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[NW_Kohaku]

This can be voted for in Eternal Voting if you approve.

I was making this part of a necro-bumping post to "Additional Mechanics", but it became so long and involved, and only tangentially related to actual mechanics that I figured it deserved its own seperate thread.

High-temperature furnace:  The high-temp furnace would be capable of firing reactions normally out of reach of normal dwarven technology.  This idea is based upon the actual ancient chinese use of technology like this, so it should be well within the "flavor" of dwarven tech.  This furnace, instead of using the irregular billows, can use a screw fan to supply a constant flow of a larger amount of oxygen than a normal forge does, allowing for a hotter fire.  (As it stands, magma smelting is probably plenty hot, but we can just look the other way, and agree that a mechanically more complex system should drive greater benefits.)  This allows for burning more fuel more quickly, and burning a hotter fire. 

(This means that it would require rotational power, as well as a giant screw and probably a tube, just basically being an "air pump")

Since I'm not nearly as knowledgable about metal and geology as some people, I'll leave it to others to talk about what sort of potential smelting that would allow for, (since I'm fairly sure this is how steel is supposed to be made, anyway), but it could also allow for what the Chinese themselves used such a system for: Fine China, or rather, porcelain. 

Technically, porcelain requires something like ground kaolinite or some kinds of clay or sand/glass (which are both available in current DF), but since we already have people searching for flux, magma, sand, layers that might have magnetite, chasms and rivers and/or underground rivers, throwing one more required biome layer might be just a little cruel, so it might be better to expand the list of potential materials for firing into porcelain a little, or just make things like kaolinite a little more common.  (Actually, looking it up a little, wikipedia also says feldspar is used in making porcelain... and microcline is feldspar, so yay for microcline haters, it has a use, now!)

This would also require stone pulverizing of some kind (possibly its own mechanical-power-using workshop, like a millstone, but heavier).  It would also require additional "powders" to be carried around in bags, for mixing to make a suitable porcelain paste.

There are (apparently) sayings in China about how you could judge the wealth of a certain dynasty by the quality of the china that they produced.  This was ultimately because it took massive amounts of charcoal to feed these fires.  The more fuel being burned, and the more air being pumped into the fire, the higher the quality of the porcelain.  I'm thinking there might even be differing levels of porcelain for the amount of fuel you are willing to sacrifice to the furnace.  (Let's see those elves WEEP!)  Something like a 3-fuel reaction to a 6-fuel reaction and a massive 10-fuel unit reaction to create porcelain items.

Necessarily, such porcelain would command completely exorbinant prices for the amount of resources, labor, and mechanical infrastructure it required. 

If we are going to just be using it as a construction material, the way that glass is used, the high-fuel reaction porcelain might be on par with using something like gold or platinum as the material.  (Material value of 30 to 50 for the high end stuff.  Lower end stuff might still be 10 to 15.) (In fact, if you want to make something with values that rival even steel plate armor, you might even need to go higher...)

If this were to just create a "porcelain vase" furniture item, however, it would be different.  Since this would probably not have any real material quality (it's made of non-economic stone that is ground and powderized), this might be something where the 10-fuel "hard paste"/"bone" china would command prices like 200 up to even 500 times their quality modifier.

For additional bonus points, porcelain might even have seperate "decorations" modifiers you can put on it, thanks to adding glazes of multiple colors, where each color may require rare or difficult to manufacture components, and can be layered up to the number of component glazes for additional layers of item value bonuses.

This would probably require the use of an intermediate product.  Since we need ground up stone powders to make this porcelain, that probably isn't anything we weren't going for already, anyway.  A craftsdwarf's workshop might be a good place to stick a "shape porcelain" and "decorate porcelain" command to create an intermediate product that could have decorations (glazes and enamels) placed upon it.

For added resource consumption fun, these glazes are apparently made out of things like powdered iron or copper, so these decorations might make for skyrocketing item values.

All this should hopefully give Dwarf Fortress something I feel it kind of lacks currently: A real high-end, high-tech (sort of) industry that can go alongside megaprojects as goals for fort designers who want to put some feathers in their cap.  (Look at that created and exported wealth figure soar!)  Currently, the "tech tree" tops out at, of all things, soap.  Which dwarves really don't use, anyway.  (Well, OK, so also armorsmithing can be considered the highest end product, especially with adamantine.)

Also, wikipedia on the subject...

[Andeerz]

  Me likey lots!

[Gazz]

Considering as, in this world, I've run across pure aluminum 4 times while digging one little section of my apartment complex, I don't think we're being quite THAT strict in terms of what it takes to make certain items.  Considering porcelain, even if it isn't exactly what would qualify as "porcelain" by today's standards were first produced around the first century in China (and according to Wikipedia, modern porcelain by the 11th century, which is still within the technological domain dwarves dwell within), and dwarves certainly have kiln technology, plus I was suggesting an "air pump" additional mechanism to make a High Temperature Kiln, which would supply the proper temperatures, I was thinking that there could be varying qualities of porcelain and pottery, in the same way that there are multiple levels of glass.  (In fact, ground glass can be a component of mid-quality porcelain...)

Oh, being a professional potter myself I have a good idea of what goes into all kinds of ceramics. =)

The problem is rather that practically every element (oxide, silicate, carbonate, younameit...) can be used in pottery and usually alters 2 or 3 properties of the finished product at once.
Without the strictest simplification this would be completely unplayable.

And finding the right kind of dirt and putting it in a kiln is unlikely to work with anything but earthenware.
While porcelain may be technically possible, statistically it's just very very unlikely. =)

The glass you mentioned is definitely a possibility - and it's part of one of the main problems, which is stability during the firing process. =)
(and fracturing during the cooling process and... ohwell)

The main issue of porcelain is purity. Impurities make the product opaque and it no longer qualifies for "porcelain". Simple as that.

The secondary issues are exact high temperature measurement and material sciences (for kiln and related materials).

Now any and all material issues can probably be discounted in DF, where you can build a blast furnace out of... ice.

[NW_Kohaku]

Well, being as my experience with pottery involves art classes or maybe buying boxes of pre-mixed sculpie and baking it in my oven, I'll just bow to you in terms of knowledge of the subject material.

However, I think the last part of your post nails the idea...

While realism is certainly nice, and the detail given to things like geology in this game can be educational, ultimately a problem of DF comes in when you have to realize that a game is, fundementally, all about its interactions with the player.  Someone around here has a quote about how he loves this game for having an eyelid system.  The problem is that the player never really gets to use that eyelid system.  It protects eyes that, as far as I know, never go blind from being covered in vomit, which cannot be damaged, which the player cannot see or interact with in any way... for all intents and purposes, it may as well not be there, and is just bloat.  I mean, if something can be removed without the player ever knowing, why should it be there?

Likewise, every item in this game has its own melting point... but since there are only really in-play temperatures for "ambient temperature", "fire", and "magma", when it comes to stone, there's simply "bauxite or raw adamantine" and "not bauxite or raw adamantine", every other stone's melting point has no meaning.

So we come back to what I was talking about with porcelain - yes, you can probably fire up a kiln for all but the highest of quality porcelains with just plain magma, since magma always has the same temperature in this game.  However, it would be better game balance, and better for player interactions to just have only low-quality (relatively) goods producable by normal magma kilns, and require the higher-quality porcelain goods to have more fuel and a hotter fire, provided by a high-temperature kiln and an artificially increased airflow to add to the comustion rate. 

Rather than making a perfect replica of how porcelain is made, it would rather be better for the game if you could simply powder rocks, and rocks of certain types could be used in making a porcelain paste that could then be sculpted.

As with crystal glass, however, there could be some kind of "true porcelain" as well as a middle-grade "dwarven porcelain" that would require truly exorbinant costs, and possibly a special kind of stone powder, which could be found by having special kinds of stone deposits of just the right kind, and a strict formula, whereas lower-quality goods could allow for looser restrictions on the type of materials that could be used to create the medium of your crafts.

[Gazz]

Even if you have your own pottery wheel and kiln - when using premade clay/glazes and a premade temperature / firing curve it's really not much different from baking a cheesecake. Just a higher number on the display.
Art classes are rarely concerned with anything beyond the techniques for the physical shaping.
(Mind you, that can be tricky enough =)

But... I'd also consider any kind of realistic "pottery arc" completely pointless.
Too much mineralogy and chemistry involved in even covering the basics. (In a dwarvieval setting: rephrase as "trial and error")

Many wishlist items for DF completely lose touch with the basic premise that it has to work in a game.
And a game is not just a Technology Simulation with a maximum number of moving parts.
Yeah. Eyelids. =P

That isn't to say that pottery can't be used.
It's a very natural thing for dwarves to make use of all kinds of dirt and rock and pottery is the oldest or second oldest profession. (there's some argument about that)
If the right parts were abstracted in a somewhat believable way... why not?

Surely there can be "porcelain usable kaolinite" and dwarven porcelain.
The resource just has to be very rare and require more "effort" to produce the good.
Maybe a higher failure rate (if applicable) or more fuel, or certain fire (magma) proof "support materials", that are not required for less ambitious projects.
Fleshing this out would require knowledge of what parameters can eventually be used for trade skills.

On the other hand you can bake simple earthenware / terracotta from just about any piece of loam you find in the field.
Besides the rarity issue, there are fewer difficulties in all aspects of the process. (Not going into details =)
Effectively, that's the other end of the scale.

Difficulty-wise, stoneware is in the middle, maybe at the 70% point towards porcelain.



"Good" kaolinite would be found near granite deposits. It's a hydrothermal alteration product of granite.
It's not a sediment. Ever. You always have to dig through the sediment layers first.
Water is required to have been there (for the "hydro" bit) throughout some million years of it's creation.
Because of the considerable time frame you can practically always explain that water "was" there when it currently isn't. So that's more of anecdotal value.

"Normal" clays have also been granite in some distant past but are mostly sediments, therefore reloated (not required to be close to anything particular) and more common/accessible because they're found close to the surface.

[NW_Kohaku]

In the "eyelid system's" defense, I believe its purpose is not to actually model eyelids, but to just prevent vomit stains from covering eyes.  Since vomit cover, however, does nothing, it is still not of any particular interest to the player.

... So, from a geology noob's perspective, this would require putting kaolinite either inside of granite layers, or in some kind of interface of layers for the purposes of "geological realism"?

(Oddly enough, my currrent fort has kaolinite that I dug into making my magma channels.  It's in the chalk layer in the biome right next to my granite layer in my mountain biome.)

By making kaolinite rarer, and using it for true porcelain, and then having terra cotta or clay wares as a low-end made from any non-sand soil, with a middle-end made of a larger variety of stone powder made from a stone crusher (although with some sort of fixed list of permissable stone combinations so that it can't be just anything you toss in the crusher) would pretty much suit my original purpose just fine.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Allowing 3 levels of ceramics could work much like the use of plant fiber and silk, same stuff can be created out of them but silk is just more expensive.

Earthenware made from the most common clay, low value
Stoneware made with rarer or more complex ingredients, medium value
Porcelain made exclusively from Kaolonite and other very rare ingredients, very high value

This allows you to access Ceramics just about any ware but makes the really valuable stuff site specific, only the mid to high level would be a viable export industry

[Gazz]

I don't really know my way around the RAWs but at a peek, it looks like kaolinite is defined as a sediment.
Which is completely wrong but may actually have been the best jury-rig to get it to appear close to the surface.
Doesn't really matter, though. We're talking about what should be, not what is. =)

Kaolinite would be where granite once was. We're talking about a near complete alteration so very little granite would be left.
For practical purposes it might also be a kaolinite "stone" with pockets of granite. Or the other way around. Either works.
There's also no pressing need to require proximity to granite. We'll just call it a complete alteration. May help with the implementation...

Typically there's also fine quartz sand in the mix because that's a side product of the reaction that has to end up somewhere and couldn't have left the scene by any means. (ahh, probably too technical already =)

Kaolinite would mostly be found close to the surface (in geological terms) because of the absolute need for lots of water... but always below any sediment layers. Above them only in cases of freak folding.
The rarity stems from the fact that it's usually created close to the surface but not allowed to be moved around despite residing in such an exposed location.

Any reasonably wet climate (for a good few millions of years..) would produce some shape or form of pottery usable clay.
Cold or high and dry regions are unlikely.
In an arctic climate you're probably SOL and should get used to the idea of tableware carved from solid rock. Or skulls.


If I may be so technical... there's a clear destinction between kaoline and kaolinite that I've kinda been... glossing over.
But it's elementary, my dear Watson.
Kaolinite is the mineral and can be anywhere - including in secondary locations and sediment layers.
Kaoline is a layer of pure kaolinite and that's the stuff you need for making porcelaine.

So for any practical porcelaine production, you want kaoline, not kaolinite.
But yeah, since in DF all layers of stuff are pure layers, a layer of kaolinite would be kaoline and the only ones nitpicking about it would be the potters and ceramics engineers.

This allows you to access Ceramics just about anywhere but makes the really valuable stuff site specific, only the mid to high level would be a viable export industry

Yes, exactly.
For simple bowls, jugs, and tableware to eat from, you can usually find some suitable dirt.
If you can make bricks from it, you can also make terracotta. No real difference. For tableware that's pretty messy because it soaks up fluids like a sponge but a some crafty potters (yes, medieval nerds) came up with terra sigillata, which is the same stuff, only with a polished surface that is less porous and a lot easier to keep clean.

It has to be very abstract to be of any use as a game feature but wetness and temperature are pretty simple variables to tie the likelyhood of "clay" to.

I sorta doubt that a potential customer would buy the game for learning about the polar layer structure of montmorrillonite and it's effect on the dry tensile strength...
(sorry but english is not my native language =)

[NW_Kohaku]

Hmm... what about using ceramics as a means of prodoucing magma-proof materials?  Would ceramics be a good replacement for stone mechanisms, eliminating the desperate need for bauxite when working magma? 

I know they can be used in electrical insulation, but can they withstand submersion in a 1,111 degree Celcius lava flow without breaking down?  I would assume so if the fires needed to make porcelain in the first place are about 1,400 degrees, Celcius.

Also, what other special uses for porcelain would be possible, to help integrate them into the game as something other than just another trade good?

[Gazz]

The first additional use for all silicate ceramics: acid proof.
That has a long history in chemistry.

Hard surface but brittle.
Terrible with torsion or shock or anything but pressure.

Very good against pressure - up to the exact point of catastrophic destruction. Then the resulting... gravel... is not good any more.

Lightweight, when compared to typical metals.

Emaille: rust/corrosion proofing metal (iron) by covering it with a thin layer of ceramics.
Kinda tricky so less likely to be dwarf tech.

Kind of an odd use: terracotta jugs with high porosity can be used as automatic wine coolers.
A little of the beverage will traverse the pores and evaporate on the surface, cooling the jug and the contents.


With an average magma temp of 1000-1100°C (the oversimplification of the month? =), stone ware would be good for medium - long term exposure.
Porcelain would theoretically better but useless since it would shatter from temperature shock. Too high a CTE.
(stoneware honestly isn't much better but might still work - a matter of density and glass phase)
Earthenware might literally melt.

Cordierite (1500°C) is what you want. (just another mineral to mine. You'll see Al and Mg more often if you look for high temperature things)
You can also mix and match so binding cordierite in a porcelain or stoneware matrix (just to hold it in shape) would get you something very useful and definitely magma-safe.
Such a mix wouldn't be anything in particular. If it works you call it Kohakuite and sell it.

Cordierite seems chemically related but isn't really bauxite in that it's no fun to extract aluminium from it. Can be used in it's own right, though...


Well, or really good stuff like SiC but the required purity is way beyond the dwarvieval tech level.

Stone ware / porcelain would work fine if you could heat it slowly enough to avoid cracks from uneven thermal expansion.
Usually you can't if it's large scale and has to have any kind of mechanic stability - requiring the material to be x cm thick.
Silicate ceramics are generally terrible at heat transfer which compounds the problem of even heating.
Now if you create smaller tiles (tile not in the DF sense of the word), you'd have a winner. Easy to mass produce but you have to lay them with minimum seams. That's the weak spot.
Magma is cool for that (my puns are getting worse) because it's pretty viscous.

I guess a porcelain-tiled magma channel isn't crazier than a few things in DF.



Talking about crazy - wood would work for the really high temperature applications.
If you can keep it away from oxygen you get a "melting" point of 3000++ °C and change.
Oh, yes, there are high temperature kilns made from that stuff...

Quartz (1700°C) is a bit of a crazy/good material because it has a tendency to destroy itself from the thermal shocks / expansions of it's own mineral transformations.
But once heated to working temperatures... it's very good.
Only used for things like blast furnaces that stay hot for months. Or for a magma channel that stays hot forever...

And - funny that you might mention it - bauxite.
Al2O3 / SiO2 / Fe2O3 in varying amounts.
Can do some good things with that but well, you know... =P


Just some things off the top of my head. I'm not really in the high temperature business but "common knowledge" is probably enough for dwarf needs. =)

[Gazz]

(double post)

[Andeerz]

What an educational thread!!!  I learn something every day from DF and the forums.  :3  I hope this suggestion sees implementation, and that someone well read on the subject (like you Gazz) is consulted and that relevant stuff is researched during the process. 

[Footkerchief]

While this thread covers plenty of new territory, there have been many previous threads about pottery, ceramics, etc.  It would be helpful if this discussion continues to focus on topics not covered by these threads:

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=5153.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=42901.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=4310.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=4452.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=3015.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=26330.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=3371.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=35453.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=3752.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=38195.0

Spoiler: tags (click to show/hide)

pottery ceramic clay kaolinite porcelain china

[Gazz]

I looked through them and didn't notice anything interesting beyond "make containers / barrels".

Found one brief mention on the level of detail of the production mechanism.

Reality looks like this:

• Create shape from clay body.
  The clay body is not a shape. It's a mix of materials that also includes clay.
  Pure clay is practically always unusable so it's mixed with potentially... just about everything.
  Typical suspects are feldspar and quartz but also Al2O3 compounds.

• dry the green pot. (Don't ask. Potterspeak for unfired.)
  This can take days - even weeks for something large, like barrel-sized or bigger

• (possibly glaze now)

• fire

• wait for cooling

• (possibly glaze now)
  It's common to have multiple firings with porcelain since most glaze colours are unusable when fired at porcelain temperature.
  In that case.... fire again, cool again... repeat as needed because there can be multiple glaze layers with vastly differing allowed temperature.
  Gold decorations - if any - are typically the last and lowest temperature.

Long process, ayep.
The basic steps to deal with are
shape - dry - glaze - fire.

Personally, I don't think it's a lot of fun to model all these steps because if you want "green vase type 3", the steps would always be the same ones.
Features are only useful if player interaction matters.

And what's there to be creative about?
Just a lot of micromanagement in modeling the substeps that serve no purpose beyond looking pretty for a very small time - before being automatically turned into finished goods.

This should be condensed into one step if the workshop order is for "green vase type 3".
Green glaze would require some kind of Cu or Cr so the available recipes (colours) would be limited by what metal compounds are available.

The realism bit could be that pottery requires likely materials to produce a pot and "better" kilns if you need higher temperature.

Personally having to mix every kind of glaze would be horrible, especially since it can't be detailed enough to learn anything useful. That requires a good bit of math and chemistry...


So what do you need for glazes?
Quartz and feldspar to create the glass, various metal oxides (or carbonates, etc...) for pretty colours.

Brutally simplified but who wants half a page of mineralogical formula...


What kind of pottery to use for what:
Low fired earthenware can be used to create the largest objects. The low temperature means little danger of deformation during the firing.

The inevitable porosity can be good or bad.

Stonware for very low porosity but still considerable stability.
See a stoneware acid container on picture 3.
You also don't want an isolator to be porous. Think water. =)

Can be used for floor / wall tiles when high chemical resistance is required.
Or magma resistance - within limits.

Porcelain is cool stuff but creating large objects is a royal PITA. Very high chance of deformation during the firing so forget about porcelain barrels right away. It's not in the cards.

Porosity is equivalent to glass. Therefore used for smooth surfaces that must be kept clean, like mortar/pestle or storage for medical... stuff.
In most cases, glazed stoneware can be used instead although the surface is a bit less smooth.

And it's pretty, so the nobles will totally dig it.


Typical glaze colours:
Brown: Fe, Mn
Violet / black: Mn
Blue: Co
Red: (Pb + Se)  (poisonous? Are you an elf or what?)
Green: Cu, Cr
White: Zr (white can be created with an especially large array of tricks but this one is easiest)
Yellow: Fe, (Pb+Sb)

"Modeling" colours sounds sensible. That's rather general knowledge and applies to all kinds of glass so if you look at a blue bottle, you know where the blue colour is from.
And if you don't have copper or chrome compounds in your fortress - no green glazes.

[NW_Kohaku]

While this thread covers plenty of new territory, there have been many previous threads about pottery, ceramics, etc.  It would be helpful if this discussion continues to focus on topics not covered by these threads:

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=5153.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=42901.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=4310.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=4452.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=3015.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=26330.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=3371.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=35453.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=3752.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=38195.0

Spoiler: tags (click to show/hide)

pottery ceramic clay kaolinite porcelain china

Hunh... I could have sworn that when I actually searched "porcelain", it didn't provide any links, although I did know of "ceramics" and "pottery" already being there.

This thread actually started because I wanted to talk about making High-Temperature Kilns in the mechanics thread (and it grew large enough to warrant a thread of its own), however, and Porcelain was the most obvious use for them, alongside potentially new smelting options.

Unlike some of the ones from that list that I've read (still to look at all of them), I actually like the idea of making porcelain and stoneware different by requiring massive fuel consumption for the heat it takes to make them, and requiring that air pump.

edit: Oooh! That last one.  Still, concrete could be made with buildings aside from a high temperature furnace.