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[Impaler[WrG]]

I've found that its currently not possible to stack the [FUEL] tag in a reaction to make a reaction need 2 or more fuel.  It seems the only options are one fuel or no fuel.  I can add lines to make COAL a reagent like Steel requires but this isn't really accurate for magma smelters & forges as you can only save the one 'official' fuel.

I propose the [FUEL] tag be altered to [FUEL:#] in which # specifies the desired quantity of fuel, the old [FUEL] tag could be interpreted as one for back compatibility if necessary.  This would help make more complex yet still balanced reactions and they will work properly with magma.

[Osmosis Jones]

Back compatibility won't be an issue if he manages to squeeze it in before the next update, as it will break compat anyway. Also, just out of curiosity, what were you making that required two units of fuel?

[ToonyMan]

I agree! 

[Impaler[WrG]]

I'm playing around with large reactions that use 8+ units of Ore and it seems wrong that smelting 8 units of rock should require the same amount of fuel as smelting just one.  It could also allow us to reflect the different melting temperatures of ores and metals, some would require more heat to melt and thus more fuel.

[Footkerchief]

Yeah, this is sensible.

[Align]

How does magma affect this? Completely negate the need or just -1?

[Impaler[WrG]]

Examine the Steel reaction, Coal is a reagent and is always required even in on a Magma furnace.  Only the effect of the [FUEL] tag are negated, essentially all magma dose is nullify any [FUEL] tag in a recipe, everything else remains the same.  If I replaced all [FUEL] tags with the desired number of coal units as reagents then magma forges and smelters would do nothing special.  A variable tag would allow a magma workshop to save any specified amount of fuel.

[Random832]

How does magma affect this? Completely negate the need or just -1?

It would completely negate it - though if magma depletion ever comes into play it would probably consume that much magma.

[G-Flex]

Why would a smelter *consume* magma? It would, at the most, cool it down.

Speaking ideally, all smelting operations should require some level of fuel, even with a magma smelter. You need some carbon to do that kind of thing no matter what you use as a heat source, provided you aren't simply extracting native metal from rock or making alloys.

[Duke 2.0]

Why would a smelter *consume* magma? It would, at the most, cool it down.

Speaking ideally, all smelting operations should require some level of fuel, even with a magma smelter. You need some carbon to do that kind of thing no matter what you use as a heat source, provided you aren't simply extracting native metal from rock or making alloys.

 One would assume dwarves use random organic matter to add carbon to things that need it.

[Random832]

Why would a smelter *consume* magma? It would, at the most, cool it down.

It is a resource, it is thereby consumed. That "consuming" it turns it into worthless cool rock [it would, notably, _not_ be obsidian - really, the magma pipe lining itself should also not be obsidian, it should be e.g. granite] rather than removing its mass is just a detail.

Speaking ideally, all smelting operations should require some level of fuel, even with a magma smelter. You need some carbon to do that kind of thing no matter what you use as a heat source, provided you aren't simply extracting native metal from rock or making alloys.

You also always need flux. And it's NOT always the same ones as it is for iron/steel.

Really, what we need is finer-tuned fuel/reducing agents/flux, and have the requirements of the latter two be relatively small (since they're being consumed for the reaction rather than generating heat) and the former be dozens of units, and one unit coal or wood generates a large number of bars of coke/charcoal, and one piece of flux stone is kept track of in the smelter as a large number of "flux units".

Also, different reactions require different flux - limestone is used for iron and steel, but http://www.cyphertext.net/~gfish/smelting.html indicates the use of iron oxide or silica - depending on the ore - as flux for smelting copper. (I wonder if the resulting slag from the use of iron oxide could be smelted for iron)

It would need to always be possible to import flux (a tendency for civs with no access and no trade for flux to die out would be sufficient. A way to check material availability before selecting a civ would be nice too - you can start a custom embark and then abort, but that's more tedious, and you may also want to know what's available from your human neighbors or what kind of metal the goblins will be using)

[G-Flex]

Why would a smelter *consume* magma? It would, at the most, cool it down.

Speaking ideally, all smelting operations should require some level of fuel, even with a magma smelter. You need some carbon to do that kind of thing no matter what you use as a heat source, provided you aren't simply extracting native metal from rock or making alloys.

 One would assume dwarves use random organic matter to add carbon to things that need it.

I don't really think this would be possible. You need (roughly) pure carbon, or at least carbon monoxide, in order to smelt the stuff. Random organic substances probably would not work at all regardless of how many carbon atoms they have.

[Duke 2.0]

Why would a smelter *consume* magma? It would, at the most, cool it down.

Speaking ideally, all smelting operations should require some level of fuel, even with a magma smelter. You need some carbon to do that kind of thing no matter what you use as a heat source, provided you aren't simply extracting native metal from rock or making alloys.

 One would assume dwarves use random organic matter to add carbon to things that need it.

I don't really think this would be possible. You need (roughly) pure carbon, or at least carbon monoxide, in order to smelt the stuff. Random organic substances probably would not work at all regardless of how many carbon atoms they have.

 Mind you these are dwarves, and quite a few old old metals relied on the impurties in the metal as well as the proper chemical composition. Although I get your point. Still, we need to know how realistic the game needs to be to make sure it is fun as well. Abstraction can do wonders to how fun things are.

[Sowelu]

I would like it if all smithing and reactions were based on temperatures.  Smithing with pewter should take less fuel than smithing with steel, and it shouldn't need any special tags to say that.  Making alloys, well, I can see that needing an additional tag to say what temperature the reaction happens at...  Essentially, you just have to blow enough fuel to get the forge hot enough for your reaction or something close to your melting point.

[G-Flex]

I'm not sure I'd say that alloying involves a "reaction". You're basically just making a (hopefully) solid solution of two materials; you're basically melting stuff and mixing it together.