durability dur lifetime blacksmith

Every object in this mud has a specific lifetime measured in
mud days (= 24 ticks). If its lifetime drops below zero the
item breaks. Items with flag MAGIC or QUEST get a broken flag
and can be repaired, all others are gone. Of course you can 
repair every item before it breaks. 

This only applies to items actually worn - not to eq in lockers 
or inventory. But before you remove all your eq all the time 
consider that a lifetime of 500 mud days is equal to about 240 
hours of onlinetime!
 
For all armor the effective AC is reduced the older the item gets.
E.g. a Armor with AC 10, lifetime 1000 days and 800 days remain-
ing has an effective AC of 8!
 
You can find out the max. lifetime of an object or its prob-
ability to break by identifying it. There will be also a message
about the state of the item ('looks brand new', 'could need some 
repair' etc.).
 
You can repair every item at a blacksmith. The amount of gold
charged depends on several factors:
- the remaining lifetime of the object
- is it already broken?
- is it of magical nature?
- the skill of the blacksmith and
- a cost-factor (how expensive the blacksmith is).
 
High skilled smith's are obviously more expensive than cheap
ones. If a smith fails to repair your stuff the item gets a broken
flag regardless of MAGIC or QUEST flags. You can than let the smith
try to repair it a second time or try a better-skilled one.
The blacksmithes are not able to repair the item to its former
status, so it will be able to endure a bit less after repair -
obviously this drawback also depends on the skill level of the
smith.