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[G-Flex]

Dwarves already have many technologies more impressive than electricity, and I don't think it is much of a stretch to convert mechanical energy to electrical energy.

No they don't, and yes it is. Otherwise people would have been extracting aluminum themselves in the middle ages.

I appreciate the research that went into this, and if you want to flavor it as magically-oriented then that's fine, but I don't think it's fair to say that medieval people living in caves having access to electricity isn't a stretch, or that dwarves somehow have technology more advanced than electricity.

[Rhenaya]

i go arround the electrical problem by doing this as alchemists mod :x

[Dienes]

No they don't, and yes it is. Otherwise people would have been extracting aluminum themselves in the middle ages.

I appreciate the research that went into this, and if you want to flavor it as magically-oriented then that's fine, but I don't think it's fair to say that medieval people living in caves having access to electricity isn't a stretch, or that dwarves somehow have technology more advanced than electricity.

The actual construction of a basic generator is quite straight forward. If you will grant dwarves the knowledge of electromagnetism and chemistry to come up with the reaction its rather silly to say they couldn't make a generator too. You put a loop of wire in a magnetic field and turn it. The refinery requires copper to make the wire and magnetite to provide the magnetic field plus a mechanism to make the crank and whatnot. For a real hand turned generator it would take a long time to extract aluminum from the solution, but dwarves can presumably turn a much heavier generator much faster than a human could. Manual pumps are already moving a huge volume of water much faster than a human ever could.

[G-Flex]

The actual construction of a basic generator is quite straight forward. If you will grant dwarves the knowledge of electromagnetism and chemistry to come up with the reaction its rather silly to say they couldn't make a generator too.

Right, but there's no reason to think they should have that knowledge. Of course it's relatively easy to make a simple generator; the difficulty largely comes from the body of knowledge required to even get the idea to make one in the first place, and recognize that it could even be useful.

The simple fact is that there are reasons why medieval peoples didn't use electricity, and those same reasons apply to dwarves. The main bottleneck when it comes to technological innovation is always knowledge of the principles involved and how to implement and use them, so you can't just say "if you grant dwarves the knowledge"; the lack of knowledge is the entire point.

[Dienes]

If you are going to complain about the electricity you may as well complain about the entire thing since its all based around the idea of dwarves knowing how to refine aluminum which people didn't know in the middle ages. The whole point of this mod was to add a realistic way to refine aluminum so you are basically telling the OP not to make a mod you don't agree with. Do you go into the my little fortress thread and say well the middle ages ponies didn't have tools so the whole mod should be ponies grazing?

[G-Flex]

If you are going to complain about the electricity you may as well complain about the entire thing since its all based around the idea of dwarves knowing how to refine aluminum which people didn't know in the middle ages.

Sure, why not?

The whole point of this mod was to add a realistic way to refine aluminum so you are basically telling the OP not to make a mod you don't agree with. Do you go into the my little fortress thread and say well the middle ages ponies didn't have tools so the whole mod should be ponies grazing?

I'm not saying he shouldn't make the mod. I'm saying that any arguments for it based on realism are a tad silly. Whether the mod is good and whether it's realistic (or adds some element of magic to make it appear plausible) are two completely different questions.

[MarcAFK]

However Arguments against the idea based on itNOT being realistic are also unfair as this is a fantasy game which has dwarves breaking the laws of physics ona daily basis.
Personally i see the knowlaedge for making something like this coming from astrange mood, or maybe something similar to the new stuff requiring certain arcane knowledge for making zombies and stuff.

[G-Flex]

However Arguments against the idea based on itNOT being realistic are also unfair as this is a fantasy game which has dwarves breaking the laws of physics ona daily basis.

Not really. There are different forms of realism, and Toady obviously tries to keep some of them in check, which is why we can't do things like extract aluminum in the first place. Most cases of breaking the laws of physics are hardly intended features anyway.

Personally i see the knowlaedge for making something like this coming from astrange mood, or maybe something similar to the new stuff requiring certain arcane knowledge for making zombies and stuff.

Sure, but there are implications you aren't considering. If dwarves know how to generate very significant amounts of electricity, and can apply that knowledge to something as specific as extracting aluminum from bauxite, then they should be able to do all kinds of other things as well, like making electrical motors (which are damn near the same thing as the generator to begin with, so it's easy to figure out).

[Tierre]

regarding red mud - building this in outdoor makes in 100% safe this way. Maybe make it boil and some inhaled syndrome? Very light or nobody would make it:)

About knowledge - possessed dwarf (by a soul from future who knows) once explained about aluminium extraction and generator - but dwarfes don't understand how it works.... they juat know that it works... like fire - in stone age nobody heard about plasma but they used fire nethetheless.

[thepaan]

Killing plant life would be an accurate treatment of red mud but I'm pretty sure its not possible as DF stands now. Maybe some kind of trickery with interactions when they are added will be possible. It should kill fish and stuff too since its far too alkaline to support aquatic life.

However exposure to red mud is quite harmful to people and animals if not quickly cleaned. In 2010 there was the failure of a red mud containment reservoir at the Ajka Alumina Plant in Hungary. The red mud flooded a nearby town and those exposed who were not able to clean themselves suffered severe chemical burns. One article I read said a man had suffered serious burns getting a ladder to move his family to the roof and was bleeding after only a few minutes of exposure. While I imagine dwarves would not be chest deep in red mud like those people, getting it on them should have some effect. As you have it now the only risk is the miasma it generates when rotting, right?

Also it is more accurately a liquid since it is usually a sludge of about 20-30% solid particles and flows easily. The reaction could also produce 2 buckets of red mud instead of 1 since modern alumina plants 1-2 times the alumina extracted in waste and a dwarven one could easily make more. Maybe have 2 required buckets and sometimes produce a second bucket of sludge.

I didn't realize that red mud was that toxic because, honestly, I didn't read much about that particular part. Thanks for the info. I'll see about adding a syndrome, although I don't want to make more buckets required; I already have enough issues with them because of existing bugs. On second thought; I just had the image of dwarves tossing buckets of sludge in the refuse pile, when, suddenly, it changed to dwarves emptying buckets of this stuff into a pool underneath a mass pitting area....

[_DivideByZero_]

Red mud contains hydroxides, which is the stuff that makes lye harmful as well. Naturally it would cause chemical burns.

[MarcAFK]

Well yeah it does, they actually put lye into the bauxite to get the alumina out, then the mud is 20% lye or something...
Anyway since DF is fantasy and stuff you could put even more reactions into your ref8inafry(typing fail, wtf?) refinery to get out the useful stuff that real life can not.
Ie the 15% or so iron oxide, 20% aluminiumoxide, lye, etc that's left in the mud...

[thepaan]

Well yeah it does, they actually put lye into the bauxite to get the alumina out, then the mud is 20% lye or something...
Anyway since DF is fantasy and stuff you could put even more reactions into your ref8inafry(typing fail, wtf?) refinery to get out the useful stuff that real life can not.
Ie the 15% or so iron oxide, 20% aluminiumoxide, lye, etc that's left in the mud...

If there is no red mud, then where is the Fun?