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Copper used as a cheaper and more abundant alternative to iron.

As of lately, iron farms are pretty much powerless because of the nerfs to iron golem spawning behaviors. This is definately a good thing, but since so many useful items still require a lot of iron, there has to be some sort of alternative. Copper could do that wonderfully with only a few changes.

First, copper could be made into almost anything that iron can be including doors, cauldrons, pressure plates, chains, lanterns, bars, blocks(of course), and even tools! Second, copper can't just be the new iron, it definitely has some issues. First of all, copper corrodes, as seen from the video by Mojang. So everything that is made from copper will corrode. The only way to get rid of the rust is to use a scraping tool made from flint. This tool would remove one corrosion level from copper, taking four uses if the copper is at the maximum corrosion level. If you let your copper go past corrosion level four, the block, item, or whatever will be destroyed completely. Finally, copper can be used as tools and gear. This doesn't need to exist, but I will share my ideas any way. Copper armor would only be two armor points weaker than iron, and it would have better durability, but, it corrodes. The more corroded it is, the less defense it will provide and the faster it will break. Copper tools work the same as the armor, as in they are the same as iron (if not, mine just a bit slower) but they keep that corrosion affect that the armor has as well.

If copper gear is added, then iron=rarer.

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    What I mean by making iron rarer, is to make it more difficult to get (sorry i didn't have enough letters left to use). Instead, it would be found at y=30 and below. Other than that, its generation would be the same.


    There are two reasons for this change. The first is that copper needs a place on the tech tree. I know that the tech tree is sacred, but there is also another reason that would really help the game out even if copper doesn't do what I am requesting. Iron is very powerful, and, right now, it's too easy to get. The player can get some pretty powerful enchanted iron gear pretty early on since iron gets better enchantments than everything except gold and netherite. Making it so that you need to dig deeper to more dangerous parts of caves in order to get it would really help the progression out.


    I feel as though I haven't talked enough about copper tools. All of the tools will deal the same amount of damage as their iron counterparts. The only difference being mining. Copper tools break blocks slightly slower than iron. The copper pickaxe should be able to mine up to gold, but not diamond, obsidian and netherite. Let's look again at the tech tree. If you can skip copper and go straight to iron because all you need is the stone tier, then why make copper tools other than because how cheap they are? I am sorry about this, but we are going to have to look back at the tech tree. In order to get iron, you need a copper pickaxe. (Continued on next part)

     

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    Registered User commented
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    The need for a copper pickaxe in order to get iron would incentivize the player to try out the new copper tools. Once they try them out, they may want to use them more and therefore explore the new copper mechanics.

     

    When it comes to enchanting, copper gets the same enchantments as diamonds. This means that the enchantments would be worse than iron.

    One final note is that since copper spawns similar to how iron does today in Minecraft, and iron is still in the game, making blocks like hoppers would be much easier and we can all wave iron farms goodbye for good.

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    Copper would not make change iron's spawning, it would just be significantly more common, closer to coal. copper would not disappear when rusted completely, but it would lose durability faster by one point each level of rust. Also, it could be combined with gold to make it rust slower but less durable. Copper armour would be significantly less durable but as protective or almost as protective as iron. It would require a significant amount of maintenance, and may not be worth it late-game. When the rust is scraped off (which is required for repairing) it would lose 1/8th of its initial durability, meaning maintenance is ESSENTIAL and it will require much larger quantities of copper in the long-run. Also, as you repair rust-resistant equipment, it would lose its rust resistance.

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    @ Haruneko125 

    Thanks for the comment! You made my idea better, and I appreciate it.