Re: [LT Armor Loadouts] Expensive Greaves
 

So tell us how to put this into a book without analysing the materials/labour ratio for every item.

Re: [LT Armor Loadouts] Expensive Greaves
 

"+$X per pound". This is somewhat problematic in the case of different qualities of what is generally described as the same material, such as varying qualities of steel, or where different materials are dissimilar effort to work, but it's less likely to produce silly results than alternatives.

Re: [LT Armor Loadouts] Expensive Greaves
 

No. A technology has to be mature and ubiquitous. Iron plate body armour is rightly TL4. If you want iron plate at TL2 it should be treated as advanced or experimental.

Re: [LT Armor Loadouts] Expensive Greaves
 

Take a value that produces reasonable (and reasonably gameable) results for most armors, and take another value for those armors judged as being particularly effortful to produce. Failing that, choose a single value for bronze armor that doesn't make a hoplite-status Greek unable to afford his own armor [the armor prices are admittedly chosen more with an eye towards game balance than history anyway- and could hardly be otherwise, given how prices varied over two millennia and three to five continents]. [EDIT: I like Anthony's suggestion better.]

EDIT: So, to be clear, are you saying that iron-plate-making at TL2 was "rare because difficult and involving skills not developed", or just "rare because people who could have made it had better things to do with the metal"?

Re: [LT Armor Loadouts] Expensive Greaves
 

Iron plate body armour doesn't become mature and ubiquitous until TL4. You can justify it any way you want but it doesn't change historical facts.

Re: [LT Armor Loadouts] Expensive Greaves
 

I mean, some things with a TL were never "ubiquitous". I'm just trying to work out whether, if asked by a PC to craft an iron cuirass, a TL2 blacksmith, after being assured that the buyer really wants one and not a superior suit of mail, can produce something roughly equivalent to the TL4 version (after accounting for any differences in the quality of iron). Whether it should be called TL2, TL4, or TL4-but-they-could-do-it-at-2-if-they-want is beside the point.

Re: [LT Armor Loadouts] Expensive Greaves
 

So you would propose analysing and quantifying the materials/labour cost ratio for every item in the book?

Re: [LT Armor Loadouts] Expensive Greaves
 

If you just want a cuirass and not an articulated suit, then there is no practical reason why it can't be done at TL2. You can make mail using TL1 bronze too if you want but it never existed historically until someone invented it.

Re: [LT Armor Loadouts] Expensive Greaves
 

As far as I can see, all his proposal needs is a listed weight for every relevant item in the book- which, conveniently, is already present.

Re: [LT Armor Loadouts] Expensive Greaves
 

Hardly. Every item has a different ratio, which changes with the TL. You would also need to know the cost/labour ratio for every component. A significant percentage of the cost of mail armour, for example, is the iron wire. You need approximately 1000-2000 feet of it, which had to be hand-drawn from specially-prepared billets of highly-refined iron.