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[Alfador]

Title says it all, really. We've got lead. We've got rock crystal. Let's do it to it. (Lead oxide replaces calcium/sodium/potassium oxides from the pearlash.)

[Hussell]

I've just been reading the Wikipedia articles on glass and lead glass (also known as crystal glass). The only references to rock crystal that I can find say it's a form of quartz once used to imitate crystal glass.

Why not change the requirements for crystal glass from sand + pearlash + rock crystal to sand + pearlash + lead? (Lead glass still uses potassium from pearlash to remove the green tint from iron impurities in the sand.)

This would have the advantage of making the production of crystal glass easier. There have been a lot of complaints about strange moods needing impossible to aquire crystal glass. For every complaint, I expect there are 10 people out there who are either equally frustrated, play with strange moods turned off, or worst of all, give up on Dwarf Fortress. Lead is much more common than rock crystal without being ridiculously easy to find, and even if you can't find any on your map, you can trade for lead bars.

Seems like a easy-to-implement double win: fixes an annoying gameplay issue, and increases realism.

P.S.: While we're on the subject of strange mood requirements, why don't mussels and oysters give shells? Cave lobster are quite rare, so the only common source of shell is turtle. A little variety would be nice.

[Sithlordz]

Hehehe. Sell the Elves lead glass, then wait for 10 years for them all to die out from lead poisoning. I like it, the glassmaking process is rather drawn-out as it is, too.

[Hussell]

Nah, you can't get lead poisoning from crystal glass. Otherwise, all those people's parents and grand-parents who have a set of crystal wine glasses would have been poisoned long ago.

I should also point out that the suggestion doesn't shorten the process of making crystal glass. It actually lengthens it, since you have to smelt the lead, while rock crystals can be used immediately after mining. The only real advantages of doing it this way would be the greater availability of lead compared to raw rock crystal, the greater realism of using lead to make crystal glass, and having lead be a more sought-after metal, since it is currently only used to make lay pewter.

The main idea is to make it possible for players who plan ahead and work hard to avoid strange mood failure.

[Sean Mirrsen]

If finding rock crystal is such a large problem, why are people ignoring my work on the Diamonds and Crystals mod?

[Shooer]

I've found plenty of Rock Crystals, not to mention it was the only glass I had in one fortress because I had no sand.

Oh and Crystal glass uses no sand.

[Sean Mirrsen]

They aren't altogether plenty, but Gabbro layers have probably the most chance to have them appear. Gabbro and probably Diorite, because they have no metal-producing inclusions of small cluster type.

[Draco18s]

quote:Originally posted by Sean Mirrsen:
<STRONG>They aren't altogether plenty, but Gabbro layers have probably the most chance to have them appear. Gabbro and probably Diorite, because they have no metal-producing inclusions of small cluster type.</STRONG>

Rock Crystal, I've read, is broken to the point that a Gabbro layer contains less Garbro than it does rock crystal and that rock crystal doesn't for in anything else, despite the "all rock" tag.

[Hussell]

quote:If finding rock crystal is such a large problem, why are people ignoring my work on the Diamonds and Crystals mod?

This may shock you, but... most people don't use mods. At the very least, mods aren't the first thing that spring to mind when you notice a problem in a rapidly changing alpha-release.

quote:Oh and Crystal glass uses no sand.

Shows how much I know. This actually makes sense: rock crystal is a pure silicon crystal, so grinding it up and using it in place of sand would produce a clear glass, free of the impurities that produce the color in green glass. It still wouldn't, technically speaking, be a crystal glass though.

quote:Rock Crystal, I've read, is broken to the point that a Gabbro layer contains less Garbro than it does rock crystal and that rock crystal doesn't for in anything else, despite the "all rock" tag.

Ok. I haven't played a fortress with gabbro yet, but I've noticed a lot of other mineral inclusion bugs. E.g., limestone contains clusters of magnetite, but according to the raws it should also contain clusters of gypsum, jet, bauxite, and kaolinite. As far as I know, nobody has found any bauxite yet, and not for lack of trying, because bauxite could (theoretically) be used to make magma-proof mechanisms. I'm pretty sure nobody has seen any of the others either. Also, has anyone else noticed that you tend to find the same few types of gem over and over again? Is that suposed to happen?

Maybe I'll just wait until the bugs are worked out of the mineral and gem inclusions before worrying about crystal glass again.

[Sean Mirrsen]

The thing about Rock crystal, Bauxite, and pretty much everything else that's missing is this: as Toady stated, the worldgen has a large preference for metal-bearing minerals (due to some user feedback), and thus tends to overrule the spawn rates set in the raws when allocating the minerals. To the point where ANY metal ore will COMPLETELY overwrite any non-metal-bearing mineral in any given stone layer. So, magnetite will overwrite any bauxite and any other non-ore mineral set to spawn as clusters. It's the reason why it's so widespread - while technically it shouldn't be. This is a bug, and a large one at that, but until Toady thinks up a way to remove it without completely removing the relevant minerals (for magnetite, shouldn't removing its METAL tag and just adding it to reactions make a temporary fix?), we're stuck using mods - like mine. I'll see what can be done about magnetite, and add it to my mod, so that people don't have to go too far to look for it.    

Edit: Hm, read about the magnetite on the wiki. Yeah, it seems pretty widespread. And placed correctly. BUT!!! It also seems to be present in SAND, of all things! So, if I succeed in nerfing magnetite that way, maybe I could rebuff it by adding small occurences of it into sand? I'll see if the raws are flexible enough to allow clusters of soil within soil...

[ December 11, 2007: Message edited by: Sean Mirrsen ]

Well, guess not. Magnetite remains over-intrusive even if its iron-producing capabilities are only mentioned in reactions.

I'll try an earlier version though, maybe reveal can *reveal* some insights...

[ December 11, 2007: Message edited by: Sean Mirrsen ]