Print

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

[Aquillion]

I mentioned this in another thread, but I thought it could use its own post...

Peat has been used as a method of powering furnaces for a long time, historically.  The Romans did it, say.

Peat can be used as a fertilizer, too, according to its article, although I don't know how long that has been done historically.

Peat could be 'mined' or collected from around swampy, marshy areas.  It may even contain deposits of Bog Iron.

[zchris13]

This needs to happen.  Peat will I know at least burn for a long time in real life. It was used to heat homes in Ireland? Maybe. Somewhere? Definetely.

[Spoonfeed]

so THAT'S peat?
My country was basicly founded on peat... So seconded!

[cparax]

Yup, peat is a useful fuel source, although I don't know if it'd be practical in steelmaking.

I would generally like a system in which there's overlapping (but not fully so) categories for the use of coal as a reagent and the use of coal for forging and heat. (Peat would be very useful for setting home fires of some kind, but as of right now dwarves need neither light nor warmth. If insulation ever becomes a big deal, it should be a useful trade good.) So graphite, jet, and maybe other carbon-rich minerals and would work for the manufacture of steel and pig iron, but only in magma forges; peat and other hydrocarbons would be useful for forging, but would not be appropriate for steelmaking.

[sunshaker]

The Coal chain goes something like this (rather a bit vague and I'm not geology expert): Peat (coal precursor, it is found in the soil layer) then comes Lignite (kind of a compacted Peat found in soil and sedimentary layers) then comes Sub-bituminous (kind of half way between lignite and bituminous), then comes Bituminous (a compacted lignite found in sedimentary layers) then comes Anthracite (a compacted and heated bituminous, was used in some areas in steel making instead of coke, found in metamorphic layers), finely you get Graphite (a compacted and heated anthracite, found in metamorphic layers, hard to ignite raw, can be processed to burn easier (by adding bits of burnable organic matter)).

This is a relatively easy Mod that any on can do to their raw/objects files, however they have to be done to the files before you start your game, otherwise they will not work (see modding section for more details, a further warning these are untested Mods and should be tested to ensure that they work correctly as I'm not sure I have used the syntax correctly, in other words I'm still learning to mod).

This is added to matgloss_stone_soil.txt

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[MATGLOSS_STONE:PEAT]
[NAME:peat][COLOR:0:6:1][TILE:176]
[SOIL][AQUIFER]
[ITEM_SYMBOL:15]
[SOLID_DENSITY:1600]

you will note that I did not add [SPEC_HEAT:]
[IGNITE_POINT:]
[MELTING_POINT:]
 or [BOILING_POINT:] as I did not want my entire soil layer on some maps burning down to bedrock (think what a map with magma touching peat would be like if I did that, WHOOSH!!!)

this is added to matgloss_stone_mineral.txt

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[MATGLOSS_STONE:COAL_ANTHRACITE]
[NAME:anthracite coal][COLOR:0:7:1][TILE:15]
[ENVIRONMENT:METAMORPHIC:VEIN:100]
[ITEM_SYMBOL:15]
[SPEC_HEAT:409]
[IGNITE_POINT:11440]
[MELTING_POINT:NONE]
[BOILING_POINT:16708]
[SOLID_DENSITY:1446]

and then you add this to your reaction_standard.txt

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[REACTION:PEAT_TO_COKE]

[NAME:make coke from peat]

[SMELTER]

[REAGENT:2:STONE:NO_SUBTYPE:STONE:PEAT]

[PRODUCT:100:3:BAR:NO_SUBTYPE:COAL:COKE]

[FUEL]
(note 2 peat is burned to make 3 coke -1 fuel = 2 fuel gain)

[REACTION:ANTHRACITE_COAL_TO_COKE]

[NAME:make coke from anthracite coal]

[SMELTER]

[REAGENT:1:STONE:NO_SUBTYPE:STONE:COAL_ANTHRACITE]

[PRODUCT:100:4:BAR:NO_SUBTYPE:COAL:COKE]

[FUEL]

[REACTION:GRAPHITE_TO_COKE]

[NAME:make coke from graphite]

[SMELTER]

[REAGENT:1:STONE:NO_SUBTYPE:STONE:GRAPHITE]

[REAGENT:1:WOOD:NONE:WOOD:NONE]
[PRODUCT:100:6:BAR:NO_SUBTYPE:COAL:COKE]

[FUEL]
(note you must use one graphite and 1 wood to make 6 fuel -1 fuel for a net gain of 5 fuel; it makes 6 fuel, 5 for the graphite and 1 for the wood)

[LegoLord]

Natural walls and constructions are not affected by temperature.  Graphite burns in-game, just so you know.  Magma is always surrounded by obsidian, which is not magma proof. 

Anyway, the peat reaction wouldn't work because the [SOIL] tag makes tiles of that type not drop stone.  You don't need to put a blank line between each line of a single reaction either.

Aside from that, this seems to be a solid placeholder for the suggestion.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

Anthracite man, anyone?
I think it sounds cool.

[Derakon]

Natural walls are affected by temperature -- otherwise you'd not be able to melt ice on glaciers by moving magma close to it. Since obsidian walls next to magma don't melt, but obsidian stones in magma do, it seems clear that either ice is special, or magma doesn't affect things next to it anywhere near as much as it affects things in its own tile. I'm going with the latter since trees next to magma don't ignite either.

[LegoLord]

Natural walls are affected by temperature -- otherwise you'd not be able to melt ice on glaciers by moving magma close to it. Since obsidian walls next to magma don't melt, but obsidian stones in magma do, it seems clear that either ice is special, or magma doesn't affect things next to it anywhere near as much as it affects things in its own tile. I'm going with the latter since trees next to magma don't ignite either.

Ice is a hard-coded exception.  It is frozen water, as opposed to something that automatically exists at the very beginning of world gen. 

Trust me, this has been tested before.  Several times.  If you don't you can look it up.  And, if you'll notice, magma in pipes does occasionally lie on top of a natural floor.

[cparax]

Maybe a 'hew peat' order could be given in the way that 'collect sand' is, and the resulting powder (more like a bag of dirt, but not that big a difference) would be taken to a peat-drainer to make peatfuel blocks or mixed into rough floor to 'irrigate' it. IIRC, that'd do a good job of simulating the relative abundance of peat where it exists versus coal, which has to be mined.

[LegoLord]

Maybe a 'mine peat' order could be given in the way that 'collect sand' is, and the resulting powder (more like a bag of dirt, but not that big a difference) would be taken to a peat-drainer to make peatfuel blocks or mixed into rough floor to 'irrigate' it. IIRC, that'd do a good job of simulating the relative abundance of peat where it exists versus coal, which has to be mined.

That is how I was thinking it would be implemented by Toady, but unfortunately this cannot be done with current modding.

[cparax]

That is how I was thinking it would be implemented by Toady, but unfortunately this cannot be done with current modding.

Yup. And it's completely impossible to have soil leave stones? Bummer.

Is there any way for a substance to be soil as a wall but rock as a floor and vice-versa? I like being able to gather sand and farm in the same place, but that isn't how it actually works.

[Footkerchief]

Ice is a hard-coded exception.  It is frozen water, as opposed to something that automatically exists at the very beginning of world gen. 

Trust me, this has been tested before.  Several times.  If you don't you can look it up.  And, if you'll notice, magma in pipes does occasionally lie on top of a natural floor.

Natural walls are affected by temperature -- otherwise you'd not be able to melt ice on glaciers by moving magma close to it. Since obsidian walls next to magma don't melt, but obsidian stones in magma do, it seems clear that either ice is special, or magma doesn't affect things next to it anywhere near as much as it affects things in its own tile. I'm going with the latter since trees next to magma don't ignite either.

[LegoLord]

Natural walls are affected by temperature -- otherwise you'd not be able to melt ice on glaciers by moving magma close to it. Since obsidian walls next to magma don't melt, but obsidian stones in magma do, it seems clear that either ice is special, or magma doesn't affect things next to it anywhere near as much as it affects things in its own tile. I'm going with the latter since trees next to magma don't ignite either.

Also, trees are technically constructions.  That is why you get a log when a tile holding a tree collapses, and why trees don't burn, even when you "set fire" to them in adventure mode.

I have had natural floors with the tile underneath them dug out hold magma, and the floors did not melt.  An obsidian stone is an item, which the game recognizes as something different from constructions or natural walls, which is why obsidian stones melt in magma while the natural walls don't.

[sunshaker]

Natural walls and constructions are not affected by temperature.  Graphite burns in-game, just so you know.  Magma is always surrounded by obsidian, which is not magma proof. 

Anyway, the peat reaction wouldn't work because the [SOIL] tag makes tiles of that type not drop stone.  You don't need to put a blank line between each line of a single reaction either.

Aside from that, this seems to be a solid placeholder for the suggestion.

The blank line is a formatting error resulting from the cut and paste I did, it isn't in the raw file.

I was hoping the [ITEM_SYMBOL:] token would cause it to drop a peat "stone," ah well back to the drawing board.