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Very good.

good.

meh.

bad.

Very bad.

[lcy03406]

Maybe elves can cut trees as long as they are in good relation with the nature? They pray for a permit before cutting every tree. They set a limit for other races and pray for those trees too, and declare wars if those races neglect the limit. To encourage other races to cut less trees, they actively export wooden crafts.

[KimeK]

Does anyone remember the wood gathering process of the Elves in Warcraft 3? The wisps I think they're called? Something similar would be cool and lore friendly.

[Billy Jack]

I wouldn't see the elves as truly being against the use of wood to use as building mats.  They just don't like to see other races inefficiently and recklessly cutting down trees.

Tree loving races that I've read about have either magically shaped the wood to their purposes, or continue to use wood as mats, but doing so as not disrupt the forest.

One thing that could be done is to use a multi-step process to increase the amount of material obtained from a single log.

• 1 log converted to 8 planks
• 1 plank converted to x better planks
• 1 better plank converted to y even better planks

And so on, until an acceptable balance is obtained.

Depending on the complexity of the capabilities of the GUI launcher, Supports could be changed to look like tree trunks.

After all, Elves show up in caravans with nothing but wood created items, so they just think they are more justified and make better use of wood than anyone else.

<edit> The skills that would be unused for elves such as blacksmith and metalcraft would be used as the skills for different levels of wood improvement, so that a single elf takes longer to become the super producer. Armor and Weaponsmith would still be needed to create the steeloak and such weapons and armor.

To elves killing plants is worse than murder, but yes they do grow wooden items from trees. Wooden items imported from elves are called grown [tree name] wood, and in elven sites there are shaping trees where presumably the trees are shaped to make items they want. Based off of this maybe elves could have growing workshops that require being next to or on trees where they can make grown wood items.

There are plenty of pictures available via Google / Bing that show elf villages using wood as building materials. In my opinion, allowing elves to follow this type of "lore" is much more mod friendly than having to figure out how they generate wood from a growing tree. After all, fully embracing the idea that Elves grow everything to meet their needs would mean that it takes very long for them to build their structures and other equipment. How would you grow a wooden helm, or flute?

If you want to stick to a system where everything is made of wood, you would have to create a method for wood to be generated through some type of magic, which is not implemented in DF. Yes, magic has been implemented in MW, but that is stepping away from the default DF canon. There is no reason that the MW elf canon cannot follow the belief of living in harmony with nature and not wasting the materials gained from chopping down a tree.

After all, removing smaller growths of trees allows larger, more established trees to grow even larger as they have access to more of the nutrients that would normally be consumed by the smaller trees.

[Rydel]

After all, removing smaller growths of trees allows larger, more established trees to grow even larger as they have access to more of the nutrients that would normally be consumed by the smaller trees.

Except, to the Elves, that's kind of like suggesting that killing off a minority group makes more room for another favored people group to grow.

As for "stepping away from DF canon," Elves using magic to grow their items is much closer to canon than Elves cutting down trees.
Canon is that, for elves, chopping down trees is unthinkable.  It's worse than murder.  Likely, suggesting that they chop down trees would be a crime.
Canon is that Elven wooden items are grown.
MW will be giving some kind of magic to all the races, so Elves having a magic system is pretty much a given.

[Meph]

Didnt I establish at some point that elves will be using wood, but not cut down trees? I remember saying/posting that a couple of times at different places

They get a tree-singer that has seeds as input, and magically grows the seeds into wooden objects of choice. Living, natural items. Root armor, ironbark arrows, steeloak bows... different instruments of different materials can determine how good the items will be.

[LMeire]

A more general suggestion: Harder Tanning

As it stands, the only thing you need to make leather is a skin, a worker, and time. But in real life, tanning required an organic chemical called "tannin"- hence the name. Tannins are derived from various plant oils like acacia, tea, rhubarb, and oak, so I figure harder tanning could be done by requiring a player to either order tannin from a caravan, or else produce it on-site using a screwpress and some logs or farmed rhubarb.

[Meph]

I actually wanted to do that many years ago when I started adding "harder X" into the game, but leather seemed (just from a gameplay mechanic) to be something so basic, it would hinder the game if you make it more complex.

Then I added the Ore Processor, so ... ehm... hippocricy much?

You can also tan with urine, but since that isn't in the game (and cant be added that easily, in a realistic fashion) it would have to be tannin. Problem with using specific woods (acacia, oak, etc) is that people might play with standardized woods. And if people order tannin from a caravan, they might as well just order bins full of leather.

As you can see, I couldnt really figure out an elegant way to introduce tannin into the game. Just like water for brewing or fuel for cooking... its horribly basic, yet hard to implement.

[Meph]

Ideas for a dwarven chemist, or chemistry in general, would be very welcome.

[qorthos]

This thread had some processes to produce some useful products (explosives, gunpowder, glycerol, sulfuric acid, white phosphorous): http://www.reddit.com/r/chemistry/comments/179kg8/medieval_chemistry/

[LMeire]

Quicklime might be useful, fire is always fun to play with, especially fire that ignites on contact with water. There's also historical evidence that quicklime was used as a chemical weapon, so there's that.

Another use might be purifying the different kinds of soil to get key resources, such as pulling iron out of black sand in the form of magnetite. That's how the Japanese got a lot of their iron before they conquered the Korean peninsula and its rich mines.
--
Also, if you're willing to consider post-14th-century chemistry there's a lot of seemingly magical things that can be done for end-game chemistry. (Such as making diamonds, that's quite a bit off the tech cut-off for vanilla already.)

Thermite is a fairly "new" compound, but since it's basically just metal shavings and fuel I don't see any reason why someone couldn't have accidentally stumbled on it around the same time as gunpowder. Wikipedia mentions it being used for grenades, so maybe a projectile that starts fires on impact?

Aerogel, a sort of "glass" (but not really) that weighs just slightly more than air. It's used primarily for heat-insulation so I imagine an aerogel-making reaction would create a temp-fixed version of the Warlocks' ethereal material.

[Putnam]

Yeah, DF density is actually too coarse to properly represent the density. You'll have to round up to 2 if you want to go by real life records or set it to exactly 1 if you want to go pure theory (and these are dwarves, remember).

[IndigoFenix]

I'll post the notes that I'm using for an alchemy system that I am building for my 'other' mod here.  Part of it is based on real medieval alchemy, part of it is based on real hypothetical medieval alchemy, and part of it...isn't.

Code: [Select]

Pyrite + Fuel => Green vitriol
Green vitriol + Fuel => Rust + Oil of vitriol (liquid) (There is actually an intermediate step here called 'vitriol of mars', which is yellow, but couldn't find a good use for it)
Green vitriol + Rock salt + Fuel => Muriatic Acid (liquid)
Saltpeter + Oil of vitriol + Fuel => Aqua fortis (liquid, dissolves many metals)
Aqua Fortis + Muriatic Acid => Aqua regia (red liquid, dissolves gold)
Alcohol + Fuel => Aqua Vitae
Potash leached with water => Saltpeter
Sulfur + Saltpeter + Charcoal => Black powder
Gold + Aqua regia + Potash => Fulminating gold (the famous mistake they thought was the Philosopher's Stone, but was actually a volatile explosive.  Many died.  Not actually very useful, because of its instability, but interesting to note.)

(Red, blue, and white vitriol also exist, they are created by oil of vitriol combined with cobalt (red), copper (blue), and zinc (white).  Couldn't find any practical reason for making them though, except for their use as dyes.)

Now comes the stuff that isn't real:

True Gold (A substance slightly heavier than gold, but is as hard as adamantine.  Good for hammers.  Found inside wild alchemical monsters as coins.)
True Gold + Aqua regia + Potash => Azoth (White liquid, 'essence of life')
Azoth + ? => Carmot (Philosopher's stone, reddish solid)
Carmot + ? => Azoth
Azoth + metal coins => Bluemetal coins
Carmot solution + metal coins =>Redmetal coins
Bluemetal coins cleaned => True Silver (mithril?)
Redmetal coins cleaned => True Gold
Azoth + Aqua Vitae + ? => various magical elixirs
Redmetal Coins + Potash + Eggs + various assorted organic materials (blood, fat, meat, plants, etc.) => alchemical monster spawning
Carmot + ? => ever-burning flame (magma spawning?)


The essence of the concept is to base everything on real chemistry, up until the point where mystical substances is created, but in order to begin the process of creating those substances you need an ingredient obtained from monsters (i.e. homunculi) which are, in turn, created through alchemy, which leads to a chicken-and-egg scenario that explains why we never discovered them in this world.  (There may be other means of acquiring these substances, but all require some supernatural input at some point.)

For gameplay purposes, the 'real' chemicals should be available in trade when possible.  Green vitriol, rust (actually useful for some explosives) and gunpowder should come in bars rather than tools (ash comes in bars, so it makes as much sense.)
Muriatic acid has also been called 'Spirits of Salt'.  (It's hydrochloric acid.)
I think thermite might be good for goblins.

[Meph]

I was wondering if i should go the simple way of blackpowder etc as is now, or to introduce actual chemistry, with oil of vitriol and spirit of salt, etc. I'm quite familiar with them, but I have trouble giving them ingame purposes.

Homunculi and other mythological stuff would go to Alchemy. I wanted to split it like that, Chemistry with the RL stuff, Alchemy with the fantasy stuff.

[IndigoFenix]

I was wondering if i should go the simple way of blackpowder etc as is now, or to introduce actual chemistry, with oil of vitriol and spirit of salt, etc. I'm quite familiar with them, but I have trouble giving them ingame purposes.

Homunculi and other mythological stuff would go to Alchemy. I wanted to split it like that, Chemistry with the RL stuff, Alchemy with the fantasy stuff.

Historically, chemistry and alchemy were intrinsically tied together - the first chemists were basically materialistic alchemists, and most alchemists were also chemists.  The only difference is that alchemists brought in a kind of spiritual aspect to the study, while chemistry is purely material.  If alchemy is going to exist in this universe, it should probably be derived from chemistry as a later advance along the same 'tech tree', beginning with the same chemical elements, plus adding some fantasy elements to make the impossible things viable.

The only issue with 'lab chemistry' is that it's basically just adding extra steps to make a system more complex.  Elaborate crafting systems can be fun if done well, but DF isn't really that kind of game, and when you need five or six individually-selected steps that always come down to the same end result, it can get annoying for players who simply want to mine out all the resources and then press a 'just make me twenty muskets so I can equip my soldiers already' button.  Gnomish tinkering has the same issue, although overcomplexity does fit them thematically.  Being able to buy the completed items (which will of course be much more expensive) from caravans makes it a little less of a hassle, though.

[Meph]

I mostly want to avoid dependencies. Alchemy shouldnt have to rely on Chemistry. Alchemy makes artificial gems, transmutes metals and creates gold from lead. Chemistry will use rare stones (rocksalt, saltpeter, brimstone, cinnabar) to make blackpowder, acids, arsenic and mercury...

But I'm not entirely sure what to do with those materials yet. Blackpowder I wanted to use for landmines/turrets, but otherwise ... Oil of Vitriol to destroy items? Some new source of soaps? Fire starting? Poisons?

For alchemy I'd have lots of ideas, mostly potion based, but I'm drawing a blank on chemistry.