...types and names of minerals are quite pointless for the most part as the only thing we care about a mineral is (in order of importance, IMO):
1) is it an ore that you can use to forge stuff (and assorted weapon/armor rating)?
2) does it melt/burn?
3) what color is it
4) the value of furniture made with it (this is more important if 1 is true)
5) the name
If I missed something let me know. Anyway, the proportion of materials that fulfill #1 is tiny compared to the total amount of mineral types, so it's often easy to make a list of metal-bearing rock, and generally the rest of the minerals are just filler, or for role playing reasons...
Yes, the usefulness and impact on gameplay are far more important factors than uniqueness or being a means to learn geology. But I still say variety has value in keeping things interesting, especially when it involves added variety in usefulness and gameplay.
In particular, I hope Toady eventually adds more metal(s) or alloy(s) to fill the huge gap between steel and adamantine. After a while, steel seems... well, boring. And if dwarves can find and process aluminum, why not a few other metals and alloys?
Consider the
huge variety of brass alloys. And there are
numerous types of bronze and
other copper alloys. Then there are the
many different grades and mixtures of steel alloys, including the
legendary Damascus steel. (I find it
fascinating that Damascus Steel contains carbon nanotubes. No wonder the stuff is strong!)
I would also like to see some means of really differentiating one stone from another in more meaningful terms, and Toady previously stated that he had originally hoped to put in some sort of chemical reasons why one stone would be different from another, but it hasn't surfaced yet.
That certainly would make things more interesting. But I think there's only so much chemistry or alchemy knowledge a medieval society could posses. So I would not expect a reaction for every type of stone.
...the only way I can construct things is if I shut down whatever knowledge is out there of minerals and just use whatever stone I have available.
As I see it, this problem of suspension of disbelief - this large disparity between in-game stone and real life stone - stems from two causes:
1) Limitations in current game mechanics and implementation.
2) Inaccuracies in properties. I believe some of this was intentional for the benefit of gameplay. But I'm sure some of it was accidental, or oversight.
Dealing with cause 2 (aside from possible gameplay impacts) is largely a matter of tweaking and doing lots of research. This could even be fixed with a Mineral mod. Cause 1, however, is more complicated.
...most of the minerals we already have, haven't historically been used for construction, because they're too hard and laborious, or because they aren't very structurally sound (chalk castle? probably not). But we tend to use the most abundant material we have access to...
IRL we'd probably be using granite or limestone for most buildings. Slate was mostly for (roof, wall) tiling because it was easy to break in thin sheets. Diorite is so friggin' hard it was used for inscriptions, altough it saw some use for fortress walls and pavement.
Not going into very specific effects or tags, different minerals could have different "mining speeds", also provide better protection against sieges if constructions could be toppled (someday).
I suspect Toady already has plans to eventually include more stone gameplay elements, such as those you've mentioned. And, perhaps, one day the natural strength of material in DF will impact how fast stone items can be
fabricated (speed of the Masonry labor) or how much a stone structure can withstand stress or exposure to building destroyers?
I believe such potential already exists in the raws. Consider how many different properties (i.e., tokens) stone and other materials already have. Here are some of them:
[ENVIRONMENT:
[ENVIRONMENT_SPEC:
[METAL_ORE:
[MATERIAL_VALUE:
[SPEC_HEAT:
[MELTING_POINT:
[BOILING_POINT:
[SOLID_DENSITY:
[LIQUID_DENSITY:
[MOLAR_MASS:
[IMPACT_YIELD:
[IMPACT_FRACTURE:
[IMPACT_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:
[COMPRESSIVE_YIELD:
[COMPRESSIVE_FRACTURE:
[COMPRESSIVE_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:
[TENSILE_YIELD:
[TENSILE_FRACTURE:
[TENSILE_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:
[TORSION_YIELD:
[TORSION_FRACTURE:
[TORSION_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:
[SHEAR_YIELD:
[SHEAR_FRACTURE:
[SHEAR_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:
[BENDING_YIELD:
[BENDING_FRACTURE:
[BENDING_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:
[MAX_EDGE:
Author
Topic: Randomly Generated Minerals (Read 8188 times)