As of right now I cannot endorse DLC as it uses Hardened Brick in their recipes. This, in of itself, is not an issue. The problem lies in time and aquisition. 1,000 blocks of Black-Ice requires:
4k resin
4k oil
4k dry wood
3k tar
3k brimstone
3k hide
3k steelfire
5k black ice
30,000 iron ore
all of these materials can be farmed and completed in unison by a solo player in about 4-5 hours. Hardened Brick on the other hand is vastly different and more time consuming. Don’t forget a character can only hold 20,000 of an item. 1,000 blocks of hardened brick recipe require
20,000 wood
3k tar
3k brimstone
3k hide
3k steelfire
30,000 iron ore
3k twine
3k ichor
150,000 rock (don’t forget you can only carry 20k)
15,000 brick (included because this wastes time in the smelter)
See the difference, this does’nt even include the time taken from smelting steel reinforcements either. This would take Several Times Longer to make by almost 5 to 6 times than the superior Black-Ice Counterpart.
Even if you cut brick costs in half and reduced hardened brick in the recipes by half it would still require 35,000 rock to make 7,000 hardened brick to make 1000 blocks which is Still Higher Than Steel but puts it closer to be in-line with black ice.
The problem still being time in the furnace to which if you made the above cuts in cost and made Brick hand crafted then you would almost = Black-Ice blocks in production time.
Sorry for the long post just my suggestion becuase I actually want the DLC I paid for to be a relevent counterpart and be usable in game on a logical level. As of right now I went to several servers and could not find ONE base made entirely of ANY hardened brick recipe or DLC.
Suggestions
Reduce brick costs in half
Make brick hand crafted
Reduce Hardened Brick Recipes in half (IE Aquilonian Foundation 7 hardened brick instead of 15)
Mine will be - when it’s done. Well, not the thrall’s quarters, they’ll be either Stonebrick or Insulated Wood depending on what I think looks best - but the Royal Palace will be all Aquilonian marble!
But I play PVE and it doesn’t really matter how long it takes to build.
Yea sorry I did not think of the PVE aspect and time aquisition not really being a thing there I play on PVP servers which makes a huge difference. But it should still be in-line with Black-Ice regardless of the server you play on.
Yeah I agree with that - whether it actually is or isn’t in line, I’m not qualified to answer.
One thing that might matter is that regular T3 (hardened brick) is entirely craftable from a base in the softer regions, whereas Black Ice really requires a presence in the North (correct me if I’m wrong).
Not really as soon as you can get cold gear you can get Black-Ice as early as level 20 without DLC and level 10 with DLC. So a fresh player can start farming as early as that and actually make it at level 30.
On the servers where I play (both PVP) are some huge castles completly made with hardened brick or even black ice.
But I agree the costs are insane, not only for hardened brick.
personnally that’s with hardened bricks that i’m struggling the most. geez this aquilonian stuff is time consuming to get. But i guess it’s because i had forgotten how reinforced stone was so painfull to craft in the first place…now i’m starting to remember
When I was on a PvP server we built a large base out of reinforced stone because we were in the jungle and thought Black Ice would be too hard to get. After being raided a few times we decided to try Black Ice and it was significantly easier.
Well the best place to get black ice i found in the areas in the frozen north is where the frost gaints live as that is a good place to find nodes for black ice. That is if you don’t get torn apart by sabertooths or runned over by mammoths in the process on the way there and back.
There are nodes on the southeastern side of the volcano where you can farm black ice and not encounter a single thing. Black Ice T3 is definitely on the extreme side of cheap to make vs hardened brick.
Said this in other threads, but i think the black ice needs to be harder and the hardened brick easier.
Make the requirement for 1 brick be 5 stone instead of 10 that cuts the amount of stone needed for hardened brick in half. Or even lower to 3 stone for 1 brick
Then require bricks for black ice. Instead of the way it is now, make ice bricks using 1 brick and 1 black ice… this will be equivalent to the 1 brick and one stone consolidate for hardened brick. Make the rest of the requirements between the two the same. If you want insulated wood you can take out the oil requirement for it.
I think everyone agrees right now that the two are way out of wack, the argument comes where some people dont want black ice nerfed at all.
Easiest way to get black ice is place an 8x8 foundation on the cliffsides near temple of frost, put a map room on it. Use your repair hammer to check timer. Place more foundations, little hut, whatever to extend the decay timer to 144 hours. Even on PvP I’ve noticed that people won’t destroy this map room or structure because they’ll use it themselves.
Then just go into the Temple of Frost and take as much black ice as you can carry before being encumbered. You don’t need to fight Frost Giants, you won’t see a mammoth nor a sabretooth.
There are two Frost Giants in the front of the temple, you can run around them. Just slide down the side of the stairway and grab all the black ice behind the stariway. Run out. Laugh as you’ll have 5-6 frost giants attempting to chase you before giving up. Go to your map room and port back to the obelisk near your base.
Even better if you can spec vitality to 30 and encumbrance to 50. Go in warm armor, some aloe soups, and clear out the entire temple of Frost Giants minus going to the boss or the forge. Carry out literally all of the black ice and port back to the obelisk closest to your base.
With going with an encumbrance build you can literally carry thousands of black ice in one trip. Which is why I agree with @MrFubar to adding a step to make black ice structures because black ice itself is way too easy to acquire.
The only “presence” you need in the North is a map room or someone else’s map room near the Temple of Frost to be able to acquire thousands of black ice quickly and easily.
Hardened brick isn’t as bad as people make it sound, it just requires a bit of a change in how you do things. I play on a pvp server and I have three oversized bases built entirely from reinforced stone, and one from the new dlc, because I don’t like how black ice looks.
Smelting takes too long! - I see this a lot and I don’t understand. Just build more smelters. I use 10 improved furnaces, which fits 20k stone in one go. Load them up, turn them on, then go do something else. Use 20 if you have to. Honestly you should do this anyway for making steel.
Remember all that trash stone you got mining 20k iron for making steel? Don’t throw it away, stash it in a few chests for a load of bricks after the steel.
Shaped wood is significantly easier to get than insulated wood. It’s just wood. People always ignore the insulated wood cost of black ice. It’s not the end of the world to get dry wood from the desert, but people shouldn’t pretend this cost is negligible. Plus, if you’re cutting trees for resin anyway, maybe you should use that wood for shaped wood…
The great majority of actual work I put into building goes into making the steel reinforcements, which are needed for any building pieces. Yes reinforced brick takes more effort than black ice, but compared to the steel, the difference seems pretty negligible.
If you’re trying to do this with one furnace, yeah I agree, you might as well take a lava bath.
Problem being is the smelting process. Like i said you can only carry so much (20k). This leads to diminshing returns on more smelters. Each person cannot supply more than 9 smelters at once before running back to do another load (dimishing returns). Having more smelter means spending more time to divide each smelter, dont forget the smelter costs themselves, then thrall costs which is then compiled by diminshing returns.
For 1,000 measly blocks 150,000 rock vs 30,000 iron ore is a no brainer Black-Ice vs Hardened Brick and dont forget brick double dips on the smelter which doesnt even include steel so it is a heavy burden.
Takes me 15 minutes to load ten smelters with 20k stone. Toss in 200 consolidation each and the process will go from stone to 2000 hardened brick without you touching it. That’s 15 minutes of active time, plus some waiting time during which you really should be able to find something else to work on.
I have thoroughly tested this the more you split between smelter the bigger the diminshing returns you cant argue the numbers. 15mins farming the rock 5-10 mins placing them in smelters and fuel and you obviously did not load those 10 smelters becuase each improved furnace holds 3k worth of materials which does not include fuel so with 300 fuel that leaves 2700 in materials. that is 27,000 worth of mats across 10 smelters and you can only hold 20k even a t4 bearer thrall can hold 5,500 worth of material so at best you could have 25,500 worth of mats which puts you under 27,000 so you definately did not fill up 10 furnaces.
which still the problem arises Hardened Brick takes 5-6 times longer to make compared to the superior Black-Ice Counterpart hands down.
Like I said, I spend 15 minutes gathering 20k stone. I slap 200 oil, 200 consolidant, and 2000 stone in each furnace. When it’s done, I have 2000 hardened brick. It’s not hard, or complicated, there’s no need for spreadsheets. It’s 15 minutes of hitting rocks. I’m not sure why it takes you 5-10 minutes to put them in the smelters… that should be 30 seconds.
If you need 10k hardened brick NOW, then yeah you’re going to have a problem, but if you manage your time well it’s fine. 15 minutes of work for 2000 hardened brick.
I do have one complaint about hardened brick though. Storage.
Please let it stack up to 500 or something. Efficiently building out of hardened brick requires regular passive production, since you can’t instantly spit it out. You need a habit of regularly putting batches in the oven. That unfortunately results in needing to store the brick, and with the quantities of brick required in the recipes, that can be a lot of storage. It’s annoying needing multiple chests just for keeping bricks in until I’m ready to build something.
First off the fact that you are not filling your furnaces is Diminshing returns.
Secondly you are doing nothing but proving my point. On a PVP server you constantly need blocks NOW. So that massive time delay from Hardened Brick over Black-Ice Factually, strategically, logically does not make sense and what is worse is that it is INFERIOR to Black-Ice by 5-6 times the amount. Either you are not on a PVP server or are on a non official server because after 15 mins my brick alone is still burning.
Apparently I need spreadsheets and comparison videos on this becuase some people do not understand how truly massive the difference between makeing 1000 blocks of Hardened Brick vs Black-Ice is. Dont forget Hardened Brick is tied to DLC so Why should I use it on a PVP server where TIME MANAGEMENT is pretty non-existant?
This brings me back to my OP statement I cannot endorse DLC due to the strategical and logical difference in using Black-Ice over hardened Brick on a PVP server. T3 should not be a longer harder process than T4. I cant think of many games where this holds true. The suggestion I listed above bring the time CLOSER to Black-Ice but is still slower after dividing in half by TWICE.
Lastly after 15 mins of furnace time with t4 smelters they couldnt even finish the plain brick so I dont understand how you got 2k hardened brick in that time.
