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[Zorbeltuss]

So I've recently felt the will to carry on with my 0.31(?) project of alchemical creation of metal, more specifically Iridium with knowledge and crafts to be had in 14th century europe (excluding the knowledge of platinum) and the alloying of Iridium with Platinum to my placeholder name "Steel of Urist", an alloy which has strength comparable with high grade modern steels but a much higher density.
Now I know it shouldn't be easy to make this metal and it isn't, it is quite much of a mega project to make a single batch of two bars, (minimum of 54 steps, 11 bars of platinum, 20 brimstone, 12 salpeter 22 bars of coke or charcoal with access to magma more without) and if I set dangerous material emissions to 2% roughly 1 dwarf dead.

-First question, would anyone be willing to go through that trouble, I am but it is a lot of work and for my own amusement it feels a bit much.
-Second question, 2% seems rather low actually but since so much nasty substances will be included I wonder if it is high, low or just right.
-Third Question, what would you put for a value on Urist McAlchemist or Urist McSmelters life, because if that that will be included in the final value of the end products.

I also have a fourth and totally unrelated question, can you make a creature have a liquid tissue layer without it pouring off them and causing hemorrhaging?


/Zorbeltuss

[smakemupagus]

From a balance feedback point of view; In a game with only iron clad invaders, I don't think it's worth so much, because normal steel blades already cleave iron well enough. 

If you have invaders wearing steel or better then it's a whole different ball game, that puts much more of a premium on advanced metals for your blades.  (Your process sounds considerably more difficult than just going and mining some adamant, though!)

[Zorbeltuss]

I have plans for other materials for invaders but that is not nearly as far gone, anyway, if my mod works with other mods then so much better

Material comparisons will have to wait

/Zorbeltuss

[GavJ]

No... this is worse than existing materials.

Density is only helpful for bludgeon weapons, and those don't need strength and we already have dense metals. And strength and edge holding isn't any better than steel if it's as strong as steel, BUT the density (which isn't helpful for those weapons) only makes it heavier and slows them down.

So it's probably equal/less effective in either role. And yet costs hundreds of times more.

Seems like a more useful equation for a wonder material is lightweight and strong, which is adamantine.

[daisha]

The high density metal wondermetal certainly has a military use according to reason, not only bludgeons but also arrows and bolts benefit from density.  But bolts are currently so powerful that copper rips through anything (unless that's been changed in .40, I have been playing masterwork mod), so the juice certainly wouldn't be with the squeeze.  Unless you had invaders armored in new wonderalloys, perhaps you could find values for all those materials properties that would actually make bolt resistant armors.  Still, I imagine if finding material property values to keep the cheapest metal bolt from going through the strongest metal armor more than 90% of the time were a simple task, it would already be in the game, so it might be challenging to make it count.

Still, you should possibly focus first on an effective armoring alloy to make a new superweapon alloy worth having.

Here's (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=116151.0) a dwarven science post on how vanilla materials match up bolts vs. armor, there are some similar posts around the forum for other weapon types and even investigating the relative benefit of different armor pieces around, if you search.

[Deon]

Bolts have been toned down a lot in the latest releases, so this would be a good ammo metal.

[Meph]

Using over 100 individual reagents is not good for the worker: He will carry them slowly to the workshop, after a while get hungry and thirsty, still carrying, then cancel because he needs to eat, drink, or sleep.

[TomiTapio]

Corridor of ten weapon traps is OP (over-powered), so do whatever you want with the new metal. Consider making the required workshops harder to make, like
"building a SMELTER2 requires four of the TOY called XXXXX"

Do you already have White Bronze aka Cupronickel, it is a real-world alloy. At least two other mods have CuNi already.

[Zorbeltuss]

No... this is worse than existing materials.

Density is only helpful for bludgeon weapons, and those don't need strength and we already have dense metals. And strength and edge holding isn't any better than steel if it's as strong as steel, BUT the density (which isn't helpful for those weapons) only makes it heavier and slows them down.

As strong as most modern specialist steel, means a lot stronger than in game steel, double the strength in many cases actually, also, while it is a weapon metal it is mostly aimed to be a trap weapon metal, because traps don't tire, yeah I know that currently the weapon traps are very cheaty in that they will always be able to reach the same speed regardless of weapon and mass but this will hopefully get fixed, also it is likely that the crossbows and bows will have some sort of lookup too.

Using over 100 individual reagents is not good for the worker: He will carry them slowly to the workshop, after a while get hungry and thirsty, still carrying, then cancel because he needs to eat, drink, or sleep.

The biggest singular reaction is currently at 13 components (and is only done once), not over a hundred, but it still may be to much and I've thought about toning it down, but it is probably hard to reach perfect size without testing it.

Corridor of ten weapon traps is OP (over-powered), so do whatever you want with the new metal. Consider making the required workshops harder to make, like
"building a SMELTER2 requires four of the TOY called XXXXX"

Do you already have White Bronze aka Cupronickel, it is a real-world alloy. At least two other mods have CuNi already.

Have thought about making the workshops harder to make, I want it but I'll see if it has to much of an impact on playability.

Cupronickel is not something I've had thoughts about, but maybe I will

Lastly, after summing up the minimum cost of components (if you don't have access to magma), the cost goes up to a material value of 261 per bar of alloy (as two will be produced), I'm thinking that the work put into it should make it more worth than adamantine (which is at 300), but then again adamantine seems very overpriced, it is not uncommon, and unless you are new with adamantine processing you will probably not have much trouble with the hidden stuff, which sets the per bar danger very low.

Anyway, thanks everyone for taking the time to answer, I'll probably post a flow chart later today.

Edit: Flowchart

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Where two skills are listed I haven't decided yet which to use. letters in parenthesis are: W = should require water, E = Probability of Toxic Material Emissions, X = Risk of fiery death

/Zorbeltuss

[GavJ]

No... this is worse than existing materials.

Density is only helpful for bludgeon weapons, and those don't need strength and we already have dense metals. And strength and edge holding isn't any better than steel if it's as strong as steel, BUT the density (which isn't helpful for those weapons) only makes it heavier and slows them down.

As strong as most modern specialist steel, means a lot stronger than in game steel, double the strength in many cases actually, also, while it is a weapon metal it is mostly aimed to be a trap weapon metal, because traps don't tire, yeah I know that currently the weapon traps are very cheaty in that they will always be able to reach the same speed regardless of weapon and mass but this will hopefully get fixed, also it is likely that the crossbows and bows will have some sort of lookup too.

But adamantine is still stronger than that, even, and still much easier to obtain than this metal, it sounds like. So all I have to do is make sure to make traps that rely on edge sharpness, not mass, and I can outperform this metal with less effort by using adamantine, yeah?

One possibility is to simply nerf adamantine if you want this to be more useful.

[Meph]

I personally dont think its worth the effort. I have a form of mega-metal in my mod, and you need magma, obsidian, steel and silver to make it. Much easier than yours, and I even have more difficult, steel-wielding enemies to create a need for such a metal. If you play vanilla against iron-clad enemies, steel is all you need.

[smakemupagus]

I would say, if you have fun organizing your production to manage all those flows, then in that sense it was worth it

[Meph]

I would say, if you have fun organizing your production to manage all those flows, then in that sense it was worth it

That of course is true.

[GavJ]

Indeed, in general, wacky production trees have little cost to them. Basically only "clutter on your list of reactions." Also using up your programming time, but if you aren't being paid, that's all your own personal discretion.

And if you just make sure that the esoteric, rarely used reactions end up on the bottom of the lists of buildings' reactions, that's not really much of a cost at all.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Here is a metal which is somewhat optimized to be the best overall for combat that the game will allow:

Code: [Select]


[INORGANIC:PERFECTIUM]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:METAL_TEMPLATE]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:perfectium]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:LIQUID:molten perfectium]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:GAS:boiling perfectium]
[DISPLAY_COLOR:4:4:1]
[BUILD_COLOR:4:4:1]
[MATERIAL_VALUE:500]
[SPEC_HEAT:60000]
[MELTING_POINT:51000]
[BOILING_POINT:55000]
[ITEMS_WEAPON][ITEMS_WEAPON_RANGED][ITEMS_AMMO][ITEMS_DIGGER][ITEMS_ARMOR]
[ITEMS_HARD]
[ITEMS_METAL]
[ITEMS_BARRED]
[ITEMS_SCALED]
[SOLID_DENSITY:2000]
[LIQUID_DENSITY:1900]
[MOLAR_MASS:55845]
[IMPACT_YIELD:50000000] 100000000, 20x more than adamantine
[IMPACT_FRACTURE:100000000]
[IMPACT_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:0]
[COMPRESSIVE_YIELD:50000000] 10x more than adamantine
[COMPRESSIVE_FRACTURE:100000000]
[COMPRESSIVE_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:0]
[TENSILE_YIELD:50000000]
[TENSILE_FRACTURE:100000000]
[TENSILE_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:0]
[TORSION_YIELD:50000000]
[TORSION_FRACTURE:100000000]
[TORSION_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:0]
[SHEAR_YIELD:50000000]
[SHEAR_FRACTURE:100000000]
[SHEAR_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:0]
[BENDING_YIELD:50000000]
[BENDING_FRACTURE:100000000]
[BENDING_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:0]
[MAX_EDGE:2000000000] 2147483647
[STATE_COLOR:ALL_SOLID:RED]

It is notably more protective than adamantine on the human-sized scale. However, it will still not protect you from over-exertion unconsciousness, or being crushed/exploded into gore/etc. by a bronze colossus punch. If you are skilled enough, you can bisect the colossus in a single swipe with a sword of this material, before it has a chance to squish you.

It is heavy enough to make acceptable blunt weapons, but light enough to not burden someone wearing a full armor set. You can't make a better material because the game will cap the numbers or perhaps overflow it back to a small number.