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[Williham]

DF is a bit weird when it comes down to tech. Minecarts and crossbows exist along with civilized nations that aren't yet out of the iron age.

Carts and crossbows are both ANCIENT technologies. Repeating crossbows, for instance, were used in China in the fourth century.

BC.

EDIT: In a similar vein, evidence of early track transport systems have been found dating back to 600 BC.

And, in reality, we have rockets that can reach the moon, while isolated cultures still live in conditions reminiscent of stone age societies, a laughably wide tech gap.

[Arkenstone]

DF is a bit weird when it comes down to tech. Minecarts and crossbows exist along with civilized nations that aren't yet out of the iron age.

Not as anachronistic as you'd think.  The Chinese had crossbows well over two thousand years ago, and carts have been around a lot longer. (EDIT: Ninja'd)

Presumably in a preindustrial society platinum might be attributed value because of its high melting point. There are always uses for outliers- and in a world where magma is so easily accessible, platinum can have applications that it doesn't have in our world.

Niyazov brings up an interesting point, though. The world of DF is not like our own. Magma's proximity to the surface and various properties make it a resource that should probably not be discounted when we consider the value of a substance. If native platinum could be extracted, it would be at least as valuable as...um...bauxite. Well, is native platinum kinda shiny? If so, an argument could be made for native platinum to go as high in value as obsidian, even without any ability to extract platinum.

Which is exactly why I thought giving it the value of silver would be so generous.  I can't think of any practical application for the stuff which isn't already covered by something cheap.

And Native Platinum is easy to get out of the rock, the hard part is removing impurities.


I'm adding to the main suggestion "Rename 'Native Platinum' as 'Platina'."

[Mrhappyface]

True, but I doubt ancient cultures had a geothermic-based metalworking industry. The occurence of all the metals in DF is practically universal in all regions. Rule of fun I guess.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Wait, are you talking about giving native platinum silver-value, or platinum-platinum silver-value?

[DG]

I think it's give native platinum silver value and get rid of "platinum-platinum" because it's beyond dwarven reach.

[Corai]

I think it's give native platinum silver value and get rid of "platinum-platinum" because it's beyond dwarven reach.

We can reach hell, balance the entire planet on a piece of soap, make walls out of a pebble, make giant screwpumps, and strangle elephants to death with our pinkie, but we cant get platinum? What.

[Arkenstone]

I think it's give native platinum silver value and get rid of "platinum-platinum" because it's beyond dwarven reach.

We can reach hell, balance the entire planet on a piece of soap, make walls out of a pebble, make giant screwpumps, and strangle elephants to death with our pinkie, but we cant get platinum? What.

Of course.  Dwarves have neither advanced chemicals nor electricity, after all. 

[NW_Kohaku]

I think it's give native platinum silver value and get rid of "platinum-platinum" because it's beyond dwarven reach.

We can reach hell, balance the entire planet on a piece of soap, make walls out of a pebble, make giant screwpumps, and strangle elephants to death with our pinkie, but we cant get platinum? What.

We also can't have guns or locomotives or electricity or fusion reactors or teleporters or the Holodeck.

Just because some things aren't realistic in the game doesn't justify making everything as themeatically inappropriate as possible.

[Williham]

I think it's give native platinum silver value and get rid of "platinum-platinum" because it's beyond dwarven reach.

We can reach hell, balance the entire planet on a piece of soap, make walls out of a pebble, make giant screwpumps, and strangle elephants to death with our pinkie, but we cant get platinum? What.

Of course.  Dwarves have neither advanced chemicals nor electricity, after all.

Again, advanced chemistry and electricity, ancient technology.

Batteries assumed to be used for electroplating were found among artifacts from ancient egypt, knocking both of those two things out right away. (Ancient Egypt, insofar as I recall, fell at some point before 1450).

While access to either thing was hardly something the layman had, like it is today, most technologies are, at least in principle, a lot older than we give them credit for.

Here's a short list of things that are hilariously old:

- Gunpowder: 9th century china
- Steam engine: 1st century greece
- Electricity: The basic idea that electricity was a "thing" was put forth around 2750 BCE, and animals who generated their own electric fields were used in pre-medicine.

There's no reason that a sufficiently ingenious race like the dwarves shouldn't be able to build guns, locomotives or power plants, or even HUGE, MECHANICAL SPIDERS! AHAHAHAHAHA!

Well, ok, maybe not the spiders.

[Silverionmox]

There are good gameplay reasons not to include advanced technology. If you want individual heroism to matter, then you have to limit the amount of firepower in the game. When you have the industry to make good guns, it makes more sense to mass-produce them and equip thousands of peasants with them rather than train and equip your troops carefully. Therefore, we don't want good guns in this game.

A similar thing goes for the practical applications of steam engines. If you want adventures to be meaningful, travel has to be hard and the regions will have to be different. Therefore, you can't have railroad locomotives because travel wouldn't be hard, and easy transport tends to homogenize the people and goods that are available in different regions.

Basic notions of electricity are completely different from power plants and electric networks. The former is more a kind of magic that requires rare and fickle exotics, while the latter trivializes other kinds of energy. For those who like to build power plants, I suggest to play sim city or so.

[10ebbor10]

Toady set a tech cut off at 1450. While there are exceptions to that and it is true that some Greek designed/build a primitive steam engine, I seriously doubt It'll get in.

Besides, It has been suggested countless times already.

The aeolipile, by Hero of Alexandria.  It was not a steam engine despite what people say; it was at most a spinning toy.  Saying he invented the steam engine is like saying I pioneered space combat from all of my childhood doodles.  Granted that this is also the guy that invented Solar Powered Deathrays, the Vending Machine, and Automatic Doors, but still.  The aeolipile was to steam engines what those propeller toys are to airplanes.

As for gunpowder. Toady wants to allow for gunpowder and explosions and such, but doesn't think guns 'll fit in the setting.

[DG]

Did he specifically say gunpowder (which as far as I know isn't a naturally occuring substance) or naturally explosive things in general (like umm...grain dust maybe)? Not that I want to derail the thread, so I'll add my support to the notion that having some broken, silly, or work in progress things in the game shouldn't mean you must keep all broken, silly and work in progress things. And neither should some broken, silly, or work in progress things be automatically used to justify a required level of technological wizardry. And pulling out random factoids about ancient geniuses making guesses or proof of concepts could just as easily be extrapolated to say cavemen drew images of the sun with mud so dwarves should have solar power.

I'm getting the impression that a lot of the resistance to Ark's suggestion is that people don't like the idea of gold and steel (excepting adamantine) being the most valuable metal because it's somehow too...Boring. Not exciting enough. Maybe we are so exposed to gold in our lives that we like there to be something more, something higher and more wondrous in the game. Like platinum. But not too wondrous, we already have ad for that. I know I don't see much platinum in my life but I do see a lot of gold being worn and it barely registers. Is it a case of familiarity breeding contempt? Notice that most of the resistance is to the idea of removing platinum, and not so much aluminum which in real life is cheap despite being useful.

[Vattic]

Again, advanced chemistry and electricity, ancient technology.

Batteries assumed to be used for electroplating were found among artifacts from ancient egypt, knocking both of those two things out right away. (Ancient Egypt, insofar as I recall, fell at some point before 1450).

While access to either thing was hardly something the layman had, like it is today, most technologies are, at least in principle, a lot older than we give them credit for.

Here's a short list of things that are hilariously old:

- Gunpowder: 9th century china
- Steam engine: 1st century greece
- Electricity: The basic idea that electricity was a "thing" was put forth around 2750 BCE, and animals who generated their own electric fields were used in pre-medicine.

These have come up before but I figure I should reply nonetheless.

Gunpowder is something I completely agree on. It's pretty old and I've argued that some kind of explosives would be thematically appropriate. Remember how the Orcs use explosives to breach helms deep? Didn't ruin the feel of things for me at least.

The steam engine you're talking about it is the aeolipile I assume. As far as we can tell it was never put to work but was more a curiosity. Putting steam engines to work would require technology beyond what they and the dwarves are supposed to have.

The so called baghdad battery you mention is a controversial topic. As they were found they would need modifying to work as batteries. With modification their ability to generate current could be a coincidence. Especially considering they are almost identical to other artefacts used for storing scrolls. Again with electricity there is a world of difference between it being a recognised phenomena and actually putting it to work. I don't imagine you could use an electric eel to generate the power needed to extract aluminium from bauxite.

[Mrhappyface]

Geothermal smelting has only been implemented a few years ago, and only in Iceland.

[Arkenstone]

Hm.  While I'm usually not one to shy away from the historical debate, I don't want to derail the thread.


I've made some basic raws:

Code: [Select]

[INORGANIC:NATIVE_PLATINUM]
[STONE_NAME:platina nuggets]
  'platina', meaning "little silver" in spanish, was the name first given by the Conquistadors.
  Using an archaic name could help lessen the confusion a bit, I think.  Plus, it's cooler.
[ENVIRONMENT:ALLUVIAL:CLUSTER_SMALL:100]
[ENVIRONMENT_SPEC:OLIVINE:VEIN:100]
[ENVIRONMENT_SPEC:MAGNETITE:VEIN:100]
[ENVIRONMENT_SPEC:CHROMITE:CLUSTER_SMALL:100]
[ITEM_SYMBOL:'*']
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:platina]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:LIQUID:molten platina]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:GAS:boiling platina]
[DISPLAY_COLOR:7:7:1]
[TILE:156]
[MATERIAL_VALUE:10] equal to native silver
[SPEC_HEAT:130]
[MELTING_POINT:13182]
[BOILING_POINT:16885]
[SOLID_DENSITY:21400]
[LIQUID_DENSITY:19770]
[MOLAR_MASS:195084]
[IMPACT_YIELD:350000]
[IMPACT_FRACTURE:700000]
[IMPACT_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:152]
[COMPRESSIVE_YIELD:350000]
[COMPRESSIVE_FRACTURE:700000]
[COMPRESSIVE_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:152] 230
[TENSILE_YIELD:100000]
[TENSILE_FRACTURE:200000]
[TENSILE_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:60] 168
[TORSION_YIELD:100000]
[TORSION_FRACTURE:200000]
[TORSION_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:164]
[SHEAR_YIELD:100000]
[SHEAR_FRACTURE:200000]
[SHEAR_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:164] 61
[BENDING_YIELD:100000]
[BENDING_FRACTURE:200000]
[BENDING_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:60]
[MAX_EDGE:1000]
[ITEMS_HARD]
[IS_STONE]


Code: [Select]

used average of gold and native platinum
[INORGANIC:WHITE_GOLD]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:METAL_TEMPLATE]
[STATE_NAME:SOLID:white gold]
[STATE_NAME:SOLID_POWDER:white gold dust]
[STATE_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:white gold]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:LIQUID:molten white gold]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:GAS:boiling white gold]
[DISPLAY_COLOR:7:7:1]
[BUILD_COLOR:7:7:1]
[MATERIAL_VALUE:20] used electrum
[SPEC_HEAT:130]
[MELTING_POINT:12549]
[BOILING_POINT:18353]
[SOLID_DENSITY:20360]
[LIQUID_DENSITY:18540]
[MOLAR_MASS:196008] I'm not sure why Pt was less than Au
I'm keeping pure gold's strength values for now.
[IMPACT_YIELD:175000]
[IMPACT_FRACTURE:350000]
[IMPACT_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:97]
[COMPRESSIVE_YIELD:175000]
[COMPRESSIVE_FRACTURE:350000]
[COMPRESSIVE_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:97] bulk modulus 180 GPa
[TENSILE_YIELD:50000]
[TENSILE_FRACTURE:100000]
[TENSILE_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:64] young's modulus 78 GPa
[TORSION_YIELD:50000]
[TORSION_FRACTURE:100000]
[TORSION_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:185]
[SHEAR_YIELD:50000]
[SHEAR_FRACTURE:100000]
[SHEAR_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:185] shear modulus 27 GPa
[BENDING_YIELD:50000]
[BENDING_FRACTURE:100000]
[BENDING_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:64]
[MAX_EDGE:10000]
[ITEMS_HARD]
[ITEMS_METAL]
[ITEMS_BARRED]
[ITEMS_SCALED]
[STATE_COLOR:ALL_SOLID:IVORY] it's a hard decision, really