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[Sean Mirrsen]

Well, Toady has written in the raws that bauxite cannot be smelted for aluminum, because it's impossible to raise the temperature with magma or coal to the 2000-something degrees needed. Well, turns out it CAN!

Now, I know, this is largely unneeded and stuff, but seeing as aluminum is one hell of an expensive material that's just lying about ready to be smelted - I don't think that's right for balance. Nerfing the alumium's appearance is somewhat impossible, except making it appear only in cluster_one's, for now, but after doing that, a process to smelt bauxite shall be needed.

The process goes two-stage, but for the purposes of the game and as a tribute to the dwarves' awesomeness let's do it in one go.
The start is the Deville process that calcinates the bauxite (at mere 1200 degs that we can reach) with the help of coke and sodium carbonate (produced from salt through some wicked machinations - let's write it off to dwarven awesomeness  

[Toady One]

The phrase "too-advanced" process in the raws wasn't referring to the temperature, but to all this sort of thing.  Wikipedia has the Deville process at 1859.  I don't know the specifics, but since there were batteries and steam locomotives and electric telegraphs around then, I didn't want to go that far ahead in general, unless this stuff is demonstrably more likely than any of the previous mentioned critters.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Well, there must be a reason for aluminum to be expensive. Other than it being rare, especially when it isn't. This is pretty unimportant, so I'm not asking you to fix it, Toady, but it's there as a suggestion, and the question's still there too. I dunno, maybe if you allowed reactions in the alchemist's too...  

"Alchemy" in this medieval sense is as close to magic as dwarves can get without magic itself, so I'd say such processes, while clearly requiring some serious chemistry knowledge, are rather acceptable. Now, electrolysis is something dwarves clearly don't have (even though they technically could - with primitive batteries), so I'm not suggesting Titanium, for example. The Deville and Wohler processes seem to use no electricity at any point, that's why I posted all that.
Heh. I wonder if there's a way to make a dwarf "mood-power" titanium refinement, without actually adding titanium as a smeltable metal...

[Chthon]

This sounds like an interesting topic for my ore smelting mod, even though there is no smelting in it.  I especially like the idea about metals that can only be produced through moods  

[Shooer]

Well I believe if you add the lye as a reagent in a reaction it should use it.

Oh, and some historical reference on why Aluminum is so valuable, yet so plentiful.  The Washington Monument in Washington D.C. was topped with, at the time, the most valuable metal available, which was Aluminum.

[Sean Mirrsen]

No, no, it's pretty plentiful in the game, as native aluminum - while theoretically, it should not altogether be as available. It's currently more or less abundant in real life because of the "advanced processes" involving electrolysis, but the dwarves have no means to access that.

Hmm. I was now considering actually splitting aluminum production into the several stages (calcination, "digestion" + precipitation, recalcination, reduction), but instead I found out that bauxite started appearing ingame.

Then it struck me that this was the sole reason why coal and lignite were available while other non-metal veins were not. Coal and lignite are present in reactions. When I put in bauxite, even though it was one of like 5 reagents, it still got itself a place high enough on the list to be added at world gen.

Thus, I shall now update my already-elaborate mod to include all mineral and gem types that are nerfed by the metal preference.

On second thought, let's wait until the next release. Toady seems to have addressed the problem already.

[ December 12, 2007: Message edited by: Sean Mirrsen ]

[Aspartic]

If there is a metal known to Dwarf-kind and we cannot mine it, smelt it, and bend it to our fey moods, then we must divine its secrets though any means necessary. No matter the cost.

[Ixen-bay]

The French kings sold off their silverware and replaced it with aluminum-ware.  Because aluminum is fairly rare in nature as raw aluminum.  (And I haven't found THAT much of it in my games.  Certainly on par with (if not less than) the amount of platinum I've found.)

Also, you much realize that today we know that bauxite is aluminum ore.  To the dwarves, its a rock.  You do rock things with it.  If they were to realize it was a valuable ore, they'd figure out how to smelt it.

If one were to add tech trees to the game, unlocking certain ores after one gets a Smith noble or maybe a highly skilled furnace operator, then having bauxite smeltable to aluminum might make sense.

[Devastator]

Hmm.

Obtaining anhydrous aluminum chloride is NOT EASY.  I'll even give you free hydrochloric acid.  You get a nice replacement reaction, and you get an aqueous solution of AlCl3.

Fair enough.  You then dry it out by heating the water.  Guess what happens?

You get AlCl3 Hexahydrate.

So, you heat it up some more..

You eventually end up with anhydrous Aluminum Chloride.  Of course, if conditions in your underground mine are the least bit damp, you can't keep it anhydrous.  A lot of heat is released in the process.

The potassium talked about in the Wohler process is not potash.  It is potassium.

And guess what?  The isolation process of potassium from potash requires electricity.  Well, either that or metallic sodium, which also requires electricity.  So no.

[ December 13, 2007: Message edited by: Devastator ]

[Sean Mirrsen]

Damn. Oh well. Let's leave it until magic and "true" alchemy are available.

And the "fey mood" variant is still possible nonetheless. Only through posession, probably, but some metals could be obtainable that way. Like zinc in the 2D version.

Hmm, that actually makes sense. Toady, maybe you could, as per an experiment, remove the auto-availability of ore smelting in the smelter, replacing all such reactions with ones added to the reactions_standart? Then a metal_ore tag without a relevant reaction would mean that the stone is an ore, of a metal that a mooding dwarf can theoretically obtain, yet it would not be smeltable....

[Devastator]

Hmm.  Fey mood metals would be nice.  In fact, that would allow the complete removal of native aluminum.  You could have fey mood Titanium, fey mood Vanadium, fey mood Magnesium, fey mood chromium..

[Another]

There is a mineral that is mentioned as uranium oxide already in the raws...

[Sean Mirrsen]

A mood using excessive amounts of pitchblende would have to either be a very fell mood, or a posession by Armok himself.

*Urist Tonobark has claimed a Siege Workshop!*
*Urist Tonobark has begun a mysterios construction!*
*Urist Tonobark has crea... >>BOOOOOOOoOoOOoOoOOooOooOOoOOOoooOOoOooM<<*

A later fortress could have engravings like "On the wall is a image of a cloud and a plump helmet. The cloud is in shape of the plump helmet."...  

[ December 14, 2007: Message edited by: Sean Mirrsen ]

[Alfador]

quote:Originally posted by Sean Mirrsen:
<STRONG>A mood using excessive amounts of pitchblende would have to either be a very fell mood, or a posession by Armok himself.

*Urist Tonobark has claimed a Siege Workshop!*
*Urist Tonobark has begun a mysterios construction!*
*Urist Tonobark has crea... >>BOOOOOOOoOoOOoOoOOooOooOOoOOOoooOOoOooM<<*

A later fortress could have engravings like "On the wall is a image of a cloud and a plump helmet. The cloud is in shape of the plump helmet."...  

[ December 14, 2007: Message edited by: Sean Mirrsen ]</STRONG>

*Urist Megaton has created Boomboombadoom, an enriched uranium spiked ball!*
*A dwarf has been incinerated* [x200]
Your fortress has been turned into a +green glass parking lot+.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I thought uranium gave a yellow/red tint to glass?  

Ahem. Back on topic, if it's at all possible.