EDIT: Ok, here we go: Everything you can produce in a reaction the dwarven caravan gets as well. There is no way to disable this, since you are both the same entity, the same civ. If you can make slademantine, then so can they. And in worldgen the reaction ignore all reagents, so without access to adamantine, the dwarven civ still has unlimited slademantine to trade. I cant balance this. I would love to, but I cant. Buying Mithril early from traders will ramp up your fort value, and that should lead to more invasions.
Hmm, ok, that makes sense. I was thinking of candy, and how that doesn't appear on traders, so I assumed the same could be done to other metals. I guess candy is an exception? For the most part, yes, mithril I caravan-mine. Steel I also get from caravans, but I'd say its only to supplement and stockpile, as my own steel industry is usually well in gear before the caravans get large enough to really contribute (I tend to keep fort value low my first three years or so, then ramp, to be ready defensively for the FD sieges). Curious - why then do mithril anvils appear, but not copper? Mithril anvils are a major source of my mithril. Perhaps if its value was increased; its pretty easy to purchase early on.
So what you say is that the new metals are too easy to make, mostly be trading I presume. And you think the volcanic is unbalanced. The thing is: I mostly do balancing by the reports I get. If people say it is too easy, I make it harder, if people say it is too hard, I make it easier. The diseases for example, those I will trim down for the 34.09 release. As I often say: You are the test players. I got 5 reports about diseases being unbalanced, so I will work on the issue, develope a better system, and in the meantime turn them OFF by default. I did leave them ON by default so far, so I do get more test reports
I haven't played with volcanic yet, but that's my suspicion, that it'll be too easy (and this is just one IMHO, no more, no less). Diving to the magma sea is often done by second year of embark. It takes a lot of reactions, but none of the components seem that hard. I like the idea of volcanic, but ideally it should be tied to something later in the life of a fortress, do you see what I am saying? I don't think my first squad would start in steel at all, I'd probably start them in volcanic. That is what I like about bifrost - it is tied to a lategame creature. Its something to look forward to. If volcanic could somehow be tied to midgame, that'd be ideal. Or, maybe just make it more resource intensive and make the player really sweat out the decision to make the Forge - maybe it takes many bars of steel and a few mithril bars or items made of those things? Maybe more than one steel bar needed per volcanic item built? That makes it a tougher decision, particularly if the player is 'rushing' the Forge too early.
Tetrahide should produce less coarse_iron you say ? But yeah, I did mod the game in a way that each embark should have iron and flux.
I'm not sure what to suggest re: tetra. My comment was mostly about how MW makes hematite a lesser ore compared to classic DF, because tetra gives you as much iron as hematite (correct me if I'm wrong), plus a bonus copper. In a way, yes, that seems like a good solution to have tetra give slightly less iron, now that the reactions have changed. Tetra is everywhere, it is most players source of iron, and that easy iron becomes MW's easy source of steel. So less bars from tetra will slow down the steel production a tad. Personally, I
prefer MW's style of iron&flux at every embark vs classic DF, it results in a better game and less embark searching. But it does result in very early steel because the components are so easy to locate in the first year and I think that is what I am getting at - I like the guaranteed steel components on every embark , but I dislike that I am able to easily have all my dwarves outfitted before the first siege.
And again, you gave me a report about harder smelting being to hard. People seem to think that way, purely because there is no way to avoid the accidents. It seems that I can add stuff that is as hard as I like, as long as I give you a counter-measurement. But as soon as something cant be handled, it is disliked.
It's not too hard, that's not what I meant. Its the blood all over the fort from the afflicted smelters. I'm just giving you feedback on why I disable that feature, because it was becoming a regular trip to dfhack clean. Sorry if I mentioned it before, I didn't mean to harp on it.
Oh geez, just saw that you posted some changes from my feedback, DAMN you work quick!!! Quick reaction - I like the ore changes (personally, tetra as a source of iron was odd, and these changes will put the mod closer inline with a classic DF player's expectations - see SeigeOps last post as example), I like the flux/steel change; my problem with smelting sickness is simply that I hate the blood all over the fort (the smelter I could care less about, haha) so even at lesser frequency I'll personally have it off; silver bars to volcanic is a good step and I'll be happy to test on my next fort. I love the whole aether idea of essences from megabeasts, and would love to see you further mature that concept. It really gives fun incentive to kill the things rather than wall them off, etc. Personally I'd prefer to have essences that can be used in many things (I like choices), but are a tad less 'legendary' in outcome. Overall I like those set of changes!