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[abculatter_2]

I had an idea for a mod just now, I have no idea how it'd work, but I figured I'd pass it by you all.

So, basically, Equivalent Exchange is a mod for minecraft, which you can get more info on here, though I'll summarize it here:

EE added a form of alchemy to the game, which allowed you to exchange nearly any item for a kind of universal currency, called EMC. This EMC could then be used to create any other item with an EMC value, so long as you had enough stuff to afford the new item(s).
To do this, you first must create an alchemy table, which allows you to convert stuff into EMC, and it can recreate any item which has been in its inventory at least once before, as many times as you can afford.

How would such a system work in DF? It would certainly be interesting, and it would FINALLY give you a good use for all that useless excess stone and metal and gems lying around, allowing you to create resources which are scarce, or unavailable on your site. (Note: I think that EE's balancing feature of only being able to recreate items which you have actually had before should be preserved, but I have no idea how one would go about doing this... Maybe just make the reactions require at least 1 of the item itself, plus the EMC?)

Thoughts, comments, etc? I might get around to doing this myself if no one else does, but I've never modded DF before, and I have a long track record for being lazy... Around has been gotten, and laziness has been trumped by boredom!

I'll use a spoiler here for developer reference space:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Reactions
(Note: I probably won't be doing anything with finished items, to avoid long lists of "Burn [50 different kinds of stone] coffins", or "Make dolomite toy" etc. Unless I can somehow copy the smelter -> melt reaction, and get it working properly. I'm pretty sure that's not possible, though. RP justification is that such fine detail from pure EMC requires too much finesse for mortal hands, and existing objects are too refined to be worth it.)

x to EMC:
- low-value gems (2-5, one reaction) to EMC (Please let this work...)
- mid-value gems (10, 15, 20, separate reactions) to EMC (Maybe I could mess with the raw classifications for gems?)
- high-value gems (30, 40, 60, separate reactions) to EMC (I don't know how all these gem reactions would work... But if there's any way it can be done, I'm interested in hearing it.)
- Non-economic stone to EMC
- Economic stone to EMC (Will give more EMC then non-economic)
- Flux stone to EMC (will give more EMC then other stones)
- Metals to EMC (dunno exactly how I'll handle this one... might group same-EMC value metals together, might make them all separate.)
  + Iron
  + Gold
  + Zinc
  + Nickel
  + Lead
  + Copper
  + Bismuth
  + Aluminum
  + Platinum
  + Silver
  + Adamantine
- Alloys to EMC (Same as metals)
  + Billon
  + Bismuth Bronze
  + Black Bronze
  + Brass
  + Bronze
  + Electrum
  + Fine Pewter
  + Lay Pewter
  + Nickel Silver
  + Pig Iron
  + Rose Gold
  + Steel
  + Sterling Silver
  + Trifle Pewter
- Vermin to EMC
- Dead non-sentients to EMC (Might just use meat to give EMC proportional to animal size)
- Dead sentients to EMC
- Food to EMC
- Drinks to EMC (Might not use food and drink to EMC...)
- Wood to EMC (Might clump wood, food, vermin, and non-sentients into "Organics into EMC", and maybe allow dead things to go in as well)
- Organics into EMC (Cloth, leather, plants, shell, bone, and other organic materials not covered in other reactions will all be swept up into this reaction, assuming it's possible to do so)
- Any more I missed?

EMC to x:
(Now, this, I'm still trying to think of the thematics and limitations of in my head, so this may be subject to change... Though, mortal hands do not wield EMC like the gods, and only the true masters, those who have discovered or had revealed to them by gods the Secrets of Creation, can create the true stuff of creation without large inefficiencies. They can, however, easily make inferior imitations.)

(Note: Different colors will all have varying properties, such as specific colors having more density, or hardness, or whatever. This'll be determined when I actually make the things, and will vary from material to material. I'll probably change the name of colored materials with particularly useful properties, so that players will have a hint.)
- Alchemical Gems
  + Black
  + Dark Grey
  + Light Grey
  + White
  + Blue
  + Light Blue
  + Green
  + Light Green
  + Cyan
  + Light Cyan
  + Red
  + Light Red
  + Magenta
  + Light Magenta
  + Brown
  + Yellow
- Alchemical Stone
  + Black
  + Dark Grey
  + Light Grey
  + White
  + Blue
  + Light Blue
  + Green
  + Light Green
  + Cyan
  + Light Cyan
  + Red
  + Light Red
  + Magenta
  + Light Magenta
  + Brown
  + Yellow
-- Sand and clay
  + Certain Alchemical stone colors are soft enough to be ground by a mill stone, allowing the creation of sand or clay, depending on the color.
- Alchemical Metals
... I have no idea how metal properties should be played with by Alchemists, especially while making sure the new metals aren't over-powered... Of course, I could always balance power with cost, but still...
  + I'll add metals here when I have a better idea of what I should make with them.
- Slabwood
  + Named as such for its unpredictable, and often incorrect grain structure, as well as its often large, hard and brittle fibers, wood is very difficult to for mortal hands to emulate properly. However, through their manipulations, alchemists have the ability to add unusual, often useful properties to the wood, making it useful in its own right. Properties are attached to color.
  + Black
  + Dark Grey
  + Light Grey
  + White
  + Blue
  + Light Blue
  + Green
  + Light Green
  + Cyan
  + Light Cyan
  + Red
  + Light Red
  + Magenta
  + Light Magenta
  + Brown
  + Yellow
- Alchemical Gruel
  + A somewhat nutritious, weird, and often variable tasting substance, no one enjoys eating this stuff, but sometimes it's a useful alternative to farming.
- Pure Alcohol
  + 200 proof, clinical-grade, flavorless, and highly, HIGHLY flammable, a mugful of this stuff will kill even the most iron-clad of dwarven livers, so it's generally diluted with water before being served. It can be flavored with other ingredients beforehand, to make it more palatable and allow ingredients to go farther, but it's still not as good as a properly brewed stout.
- Alchemical Cloth
  + Just like slabwood, but a bit easier for alchemists to make. Sometimes has a tendency to itch, though...
  + Black
  + Dark Grey
  + Light Grey
  + White
  + Blue
  + Light Blue
  + Green
  + Light Green
  + Cyan
  + Light Cyan
  + Red
  + Light Red
  + Magenta
  + Light Magenta
  + Brown
  + Yellow

Later on, I'll start considering adding more advanced alchemy, which will require the player to make new discoveries and advance his/her knowledge of alchemy, eventually culminating in the great Slabs of Creation, used by those with the Secrets of Creation itself. I'll also probably add inefficient reactions for real materials, which may be where I'll start.

Workshops:
- Creation Furnace (Burns things into pure EMC, requires fuel)
- Magma Creation Furnace
- Alchemical Mold (For Stone and Gems)
- Alchemical Smelter (For Metals)
- Alchemical Extruder (For Wood and Cloth)
- Alchemical Synthesizer (For Gruel and Alcohol)

[sackhead]

emc would have to be an item and everything would nead custom reactions
instead you could do early EE 10 stone + philosophers stone > 1 iron 10 iron + Philosophers stone> 1 gold etc

(Philosophers  stone would be preserved)

[Trapezohedron]

This would be quite tedious to make, if you ask me.

You'd have to make an reaction for dismantling boulders, transforming them into raw EMC, then make a reaction for every item that you can make with raw EMC.

Meaning to say, you'd have to make a EMC to Gold reaction, EMC to Silver reaction, EMC to other metal reaction, EMC to Feldspar reaction, EMC to Cedar reaction and so on and so forth.

One downside to this is that the list would be clogged with reactions that you're most certainly not looking for, and it would take a few minutes to scroll down and such.

[abculatter_2]

This would be quite tedious to make, if you ask me.

You'd have to make an reaction for dismantling boulders, transforming them into raw EMC, then make a reaction for every item that you can make with raw EMC.

Meaning to say, you'd have to make a EMC to Gold reaction, EMC to Silver reaction, EMC to other metal reaction, EMC to Feldspar reaction, EMC to Cedar reaction and so on and so forth.

One downside to this is that the list would be clogged with reactions that you're most certainly not looking for, and it would take a few minutes to scroll down and such.

This is very true...
Maybe there'd be some way to reduce the clutter, by cutting out redundant materials? (just have 'EMC to wood', instead of 'EMC to cedar, elm, mahogany, etc.')
Or, would it be possible to group stuff into sub-lists, like the game does with forges? Like, you could have a 'wood' section, a 'stone' section, then inside stone would be something like 'economic', 'flux', 'useless', 'ore', etc.
Or, you could always expand the workshops, like having a Geology Alchemy table, a Naturopath Alchemy table, a Forge Alchemy table, etc. and have each be linked to a separate skill. Maybe even have yields increase slightly based on skill? Or maybe have EMC be used inefficiently until legendary?

[Putnam]

Maybe there'd be some way to reduce the clutter, by cutting out redundant materials? (just have 'EMC to wood', instead of 'EMC to cedar, elm, mahogany, etc.')

Definitely possible.

Or, would it be possible to group stuff into sub-lists, like the game does with forges? Like, you could have a 'wood' section, a 'stone' section, then inside stone would be something like 'economic', 'flux', 'useless', 'ore', etc.

No.

Or, you could always expand the workshops, like having a Geology Alchemy table, a Naturopath Alchemy table, a Forge Alchemy table, etc. and have each be linked to a separate skill. Maybe even have yields increase slightly based on skill? Or maybe have EMC be used inefficiently until legendary?

Reactions are linked to skills, not buildings. Reagents used and yields given are always fixed, skill can't have an effect.

[Hubris Incalculable]

Or, you could always expand the workshops, like having a Geology Alchemy table, a Naturopath Alchemy table, a Forge Alchemy table, etc. and have each be linked to a separate skill. Maybe even have yields increase slightly based on skill? Or maybe have EMC be used inefficiently until legendary?

Reactions are linked to skills, not buildings. Reagents used and yields given are always fixed, skill can't have an effect.

Erm.. Putnam? I think you got that backwards, and accidentally said what he just said: "Reactions are linked to skills, not buildings" - I'm pretty sure they're linked to buildings, not skills.

Edit: straight from the vanilla raws (reaction_smelter.txt) (arrow mine)

Code: [Select]

[REACTION:BITUMINOUS_COAL_TO_COKE]
[NAME:make coke from bituminous coal]
[BUILDING:SMELTER:NONE] <------
[REAGENT:A:1:BOULDER:NO_SUBTYPE:INORGANIC:COAL_BITUMINOUS]
[PRODUCT:100:9:BAR:NO_SUBTYPE:COAL:COKE][PRODUCT_DIMENSION:150]
[FUEL]
[SKILL:SMELT]

[RanDomino]

Or, would it be possible to group stuff into sub-lists, like the game does with forges? Like, you could have a 'wood' section, a 'stone' section, then inside stone would be something like 'economic', 'flux', 'useless', 'ore', etc.

No.

You could have a different building for each category of product (i.e. "EE Worthless Stone Crafts" "EE Steel Weapons" "EE Platinum Furniture").

[Nyan Thousand]

It's still a lot of reactions. Say you have 100 items, divided in 10 sets. Then you have EMC. Each of the 100 items would have a reaction to turn them to EMC, then 100 more reactions to turn EMC into the items. That's 200 reactions. God knows how many items DF has. If you cut out redundant items, you get 110 reactions. 10 to EMC and 100 to the other items. You can't reduce it further to 20 reactions because what if you're trying to make gold? You can have a "turn x to EMC" option, but if you're trying for gold, you'd have a hard time if all you have is "turn EMC to metal".

Point is, it's be time consuming. Of course, I don't really mod, but that's my take.

[Hugo_The_Dwarf]

Depends, if you target only raw materials, or certain ones. Say you can only convert raw stone/wood/metal/gems/leather/cloth to an EMC to make any other type. And since wood and stones are basically the same value, just target one wood/ stone type. Oak/Basalt

then flux and metal/ore can be determined by how much EMC you need.

It all depends on how indepth you want it to be. You want to make every material in the vanilla game? well there is your 200 reactions, you only want to make sensiable reactions, if you know how to properly use REACTION_CLASS or MATERIAL_REACTION_PRODUCT you can probally only have 20 - 50 reactions.

EDIT:
Still alot, but if you can have a WOOD/STONE/METAL/etc... tables/converters then you can reduce clutter of reactions.

[abculatter_2]

Hmm... Well, it's not like I have anything else to do, so I might as well give this a shot. Reading the wiki guide, then I'll type up a list of reactions I'll need to do, and try seeing how many workshop groups I can do...

EDIT:
Something I just thought; is it possible to make objects stack to any arbitrary number? Let's say, 10000. Also, is it possible to add containers which can only hold a specific item? If not, I suppose just making the EMC a new type of coin would be fine... Also, can you make an item have 0 weight?
Also also, would it be possible to make an item be haulable only by a container, not by itself?

[Hugo_The_Dwarf]

If you make the EMC a liquid material you can restrict it to jugs, and any other tool thats use is LIQUID_CONTAINTER, and if it's a liquid material you can have it's densitiy really really light. But since your working with custom reactions I suggest not stacking the item, as custom reactions eat an entire stack regaurdless of how much it acually needs

[abculatter_2]

If you make the EMC a liquid material you can restrict it to jugs, and any other tool thats use is LIQUID_CONTAINTER, and if it's a liquid material you can have it's densitiy really really light. But since your working with custom reactions I suggest not stacking the item, as custom reactions eat an entire stack regaurdless of how much it acually needs

Now, that's an idea, but could I somehow restrict it to specific kinds of LIQUID_CONTAINERs I create? Probably not... Heh, now there's an interesting image, a stockpile full of clay jars, filled with the chaotic, bluish-purple stuff of pure creation. I suppose I could always justify it as some kind of condensed, stable form of the stuff, but still.

And damn, but then again, I suppose this doesn't really change things much, maybe even for the better, since it makes cheap things much more in bulk.

Also, added a spoiler to the first post, for all the stuff I plan to add, which I'll cross or color-out as things get finished.

[Putnam]

Or, you could always expand the workshops, like having a Geology Alchemy table, a Naturopath Alchemy table, a Forge Alchemy table, etc. and have each be linked to a separate skill. Maybe even have yields increase slightly based on skill? Or maybe have EMC be used inefficiently until legendary?

Reactions are linked to skills, not buildings. Reagents used and yields given are always fixed, skill can't have an effect.

Erm.. Putnam? I think you got that backwards, and accidentally said what he just said: "Reactions are linked to skills, not buildings" - I'm pretty sure they're linked to buildings, not skills.

Edit: straight from the vanilla raws (reaction_smelter.txt) (arrow mine)

Code: [Select]

[REACTION:BITUMINOUS_COAL_TO_COKE]
[NAME:make coke from bituminous coal]
[BUILDING:SMELTER:NONE] <------
[REAGENT:A:1:BOULDER:NO_SUBTYPE:INORGANIC:COAL_BITUMINOUS]
[PRODUCT:100:9:BAR:NO_SUBTYPE:COAL:COKE][PRODUCT_DIMENSION:150]
[FUEL]
[SKILL:SMELT]

I mixed up skills and reactions, the buildings are in the right place.

[RanDomino]

Maybe a less mind-bogglingly time-consuming idea would just be converting boulders and ore, and just making whatever you're going for using the already-existing workshop...

[Courtesy Arloban]

No one else thought this was a Fullmetal Alchemist mod?