Right... 0.15a. Most of this is on the back burner for a few days while I sort out 0.14e, but here are some conceptual musings.
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LFR Technology Tree Tier 3
ADVANCED ALCHEMY LAB
A large workshop requiring a number of reagents to build, including glass vials, a precision caster, precision tools, and several black and yellow crystalline blocks to warn off passers by. This is the site for the majority of the tier three upgrades and development.
The advanced alchemy lab (
AAL) specializes in reactions involving a few new metals - specifically (and subject to modification) neodymium, mercury, palladium, and cobalt. Cobalt can be refined from cobaltite and mercury from cinnabar, while neodymium and palladium will come from two new types of stone (monazite and braggite). Because of the special properties of these metals, they will need to be smelted in a special environment - the regular old alchemy lab seems a good candidate. The reason for this is that two of the ores already exist as regular stones in the game, and I would prefer not to touch those raws if I don't have to for compatibility's sake.
I am on the fence as to how risky I want to make this process - in real life, cobalt is notorious for causing allergic reactions, palladium is poisonous, mercury is a known neurotoxin, and neodymium has a habit of spontaneously exploding - but since this is Dwarf Fortress and dwarves are made of sterner stuff (no lead poisoning, right?), I might decide not to add any more risk to a workshop that already seems to have a habit of bursting into flame from time to time. Although, admittedly, the neurotoxin might be fun.
Because these ores are both rare and essential for later tech tree concepts, the experimental materials workshop will be receiving a reaction to process stone in search of trace metals, which will consume stones for a (low, but not too low) chance at producing one of these ores.
The advanced alchemy lab has some more reactions planned, but they aren't yet well tested or set in stone. But, in case you were wondering, one of the reactions will involve...
copper bioelectric capacitors
...that you may have noticed lying around from time to time if you've been breeding large numbers of carbuncles.
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The actual uses of these metals is currently not available for much comment, as there are a few experimental ideas I want to try out before I promise anything really cool that I may or may not be able to deliver right away. However, to get you guys thinking on the right track, here are some possible uses for the metals...
Cobalt is heat resistant, and an anti-corrosive when alloyed with other metals. This isn't relevant in Dwarf Fortress right now, but makes cobalt a useful metal for use in medicine and high-temperature machinery. More advanced mechanical workshops and contraptions (and siege weapons, WAY down the road) will likely call for this material.
Mercury has a number of odd properties, the most notable being that it is liquid at room temperature. While I have not yet quite figured out the logistics of how this will work in game, I'd imagine a dwarf could find something interesting to do with a heavy, conducting liquid - assuming of course, he doesn't inhale too much of it.
Palladium is a component of catalytic converters, which turn highly dangerous chemicals into more benign components. Palladium will be required in fair quantities for another workshop I had in mind down the road, where the same reactions performed without a palladium protective component will yield results both productive and deadly. In other words, there are reactions planned in the future with possible deadly outcomes which can be prevented by using palladium tools. The cheap researcher ends up paying the heftier price.
Neodymium is my favorite new metal. Alloyed with iron (and boron, technically, but this is being left out for simplicity's sake), neodymium creates an extremely powerful permanent magnet. That's all I'm going to say about that right now.
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I'm curious as to what you guys (and/or girls) think about these concepts, as I might find them exciting, but some of you might find the ideas of dwarven experiments with chemicals, electricity, and magnetism to be a bit out of universe, which is not the goal of LFR. These technologies are, indeed, well beyond the simple ore smelters and stone gears of the default version, but will, in practice, likely take years of in-game progression to unlock and (later) effectively use, during which time your enemies will grow both more numerous and more deadly.
As an end result of the LFR tech and ritual trees, you may end up barely on even footing with LFR's greatest of enemies, which can be just enough to tip the scales of your heroic endeavor towards a lasting legacy, but I can promise you that LFR will never become "easy." If you get too many new tricks up your sleeve, expect your enemies to get some as well down the road. The voidwalkers have a few nasty, unreleased technologies waiting for a worthy opponent, and the shedim haven't even popped their heads out of the woodwork yet.
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Topic: *=*=* Legends of Forlorn Realms (LFR 2012) v0.21a *=*=* [DF 0.34.11] (Read 403040 times)