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Author Topic: Bread  (Read 811 times)

Greymane

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Bread
« on: May 15, 2008, 03:46:00 am »

So, this is an overly detailed idea, but I tend to have a lot of time to over thinking things.

The Oven and Baking
The Oven would be a new workshop, having both a regular and magma version (when magma is available). Ovens are used exclusively for baking bread, a process which requires the Cooking skill (unless an actual Baking skill appeared). Ovens need fuel, in the form of refined coal or magma, consuming a single unit for each action. Oven’s also need water to function, with a bucket being required during production, though the baker will travel as far as need by to obtain it.

As a food source, bread is harder to begin producing but can also be created in great volumes once the necessary ingredients have been assembled. Bread is an extremely filling food and dwarves who subside on a diet of mostly bread become hungry less often. Loaves of bread are also generally lighter and easier to store than other kinds of food, as they are stored in bags instead of barrels. However, if left unstored and uneaten, they tend to experience wear faster than most other foodstuffs.

An Oven can produce any type of bread that the fortress possesses the ingredients to make.

Types of Bread
Dwarven Bread: The mainstay of the Oven’s production, Dwarven bread is made from cave wheat flour on a one-per-one basis. Most dwarves will be content to eat dwarven bread and little else without complaint.

Stonebread: Stonebread is a cheaper alternative to regular dwarven bread, cutting most of the wheat flour with gravel (consumes a single stone), allowing you to bake two loaves for a single unit of flour. As dwarves are the only race with the teeth and constitutions to stomach this mixture, it is virtually without value as a trade good and not particularly popular even among the native population. Prolonged consumption of stonebread will produce unhappy thoughts (and may cause vomiting).

Sweetbread: Sweetbread is made from cave wheat flour, dwarven syrup, and dwarven sugar. While extremely difficult to make, it is also extremely valuable as both a trade good and a meal. Dwarves who get to eat sweetbread gain happy thoughts, though once the economy kicks in, it becomes a treat often enjoyed only by the rich.

Meat Pies: Meat pies are one of the more versatile dishes cooked at an oven and can be made from any form of flour and any form of meat or fish and offer a way to mix the benefits of bread with a dwarfs favorite food. However, they need to be stored fairly quickly as they wear even faster than normal bread.

Elven Fruitcake: Elven fruitcake is made from longland flour and prickle berries or fisher berries. No one is entirely certain just how elves bake their bread, but it is a fairly frequent trade good in their caravans. It is also of particularly low value (no one really likes fruitcake).

Goldencrust: Goldencrust is made from whipvine flour, sun berries, and golden salve. Another elven product, goldencrust is considerably more desired than fruitcake. Like dwarven sweetbread, any dwarf who consumes goldencrust gains happy thoughts, but goldencrust may be more useful as a trade good, being the most valuable variety of bread.

Brown Bread: Brown bread is made from longland flour and is the staple bread of most human communities. Unlike elven breads, it only rarely appears as a trade good as it tends not to survive the long journey out to a dwarven fortress. It is the second least valuable type of bread, after stonebread.

Redwhip Bread: Redwhip bread is made from whip vine flour and wild strawberries and is largely considered a delicacy by humans. Like brown bread, it has difficulty surviving a trade trip out to a dwarven fortress and typically means the only outposts that can enjoy it are those with above ground farms to produce the needed ingredients locally.

Wusa: Wusa is a special beverage that can only be produced as a Brewery once a supply of bread is available. Wusa is an extremely thick, almost porridge-like beer made from bread and dwarven beer. Consuming wusa it effectively counts as both eating and drinking, making it valuable for condensing bloated food and beverage stockpiles. However, wusa is an extremely simple creation and has no quality ratings, so consuming wusa also never produces the sort of happy thoughts that a truly good meal can (unless the dwarf has wusa as their favorite food).null

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Capntastic

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Re: Bread
« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2008, 04:31:00 am »

I figure the oven workshop can simply be a normal kitchen workshop.
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Bricktop

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Re: Bread
« Reply #2 on: May 15, 2008, 01:56:00 pm »

These suggestions are good, I think.

Also, about being able to produce the human and elven breads... maybe this could be a use for the recipe thing that seems to appear occasionally in the game?

To make goldencrust, for example, you would have to buy the recipe from the elves (who would no doubt charge a fortune for it) before the option is made available in the kitchen?

Also, I do think that it would make more sence to just have these options in the normal kitchen.

Also, I don't think the fuel thing is right. One unit of wood is used to smelt iron from iron ore.. I doubt you'd use the same amount for baking a few loaves. At the moment the fuel units etc seem to be industrial units, and I presume that some form of heat is required to create a +dwarven roast+ so its probably just that those comparatively small amounts of fuel are abstracted.

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GreyMario

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Re: Bread
« Reply #3 on: May 15, 2008, 02:38:00 pm »

Toady's way ahead of you. Why else would he create dwarven flour?
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Ralp

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Re: Bread
« Reply #4 on: May 15, 2008, 07:04:00 pm »

I adore all of these recipes.  My only suggestion is to reduce the fuel; a heap of charcoal ought to be enough to fire an oven for, say, a month.
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Areyar

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Re: Bread
« Reply #5 on: May 15, 2008, 07:55:00 pm »

blasphemy!

Eveyone knows the softest dwarven bread is biscuits, most other bread contains clay and such to give it a nice 'crisp'.

Requiring water?!!
I disagree, as long as brewing remains water-free, I won't stand for a process using water as a mere catalyst to require more water than brewing.
(If you add enough water, breaddough will become beer dammit.)
(...ok you need to malt your grains for more sugar content and flavour...also hops for flavour.)

edit: oh, you had 'brick bread' already.  :) Nicely developed idea, btw.

[ May 15, 2008: Message edited by: Areyar ]

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Greymane

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Re: Bread
« Reply #6 on: May 15, 2008, 08:54:00 pm »

quote:
Originally posted by Capntastic:
<STRONG>I figure the oven workshop can simply be a normal kitchen workshop.</STRONG>

See, I was picturing something less like a little dutch oven you might have in the kitchen and more like a HUGE communal brick oven. Structures like that weren't just part of a kitchen (heck, some were about as large as an entire kitchen), but would often be centers of an entire community.

I could understand, for the sake of space/brevity, having any baking functions taken care of just by the kitchen. It would still make sense to do it that way, but to me it would seem more fitting to have them separate.

quote:
Originally posted by Ralp:
<STRONG>I adore all of these recipes.  My only suggestion is to reduce the fuel; a heap of charcoal ought to be enough to fire an oven for, say, a month.</STRONG>

That seems like a much better system for it, yeah. It would still cost you something to keep the oven fired, but you wouldn't risk harming other industries to do it.

quote:
Originally posted by Areyar:
<STRONG>
Requiring water?!!
I disagree, as long as brewing remains water-free, I won't stand for a process using water as a mere catalyst to require more water than brewing.</STRONG>

Thankfully, you won't have to stand for it TOO much longer. I'm pretty sure it's been mentioned before that brewing would require water in the future as well. Pretty sure Toady would have water-in-brewing implemented before he even glanced at any suggestions I'd made. XD

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