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[Leelas]

Hi, so, this is going to sound like a silly newbie question, but I seem to remember in previous versions of DF (most recently in the earliest versions of .40), every square of ore that I mined turned into a usable piece of stone. In the current version, it seems to be much less - like, say, one in every three squares or so. In other words, it seems to be producing stones at the same rate as regular stones that I can't smelt.

Is this intentional? And if not, how do I fix it? Coal and iron have become a very limited resources in my fortress, despite my having embarked on a site that supposedly has lots of both.

[GhostDwemer]

This has been the way mining works since the previous version. You are correct, it used to be that skilled miners would make one stone per tile mined out. Stone and ore drops at 1/4 frequency now, regardless of miner skill. But, ore makes four times as much stuff, and stone make four blocks each, so the result is mostly the same, with less excess stone to get rid of.

The one annoying part is flux, which doesn't get multiplied, so making steel means mining out huge areas of flux now.

[Bihlbo]

You should check out the Mining page on the wiki, from which you'll get to the most pertinent portion:

When the wall-part is removed from a stone tile, there is a 25% chance that a single stone (also known as a boulder) will be left behind. Minerals which are found in veins have a 33% chance of leaving ore, and minerals found in small clusters (or individual tiles) have a 100% chance of leaving a stone or rough gem behind. Finally, any "deep" material (i.e. adamantine or slade) has a 100% chance of leaving a usable stone (though the latter is normally undiggable).

[Bihlbo]

The one annoying part is flux, which doesn't get multiplied, so making steel means mining out huge areas of flux now.

Yeah, why hasn't someone modded flux stone blocks to be used as flux yet? Easier hauling & storage, more material, etc. Seems like a good idea considering how little is needed for real-world smelting.

[Kestrel]

How much steel could you guys possibly need...

Nevermind.  It's Dwarf Fortress.  You'll find a reason.

[Sadrice]

Flux isn't a problem if you have a layer of it, conveniently located, but if you only have a bit, or you don't have any and are trying to import it, flux can be the major limiting factor to outfitting your military in full steel armor.

[hyperman500]

Can't you just use Goblinite for your iron and request flux (DOLOMITE!!!) from your outpost liaison to get some more? That would be very dwarfy and effective.

[Echostatic]

Can't you just use Goblinite for your iron and request flux (DOLOMITE!!!) from your outpost liaison to get some more? That would be very dwarfy and effective.

I tried this in my previous fort. The whole caravan brought maybe 7 units of flux stone. The disappointment was great.

[Eldin00]

If you are able to request all 5 types of flux stone, you can generally get 15-20 per caravan reliably by requesting all of them at max priority. Unfortunately, many dwarven civilizations only have easy access to one or two types of flux stone, which really cuts down on the amount you can get from trade.

[rellik242]

Often, when you find yourself without flux stone, the most effective way to provide for your steel industry is to just request steel objects from the caravan, and melt them down into weapons. As you often only receive 5-10 flux stones per caravan.

[Eldin00]

yeah, if you're trying to power a steel industry off of trade, your best route is probably to request steel bars, pig iron bars, every available flux, and steel anvils, maybe a few of the lower base-cost items in steel, and then to buy out all of those, plus pretty much every other steel item of any sort they bring, then melt every steel finished good for bars. Assuming you have iron through ore or goblinite (to convert that flux and pig iron into steel), that can get you up near 100 bars/year of production, with a bit of luck. Considering that 11 steel bars can make a full suit of armor (minus any excessive layering) plus a single weapon, you can mostly outfit a full squad in steel via trade in a good year.

[Pirate Bob]

One of my favorites to get steel is instruments (flutes, harps, etc) - base cost is only 100, and they give 1 bar each.  Much better than even anvils, assuming base quality and not embellished (which is of course not usually true).  Also there are 5 types, so you can request them all.  Of course you will get unwanted metals/high quality too, so I would still also request anvils, and also several other things with high melt yields (shields, picks, axes, leggings and high boots are all good choices).

[Eldin00]

Instruments are a good choice. I recommend anvils because of their relatively low base cost and the fact that they never show up with decorations or quality modifiers boosting the price. http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Melt_item is a good place to look to decide which steel items are worth the cost (look at the bars returned column), keeping in mind that quality and decorations just inflate the price for no benefit when buying to melt.

[GhostDwemer]

I don't really have a problem with getting enough steel made. I have a problem with completely unrealistic ferrous metalworking. You need as much flux as you do ore. This is not how it works in the real world. The in-game recipes are completely silly. Flux is mainly used for removing carbon, coke is used to add it, yet you need both, for both steps? Nope. That is not how ferrous metalworking works. Before the reverbatory furnace, the fuel used in smelting iron would introduce too much carbon, yielding pig iron as the direct product of the first step. Another step is required to make usable, non brittle wrought iron. If just the right amount of carbon could be removed in this step, steel could be made in small batches. More commonly, carbon was added back into wrought iron in a third step. The amount of flux used was minimal in comparison to the amount of ore used.

Dwarf Fortress technology is high middle ages tech, in general. At that time in the Western world, the most common process was the bloomery for producing sponge or pig iron. This was refined in a finery forge by heating and hammering to squeeze out the inclusions, producing wrought iron, or careful management of the process would result in removing the correct amount of carbon to produce steel. Outside of China, no better way of making steel was known at the time. The puddling furnace and the cementation process weren't introduced into Europe until the 1500s.

[Vattic]

GhostDwemer: There is a mod that adds realistic 14th century metallurgy; I use a system inspired by it myself.