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[Tierre]

Well that the topic says.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_China

The problm is that it was invented in England in 18th century but technological level is good for 14 too. China just never though of such barbaric use of kaolinite:) 2 bone ash and 1 pocelain and 1 feldspar (orthoclase and microcline) to make 4 or even more porcelaine crafts.

[NW_Kohaku]

This was discussed back before we had ceramics in the game...

The basic problem is, there's no real reason to use bone china in place of true porcelain, or for that matter, porcelain in the place of other forms of ceramics.

In fact, there's no reason to use ceramics at all without magma kilns, because fueling the kiln will take a unit of charcoal that comes from a tree that you might as well just carve into wood crafts for the same purpose.

Part of the original idea for porcelain was that it would take multiple units of charcoal and require a mechanically powered fan to blow more air to burn hotter than magma can actually burn.  Porcelain when it was put in-game, however, is just a way of turning semi-rare kaolinite into a slightly higher value ceramic object. 

Or in other words, like with many objects that realistically were a part of historical society, there is no reason to replace anything that can be made with wood, stone, metal, animal parts, or other objects we already have in overwhelming abundance.  The game can't differentiate any of these items by anything other than raw value, and we have the ability to create freakish amounts of raw value already. 

The only way you're going to create a place for these sorts of items is to create a demand for these sorts of items, first.  (This was, in fact, the original purpose of Class Warfare - to make dwarves demand all sorts of fancy things when they got rich so that fancy things had a reason to exist. Only then can making a fancy thing involve more steps than making a simple thing be justified, as a simple thing will no longer suffice.)

[Tierre]

Well yeah i think porcelaine is a thing for rich dwarfs:) Might suggest changing value-civilization relationship a little? For example civilization can have like or dislike in some sort of material which will give it a multiplier (up to 10 or even 100 times). This will make trading porcelaine to human civ very profitable with only little use of kaolinite. And that civ can have a 0.1 multiplier on all stonecrafts. So that it will be justified.

And i do understand that i just suggested making new changes to the game kust to justify my suggestion:) But it may add a realistic feel to the game - history always showed different valuse of different things in different civilizations. Remember price of Manhatten island:) I guess that was land multiplier 0.00001 and glass - 10000:)

[NW_Kohaku]

Well, that's something that gets more into the "demand" side of supply and demand.  Porcelain only becomes valuable when you already have everything you actually need, and only want to buy it to have a nice thing rather than a functional thing. 

It basically sucks us up into the whole economics discussion again.

[Tierre]

OK Let's talk about it..... 3 years from now:) Cause i don't think economy would be implemented with enough level of realism earlier - too much to do in the army arc:) And caravan arc won't be enough.

[orius]

In fact, there's no reason to use ceramics at all without magma kilns, because fueling the kiln will take a unit of charcoal that comes from a tree that you might as well just carve into wood crafts for the same purpose.

Not entirely, the elves won't turn their noses up at earthenware like they would with wood, but OTOH, one could just use stone or bone crafts instead.

[Niyazov]

In fact, there's no reason to use ceramics at all without magma kilns, because fueling the kiln will take a unit of charcoal that comes from a tree that you might as well just carve into wood crafts for the same purpose.

Not entirely, the elves won't turn their noses up at earthenware like they would with wood, but OTOH, one could just use stone or bone crafts instead.

Ceramics are a lot more valuable per unit than stone or bone crafts, so if you are working with a limited number of dwarves a high-value ceramics industry could be a better use of time and labor for creating trade goods than making everyone stonecrafters would be- and now that mining rates have dropped, an intensive stonecrafting industry competes with your masons and mechanics. If traders charged more and stopped accepting cooked meals ceramics would make even more sense. Elves have limited carrying capacity so if they started charging more you would really have to think about using trade goods that have a high value/weight ratio.

As of now ceramics are really only useful for roleplaying, happy thoughts, and conduct-restricted games.

[Tierre]

Bone porcelain let's you make use of limited kaolinite. It is less effective on value/weight ratio but you can make few crafts of 1 kaolinite boulder. So it has a right to be:)

[NW_Kohaku]

Historically, though, bone china was made by the dutch trying to mimic actual porcelain. People stopped making bone china as soon as they learned how to make the real stuff.

There's also something to be said about the fact that an entire wall of kaoline can be used to create only one pot.  Or, for that matter, that kaolinite forms "boulders" at all. 

[Niyazov]

Historically, though, bone china was made by the dutch trying to mimic actual porcelain. People stopped making bone china as soon as they learned how to make the real stuff.

There's also something to be said about the fact that an entire wall of kaoline can be used to create only one pot.  Or, for that matter, that kaolinite forms "boulders" at all.

Why not? Kaolinite is a rock.

[NW_Kohaku]

But you don't use kaolinite, you use kaoline in porcelain.  It's an extremely weathered, feldspar-heavy clay.  It's possible to refine kaolinite into kaoline, but kaoline should be available as a soil type. 

[Niyazov]

But you don't use kaolinite, you use kaoline in porcelain.  It's an extremely weathered, feldspar-heavy clay.  It's possible to refine kaolinite into kaoline, but kaoline should be available as a soil type.

If porcelain could be made from a soil (and therefore in infinite quantities), then it would probably need to be less valuable than it currently is- it has the same material value as silver! I guess I would prefer for all clay to be finite like rocks but possibly have a higher drop rate or give more products per "boulder" since a brickmaker/potter can use all of the clay with no wastage, unlike a rock carver, and because a pottery kiln presumably does not really require as much energy as a metal smelter per unit volume of product. (Once straw has been implemented, I would also love for dwarves in hot climates to be able to bake mud bricks in the sun without using fuel.)

If clays continue to be essentially free goods, then methods like requiring glazes for full usability and Tierre's bone porcelain suggestion are good for placing hard limits to making desirable pottery goods, similar to clear and crystal glass.

[NW_Kohaku]

Actually, that's one of the things about porcelain - normal kilns can't fire it. 

In fact, even magma is not hot enough to fire fine china porcelain.  (Magma is a "mere" 1200 degrees celcius.  The highest grades of porcelain needs up to 1400 celcius.)

That was part of why I was calling for porcelain in the first place back before ceramics were implemented, and the distinction between mere earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain would have been more in the kilns used to fire them - the Chinese would use special kilns that involved a box fan that would blow in more air to burn more fuel charcoal in order to burn a hotter flame that was capable of firing the finest porcelain.

Part of what makes porcelain so expensive is that it takes an army of woodcutters to supply the charcoal to burn fires that hot.  The Chinese measured the power of the different dynasties by the fineness of their porcelain because the high quality stuff required so many more peasants to be pulled off the farms to go chop wood to supply the stuff (and it required the technical engineering to make proper fans and kilns).

That was part of why I suggested it in the first place - it would make for products that took different levels of engineering effort in order to produce the different gradients of materials.  With things the way they are, it's pretty much just that if you happen to embark on fire clay, and have access to magma, you have infinite free stoneware forever.  Porcelain is just the new crystal glass - you have to use a "gem" vein to make the special stuff that has slightly higher value.

EDIT:
Oh, and part of the reason Europeans had so much trouble figuring out how to make porcelain was because they didn't know how to make fires that hot (and they didn't have many naturally-occurring sources for kaoline/kaolinite).  Bone china is a type of "soft-paste porcelain", along with other early attempts at mimicing Chinese porcelain that included grinding glass into powder and mixing it with white clay bodies.  These would set at a lower temperature, but were much harder to shape because they were so soft they wouldn't retain their form under their own weight. 

[Vattic]

Historically, though, bone china was made by the dutch trying to mimic actual porcelain. People stopped making bone china as soon as they learned how to make the real stuff.

You can still buy bone china crockery in my local super market. I've even seen them making the paste on a general interest TV programme.

[Tierre]

OK so the question is - bone porcelain is realistic but that's not important because this is not a life simulator... while farms and other things should be changed because that's not realistic? ..... Sorry if it sound offensive:) I am merely proposing a new feature and you pointed that clay should be changed as it is infinite. So bone porcelain fits there pretty well i think.