N=nickel, I=refined iron)


    T N T
    N I T This would have squares of the respective metals if the configuration show
    T N T




    These are examples, and I made nickel orange for easier contrast, but it has a silvery hue with a slight golden tinge to it. So a silver w/hints of gold.

    Actually, I forget who did it, but I remember seeing an Alloys mod over on MCF where if you place two metal blocks above and below an iron block and the properties would "leak" into the iron (I think though. Haven't seen the mod for a while.