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Irl iron is much, much more abudant than any other metal. Therefore it would be more realistic to make it abudant, but balance the game by making it's refining a more difficult process than that of copper etc. Producing iron would need better smelters and more skilled furnace operators and smiths, as it does in real life too.

[MrWiggles]

Well.

First welcome to the Forum. I hope you stick around, and become part of the community.

Second. Dwarf Fortress Geology is already pretty realistic. And you can change the mineral abundance when you start a new world.

The smelting practices for the metals in game are pretty similar to how their done in real life.

[forward]

Well.

First welcome to the Forum. I hope you stick around, and become part of the community.

Second. Dwarf Fortress Geology is already pretty realistic. And you can change the mineral abundance when you start a new world.

The smelting practices for the metals in game are pretty similar to how their done in real life.

Thanks! I'm still pretty bad at this game, but even following it's development has been really awesome.

Yes, the smelting practises are pretty realistic, especially the material requirements fordifferent alloys. I had mainly in mind different sort of smelters. Copper could be smelted in basic furnaces or maybe even just kilns, whereas iron would require bigger bloomery. Pig iron and steel would require big blast furnaces with big bellows, that would require power. This would also make power sources like waterwheels more important.

More abudant iron would make it easier to find a nice place for fortress, but adding some more challenge to it would keep copper and bronze as important materials for tools at least at the pioneering stage. Copper alloys would be mainly used in currency(after its added) and crafts(as the case already is, I reckon). If DF had tools like shovels and hoes they'd be even more important (copper and bronze were somewhat commonly used in agriculture still in the medieval period, if I recall correctly). Adding some necessary junk like plows and hoes to make farming possible would be a one way to make it a bit more challenging, although maybe not much. But yeah... I'm just thinking aloud and off-topicing right now, not really suggesting anything that has been thought through. Sorry

I'm also a Finn, ergo possible spelling/syntax errors and use of words like ergo, when I'm struggling to find right words.

[Carp McDwarfEater]

Well.

First welcome to the Forum. I hope you stick around, and become part of the community.

Second. Dwarf Fortress Geology is already pretty realistic. And you can change the mineral abundance when you start a new world.

The smelting practices for the metals in game are pretty similar to how their done in real life.

Firstly, just because it's 'pretty realistic' doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't need to be more so. And changing the mineral abundance only makes less common ores show up more often (correct me if I'm wrong) and would actually make iron less common as other veins would be more prevalent.

The smelting practice for steel seems pretty realistic, but for everything else there's no depth at all. You just do the formula "Ore+Fuel=Bar of metal". I'm no metallurgist, but I doubt it's that simple.

You have my support, OP.

[GreatWyrmGold]

It makes all ores show up more.

[Carp McDwarfEater]

Wouldn't that still make iron less common overall, since veins of other metals will be taking up space?

[GreatWyrmGold]

No, because iron is also more common.

[Blucher]

DF geology hardly seems realistic to me.

Anyway, the I think the problem with iron ore scarcity is that the sedimentary stone stratum in DF is merely 20' - 40' thick (or so, about 4-8 z-levels), while on the earth it's often 1000s of feet thick or more.

[MrWiggles]

DF geology hardly seems realistic to me.

Anyway, the I think the problem with iron ore scarcity is that the sedimentary stone stratum in DF is merely 20' - 40' thick (or so, about 4-8 z-levels), while on the earth it's often 1000s of feet thick or more.

Tiles dont have actual defined dimensions. They only have certain volumes in certain contexts.  And its not possible for DF to mimic a planetary crust in terms of thickness. Thats just matter of Memory, and whats actually fun.

[Blucher]

DF geology hardly seems realistic to me.

Anyway, the I think the problem with iron ore scarcity is that the sedimentary stone stratum in DF is merely 20' - 40' thick (or so, about 4-8 z-levels), while on the earth it's often 1000s of feet thick or more.

Tiles dont have actual defined dimensions. They only have certain volumes in certain contexts.  And its not possible for DF to mimic a planetary crust in terms of thickness. Thats just matter of Memory, and whats actually fun.

Oh, I agree with you for the most part.  Just a pet peeve of mine when "realism" and DF are mentioned together.  Sorry. :-)

[GreatWyrmGold]

DF does its best to be realistic while still being enjoyable and moderately simple. And, of course, extant in this time and not in 2040.

[10ebbor10]

I believe Realistic 3D veins is on the devlog. Besides DF is one the few games that uses actual geology rather than just making things up..

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I believe Realistic 3D veins is on the devlog. Besides DF is one the few games that uses actual geology rather than just making things up..

This sounds really cool. However, my point is not really to have super-realistic geology, just to tweek the availability of resources and challenges to exploit them, so that economy around resources would resemble real world better. Simplistically it means way more iron ore (and bit more coal) and less everything else + more technical challenges to produce iron and steel.

[10ebbor10]

I believe Realistic 3D veins is on the devlog. Besides DF is one the few games that uses actual geology rather than just making things up..

This sounds really cool. However, my point is not really to have super-realistic geology, just to tweek the availability of resources and challenges to exploit them, so that economy around resources would resemble real world better. Simplistically it means way more iron ore (and bit more coal) and less everything else + more technical challenges to produce iron and steel.

As far as I know, iron tends to form large veins, while coal can form entire layers. So when you get those implemented you see coal and iron availability rise. Meanwhile, making steel will be harder, as flux is not that easy to find around coal/iron.

As for adding X extra stages in the melting process. I believe there are mods for that. (Some of them also add extra iron ores.)

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As for adding X extra stages in the melting process. I believe there are mods for that. (Some of them also add extra iron ores.)

I was just wondering, if some nice mods were floating around. Haven't ever really tried any mod.