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Author Topic: Silk  (Read 3102 times)

AceSV

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Silk
« on: March 29, 2015, 10:59:41 am »

You know silk doesn't come from spiders, right?

The only economically viable source of silk cloth for all human history has been from moth larvae known as silkworms.  Spiders don't even produce the same kind of silk; a spider silk cloth would not look or feel like "silk". 

Silk should be more valuable than plant cloth. 

Spider silk, if obtainable, should be mechanically stronger than other forms of cloth.  It would be as strong as or stronger than leather armor.  (we've all heard that spider silk is "strong as steel" but this has to do with its tensile strength, the lack of hardness would make it susceptible to cutting.) 

There should be a way to farm silk.  Sericulture is real and an ancient technology.  If you can keep bees, you can keep moths and maybe spiders. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sericulture
http://www.wired.com/2013/10/brown-recluse-silk/
http://www.wired.com/2009/09/spider-silk/
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Magnumcannon

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Re: Silk
« Reply #1 on: March 29, 2015, 12:23:05 pm »

It would certainly be interesting to have this feature. This way, we wouldn't have to mind capturing a GCS or sending a poor weaver to collect webs on a dangerous troll-infested cave.
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Deboche

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Re: Silk
« Reply #2 on: March 29, 2015, 07:45:43 pm »

I can't speak for Toady but I assume that the whole thing with spiders is to make it more interesting in the game. If we do have a silkworm industry how interesting can we make it?
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Ops Fox

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Re: Silk
« Reply #3 on: March 29, 2015, 07:54:35 pm »

I think silk in game being harvest from spiders is kind of cool, gives the world an otherworldly feel that makes it more interesting. I would however like to be able to industrialize the silk industry, maybe by having GCS be tamable and "milkable" for their silk. Or even just let civilian dwarfs not get scared away by GCS if they are attacking someone else, like a dwarf with a sturdy helm.

I look at it kind of like goblins in most fantasy games goblins are a minor threat on players radar, in Dwarf fortress they are immortal, savage, killers that dont need to eat, kidnap children and raise them as their and they leave morality up to the individual rather than prescribing to some lame always chaotic evil mentality. So in real life silk is gathered from worms, while in DF silk it is harvested from around the spider while he attempts to nom on the head of a dwarf with a particularly sturdy helm so that his buddies can gather the silk it used to capture him.
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AceSV

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Re: Silk
« Reply #4 on: March 29, 2015, 08:07:38 pm »

I don't care that you can get silk from spiders, but I find it annoying that the fantasy way is the only way.  Of all the essential industries in Dwarf Fortress, why should Silk be the only one exempt from the mundane?  Why should obtaining silk have to be more amusing than obtaining wool?  Why would you not be as amused by sericulture as you are by planting, milking, shearing and brewing? 

And like I said to begin with, spider silk is not silk.  One does not have to replace the other.  Having a net full of moth cocoons should not stop you from plucking the threads from a giant fantasy spider's butt. 
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sweitx

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Re: Silk
« Reply #5 on: March 29, 2015, 10:23:14 pm »

I agree that we should've some way of getting silk without spiders. Of course, it would be comparatively lower quality/value compared to spider silk.

Perhaps in the interim it could be a tree mod?
Mulberry Tree

Give Mulberry Tree a growth called "Cocoon", which can be harvested and processed into silk?
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Deboche

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Re: Silk
« Reply #6 on: March 30, 2015, 08:07:54 am »

I don't care that you can get silk from spiders, but I find it annoying that the fantasy way is the only way.  Of all the essential industries in Dwarf Fortress, why should Silk be the only one exempt from the mundane?  Why should obtaining silk have to be more amusing than obtaining wool?  Why would you not be as amused by sericulture as you are by planting, milking, shearing and brewing? 

And like I said to begin with, spider silk is not silk.  One does not have to replace the other.  Having a net full of moth cocoons should not stop you from plucking the threads from a giant fantasy spider's butt.
Well, the industries have certain interesting dynamics now. Clay requires you to collect and craft and then allows you to glaze; glass also has ways to make clear and crystal glass; even beekeeping is made interesting by keeping the bees outside, requiring jugs, providing honey, jelly and wax.

The silkworm industry would be what? A box on a table that you harvest silk from to take to the loom?
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Dirst

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Re: Silk
« Reply #7 on: March 30, 2015, 11:24:46 am »

I don't care that you can get silk from spiders, but I find it annoying that the fantasy way is the only way.  Of all the essential industries in Dwarf Fortress, why should Silk be the only one exempt from the mundane?  Why should obtaining silk have to be more amusing than obtaining wool?  Why would you not be as amused by sericulture as you are by planting, milking, shearing and brewing? 

And like I said to begin with, spider silk is not silk.  One does not have to replace the other.  Having a net full of moth cocoons should not stop you from plucking the threads from a giant fantasy spider's butt.
Well, the industries have certain interesting dynamics now. Clay requires you to collect and craft and then allows you to glaze; glass also has ways to make clear and crystal glass; even beekeeping is made interesting by keeping the bees outside, requiring jugs, providing honey, jelly and wax.

The silkworm industry would be what? A box on a table that you harvest silk from to take to the loom?
Well, civilization didn't explode after the Agricultural Revolution because farming got more dangerous.

Does the game allow vermin to be domesticated?  I don't recall seeing an option to embark with bees, so sericulture would have similar gotta-find-wild-ones limit to it.

An interesting way to do the wild silkworm thing would need to wait for caste-like life stages.  Have the creature mature into a moth and drop a batch of raw silk.  These can be gathered like webs.

Depending on how much detail we want, sericulture would require getting some silkworm eggs and possibly some foodstuffs into an artificial hive.  Eventually the eggs hatch, eat whatever is in the hive, and pupate.  The beekeeper (or whoever) can harvest the silk, but the interesting bit is what to do with the moths.  Should they escape?  Or can the hive hold them?  I don't think using a cage to hold them will work, since things in cages won't breed, which means no new eggs.
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BoredVirulence

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Re: Silk
« Reply #8 on: March 30, 2015, 01:11:19 pm »

I don't care that you can get silk from spiders, but I find it annoying that the fantasy way is the only way.  Of all the essential industries in Dwarf Fortress, why should Silk be the only one exempt from the mundane?  Why should obtaining silk have to be more amusing than obtaining wool?  Why would you not be as amused by sericulture as you are by planting, milking, shearing and brewing? 

And like I said to begin with, spider silk is not silk.  One does not have to replace the other.  Having a net full of moth cocoons should not stop you from plucking the threads from a giant fantasy spider's butt.
Well, the industries have certain interesting dynamics now. Clay requires you to collect and craft and then allows you to glaze; glass also has ways to make clear and crystal glass; even beekeeping is made interesting by keeping the bees outside, requiring jugs, providing honey, jelly and wax.

The silkworm industry would be what? A box on a table that you harvest silk from to take to the loom?
Well, civilization didn't explode after the Agricultural Revolution because farming got more dangerous.

Does the game allow vermin to be domesticated?  I don't recall seeing an option to embark with bees, so sericulture would have similar gotta-find-wild-ones limit to it.

An interesting way to do the wild silkworm thing would need to wait for caste-like life stages.  Have the creature mature into a moth and drop a batch of raw silk.  These can be gathered like webs.

Depending on how much detail we want, sericulture would require getting some silkworm eggs and possibly some foodstuffs into an artificial hive.  Eventually the eggs hatch, eat whatever is in the hive, and pupate.  The beekeeper (or whoever) can harvest the silk, but the interesting bit is what to do with the moths.  Should they escape?  Or can the hive hold them?  I don't think using a cage to hold them will work, since things in cages won't breed, which means no new eggs.

I think the solution here is to make things giant. Very much like having a locked room full of cave spiders. We have a room full of giant silkworms /  moths, they breed, we send dwarves in to collect the silk. For bonus effect, we can butcher them for food to control the population.

Rather than confining vermin-sized silkworms / moths, make them giant, make it a real room, and let their life-cycle play out. Make them dangerous and you have your fun. Rather than another form of bee-keeping, where we just manage a "box," make it life sized. It also plays true to the DF orgin of silk farming, with a special room and a life-sized web-spewing machine.
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Batgirl1

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Re: Silk
« Reply #9 on: March 30, 2015, 05:45:54 pm »

YES to Silk Farming!  Moth silk should co-exist with spider/GCS silk, maybe at a lesser value as noted.  Actually, it makes sense that the more dangerous something is to obtain, the more value it should have.  As for how big the moths should be, I vote for there being two kinds: regular, bee-sized moths and Mothra. :D
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Meph

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Re: Silk
« Reply #10 on: March 30, 2015, 10:58:42 pm »

A very simple solution would be to add another hiveable insect: silk moths. They form colonies, your beekeeper harvests them, adds them to hives and the products can be refined. Usually by boiling the cocoons (kitchen?) and then spinning the thread (loom?)

In fact, multiple mods already use this system. Another solution is to make larger insect creatures and use their eggs to make silk, Kazoo had that great idea. Added silk materials to the eggs, accept them as reagent. Now your dwarves have to choose between using the eggs as food, for breeding or as silk source.
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Re: Silk
« Reply #11 on: March 31, 2015, 02:35:34 am »

Gathering webs and making silk from it is ridiculous, which is a good enough reason to remove it in my mind. Obviously not everyone, or even most agree. Making silk from spiders involves restraining a spider and pulling out a strand and then attaching that strand to some sort of crank and spool.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's been done in the past, but only as minor experiments because of the time and effort involved, plus spider silk doesn't make very good cloth for clothes apparently. Only recently did they make a robe type thing out of it, and it took 8 years. 8 years and 23000 spiders for one cape. Here's an article: http://www.smh.com.au/world/the-silk-of-a-million-spiders-weaves-its-magic-naturally-20120124-1qfm7.html

I can't remember where I read the one that actually went into detail about it's lack of comfort as a garment material. Of course, there's no reason Df spider silk can can't be comfortable I suppose, but making thread out of webs is silly and I expect it'll be removed when silk worms or an equivalent are brought in.
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AceSV

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Re: Silk
« Reply #12 on: March 31, 2015, 01:56:41 pm »

We could always do what humans did and combine spiders with goats:  http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/jan/14/synthetic-biology-spider-goat-genetics
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Zarathustra30

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Re: Silk
« Reply #13 on: March 31, 2015, 06:57:31 pm »

We could always do what humans did and combine spiders with goats:  http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/jan/14/synthetic-biology-spider-goat-genetics

I am mortified that this is easy to do with just raw modification.
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Andeerz

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Re: Silk
« Reply #14 on: March 31, 2015, 10:59:09 pm »

+1
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