Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[BonSequitur]

The idea has been bounced around on a lot of threads, mostly dealing with mercury poisoning, but I don't think there's ever been a thread for discussing just uses for mercury. Importantly, unlike other metals that currently can't be refined in-game (Like aluminium from bauxite, cobalt, chrome and uranium), the technology to smelt mercury from cinnabar ore existed in Roman times, so it's presumably going to be in the game. It would be nice to get it into the game first as a smelter task: Cinnabar + Vial = Vial of Quicksilver, which could be used as a trade good (Mercury is, above all else, shiny and cool-looking, so having a considerable trade value isn't far-fetched). Later on other uses can be implemented.

The one that's most interesting is probably amalgamation, which is using mercury to separate metals from lower-grade ore, especially silver. This is the process that was used to extract silver from mines in the Americas, by the Spanish, and later in Joachimstal. This means things like alluvial mining using pans and rivers, and turning extracted soil and rock into silver. There are lots of other uses, of course. Mercury fountains, for example. Or drowning goblins in mercury.

[Sowelu]

Oh, hey.  Having no use other than as a trade good, to start with, sounds pretty awesome to me--finally get some use out of the alchemist's shop.

How would you use it in refining?  I mean, smelting is already dead easy, and right now either a tile of rock has silver, or it doesn't (or the 50% ore of Galena).  How would mercury improve that process?

[BonSequitur]

Mercury works as an amalgam, it combines with other metals and makes it easier to retrieve them. In game, what you would do is send dwarves with pans out to the local brook, and they'd spend some mercury and come back with a little gold or silver, if you're lucky enough to live in a site where you get alluvial gold or silver. Similarly, you could have them dig up stone or soil that isn't native silver, and use mercury to turn it into silver nuggets. The "patio process" would actually be pretty cool to model - designate an area for dwarves to fill with ground-up rock, mercury and some other stuff; after some time, the filled area "sprouts" silver nuggets. Rinse and repeat. In areas where you find native silver, you can also find traces of silver in the same layer; mercury lets you extract all that "invisible" silver.

And of course, in the world of DF, alchemy might actually work. Perhaps we could get an "alchemist" noble, which mostly spends mercury and slowly goes mad, but which occasionally produces something magical. Other nobles could also dabble in alchemy. A lucky fortress could find a means of turning lead into gold (With the use of some quicksilver). Nobles could ingest quicksilver in hopes of gaining good health or even eternal life (Not as deadly as it sounds; only a minute portion of mercury is actually absorbed when one ingests pure mercury.)

[Sowelu]

Hmm.  How much mercury should it take to get a unit of silver?  Remember that silver has a relatively low material value, honestly.  It's only somewhere around 20, which means--if getting and using a unit of mercury takes more time than making ten stone crafts, it's a waste of time.

Also consider...places that have native silver or galena are fairly likely to have enough silver that the player doesn't have a huge need to get extra.  Though that might not be true forever.  Still...  How much silver output are we talking here, even from alluvial methods?

Of course putting mercury in the water would really screw up the water.  I like that a lot, but it'd be harder to implement.

[BonSequitur]

Mercury in water could work with the new system for spatters. Much like when you have a dead body in water, there is a flow of blood pointing downstream from it (The first time I noticed that effect, I thought it was awesome).

And I think we could just balance out the economy. Say a 10x10 area used to amalgamate silver would yield a silver nugget on 50% of tiles, or an average of 50 nuggets, plus quicksilver spatters that can be retrieved as well, so you get some of the quicksilver back and can repeat the process. If you can turn 20 units of cinnabar into 50 silver nuggets, then how much good the process is depends on how desperate you are for silver and whether you have unlimited fuel. If you can make 50 silver nuggets from 5 units of cinnabar, then the process is very much worth it.

This is all, of course, a gross oversimplification of the real-life process.

[Athisus]

You could also put mercury into the shafts of weapons so that whenever they're swung the mercury moves outward due to centrifugal force and increases the mass of the end part of the weapon, making it hit harder.

[Sowelu]

Are there any historical examples of that?  All I know about that kind of thing, is that people always insisted they could do that and I'd owe them a +1 damage bonus against that orc...

[bjlong]

You can't actually do it well--the liquid sloshes and creates waves that give you weird swinging properties. Not to mention the structural problems with forging a blade with a hole down the center, when people did all sorts of crazy stuff like folding, pattern wielding, tempering, etc.

Sorry to say, but there are few (if any) historical swords showing the ability to do such a thing.

[Heron TSG]

I personally want a way to turn obsidian into silver! If you can make an obsidian fountain using water and magma, why can't you just add mercury to make a SILVER fountain? or just have seventeen mercury moats protecting your gate.

[Hectonkhyres]

You could also put mercury into the shafts of weapons so that whenever they're swung the mercury moves outward due to centrifugal force and increases the mass of the end part of the weapon, making it hit harder.

Ah, like the Terminus Est in Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun.
The Est was a two handed sword with a line of mercury down the middle that was cumbersome as hell but could cut through practically anything and could not be parried by any opponent. As long as you didn't care about finesse and were willing to let your enemy cut you up for the second or two that pass before you bifurcate you vertically, it was a glorious weapon. Originally it was designed as an executioner's blade.

[corvvs]

Sadly, the "mercury in a hollow metal case (sword/hammer/etc) to improve mass distribution" idea doesn't make any sense. It would be 1) MUCH easier, and 2) provide more centrifugal force (and less chance of breakage) to just make the tip of the blade thicker with more steel where you would be making it thicker but hollow. There are real life examples of this - the Turkish kilij for one (from which the popularly portrayed shape of the "scimitar" comes).

[G-Flex]

I always thought the point of the mercury reservoir is that the mercury starts out nearer to the hilt, making it easier to handle, and then moves to the end of the blade as you swing it.

Granted, the only time I've seen this stuff mentioned is in D&D books or something like that; I honestly don't remember. It doesn't seem like a very practical idea.


And mercury fountains? Mercury is heavy as hell; good luck getting that to spew into the air gloriously.

[Mel_Vixen]

An Ancient chineses emperor had an Model of his coutry with rivers of quicksilver.

There is also an "Quicksilver Fountain" which can be found here

[G-Flex]

That fountain seems to only let it drop down after being pumped up, though, so it's less a "fountain" in that sense; the stuff never actually shoots into the air at all.


I believe the mercury-river thing was in the same giant underground complex where the Terracotta Army is. I'm not sure if it's known that it was really filled with mercury, but it would be very interesting if it was. Still very far from making a fountain, though.

Bear in mind that mercury is 13.5 times as heavy as water. You'd need an insane amount of pressure to actually give it high upward velocity.

[Mel_Vixen]

Wikipedia says in the area of the grave "unnatural" amounts of mercury were found, That isnt an proff thought only an hint supporting the legend.

edit:

Bear in mind that mercury is 13.5 times as heavy as water. You'd need an insane amount of pressure to actually give it high upward velocity.

No not really. Just get an Tank of mercury above the same height as you want to have the fountain. Then atach an U pipe to the Fountain and the Tank.

After that you have only to "pump" the Mercury into the tank.  This can be done without great presure. Fairly easy even if you have good waterworks/wheels.