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[NW_Kohaku]

I sure hope you have a cite for that one, as I find it hard to believe.

I already had in a previous post, but here it is again.
http://www.mindat.org/min-1509.html

Hm...  It does indeed appear to indicate an alloy of only iron and platinum -but I wonder if there might still be trace impurities that aren't listed on the empirical formula.  Information is sketchy, we must do more research.  I will admit this is a most intriguing piece of evidence though.

Actually, I saw some evidence of this when I was looking up aqua fortis.  Aqua fortis (basically, nitric acid) was used because it would dissolve most types of metals (like iron), but leave behind gold and platinum.  Iron/platinum alloys were listed as one such use. 

You can additionally use aqua regia (which is a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids) to dissolve gold and platinum after using aqua fortis beforehand in order to dissolve just the gold and platinum in a metal (which can then be precipitated from the solution), while leaving behind other impurities like iridium.  This is, incidentally, the only way to achieve the highest purities of gold.  (Gold dissolved in aqua regia was also used as an extremely expensive purple dye that is notably the reason why purple was a royal color - only a king could afford the stuff.)

Of course, some of these uses are past the 1400 cutoff dates...

[runlvlzero]

Force it?  How could I possibly force anything on the community?  The only one who can come close is Toady, and as you pointed out those who disagree can easily fix it in their games.

I am expressing my opinion of something I think should be changed in vanilla DF, and putting up supporting evidence of why I think it should be so.  Your objection and reasons why have also been noted, and then Toady will decide which he thinks is best.

For this reason, I will now cease to argue anything about 'game balance', 'rule of fun/cool', 'acceptable breaks from reality', 'if one thing unrealistic then nothing needs be realistic', or any such unresolvable topics.  I shall henceforth only defend my argument that platinum as it is currently represented is unrealistic, and discuss alternative (and more realistic) ways it could be included.

Absolutely Agreed, sorry if I came off as invalidating your knowledge, I kinda assumed you guys knew what you were talking about in regards to platinum. I think what got me is there's 9 pages of debate over it... However, balance is very important, maybe there are game play reasons that go beyond the science of it? The primary reason in many other games is just as an easy way to reduce the "numbers" for vast amounts of lower quality coin. So instead of 1000gold you have 10 platinum.

Yes, I assume that they don't have access to large quantities of hydrochloric acid, among other advanced chemicals required to separate the platinum-group metals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrochloric_acid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfuric_acid

YT2095
I make mine with common house salt NaCl and Sulphuric acid (70%).
I then distill that mix into a another vessel containing a small amount of ice water and held in freezing mix.
it`s important to use all glass apparatus (HCl rots organic matter), keep the area well ventilated too.
I make Nitric acid the same way (I use Sodium Nitrate instead of NaCl), I don`t use Ice water in the receiver vessel either.

that`s basicly it

Apparently, the less then authoritative source Wikipedia says we've known bout hydrochloric acid since about 800 A.D. While it was never widely available or produced before the 1500's to my knowledge (in that you are correct). It is actually quite easy to produce. The other chemical sulphiric acid (which is needed to produce HCl from salt) was known by the Sumerians. Therefore a pre-1400's civilization could have very well used these chemicals and done more even... Historicaly speaking no =P

I always think people think of pre-industrial civilization as ass-backwards but they did manage to get allot of things done, and very creatively. I would concede that 1400's Europeans were not doing backyard chemistry for the most part.

My basic argument is that while humans may have been ass-backwards in the 1400's, "Dwarves" may not have been. =) Also, the myth of platinum could have come from "Dwarven use of platinum" and other fantastic metals =P It fits in with the dwarven mythos.

[Jeoshua]

And I'm a bit doubtful as to the ability to locate aluminum at all (aside from bauxite, of course).

It's only the third most abundant element in the Earth's Crust, after Oxygen and Silicon.  Should be real difficult to find.  Pure Aluminum is rare, but Aluminum Oxides are so abundant as to be the basis of most of the mineral's known to man.

Seriously look it up.

[Tarran]

2: Does that mean still allowing pure "Platina" bars as metal?
4: I feel like this is too much of a concession from those who still want Aluminum as-is.

4) I concur, there is no justification for including aluminum at all in my mind.

Is that an insult on my opinion or did you misread what I wrote?

[Courtesy Arloban]

I sure hope you have some form of evidence to back up such outlandish claims.

Okay, first off, I don't believe I've seen any suggested evidence that platinum was smelted by pre-1400s humans that wasn't disputed by forum-goers who, frankly, in my mind are experienced enough to have a bit more weight given to their claims than you.

Objection:  the other posters claims were debunked by a faulty assumption that ancient people needed specialized equipment to refine Platinum because it doesn't occur without other platinum metals!  The statement that the ancient people used platinum was originally established in the wikipedia article and doesn't need additional proof!

There was some discussion on another thread about these two metals which reminded me of them, and how they aren't

very faithfully represented in DF.

First off, the only "Native Aluminum" I was able to find that wasn't grown in a lab came in tiny little flakes near mud

volcanoes, hardly enough to smelt.  Besides, it would most likely be mistaken for tin by a culture that did not already know

of the metal.  And IRL, it wasn't discovered until the 1800's.

Second, Native Platinum contains other platinum-group metals in it that makes it too brittle to work with; the only way to

use it was to alloy it with gold.  Also, I see nothing about it that would make it more valuable to a preindustrial society like

our dwarves have than bismuth.  This can be supported by the fact that while the natives of Central America knew about the

metal, they didn't use it as much as gold (information limited on the subject, mainly from Wikipedia).

So, my suggestion is this:

• Remove aluminum entirely.
• Make native platinum (renamed 'Platina') only smeltable by alloying with gold (to make white gold), or remove it
  
  entirely.
• Make 'white gold' less valuable than gold (roughly equal to electrum), and native platinum the same as native silver or
  
  less.

Of course, this would be a pittance to mod; but I'd like to see it in the official version.

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.

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.

The batteries for electroplating was only a theory, and a wrong one. Aelophiles don't count as steam engines, since the

energy wasn't harnessed. And electricity was realised as a thing, but that's all, they were using electric eels as a form of

primitive electrotherapy, for treating headaches of all things (probably made them worse). The reason that we didn't have

locomotives until recently is because there was a lack of good steel available and a lack of machines with the precision to

make them.

The reason we don't have gunpowder is because Toady has said specifically that he doesn't want it.

As I said, it is literally impossible to refine platinum in a 'regular' smelter, even if it was hot enough to liquify it.  You

need chemicals or electrolysis.

EDIT:
That is to say if refining platinum was moved from the smelter to the alchemist's workshop then at least it'd be physically

possible, if a bit of a stretch of the tech level.

EDIT2:
Also, I didn't know that geothermic smelting was even possible before this thread, so I just accepted it as possible in the DF

world.  I doubt irl geothermic smelting has much in common with DF's magma furnaces anyways.

Platinum only occurs in-game as native platinum; its only inclusions would be small amounts of other platinum-group metals

that are not represented in game at all. The processes you are describing are for separating gold from platinum, which is

not an issue as the game stands right now.

Those other platinum-group metals make native platinum far too brittle to work with, making it less valuable than silver.

The only period means of dealing with this problem was alloying it with gold, pure platinum (which is soft enough to

work) is beyond the tech level to refine.


For the purpose of clarity, I'm going to define some terms now:

• Platinum: the pure element, without the trace impurities.
• Platina: Native Platinum, which contains trace amounts of other platinum group elements.
• Refining Platinum: the process of removing the impurities from platina, resulting in pure platinum.

I shall use these terms as defined until further notice.

If metals are crystals, then...erm...it's been a while since I've taken chem, so bear with me.

IIRC, metals are sort of a...an electron "sea," with all of the nuclei sharing all of the electrons in the vicinity. This is probably

over-simplified, but it's also easy to fit in one sentence.
Crystals (like diamonds and salt) have a regular pattern that, barring imperfections, is repeated until the end of the crystal.

This is what causes their brittleness and regular geometric forms.
Metals are malleable and rarely found in geometric forms.


Now to wait for people to correct everything I just said.

Platinum is often found chemically uncombined as native platinum and alloyed with iridium as platiniridium. Most often the native platinum is found in secondary deposits; platinum is combined with the other platinum group metals in alluvial deposits. The alluvial deposits used by pre-Columbian people in the Chocó Department, Colombia are still a source for platinum group metals. Another large alluvial deposit is in the Ural Mountains, Russia, and it is still mined.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum

That's why the FerroPlatinum doesn't have platinum group metals, but the two deposits mentioned also have native platinum(do I really have to put pure in there?) 

EDIT: (I'm finding myself citing wikipedia --- Aaarrgghh!)

[NW_Kohaku]

And I'm a bit doubtful as to the ability to locate aluminum at all (aside from bauxite, of course).

It's only the third most abundant element in the Earth's Crust, after Oxygen and Silicon.  Should be real difficult to find.  Pure Aluminum is rare, but Aluminum Oxides are so abundant as to be the basis of most of the mineral's known to man.

Seriously look it up.

Yeah, they're called "rocks" and "soil".  Clay, for example, is heavily composed of aluminum, and aluminum is in the majority of all the stones in the game.  However, they aren't in any form even remotely extractable to be used as an actual metal. 

It's a little like saying that nitrates are readily available everywhere because N₂ Nitrogen makes up 78% of the atmosphere... it's just in a triple bonded form that renders it almost completely chemically inert and useless except through extremely complex Haber-Bosch processes or nitrogen fixating bacteria. 

More seriously, I would like to see it possible, but extremely, extremely expensive to refine aluminum out of bauxite through the use of some very specially made kilns with mechanically powered fans that take up 20 units of charcoal to refine a single unit of aluminum in order to simulate the sort of Napoleon aluminum forks type of ultra-expensive aluminum, just because then it would justify being a really rare and valuable metal.  The native aluminum can just disappear. 

Other than that, I like the platina ideas Arkenstone has been talking about, especially since those sort of history-lesson-as-minor-game-detail thing are what I positively love about DF.

It's the fact that DF quietly and unassumingly puts real-life sciences into the game for you to learn about without really making a big deal out of it that make the game so much more wonderful to learn about than just arbitrary fantasy world game mechanics.  That stands head-and-shoulders over "I don't like realism in fantasy" as a reason to put platina and platinum-gold alloys in DF.

[Arkenstone]

Objection:  the other posters claims were debunked by a faulty assumption that ancient people needed specialized equipment to refine Platinum because it doesn't occur without other platinum metals!  The statement that the ancient people used platinum was originally established in the wikipedia article and doesn't need additional proof!

Your objection is overruled.

If I didn't know better I'd have thought you were being sarcastic.

(Gold dissolved in aqua regia was also used as an extremely expensive purple dye that is notably the reason why purple was a royal color - only a king could afford the stuff.)

I thought that purple dye came from coral? (PS: I realize this is off-topic, best not respond...)

2: Does that mean still allowing pure "Platina" bars as metal?
4: I feel like this is too much of a concession from those who still want Aluminum as-is.

4) I concur, there is no justification for including aluminum at all in my mind.

Is that an insult on my opinion or did you misread what I wrote?

Apologies, it was a misinterpretation.


I've found another source that seems to imply there are other platinum-group metals in this "Ferroan Platinum", albeit in trace amounts.  It remains to be seen if these levels are negligible or not.

[Courtesy Arloban]

Objection:  the other posters claims were debunked by a faulty assumption that ancient people needed specialized equipment to refine Platinum because it doesn't occur without other platinum metals!  The statement that the ancient people used platinum was originally established in the wikipedia article and doesn't need additional proof!

Your objection is overruled.

If I didn't know better I'd have thought you were being sarcastic.

(Gold dissolved in aqua regia was also used as an extremely expensive purple dye that is notably the reason why purple was a royal color - only a king could afford the stuff.)

I thought that purple dye came from coral? (PS: I realize this is off-topic, best not respond...)

2: Does that mean still allowing pure "Platina" bars as metal?
4: I feel like this is too much of a concession from those who still want Aluminum as-is.

4) I concur, there is no justification for including aluminum at all in my mind.

Is that an insult on my opinion or did you misread what I wrote?

Apologies, it was a misinterpretation.


I've found another source that seems to imply there are other platinum-group metals in this "Ferroan Platinum", albeit in trace amounts.  It remains to be seen if these levels are negligible or not.

Cooperite and Mertieite-II are other crystals included in the sample, it occurs in an alluvial deposit, and the Mertieite-II has all the other platinum metals in inclusions.  And Mertieite-II is a Palladium ore.http://www.mindat.org/min-2655.html

The chemical composition ranges from Pt2.64Fe1.00 to Pt2.88Fe1.00 with Os, Ru, Ir, Rh and Pd below the analytical detection limit of the electron microprobe.

  That means they didn't detect any, but do not want to commit to claiming it's pure.(Becasuse technically nothing is.  The crystals of a material grow out until the meet up with other crystals possibly of a different material, so the larger your sample the less pure it is)

By the way I actually have taken Materials and Properties,  Did Extra Credit in Glass Metals, and Copper-Aluminum Alloys long before I started playing Dwarf Fortress.  I had my own mining system set up for an RPG that was intended to be more realistic than what the MMORPG's were doing at the time.  None of my Favorite Ores were in Dwarf Fortress, except as Gems.

[Arkenstone]

The chemical composition ranges from Pt2.64Fe1.00 to Pt2.88Fe1.00 with Os, Ru, Ir, Rh and Pd below the analytical detection limit of the electron microprobe.

That means they didn't detect any, but do not want to commit to claiming it's pure.

Or, it could mean that they detected some but it's < 0.1% so they can't throw any numbers up.  As I said, additional information is required to tell one way or the other.  It'd sure help if someone could get access to the entire article, not just the abstract...  (I live half an hour away from my university, so I might drive in on the weekend and browse the library.  At the very least, I'll have free access to several academic networks from there.)


Oh, by the way I've updated the OP.

[hermes]

References:
Platinum Placer-Deposits
Platinum Mineral Facts
Rocks and Minerals by Sorrell/Sandstrom

My opinion:
The only reason Platinum was not found in large quantities earlier in human history is because we didn't have mines in the right places.  Russia and South Africa turned out to be the hotspots.

"Platinum is a rare metal which occurs almost exclusively native"

Yes, it's rare.  But it is found natively and without a significant stretch of the imagination one would assume that the fantasy race known as "dwarves" would be able to mine for it and melt it down.  There is no concept of what kind of smelting technology is present in DF, so to say that it "should really be unsmeltable" seems like a massive, and presently unsupportable, assumption.  Small clusters; yes.  Remove, rename or reduce price; no need to.

[Sadrice]

(Gold dissolved in aqua regia was also used as an extremely expensive purple dye that is notably the reason why purple was a royal color - only a king could afford the stuff.)

Not even remotely true.  The purple dye you're thinking of is Tyrian Purple, and is derived from the secretions of Murex sea snails. It was expensive because about 12,000 snails were needed to yield a gram of pure dye.  Depending on the species of Murex you use and the pH of the dyebath, you can get colors from blue to purple to deep red.  The purples and especially the deep red were highly prized and associated with the royal houses of a number of nations (fun fact: the color terminology that the ancients used does not nicely match up to the modern system.  One source describes a "purple" garment as being the color of ox blood).  One reason it was so prized is that it resists bleaching in the sun.  The other common red-purple-blue dye (also pH dependent) is Orchil, which is made by soaking ceretain lichens in stale urine, and is quite cheap.  Sadly, it is not light fast, but was used to predye garments to stretch the supply of tyrian purple (and I've found it makes for fabulous socks).


Gold is used as a valuable cranberry red dye in glass, but there is no good way to apply it to fabric.  Applying aqua regia with dissolved gold would destroy the fabric.  Removing the aqua regia would leave you with chlorauric acid, which is yellow orange, and still rather corrosive.

[DG]

I learned that from "The Worst Jobs in History" tv show. Here's a clip for those interested http://www.imperial-purple.com/clips.html

[GreatWyrmGold]

And I'm a bit doubtful as to the ability to locate aluminum at all (aside from bauxite, of course).

It's only the third most abundant element in the Earth's Crust, after Oxygen and Silicon.  Should be real difficult to find.  Pure Aluminum is rare, but Aluminum Oxides are so abundant as to be the basis of most of the mineral's known to man.

Seriously look it up.

Let me rephrase that:
I'm a bit doubtfulas to the ability to locate aluminum useable with pre-1400s technology at all.

Yes, it's rare.  But it is found natively and without a significant stretch of the imagination one would assume that the fantasy race known as "dwarves" would be able to mine for it and melt it down.  There is no concept of what kind of smelting technology is present in DF, so to say that it "should really be unsmeltable" seems like a massive, and presently unsupportable, assumption.  Small clusters; yes.  Remove, rename or reduce price; no need to.

Why do so many sources have to be contradictory?


I gave up long ago on trying to convince anyone to my point of view. After 9 pages of argument, those who have changed their POV have been few and mostly towards the beginning. We're getting to the point where we should be trying to figure out some kind of compromise. That's what I was trying to do.

[NW_Kohaku]

Not even remotely true.  The purple dye you're thinking of is Tyrian Purple, and is derived from the secretions of Murex sea snails.

I'm not disputing tyrian purple, but purple of cassius (the cranberryish purple) was also used as a means of obtaining a highly valuable "regal" purple for enamels, glazes, and of course, glass (since all three are glass). 

We're getting to the point where we should be trying to figure out some kind of compromise. That's what I was trying to do.

Then you're kidding yourself. 

Nobody will accept a compromise because there is nothing to offer in a compromise.  It's not like anyone can make it happen besides Toady, and Toady isn't part of the "negotiations" to begin with, so why should anyone give something up in a compromise when they aren't getting anything but a nominal agreement with someone over the Internet that leaves both parties unhappy and still doesn't get anything done? 

If you've lost all interest in further arguing the issue and recognize you aren't going to change anyone's mind, then just stop reading and responding, and eventually, the thread will die as everyone runs out of breath, the way that all the other unresolvable conflicts of point of view have been left to stagnate in the suggestions forums.

[Arkenstone]

Yes, it's rare.  But it is found natively and without a significant stretch of the imagination one would assume that the fantasy race known as "dwarves" would be able to mine for it and melt it down.  There is no concept of what kind of smelting technology is present in DF, so to say that it "should really be unsmeltable" seems like a massive, and presently unsupportable, assumption.  Small clusters; yes.  Remove, rename or reduce price; no need to.

Why do so many sources have to be contradictory?

Actually, that source is not contradictory, it only seems so due to a misinterpretation of the meaning of the word "native". Read the very next sentence:

Platinum is usually alloyed with several per cent of iron and with smaller amounts of iridium, osmium, etc.

So this just confirmed that the so-called "Ferroan Platinum" does indeed contain other platinum-group metals.  These impurities make the metal to brittle to work with and they cannot be removed with heat alone. It takes a complex chemical process to do so.

So, unless you suspect that DF smelting technology includes massive chemical vats and temperatures far exceeding those of molten rock, then it is completely unrealistic that dwarves would be able to purify native platinum into something malleable.