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[GavJ]

Okay:

1) Glass
There's no obvious reason to need to grind stone into sand before making glass, since you're just melting it anyway. It might take a bit more fuel (which you could add in the custom reaction as an extra fuel), but you could use pebbles or chunks of silicate stone instead (which can be abstracted as just boulders)

Also, sandstone isn't particularly pure to be using, but might work still for low grade glass. Quartzite would be much better as a mineral alternative to sand. If you want to be super thorough, go through the basic stones and figure out which ones are silicates. There are probably a dozen+ of them (quartzite definitely being the most pure).

If you want to be realistic in glassmaking, you would want:
* Silica (sand, quartize, possibly sandstone though rather impure, etc.) ~4 parts
* Flux stone ~ 1 part
* soda ash (burn certain plants, then similar process to lye making with their ashes) ~1 part

However, I'm not sure exactly if you care, or how you would override default glassmaker reactions or if it would be worth it. I believe you can mod what object you get from the sand collection job, which you could change to something other than sand (a clone of sand that you control the reactions of) in order to override defaults. *shrug* 

Sounds more like my kind of mod than this, and would make things more difficult (which also then demands more usefulness and opens a whole can of worms) Just thinking out loud. At the level you're messing with glass, maybe just allow various silicate boulders to take the place of sand and leave it at that.

2) Nethercap
I really like youridea of grinding up nethercap and using it to make crazy cold materials of various sorts, that's amusing.

It doesn't really make sense for any sort of ceramic though (or anything else heated, like iron), since the nethercap would prevent you from firing the clay or melting the metal, etc....

Possibly some sort of nether adobe air dried substance? Dunno. This is obviously all fantasy stuff, so whatever strikes you as reasonable, as long as it makes sense as being ice cold all along the manufacturing process. But ceramics and metals don't seem like good candidates.

Maybe some sort of nether concrete? That's a cold process that yields a useful product type.
* 4 parts Gravel (add some way to make it. Could be as simple as a crushing block workshop that just takes a stone block and a pick to build. Or as complex as a clone of the quern that requires certain very hard materials to build? Or maybe just any building material + one diamond, ruby, sapphire, emerald, or topaz? Sounds expensive. I dunno. Your tungsten would work too if you add it.)
* 1 part nethercap dust
* 1 part flux stone (representing slaked lime)
* 1 part ash
= several ice cold concrete boulders usable at the mason workshop, mechanic's, etc.


3) Anthracite would probably yield more coke per job, but is still too impure for lots of the things DF uses fuel for in its raw form. You should still have to refine it.

4) Most of the weapons changes are pretty fantastical here. Tungsten and brass swords etc., but you seem like you want a lot of crazy metals as the core concept, so okay!

5) Races are already modded up the wazoo - make sure there aren't already versions of exactly what you want before you sink a ton of effort into them.

[Evaris]

Okay:

1) Glass
There's no obvious reason to need to grind stone into sand before making glass, since you're just melting it anyway. It might take a bit more fuel (which you could add in the custom reaction as an extra fuel), but you could use pebbles or chunks of silicate stone instead (which can be abstracted as just boulders)

Also, sandstone isn't particularly pure to be using, but might work still for low grade glass. Quartzite would be much better as a mineral alternative to sand. If you want to be super thorough, go through the basic stones and figure out which ones are silicates. There are probably a dozen+ of them (quartzite definitely being the most pure).

If you want to be realistic in glassmaking, you would want:
* Silica (sand, quartize, possibly sandstone though rather impure, etc.) ~4 parts
* Flux stone ~ 1 part
* soda ash (burn certain plants, then similar process to lye making with their ashes) ~1 part

However, I'm not sure exactly if you care, or how you would override default glassmaker reactions or if it would be worth it. I believe you can mod what object you get from the sand collection job, which you could change to something other than sand (a clone of sand that you control the reactions of) in order to override defaults. *shrug* 

Sounds more like my kind of mod than this, and would make things more difficult (which also then demands more usefulness and opens a whole can of worms) Just thinking out loud. At the level you're messing with glass, maybe just allow various silicate boulders to take the place of sand and leave it at that.

2) Nethercap
I really like youridea of grinding up nethercap and using it to make crazy cold materials of various sorts, that's amusing.

It doesn't really make sense for any sort of ceramic though (or anything else heated, like iron), since the nethercap would prevent you from firing the clay or melting the metal, etc....

Possibly some sort of nether adobe air dried substance? Dunno. This is obviously all fantasy stuff, so whatever strikes you as reasonable, as long as it makes sense as being ice cold all along the manufacturing process. But ceramics and metals don't seem like good candidates.

Maybe some sort of nether concrete? That's a cold process that yields a useful product type.
* 4 parts Gravel (add some way to make it. Could be as simple as a crushing block workshop that just takes a stone block and a pick to build. Or as complex as a clone of the quern that requires certain very hard materials to build? Or maybe just any building material + one diamond, ruby, sapphire, emerald, or topaz? Sounds expensive. I dunno. Your tungsten would work too if you add it.)
* 1 part nethercap dust
* 1 part flux stone (representing slaked lime)
* 1 part ash
= several ice cold concrete boulders usable at the mason workshop, mechanic's, etc.


3) Anthracite would probably yield more coke per job, but is still too impure for lots of the things DF uses fuel for in its raw form. You should still have to refine it.

4) Most of the weapons changes are pretty fantastical here. Tungsten and brass swords etc., but you seem like you want a lot of crazy metals as the core concept, so okay!

5) Races are already modded up the wazoo - make sure there aren't already versions of exactly what you want before you sink a ton of effort into them.

1. On the glassmaking bit, that is quite a plausible end outcome, though it will rather be a while before I figure out how to do such.  That stated, I can probably do it as a material reaction for the rocks, and as I'm not adding new workshops, the screw press shall be used for this and concrete and... a lot of different things.  Still, it is a likely addition, and i'd like to turn many silicates into sand.  Say, 4 bags of sand per stone?  That said, it's kinda hard-coded past it turning into sand, so say, 1 boulder silicate + 1 boulder flux at a screw press, then refine at a kiln, and you end up with x bags of sand?

2.  you're right, it probably makes more sense.  I'll likely give this to non-ore stones as an option.

3.  Eh, actually high-grade and ultra-high-grade Athracite are comparable to coke in a lot of respects.  That said, probably will just go with the adding it as a coke source as it's easier.

4.  Actually it's not.  I see no reason why any metal besides mercury couldn't be used for a crossbow bolt.  Brass was used historically for swords by the Romans (and others), Cupronickel in swords for the Chinese. (also possibly greeks/romans if it was historical orichalcum)  I'm trying to keep it in the realm of what makes sense though.

5.  I've done races before.  Maybe I can dig up my old kitsune thread so I don't have to start over from scratch (had it completed and working before by old hard drive died.)  And Orcs... well I could probably ask around and see if I could borrow them, or parts of them, from another mod. 


So, any thoughts on edible calcium bars, salt from rock salt, or the rest?

[GavJ]

calcium bars feel a little silly. Dwarves don't get heartburn or whatever. Nor osteoporosis (although calcium bars would likely GIVE you osteoporosis if you didn't have a deficiency already)

salt would be awesome but probably only if/when preservation is modded or added. If you can think of a way to require salt for preserving meats and things, then super. Otherwise feels a bit pointless, and it being expensive in game would be odd if you can't use it for stuff.

[Evaris]

calcium bars feel a little silly. Dwarves don't get heartburn or whatever. Nor osteoporosis (although calcium bars would likely GIVE you osteoporosis if you didn't have a deficiency already)

salt would be awesome but probably only if/when preservation is modded or added. If you can think of a way to require salt for preserving meats and things, then super. Otherwise feels a bit pointless, and it being expensive in game would be odd if you can't use it for stuff.

while this is true, it can be used as filler in recipes...

As for salt, generally speaking that is how things were in real life in the time period.  Worthless where it was produced, generally expensive everywhere else.  So I figure it should work as a trade good interim, right?

also what of alum powder as a trade good?

And of hand-cannons?

[GavJ]

You can use 2 of the same ingredient to make meals, so you can't enforce additive only in cooking. You would still get pure "calcium roasts" which don't make any sense. Feels extremely cheaty as food. Since calcium already has millions of other potential uses too in medieval industry (fluxes, plasters, concrete, stucco, flaming weapons, glazes, fertilizers, blah blah), this seems like an especially odd path to pursue.

Similarly, without the ability to mod the game to the extent of requiring alum-laced water for screwpumps to still produce clean output, or to add things to hospital requirements, alum has no real use (maybe as an obscure glaze) and feels pointless.

The game is in no need of trade goods - a glut of too many easy trade goods is already a major problem in the non-dynamic economy. Why make it even worse or add features that will simply not be used due to things like masterwork meat roasts and jeweled serrated discs being infinitely more cost efficient already?

Hand cannons would be awesome, but I don't see how you plan to do that in a raw mod. AFAIK, weapons can't be made to use two types of ammo at once or to check for both ammunition and something else before firing.

[Evaris]

You can use 2 of the same ingredient to make meals, so you can't enforce additive only in cooking. You would still get pure "calcium roasts" which don't make any sense. Feels extremely cheaty as food. Since calcium already has millions of other potential uses too in medieval industry (fluxes, plasters, concrete, stucco, flaming weapons, glazes, fertilizers, blah blah), this seems like an especially odd path to pursue.

Similarly, without the ability to mod the game to the extent of requiring alum-laced water for screwpumps to still produce clean output, or to add things to hospital requirements, alum has no real use (maybe as an obscure glaze) and feels pointless.

The game is in no need of trade goods - a glut of too many easy trade goods is already a major problem in the non-dynamic economy. Why make it even worse or add features that will simply not be used due to things like masterwork meat roasts and jeweled serrated discs being infinitely more cost efficient already?

Hand cannons would be awesome, but I don't see how you plan to do that in a raw mod. AFAIK, weapons can't be made to use two types of ammo at once or to check for both ammunition and something else before firing.

Fair on calcium, but I'm simply trying to think of any and every way to use what's already in-game.

Alum powder, well.. yeah glazing is an option.  But if only if only it could be used for other bits.  I understand that the game isn't lacking in trade goods... but why limit it? 

And for hand cannons... I'm not sure how to go about them, thus they're in the ideas/possibilities listing.  I was figuring having ammo as a singular 'ball and powder', but I don't know how I would make the ammo require both a metal and a second material.  (preferably also a third.) 

[GavJ]

Oh! That's a fine idea. Yes cartridges should work.

Making them would be relatively easy. Just add a custom reaction to the craftsdwarf building that takes some metal, gunpowder, and maybe a piece of cloth as reagents, and makes 25 ammo of type cartridge of material inherited from the metal reagent. Then be sure to define cartridges in item_ammo and your weapon in item_weapon with cartridge as the ammo type.

They'd still go in a quiver, but whatever.

[GavJ]

Also, I suggest at least 1 source of saltpeter for your gunpowder should be a custom-modded cavern layer shrub plant called "Giant bat guano" that drops a guano item you can process into saltpeter at the ashery (?). =P

If it yields no seeds it can't be planted, so it does not break the illusion of it not actually being a plant.

[Meph]

I would have  suggested a cavern soil, so you can "gather clay" on guano, but unfortunately that doesnt work the way you would want. It would end up as surface soil.

[Evaris]

Sounds like a good idea on the bat guano bit.  As it is, I'll be making it so you require:  2 bars of metal (with material properties from such) + 1 bag elemental sulfur (from brimstone, oripment, or realgar) + 1 bag saltpeter powder (from saltpeter stone [yielding multiple bags] or bat guano.)  + 1 unit of plant cloth. 

For the hand-cannon itself, I figure have it use the crossbow skill.

That's where my ideas are running so far right now.

[Meph]

Gun mods have a long tradition of using BLOWGUN as skill.

Oripment and realgar have sulfur in them?

[GavJ]

Gun mods have a long tradition of using BLOWGUN as skill.

Oripment and realgar have sulfur in them?

Yes you can get sulfur from roasting realgar. And probably orpiment.
And if you want more of them it would be reasonable for them to be both igneous extrusive and intrusive if you want.

[Evaris]

Gun mods have a long tradition of using BLOWGUN as skill.

Oripment and realgar have sulfur in them?

Oripment and Realgar are both arsenic sulfide - and you can separate arsenic from them via smelting.  The process releases a lot of sulfur dioxide in the process, and the slag ends up being nearly pure sulfur powder. 

And there's a thought of something I should probably add to allow for arsenical bronze. 

[Meph]

Thanks for that information. It will find its way into the MDF chemist in some future update.

[Evaris]

Alright, so a bit of update on where I'm at, I'm still not completely certain as to how to make it so dwarves can make hand cannons but not the cartridge... Would leaving out the ammo type in entity_default but having the custom reaction to make previously stated cartridges work?  And then with the custom reaction how would I make it so that the ammo would use the metal component of the previous reaction?  Sorry I'm just a bit confused on that.