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[Namfuak]

This may have been suggested before, but I was just thinking about it.

Right now, steel is effectively the best weapons-grade material besides cotton candy.  Unfortunately, on maps without flux, it is next to impossible to make it in bulk (I've put in requests for max amounts of flux stones, and ONLY flux stones, and gotten like 4 in a caravan).  So, I was thinking, what about having Titanium as an alternative?  The idea would be that it is lighter than steel (though not as light as cotton candy), which means it would be better (in game mechanics terms, at least) than steel for cutting weapons, but wouldn't be as good for blunt ones.  In terms of armor, it would be lighter but more easily cut through than steel (again, not really realistic, but it balances the two).  Possibly, after making a titanium bar you could cut it with iron to make a material that is in the middle of pure titanium and steel.

The way this could be done is using rutile or ilmenite as a base, which are then mixed with one unit of coke and unit of salt (which could be distilled from salt water at a still).  This could be combined into one process, or it could be made into Titanium tetrachloride and put in a vial, as well as a unit of sodium in another vial, which would then be combined to make the final titanium bar (I'm thinking one reaction would make more sense though).  Although this isn't strictly how it works in real life, we add coke to turn pig iron into steel, so I'm thinking that it isn't that big a deal.

Anyway, I feel like the addition of this would add more complexity (see: dwarfiness) to the game, as well as provide a reasonable alternative to having to find flux stone in order to make steel products.

A few ideas that have come up in the thread:
-One main detraction from this is that it isn't reminiscent of the late medieval period the game is in.  I would personally parry that by saying that dwarves would have more knowledge of the Earth than humans, but you can take it or leave it.

-Real life titanium requires a certain amount of technology that is simply not in the game, namely electricity.  It was suggested that this could be a use for alchemy (catalyzing electrolysis).  Also, impure titanium (titanium that is just what is already present in iron ore) could be created without electrolysis in theory.

[Lord Vetinari]

There may be a problem with the setting. 1050 in DF is something like our late middle age/ early reinassence. And titanium was discovered only in the late XVIII century and used for common everyday products only after WW2.

But, on the other side, dwarves have a better knoweledge of rocks and ores than humans.

Lastly, I'd actually like less self sustainable forts in future versions (combined with better diplomacy and trade, of course). Giving a sobstitute of steel (although not a perfect sobstitute) to those forts that can't make steel goes somewhat in the opposite direction.


Just my two cents.

[Namfuak]

There may be a problem with the setting. 1050 in DF is something like our late middle age/ early reinassence. And titanium was discovered only in the late XVIII century and used for common everyday products only after WW2.

But, on the other side, dwarves have a better knoweledge of rocks and ores than humans.

This is basically what I was thinking.  Steel wasn't made in bulk until a process was developed in 1850, and yet dwarves know how to make it from the dawn of the world.  I could see another addition where you needed to do research to find out how to do it, but that is for another thread.

[Kvok]

Making titanium a raw material would be really an overkill. I think Toady should give player option to make different steel alloys, but pure titanium is too rare and too hard to process to be used like that. I think better solution would be creating player-controlled outposts far away, or maybe allowing supply convoys from the mountainhomes. You know, as a large scale trade agreement with the civ leader. This would allow player to make more specialized fortresses. (Maybe in the mountains, with all wood and food imported). And would make trading more fun. (Like goblins blocking the trade route). Its more medieval solution anyway.

[darkrider2]

@Namfuak: the game is already set up to where you can mod any new metal you want into the game. Everything you mentioned can be done.

You'll need to create a type of rock/mod a current rock to be an ore for titanium. Then create an entry for titanium in the metal raws.

wiki section for modding

[zarmazarma]

There may be a problem with the setting. 1050 in DF is something like our late middle age/ early reinassence. And titanium was discovered only in the late XVIII century and used for common everyday products only after WW2.

Never expected an argument about realism in Dwarf Fortress... 

I always support new minerals. Right now it's rather bland. There are 4 metals that are particularly useful, then you have your shiny ones, the ones you use to make the good metals, and the ones you don't do anything with.

[Namfuak]

@Namfuak: the game is already set up to where you can mod any new metal you want into the game. Everything you mentioned can be done.

You'll need to create a type of rock/mod a current rock to be an ore for titanium. Then create an entry for titanium in the metal raws.

wiki section for modding

If we were going to go with the attempted realism of the other alloys, I would also need to make a smelter entry for the still to distill salt from water.

[nbonaparte]

@Namfuak: the game is already set up to where you can mod any new metal you want into the game. Everything you mentioned can be done.

You'll need to create a type of rock/mod a current rock to be an ore for titanium. Then create an entry for titanium in the metal raws.

wiki section for modding

If we were going to go with the attempted realism of the other alloys, I would also need to make a smelter entry for the still to distill salt from water.

you could use rock salt. If you can find a location with that, I think it would be preferable to an oceanside embark for fps reasons.

[G-Flex]

This is basically what I was thinking.  Steel wasn't made until a process was developed in 1850, and yet dwarves know how to make it from the dawn of the world.

Wait, what? Different forms of steel have existed for a very long time, centuries before 1850. All you really need to make steel is the ability to control the amount of carbon in iron, fundamentally. Steel was used throughout human history, essentially for as long as we've known how to forge and smelt iron.


Titanium, on the other hand, requires advanced chemical knowledge and processes that late-medieval (read: DF) technology simply cannot replicate. The OP here underestimates the amount of work/chemistry involved and still mentions materials/methods that dwarves wouldn't have access to, such as metallic (elemental) sodium. So yeah, even the oversimplified version doesn't make sense.


Toady has stated that DF's technological level is intended to stick around the late-medieval period, around the 1400s and no later; sure, it's a little hazier than that in practice, but titanium is a little absurd.

If the problem is that steel is too annoying to get, well... why does that matter? If it matters because there's some huge disparity where bronze can't even touch steel in terms of effectiveness, then that's the problem at hand, not a lack of some ridiculous new supermetal that's easier to find.

[Silverionmox]

The reason that 1850 comes up as the date for steel, is that mass production of steel started at that time. People had been messing around with carbon, iron and smithing for ages before that.

Also, I doubt the effectiveness of solving the problem of hard-to-get flux by adding another weapon metal that is about as hard to get as aluminium.

Lastly, mixing metal A with metal B doesn't necessarily give an alloy that's has the average characteristics of both metals (for example, bronze is harder than both copper and tin).

The difficulty of getting flux should be solved by trade. There's a lot to fix there (to the point that wiping all the trade mechanics and designing new ones that reach the desired goals starts to make sense); there's a development arc dedicated to it. Also add the option to send out colonists to make mining colonies of your own (making rivers more important, given the logistic problems of hauling rocks miles and miles through the mountains). That way you can have access to more resources at the cost of being more vulnerable to attacks.

[G-Flex]

The reason that 1850 comes up as the date for steel, is that mass production of steel started at that time. People had been messing around with carbon, iron and smithing for ages before that.

Mass production in general didn't exist in the medieval period, so it's hardly relevant, though. Steel equipment was common in that period, and that's what matters.

But yeah, you make some good points in the rest of your post.

[Neonivek]

Here is how I see it...

If a raw material exists without requiring some sort of process then it should be considered at least on the basis that Dwarven tunnels are much deeper and much more advanced then anything they had back then.

Specifically what WAS preventing people from discovering Titanium? The depths of the mines? Chemical processes? The indentification of the mineral as a great metalic substance?

[G-Flex]

Seems like chemical processes, in this case, although often electricity is involved too (in other, similar cases).

Generally, the first place to start when asking these questions is to look up the processes on Wikipedia that are used to to isolate the material in question, and which processes were the first able to do so. In this case, it's pretty clear that it's out-of-bounds, involving things like elemental halides and alkali metals. You won't see dwarves messing around with chlorine gas anytime soon.

[darkrider2]

You won't see dwarves messing around with chlorine gas anytime soon.

Just imaging the possibilities!

[Auto Slaughter]

Specifically what WAS preventing people from discovering Titanium? The depths of the mines? Chemical processes? The indentification of the mineral as a great metalic substance?

Titanium is actually very common, it's like the 9th most abundant element in the Earth's crust or something.  It was indirectly exploited throughout history by being an impurity in some iron ores.  I'd read that the reason it hadn't been used independently as a metal was because of a very high melting point but checking Wikipedia the difference isn't that dramatic - 2800 °F for iron versus 3034 °F for titanium... so I guess it was discovery of the chemical process that held it back.  This is evidently the simplest, least-expensive method for refining it:

Refined rutile (or ilmenite) from the ore is reduced with petroleum-derived coke in a fluidized bed reactor at 1000 °C. The mixture is then treated with chlorine gas, affording titanium tetrachloride TiCl4 and other volatile chlorides, which are subsequently separated by continuous fractional distillation. In a separate reactor, the TiCl4 is reduced by liquid magnesium (15-20% excess) at 800-850 °C in a stainless steel retort to ensure complete reduction... The resulting porous metallic titanium sponge is purified by leaching or heated vacuum distillation. The sponge is jackhammered out, crushed, and pressed before it is melted in a consumable electrode vacuum arc furnace. The melted ingot is allowed to solidify under vacuum. It is often remelted to remove inclusions and ensure uniformity.