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[sweitx]

Here's are a few things that doesn't seem to make much sense for metal industry.
1. Melting
    The return from melting down items are far lower then it should be.  For example, making plate mail require 3 bars of metal, yet melting down to only 9/10 of a bar.  The ratio should be higher (recovery of around 90% should be possible).

2. Furnace Operating Skill
    Related to melting, the amount of bar returned should be related to the skill of the Furnace operating skill.  A low skilled furnace operator would successfully "smelt" or "melt" a fraction of the ore/item.  At the same time it should generate a new refuse "<metal type> slag".  The slag can be smelted by future, more skilled furnace operator to refine out the metals missed by previous melting/smelting attempt.  The slag can have a similar behavior as a cage, where it holds a certain number of metal pieces (1/10 of a bar) that can only be extracted by a skilled furnace operator.

[Sphalerite]

Agreed.  This should also depend on the metal being melted down.  Melting gold should yield nearly 100% - gold is nonreactive and can be melted and reused pretty much forever.  More reactive metals like iron or tin should give lower yields.

[Neonivek]

Agreed.  This should also depend on the metal being melted down.  Melting gold should yield nearly 100% - gold is nonreactive and can be melted and reused pretty much forever.  More reactive metals like iron or tin should give lower yields.

How would this be researched?

[sweitx]

Actually, even reactive metal can achieve yield close to 100%, it just require more effort.  For example, rust (iron oxide) can be converted back to iron by smelting it with carbon (create iron and carbon dioxide).

This would mean that some form of smelting/melting operation will require charcoal (or any source of carbon).

However, for simplicity sake, just define a fixed lost ratio at item creation (for example, an armor made with 3 bars of iron may only contain 2.8 bars of iron, and you can only extract a maximum of 2.8 bars out of it.).

[Mount]

It might be something that could be tied to the smelting skill (Furnace Operator?) -- an amateur will make mistakes, introduce contaminants, spill metal, etc that would reduce the amount of material recovered.  On the flip side, a very experienced smelter might know tricks that increase the recovered material (such as the example of adding carbon when reclaiming rusted iron..)  Maybe the base amount would be 50% of the original materials, modified by skill (dabbler = -40%, legendary +40%, for a yield of 10-90% of original material?)

[Pitchblack]

Is this even doable?

[sweitx]

It might be something that could be tied to the smelting skill (Furnace Operator?) -- an amateur will make mistakes, introduce contaminants, spill metal, etc that would reduce the amount of material recovered.  On the flip side, a very experienced smelter might know tricks that increase the recovered material (such as the example of adding carbon when reclaiming rusted iron..)  Maybe the base amount would be 50% of the original materials, modified by skill (dabbler = -40%, legendary +40%, for a yield of 10-90% of original material?)

I would say the un-recovered materials should be in a slag.  That way later on, more experienced metal working can figure out how to get them out.

Is this even doable?

Not currently, which is why this is a suggestion, to be implemented as Toady see fit.

[Pilsu]

You're smelting items, difference in quality and amount wouldn't be that dramatic

[sweitx]

You're smelting items, difference in quality and amount wouldn't be that dramatic

Some metal are pretty resistant to melting mistakes.  However, others are not so merciful.  Steel, if smelted incorrectly, is brittle and vulnerable to cracking.

[Footkerchief]

More precise tracking of metal amounts is one of the earliest bloats:

# Bloat6, BAR COUNTING, (Future): Keep track of bars and blocks more closely. It can count the number of bars and they could be thrown individual by the adventurer. This also allows the refinement of the amount of metal used by jobs.

Bar quality comes up now and then.  The new material system seems to permit "custom" materials, at least to some extent, so I think the mechanisms for tracking bars as being exceptionally brittle or flexible or whatever are already in place.  Could be wrong though.

[Grax]

The question that bedevils me for a week:

Say, anvil weight is 8560. Smelter melts it and makes ONE metal bar that weights 4280.

Where goes all other metal? Ok, its evaporated and lost forever. Maybe now its 50% recovering rate. Ok.

But what's going on when the smelter melts coins/toys/weapons that weights less than ONE bar? It just melts them and produce nothing.
Where's the metal? Is it lost or saved for another small object to cmelt together?

[FunkyWaltDogg]

The question that bedevils me for a week:

Say, anvil weight is 8560. Smelter melts it and makes ONE metal bar that weights 4280.

Where goes all other metal? Ok, its evaporated and lost forever. Maybe now its 50% recovering rate. Ok.

But what's going on when the smelter melts coins/toys/weapons that weights less than ONE bar? It just melts them and produce nothing.
Where's the metal? Is it lost or saved for another small object to cmelt together?

Each smelter (the workshop, not the dwarf) remembers the fractional parts of bars from items melted down there and turns out a bar whenever the fractions add up to 1.  So as long as you're doing all your melting at one smelter you won't really miss out on those fractions of a bar.

[Mount]

It might be something that could be tied to the smelting skill (Furnace Operator?) -- an amateur will make mistakes, introduce contaminants, spill metal, etc that would reduce the amount of material recovered.  On the flip side, a very experienced smelter might know tricks that increase the recovered material (such as the example of adding carbon when reclaiming rusted iron..)  Maybe the base amount would be 50% of the original materials, modified by skill (dabbler = -40%, legendary +40%, for a yield of 10-90% of original material?)

I would say the un-recovered materials should be in a slag.  That way later on, more experienced metal working can figure out how to get them out.

I recall seeing something in the Mod forum where someone created a "Slag" reaction at smelter, where smelting slag has a percentage chance to create totally random metals; common/cheap metals like copper are most likely, and there's a teeeeny chance of smelting slag and getting something really nice, like platinum...  my ideal concept of a metal-reclaim reaction would produce the item's metal based on skill, and a percentage of a bar of slag.  So, if a dabbler melts an iron breast plate, he gets roughly a 10% return of the iron, and the other 90% becomes a 9/10 of a bar of slag -- a Legend would get 90% of the iron back, and 1/10th of a bar of slag.  I imagine it would be pretty horrible to code, though.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I'm in favor of the idea of the smelting skill giving a higher or lower return on melted metal items, and also of specific metals themselves, giving a higher or lower return, based on their chemistry (with maybe the existence of some more elaborate processes--as suggested by sweitx with the rust + carbon trick--to take advantage of specific circumstances and/or needs.).

It would go a long way towards making the Furnace Operator skill more important, which would be a good thing.

The idea with the steel is also interesting. Steel might function somewhat as Mount's *slag* idea, with a percentage of recycled steel yielding brittle metal etc., and another percentage being lost, again based on the skill of the Furnace Operator. Maybe with a small chance of yielding some better (or different, yet valuable) qualities of steel, as well--improved again by skill.

[Grax]

Each smelter (the workshop, not the dwarf) remembers the fractional parts of bars from items melted down there and turns out a bar whenever the fractions add up to 1.  So as long as you're doing all your melting at one smelter you won't really miss out on those fractions of a bar.

Oh i knew that! ;-)