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[PersonGuy]

I am amazed nobody has mentioned gunpowder yet when greekfire has already been mentioned it exist well before 1400 although it only became really good during the 1300s and 1400s with the invention of corning the powder which makes it easier to transport and store and if done right increases the power by around three times. Although during this time period except for certain places in the late 1400s where limbered with trunnions field guns and the arqubus where used it was limited to bombards, bombs, rockets, grenades, handguns, and the breach loading swivel gun.

Pretty sure Toady has made statements saying he doesn't plan to have and doesn't want to include gunpowder.  Even if its barely in the "1400 cut off" he doesn't think it fits thematically.  Anyone got the searching skills to find an exact quote?  There are several mods that add it, but it probably unlikely to be added in the main game.  That said, if better support for multiple materials in a single item (gun made of metal barrel and wooden stock, bullets with powder and shot) and for projectile weapons (separating reload and fire actions) is added then modders can handle the rest for those that want gunpowder.

First off Gunpowder is not barely within the 1400-1450 cut off by any means.  Gunpowder had it's roots in the 9-11th Century AD in China, and was in Europe by the 1200's.  Gunpowder saw it's first use in siege weapons in Europe in the year 1262, and hand-cannons made an appearance in the first half of the 1300's.  Cannons were significant by 1400, and undoubtedly so by 1422, with cannons being used by both sides during a siege of Constantinople in that year in large numbers, followed by the fall of Constantinople in 1453, in which the Ottoman's cannons were powerful enough and of great enough numbers that the walls fell for the first time in it's history. 

As for Greek fire, we know enough about it, while we don't know it's true mixture or how it was made, we know that it stuck to objects and continued to burn underwater.  So... yeah that kind of narrows it down somewhat to what it could be based on what materials and technology they had available. 

Also, I do believe Toady's statement was we wouldn't see more than basic usage of gunpowder.  I believe he said traps are likely, but he wasn't sure of including cannons of any sort.

That said, I personally believe basic cannons, alongside hand cannons and trap usage all have a place in the game, which is why I do include hand-cannons in my mod.

Gunpowder was something that had a significant presence in the world before 1400 with things like bombs, grenades, rockets, bombard cannons, and even things  breech loading swivel guns and powder corning appearing in the very late 1300s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_gunpowder#Europe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breech-loading_swivel_gun) although allot of things that would make gunpowder allot more useful such as fields guns that are limbered and have trunnions and the arquebus appeared during the 1400s(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbers_and_caissons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trunnion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_artillery#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arquebus http://firearmshistory.blogspot.com/2010/04/matchlock-technology-arquebus.html http://sellsword.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/firearms/) but they where less effective then models from later eras.

Something that should be noted about powder trails is that using actual corned blackpowder it goes very fast http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4ig3V6MaMI.

[Evaris]

I am amazed nobody has mentioned gunpowder yet when greekfire has already been mentioned it exist well before 1400 although it only became really good during the 1300s and 1400s with the invention of corning the powder which makes it easier to transport and store and if done right increases the power by around three times. Although during this time period except for certain places in the late 1400s where limbered with trunnions field guns and the arqubus where used it was limited to bombards, bombs, rockets, grenades, handguns, and the breach loading swivel gun.

Pretty sure Toady has made statements saying he doesn't plan to have and doesn't want to include gunpowder.  Even if its barely in the "1400 cut off" he doesn't think it fits thematically.  Anyone got the searching skills to find an exact quote?  There are several mods that add it, but it probably unlikely to be added in the main game.  That said, if better support for multiple materials in a single item (gun made of metal barrel and wooden stock, bullets with powder and shot) and for projectile weapons (separating reload and fire actions) is added then modders can handle the rest for those that want gunpowder.

First off Gunpowder is not barely within the 1400-1450 cut off by any means.  Gunpowder had it's roots in the 9-11th Century AD in China, and was in Europe by the 1200's.  Gunpowder saw it's first use in siege weapons in Europe in the year 1262, and hand-cannons made an appearance in the first half of the 1300's.  Cannons were significant by 1400, and undoubtedly so by 1422, with cannons being used by both sides during a siege of Constantinople in that year in large numbers, followed by the fall of Constantinople in 1453, in which the Ottoman's cannons were powerful enough and of great enough numbers that the walls fell for the first time in it's history. 

As for Greek fire, we know enough about it, while we don't know it's true mixture or how it was made, we know that it stuck to objects and continued to burn underwater.  So... yeah that kind of narrows it down somewhat to what it could be based on what materials and technology they had available. 

Also, I do believe Toady's statement was we wouldn't see more than basic usage of gunpowder.  I believe he said traps are likely, but he wasn't sure of including cannons of any sort.

That said, I personally believe basic cannons, alongside hand cannons and trap usage all have a place in the game, which is why I do include hand-cannons in my mod.

Gunpowder was something that had a significant presence in the world before 1400 with things like bombs, grenades, rockets, bombard cannons, and even things  breech loading swivel guns and powder corning appearing in the very late 1300s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_gunpowder#Europe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breech-loading_swivel_gun) although allot of things that would make gunpowder allot more useful such as fields guns that are limbered and have trunnions and the arquebus appeared during the 1400s(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbers_and_caissons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trunnion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_artillery#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arquebus http://firearmshistory.blogspot.com/2010/04/matchlock-technology-arquebus.html http://sellsword.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/firearms/) but they where less effective then models from later eras.

Something that should be noted about powder trails is that using actual corned blackpowder it goes very fast http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4ig3V6MaMI.

Well, yeah, but still.

[PersonGuy]

Also things like various methods for strengthening materials aren't represented such as the making of cuir boulli(boiled leather) and the tempering of metals.

[PersonGuy]

I think this is mainly i feature that mostly is something that needs the way the world works in the simulation to be updated to be used but water based travel and various vessels are not represented in any way(or at the very least any meaningful way) i can detect. This is noticeable as water based travel had been quite important throughout history.

[GavJ]

Metals: I don't think the game needs more almost entirely redundant metals. 17 different kinds of pewter or whatever is bad enough. You and I have already discussed these in the context of mods, where I think they may well be appropriate, but not for vanilla. The vanilla player probably wants one metal of each basic strength, and minimal redundancy outside of gameplay.

Glazes: There are literally hundreds of glazes they could and probably would have been using at this time. I have the same reaction as to the metals: redundancy without gameplay is a little frustrating at best.  However, a glaze for each type of color option you might want for decoration might be reasonable and meaningful. A wide variety of glazes is not high tech either. As long as you have a hot enough kiln, it's basically the exact same process for everything - grind stuff up (various minerals), mix with some clay and perhaps whiting, and dip or brush then fire. So virtually every glaze we know about today would be reasonable, except for lab synthetic substances.

Iron Sand: I like this idea, as long as it's much more inefficient than iron ore, so that you have an option for iron still, but pay for it in convenience. That's meaningful gameplay.

Peat ceramics: Never heard of this (despite actually doing my own earthenware pottery and research and looking up peat as fuel in the process!), sounds odd for sure. Might be fun, I dunno. I'm really curious about the real world practice regardless.

Borax: There's a thread in the suggestions forum for this right now. I think it is used as a welding flux, but not necessarily a smelting flux, which is different. In the other thread, I suggested that it would be cool to include, but maybe the forge could have the option to make higher quality armor at a given skill level if the metalsmith had access to borax, to represent welding usage specifically?

Beds: Yes non-wooden beds are realistic, but this seems a little dangerous. You could perhaps playtest it to see how it works (you can make non wooden beds in custom reactions). My concern is that if you realistically allow stone beds and metal driveshafts and cloth windmills and so on, then there might be no need for wood, which would greatly reduce one of the only actual resource pressures in the game. One which Toady has made much less of a pressure with multitile trees, granted, but IMO that's the wrong direction. (The trees are pretty but their massive wood stocks are less fun). Again, this can just be tested to see how it feels in game.

Nethercap pykrete: Nethercap, even if it did transfer heat into it, would not freeze water, because water freezes at 9,999 urist, not 10,000. Nethercap would actually melt ice it contacted for long enough, if anything!


_________
Other people or later suggestions (you should keep the OP up to date by the way, with new suggestions people have)

Gunpowder: Yeah, obviously dorfy, Toady said he plans to include this, I believe.
Salt, silkworms: Yeah, definitely.
Boiled leather etc.: eh, getting into redundancy land again a bit. Not entirely, since I guess you might literally have zero metals, but still.

[Dirst]

Glazes: There are literally hundreds of glazes they could and probably would have been using at this time. I have the same reaction as to the metals: redundancy without gameplay is a little frustrating at best.  However, a glaze for each type of color option you might want for decoration might be reasonable and meaningful. A wide variety of glazes is not high tech either. As long as you have a hot enough kiln, it's basically the exact same process for everything - grind stuff up (various minerals), mix with some clay and perhaps whiting, and dip or brush then fire. So virtually every glaze we know about today would be reasonable, except for lab synthetic substances.

At the cost of a little realism, I'd suggest bringing the dye mechanism to glaze.  Since the Dyer's Workshop is not in the raws, it isn't constrained by what we can mod.  Allow your dwarves to dye the glaze at the Dyer's Workshop before applying it to the earthenware, and viola you have colorful pottery.  Of course, this completely ignores how the dye might break down at high temperatures, but setting dyed clothing on fire doesn't seem to change the color, so at least it's consistent.

[GavJ]

Glazes: There are literally hundreds of glazes they could and probably would have been using at this time. I have the same reaction as to the metals: redundancy without gameplay is a little frustrating at best.  However, a glaze for each type of color option you might want for decoration might be reasonable and meaningful. A wide variety of glazes is not high tech either. As long as you have a hot enough kiln, it's basically the exact same process for everything - grind stuff up (various minerals), mix with some clay and perhaps whiting, and dip or brush then fire. So virtually every glaze we know about today would be reasonable, except for lab synthetic substances.

At the cost of a little realism, I'd suggest bringing the dye mechanism to glaze.  Since the Dyer's Workshop is not in the raws, it isn't constrained by what we can mod.  Allow your dwarves to dye the glaze at the Dyer's Workshop before applying it to the earthenware, and viola you have colorful pottery.  Of course, this completely ignores how the dye might break down at high temperatures, but setting dyed clothing on fire doesn't seem to change the color, so at least it's consistent.

Why take such a weird, clearly-not-realistic-at-all approach, when you could simply add actualy glaze materials from the many abundantly available actual minerals, etc. in the game?  In fact, I've already written up a list myself for a mod I was considering awhile back of mostly-realistic glaze recipes:

Glaze Colors:
Black - (cobaltite and iron), (iron and fuel)
Navy - cobaltite
Blue - rutile, tin, (cobaltite and feldspar)
Cyan D - (copper + ash), iron, chromite, tin
Cyan L - ash, tin, chromite, (iron + feldspar)
Green D - iron, garnierite, chromite
Green L - copper, chromite, ash, (iron + flux)
Ruby - (chromite and lead), (feldspar and copper)
Red - copper, iron, pitchblende
Purple - (pyrolusite and ash)  -- purples and magentas MIGHT also be possible with generic ultramafic rocks (dunite, etc. There actually aren't many in-game. Hornblende is one. Presumably "semi-molten rock" stands in for ultramafics, and below that, there is HFS instead of a normal mantle) + cobalt glazes.  NOT celadon-type blues, though.
Magenta - pyrolusite
Brown - (chromite + zinc), iron, rutile, lead
Yellow - (chromite), (iron + talc), iron + flux
Gray - garnierite, (iron + fuel)
L. Gray - iron or rutile
White - feldspar

"feldspar" refers to any felsic rock, pretty much. Such as quartzite, granite, rhyolite, porphyry, obsidian, etc. Although generally you'd want to restrict yourself to only the MOST felsic rocks, like quartzes and orthoclases.

You wouldn't probably want ALL of those. It's just a list of many options from which a balancing game designer might choose. There would be a few more too.

(This list is abstracting away oxidizing versus reduction firing environments, with different recipes above being in either category. Black with iron and carbon would be highly reducing only, for instance, while iron-based reds are oxidizing kilns)

[Alev]

above snip

This would be good, perhaps with a 'randomise glaze' option where they would take a random rock which you have a lot of.

[Nopenope]

Metals: I don't think the game needs more almost entirely redundant metals. 17 different kinds of pewter or whatever is bad enough. You and I have already discussed these in the context of mods, where I think they may well be appropriate, but not for vanilla. The vanilla player probably wants one metal of each basic strength, and minimal redundancy outside of gameplay.

You're speaking from a gamist's perspective, when it's clear the game is steering more and more toward a simulationist's view. In other words, I believe realism should have precedence over gameplay and balance. The thing is, the gameplay wouldn't be affected that much since people can and still will ignore the new metals if they want, while those who can will have fun with their cupronickel and pewter and stuff.

[Alev]

Yes, and once chemical reactions and whatnot are added in, at least some of those will have purpose.

[GavJ]

when it's clear the game is steering more and more toward a simulationist's view.

I literally can't find one example of a feature from the latest release that is "clearly" sacrificing gameplay for the sake of realism. Where are you getting this from?

Also, even if, for sake of argument, you're right, and it's steering away from gameplay, isn't it in our best interest as players to make suggestions to steer it back to US having fun as a priority anyway? Since, you know, that's what we do -- play it as a game?

[Sergarr]

when it's clear the game is steering more and more toward a simulationist's view.

I literally can't find one example of a feature from the latest release that is "clearly" sacrificing gameplay for the sake of realism. Where are you getting this from?

Also, even if, for sake of argument, you're right, and it's steering away from gameplay, isn't it in our best interest as players to make suggestions to steer it back to US having fun as a priority anyway? Since, you know, that's what we do -- play it as a game?

This is not our game. It is a work of art and it is a personal creation of Toady. If you've come to DF for gameplay, you can find many other DF clones which do focus on that.

[Getix Kain]

above snip

This would be good, perhaps with a 'randomise glaze' option where they would take a random rock which you have a lot of.

+1 on this.

Same goes for the "CUT GEMS" work.

[Alev]

Yes, DF is supposed to be a generic fantasy world simulator, which Toady has stated, and he makes it for himself and releasees it publicly, which he has also stated.

[GavJ]

This is not our game.

But these ARE our suggestions. If Toady wants to ignore all of them and go make it into a flight simulator, then more power to him. But I can't fathom why anybody would go out of their way to help suggest ways for him to do that, if that's not what they find fun gameplay for themselves. Why would you ever spend your time helping somebody to make your own life less enjoyable? It's not like it's some greater moral cause or something, like running into a burning building for a baby. It's just a video game... there's no reason to do that.

If you've come to DF for gameplay, you can find many other DF clones which do focus on that.

I could. Or I could just play DF, since every fiber of its code is aimed toward fun, and successfully so. It is chock full of gameplay, a higher percentage of which is fun than other games. Which is why I'm here. I came for gameplay, and I've been getting exactly what I came for all along.

Yes, DF is supposed to be a generic fantasy world simulator, which Toady has stated, and he makes it for himself and releasees it publicly, which he has also stated.

I don't care if Toady has made offhanded comments that this is a piece of oil prospecting software or a "learn to type" program or anything else. If his actions all scream otherwise by repeatedly adding player-oriented gameplay features, then it's in point in fact a game.




Anywho, that said, on topic: Adding a bunch of redundant junk that doesn't add gameplay isn't necessarily actively HARMFUL to the game (although it is a little bit, from confusion and a bit more lag), it's more of an issue of "not spending valuable time on stuff that doesn't really add anything for hardly anybody." Which is the case for a bunch of these suggestions. The costs involved are opportunity costs.

A bunch of other ones DO add gameplay value though, for sure. It's a mixed bag, like most suggestion lists, including my own.