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[zagibu]

It's good to have a discussion about it. Ore is a limited resource, but it becomes virtually unlimited, if you can melt it without loss. So, is it important to have a limited ore resource, and thus to be dependent on imports? Or should ore become an unlimited resource, once you have dug out enough of it?

[Mikademus]

quote:Originally posted by Draco18s:
<STRONG>
Ergates: "Well OK, apart from the beds, bins, barrels, buckets, charcoal, ash and obsidian short swords - what has the wood ever done for us?"

Made it possible to piss of the elves?</STRONG>

Gave us communication, freedom and created the bases of civilization as we know it?

[numerobis]

Nothing that comes in via caravan is limited if you are sufficiently patient.  So the question to ponder is really just how fast you can train and produce.  Higher return rates mean faster training, is all.

[Mel_Vixen]

And there is all the loot from the comin army arc.

[DreaDFanG]

Toady never took the Law of Conservation of Matter into much account when figure-ing the loss rate for melted metal, personaly I think he based alot of this part on as-sumption and in lack of metalworking/smelting/blacksmithing hands-on experience.  Re-membering my childhood, I can relate to [andris-berzins] although for me it was probably much higher scaled. (If having your own metal working lab in your, what would be called shed, doesnt make you an odd child what does?) A very supportive father and mother with connections to city-hall works wonders for your "Progress".  Also smithing some-thing you'll use every-day is very self rewarding.

(Not-German)
Archen ze'del.

[Footkerchief]

quote:Originally posted by benoit.hudson:
<STRONG>Does it also bother you that smelting three bolts gets you a bar, whereas a bar gets you 25 bolts?</STRONG>

It should.  It definitely bothers me.  That's part of the general problem with stacks though.

[zagibu]

quote:Originally posted by benoit.hudson:
<STRONG>Nothing that comes in via caravan is limited if you are sufficiently patient.  So the question to ponder is really just how fast you can train and produce.  Higher return rates mean faster training, is all.</STRONG>

Yeah, but that means you have to trade, which means you need a trade depot, and stuff to trade. So, that's ok. But if smelting yielded 100%, you could build a fort that is completely seperated from the outside world, and never had to worry about resources running out.

[Hague]

Why not have smelter quality (since it requires architecture) and furnace operating skill determine the amount of metal returned from melted items. The scale could go from 1/3 to 7/8. Optionally, mechanizing a smelter by hooking it up to power, much like a millstone or pump, will increase the efficiency of melting down items. I'd imagine that a legendary furnace operator working at a mechanized masterwork smelter could get more than 1/3 of the melted metal back.

[Draco18s]

...why do people keep insisting on this "mecanized makes better" idea?

Mechanized shops do not make BETTER products, they make MORE CONSISTENT results REGARDLESS of OPPERATOR SKILL.

[winner]

because you can tune your consistency to level of high quality

[Lazer Bomb]

I'm pretty sure that the REAL reason that you only get 1/3 of the bar back is for gameplay balance reasons. If you could just smith a sword, melt into a bar, smith a sword, melt into a bar, you could basicaly get free legendaries. The way it is now, you have to go digging around for a limited amount of metal, which prevents people from getting stuff too easily.

Edit: good stuff too easily. Its already easy to get stuff. Its just the good stuff thats hard to get.

[ March 16, 2008: Message edited by: Lazer Bomb ]

[Draco18s]

quote:Originally posted by winner:
<STRONG>because you can tune your consistency to level of high quality</STRONG>

That's only true if your equipment is of a high enough quality, and it only takes one idiot to break something.

And in either case, adding machines to a workshop can't increase the "skill" of the user, as was suggested above.  What it would really do is narrow the bell curve such that instead of (for instance) rolling 4d6 you roll 2d12.  Same average, but much lower probability for either really good or really bad outcomes.

(With the way DF does item quality probability, I can't say how it'd change)

[JustinKace]

Oh man. Now I'm all sad. I thought it was a perfectly logical way to train my weapon/armoursmiths, by melting their crap work and getting them to remake it. Obviously this wont work unless they are only ever making crossbow bolts.

Is there a way to mod this so melting stuff returns more of my precious metal? It's bad enough all my dwarves use copper stuff without the slim amounts of iron I have vaporising into thin air when I melt things down.  

[Footkerchief]

quote:Originally posted by Lazer Bomb:
<STRONG>I'm pretty sure that the REAL reason that you only get 1/3 of the bar back is for gameplay balance reasons. If you could just smith a sword, melt into a bar, smith a sword, melt into a bar, you could basicaly get free legendaries. The way it is now, you have to go digging around for a limited amount of metal, which prevents people from getting stuff too easily.

Edit: good stuff too easily. Its already easy to get stuff. Its just the good stuff thats hard to get.

[ March 16, 2008: Message edited by: Lazer Bomb ]</STRONG>

I see your point, but there's plenty other factors that would keep it reasonably balanced even with a 100% rate of return.  Time is a resource too -- it takes time to melt stuff down and if you could have used that time more profitably, it's your loss.  And if you don't have magma, melting items as the primary means of obtaining metal necessitates a gigantic amount of charcoal.

A rate of return below 50% is just bizarre.  I would prefer something in the range of 75-95%.

[ March 16, 2008: Message edited by: Footkerchief ]

[numerobis]

Everyone is really focused on melting.  No one seems to be noticing that melting often has >> 100% return rate, whereas it's the original *smithing* that wastes metal like you wouldn't believe.