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[Xrazlyn]

This will be the forum page for my project titled "Advanced Materials Mod".

Goals:
Creation of Vanilla-Friendly materials and processes, that utilize pre-existing materials in the Vanilla Dwarf Fortress, and use those new materials for vanilla-appropriate uses.


Background:
I have been following Dwarf Fortress, and playing it off and on for years. With the recent release of the Steam version, the thing I noticed in my first fortress was the abundance of Bauxite rocks.

I thought to myself: "I can use native aluminum in crafts, why can't I smelt that into aluminum ingots?"
Further research answered my question: Aluminum extraction from Bauxite requires electrolysis, and Dwarves haven't discovered how to generate electricity
If typical electricity generation is against the spirit of craftdwarfship, then there must be a way to achieve this: Voltaic Piles
, putting bars of metal into acid soup to make bubbles is a very dwarfy concept.

Naturally this thought process went down a massive rabbit hole, and resulted in me going through the stone and metal lists to see what materials are under-utilized, and frankly there is a lot of opportunity for alchemical, and metallurgical F U N.


Roadmap:
Since this is my first attempt at a major mod things will be slow going at first, and focus will be on depth of a select few materials and their production chains to start. If something seems like it extends too much from Vanilla DF, I will likely incorporate it into a separate mod.

Bauxite: Alumin(i)um Production
-Create Aluminum bars from alumina, at smelter
-Create Alumina (Aluminum Oxide) from bauxite at smelter
-Produce Caustic Soda (for reagent in alumina creation reaction)
-Create "Red Mud" ore, (byproduct of the alumina production process, which contains many oxides)

Horneblende: Asbestos Production
-Create Asbestos Fibres from hornblende, at craftsdwarf's shop, by strand extracter
-Weave Asbestos Cloth from Asbestos Fibres, at loom
-Create Asbestos Clothing from Asbestos Cloth, at Clothier's Shop


Green = Completed, and included in mod
Yellow = Bug testing
Orange = In progress
Red = Planned
Purple = Undergoing further research, may be removed/not added

Additional suggestions are appreciated.

[Stimraug]

Aluminum bars?

[Xrazlyn]

That would be one of the first steps. Followed by aluminum armour 

[Count10]

Oh! I've actually thought about the same concept but with titanium. The reason it wasn't used until recently in real life is because refining it requires electrolysis and some other weird chemical reactions just like aluminum. I don't know if any actual ores of titanium appear in dwarf fortress, but it'd be very interesting to see it used. Also, I like the general idea of being able to get unique metals or lots of rare metals through a more complicated process, so I'm excited to see where this mod goes!

[Putnam]

Oh! I've actually thought about the same concept but with titanium. The reason it wasn't used until recently in real life is because refining it requires electrolysis and some other weird chemical reactions just like aluminum. I don't know if any actual ores of titanium appear in dwarf fortress, but it'd be very interesting to see it used. Also, I like the general idea of being able to get unique metals or lots of rare metals through a more complicated process, so I'm excited to see where this mod goes!

Rutile and ilmenite are both major titanium ores IRL

[Xrazlyn]

Oh! I've actually thought about the same concept but with titanium. The reason it wasn't used until recently in real life is because refining it requires electrolysis and some other weird chemical reactions just like aluminum. I don't know if any actual ores of titanium appear in dwarf fortress, but it'd be very interesting to see it used. Also, I like the general idea of being able to get unique metals or lots of rare metals through a more complicated process, so I'm excited to see where this mod goes!

The electrolysis rabbit-hole goes very deep...

Right now I am working on figuring out a good way to incorporate the electrolysis into the production chain, with a few options:
Option 1:
-Add reactions to pre-existing workshop(s), with appropriate resource expenditures.
-Possibly have Zinc & Copper blocks as both reagents, as well as products.
(I believe this is more in the spirit of Vanilla DF)

Option 2:
-Create a separate electrolysis workshop, and (possibly) along with a dry-cell voltaic pile "workshop" and have the reactions occur there.
(This option seems to be worthy of a separate extension mod, instead of a "Vanilla Expanded" style mod)

Furthermore, many of the products of electrolysis are gases. At this point, reacting base game materials can give (off the top of my head) Hydrogen gas, Oxygen gas, Chlorine gas, and Sodium Metal.

I was thinking of making the gas products capturable in bladders made of intestines/stomachs/etc. (produced as a separate recipe). Would these products be good as new resources, or should the gases just dissipate?. Using bags of exploding/toxic gases as throwing weapons could be F U N.

As far as the asbestos goes, contrary to what is said on the wiki, I can think of no reason that a dwarven strand extractor "can't do that". https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Hornblende
For now I am thinking of fire resistant clothing that gives a cancer-like syndrome.

Thoughts?

[Count10]

Oh! I've actually thought about the same concept but with titanium. The reason it wasn't used until recently in real life is because refining it requires electrolysis and some other weird chemical reactions just like aluminum. I don't know if any actual ores of titanium appear in dwarf fortress, but it'd be very interesting to see it used. Also, I like the general idea of being able to get unique metals or lots of rare metals through a more complicated process, so I'm excited to see where this mod goes!

The electrolysis rabbit-hole goes very deep...

Right now I am working on figuring out a good way to incorporate the electrolysis into the production chain, with a few options:
Option 1:
-Add reactions to pre-existing workshop(s), with appropriate resource expenditures.
-Possibly have Zinc & Copper blocks as both reagents, as well as products.
(I believe this is more in the spirit of Vanilla DF)

Option 2:
-Create a separate electrolysis workshop, and (possibly) along with a dry-cell voltaic pile "workshop" and have the reactions occur there.
(This option seems to be worthy of a separate extension mod, instead of a "Vanilla Expanded" style mod)

Furthermore, many of the products of electrolysis are gases. At this point, reacting base game materials can give (off the top of my head) Hydrogen gas, Oxygen gas, Chlorine gas, and Sodium Metal.

I was thinking of making the gas products capturable in bladders made of intestines/stomachs/etc. (produced as a separate recipe). Would these products be good as new resources, or should the gases just dissipate?. Using bags of exploding/toxic gases as throwing weapons could be F U N.

As far as the asbestos goes, contrary to what is said on the wiki, I can think of no reason that a dwarven strand extractor "can't do that". https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Hornblende
For now I am thinking of fire resistant clothing that gives a cancer-like syndrome.

Thoughts?

The game does already have the screw press, a small specialized workshop that's used for only a few reactions. A crude voltaic cell could behave similarly. Perhaps it could be made out of zinc, copper, and some exotic extract from a cavern plant? I don't know the exact properties of acid you need to make one work, but a fantasy plant could probably be a good source for it. I do wonder if it's possible to have gasses build up in an enclosed area, if so dealing with leaking chlorine gas before it builds up enough to melt your dwarf's lungs could be an interesting challenge. Perhaps have the reaction turn the ores of aluminum and titanium into a smeltable material in exchange for the dangerous byproducts?

Also, as for the asbestos, I love the idea of giving strand extractors something useful to do beyond the very late game. I don't think there's a way to simulate cancer with a solid material, but dwarves can already drink out of lead mugs with no ill effects so it might stand to reason that they're also immune to the negative effects of asbestos.

[Xrazlyn]

I was thinking of having asbestos, having a similar effect to Deadly Dust that needs to be washed off, etc. Now to see if I can make the tokens work with the entities the way I want to.

I've spent time looking into Sodium, Cobalt, Chromium, Titanium, Uranium, different gases, common acids and base productions.

Like I said, the rabbit hole goes deep, and that is just making use of materials already present in vanilla.

Right now however, I want my coke can armour, and my cancer cloth before I delve into deeper madness (See: F U N)

[Stimraug]

That would be one of the first steps. Followed by aluminum armour 

I meant you can already make aluminum bars.

[Putnam]

aluminum is the worst armor metal in the entire game, impressively enough

[Xrazlyn]

aluminum is the worst armor metal in the entire game, impressively enough

But we have all of that pretty Lead just sitting about...

[Xrazlyn]

Update:

Going forward, materials that will not require expanding out from Vanilla workshops/tech level will be included in the base Advanced Materials Mod.

Materials that require electrolysis will be done at the millstone (unless I can make a custom building use power, which is not a token that can be applied to a custom building at this time... as far as I can tell...), and this function will be added in a separate, add-on for the mod.

As an example, this means that AMM will let you turn bauxite into Alumina (has uses as a ceramic, and glaze), and the reaction byproduct produces "Red Mud" which contains contaminants of minerals already existing in DF (i.e. Hematite) which can be used to expand iron/steel production.

With the electrolysis extension, Alumina can be used as an intermediate material to produce aluminum bars.

This saves me a lot of time working out how to get sufficient electrical current (battery piles won't produce enough), without having to violate the tech level of the setting. This also allows me to better separate the materials into two categories, which will let anybody using the mod to determine what level they want to deviate from the vanilla experience.

TL;DR
If Urist throws a bunch of copper wire into a millstone and that gives him a zappy/burny stick, he can put that into various liquids and make funny-smelling bubbles...

or as my girlfriend describes it MILLSTONE GO BRRRRR!


P.S. I will update the roadmap once I've gotten some sleep.

[Randomizer]

What about mercury...

We have the ore Cinnabar and it can be obtained with the level of technology the Dwarfs possess..

[Xrazlyn]

What about mercury...

We have the ore Cinnabar and it can be obtained with the level of technology the Dwarfs possess..

I've been looking into this as well, my biggest issue with this right now is finding a good vanilla/vanilla adjacent use for the material.

Maybe thermometers as a trade good, or use in forming amalgams with other metals to produce trade goods.

Another option is working with the raws to make certain materials into powdered dyes, though this will require extensive testing, and figuring out the new arena mode.