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[Featheredragon]

Remember that even if you find some metal lying around on the surface, you still need an anvil to forge it into a pick.

A better solution would be to mod in a pick tool made of bone (the real ones were antler, but that's too specific for DF) that works very slowly.  These required a lot more time and effort because the miner had to find the rock's fractures and work them without breaking the tool.

Problem is, I don't think you can make a pick that is slower than a standard metal pick.  DFHack might be able to slow down a miner who has equipped such a bone pick, but if I recall correctly DFHack can't do things conditional on the current activity.  That means the miner will be slow to walk, etc. when holding the bone pick.

Sorry for the thread necromancy; would it be possible to mine boulders without a pick (like picking them up) and make stone anvils? This is is historically relevant. Using stone anvils you could cold-hammer copper tools (make a low chance of success so this is not abused as a way to save fuel). Upadates on tests with these ideas and possibly some functional raws would be highly appreciated.

[Dirst]

Remember that even if you find some metal lying around on the surface, you still need an anvil to forge it into a pick.

A better solution would be to mod in a pick tool made of bone (the real ones were antler, but that's too specific for DF) that works very slowly.  These required a lot more time and effort because the miner had to find the rock's fractures and work them without breaking the tool.

Problem is, I don't think you can make a pick that is slower than a standard metal pick.  DFHack might be able to slow down a miner who has equipped such a bone pick, but if I recall correctly DFHack can't do things conditional on the current activity.  That means the miner will be slow to walk, etc. when holding the bone pick.

Sorry for the thread necromancy; would it be possible to mine boulders without a pick (like picking them up) and make stone anvils? This is is historically relevant. Using stone anvils you could cold-hammer copper tools (make a low chance of success so this is not abused as a way to save fuel). Upadates on tests with these ideas and possibly some functional raws would be highly appreciated.

I don't know of a way to actually use the loose boulders that appear on the surface for a raws-only solution.  In fort mode, their only function is to get in the way of caravan wagons.  Presumably the DFHack tools that restrict workshops to be inside or over water or whatever could be tweaked to require a surface boulder be in place.  The cold-hammering reactions could be restricted to that special workshop.

[Putnam]

You can pick loose boulders as long as they're clay.

[Dirst]

You can pick loose boulders as long as they're clay.

Cold-hammering onto clay is not going to give you the results you were hoping for

On the flipside, I'm all for suspending a bit of realism and allowing any boulder (or treestump) be used as the primitive anvil.  That way the player doesn't need to roll the perfect embark to use it.

[MDFification]

I'm not sure how this can be incorporated since you currently need a pick to dig soil (really, you shouldn't) but there are some soil types that naturally hold metal nuggets irl. For example, bog iron in peat.

[Thuellai]

Also interested in this as I am working on a stone-age mod based on the Epoch setting from Fantasy Craft.

The idea of a basic workshop which does simple tools and possibly adding the ability to extract basic metals from soil layers seems interesting.  Any metallurgical experts on the forums who could tell me which metals have a low enough melting temperature/simple enough refinement process for ancient metallurgy before proper forges and such?  From what Wikipedia is telling me the easiest stuff to find and work raw is silver, copper, tin and meteoric iron, which would allow for bronze and silver materials for a stone-age race.  Also apparently tin, lead, and copper can all be melted straight out of ore at a relatively low temp.  I could probably restrict access to metals by simply removing the ORE tag from all layer stones and forcing smelting through reactions (which then could be restricted to specific civs), right?

[GavJ]

Any metallurgical experts on the forums who could tell me which metals have a low enough melting temperature/simple enough refinement process for ancient metallurgy before proper forges and such?

Only silver, probably, would have been simultaneously interesting (shiny!) to very ancient people and also able to be melted on a (still fairly large and particularly hot) campfire without any augmentation.

Lead would melt too, but is pretty boring. Doesn't look pretty, doesn't hold a shape very well. Doesn't seem very motivating to master working with it, even if you noticed something weird going on.

Copper and more utilitarian metals really require bellows at least to melt, as they melt several hundred degrees hotter than campfires.

[Thuellai]

Any metallurgical experts on the forums who could tell me which metals have a low enough melting temperature/simple enough refinement process for ancient metallurgy before proper forges and such?

Only silver, probably, would have been simultaneously interesting (shiny!) to very ancient people and also able to be melted on a (still fairly large and particularly hot) campfire without any augmentation.

Lead would melt too, but is pretty boring. Doesn't look pretty, doesn't hold a shape very well. Doesn't seem very motivating to master working with it, even if you noticed something weird going on.

Copper and more utilitarian metals really require bellows at least to melt, as they melt several hundred degrees hotter than campfires.

Sounds about right.  I know silver was being used as currency at LEAST by 1200 BC, because the Hittites were known to be trading iron to their neighbors at a 40:1 weight ratio (as, at that time, iron was largely only available in meteoric form - the Hittites were one of the earliest civilizations with access to iron smelting)

Lead does have SOME uses that an ancient civ might take advantage of, and some metals are soft enough to be worked without necessarily having to become molten.

[GavJ]

some metals are soft enough to be worked without necessarily having to become molten.

That is a very good point. I think that a lot of MesoAmerican people used to be excellent, detailed metalworkers without knowing a whole lot about smelting (earlier on), just because they didn't need to with large amounts of copper nuggets lying around.