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Author Topic: Improve wax industry, and moodable changes.  (Read 1126 times)

StagnantSoul

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Improve wax industry, and moodable changes.
« on: May 23, 2015, 02:30:29 pm »

Okay, this may sound weird, but wax can come from animals other than bees. There's sheep and sperm whale wax, and I wouldn't be surprised if Dralthas had a similar wax production as sheep. Wax can also be made from vegetables. I'd like to see the wax industry be improved, including making a few waxes that can cost similar to silver or billon. Also, make the wax, pottery, leatherworking, and glass industries moodable. Metalcrafter is moodable, so is stone and wood crafting, so are the other crafting industries neglected?
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Witty

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Re: Improve wax industry, and moodable changes.
« Reply #1 on: May 23, 2015, 04:33:50 pm »

The entire workshop/industry system is due for an overhaul, as the current use of buildings-as-workshops isn't very realistic or desirable. Same with artifacts, but that overhaul is actually coming around soonish.
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Waparius

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Re: Improve wax industry, and moodable changes.
« Reply #2 on: May 23, 2015, 06:15:05 pm »

As far as I know, the current wax industry is a placeholder until the lighting arc, when it will be able to be used to make candles and so on.
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Niddhoger

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Re: Improve wax industry, and moodable changes.
« Reply #3 on: May 27, 2015, 11:17:40 am »

Wax has historically been a crucial ingredient in food preservation.  Namely, it was used to seal jars of olives and what not.  Someone also mentioned using wax as a unique wood-decoration like glaze is for ceramics.  "Polish wooden furniture/crafts" could be a job at a craftdorfshop that consumes wax.  I'd rather see wax being used like this before candles in a lighting arc- the main reason I dislike lighting is that its either infinite (like minecraft) and thus unrealistic, or constantly needs to be refilled (annoying and meticulous supply issue). 
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Improve wax industry, and moodable changes.
« Reply #4 on: May 27, 2015, 05:27:40 pm »

Since when has Dwarf Fortress shied away from annoying and meticulous supply problems?!

I, for one, look forward to our new 10% of the fortress population 24/7 candle-replacer overlords!

Also, if we're talking about glazes as a decoration, the glazes we have are woefully under-representative of the wide range of actual historic glazes, as even is noted in the raws for many objects that could be used for glazes, but which are not.  Toady only included a couple basic glazes that only exist for the functional purpose of making earthenware watertight, not for the purpose of actual decoration.  I presume that's a stopgap until decorations via raw reactions make more sense...
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Niddhoger

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Re: Improve wax industry, and moodable changes.
« Reply #5 on: May 28, 2015, 03:53:10 am »

Aye, the glaze system is woefully unfinished.  The main problem is that its a flat increase in value, so a novice glazer increases decoration value at the same quality as a legendary +99 glazer.  However, if this was just ment to make earthenware water-tight, then why are we able to glaze statues and crafts? We can even glaze (some) stone-based items to increase their value! Stone statues don't exactly need to be made "water-tight" My point is that even if Toady half-assed the "glazing as a decoration" aspect, he still added it to the game.  So just as we can add tin-glaze to statues, why can't we add wax polish to beds and tables? Also, isn't wood naturally water-permeable? I don't know about you guys, but if you've ever tried to pick up wet timber it is immensely heavier than when dry.  The wood just soaks up the water, and presumably will leak the extra moisture out the other end.  Its like those paper (which is a wood product...) cups you get at fast-food restaurants.  They have a wax coating along the inside.  Without this thin coating, the paper becomes soggy and the soda will begin dripping out the bottom.  I'm pretty sure ancient coopers had to add some sort of polish or finish to the barrels (usually tar/pitch iirc) to keep them water-tight.  Otherwise, the wood just soaks up the liquids which begin to drip through as the wood saturates.  To surmise, just as earthenware needs to be glazed before holding liquids, wood would need to be treated/polished before doing the same.  Since we would already add in the functionality of wood-polish, we might as well polish beds and tables to make them prettyful.  Dwarf Fortress is already a game about meticulous and annoying supply problems, so whats the big deal?

To actually address the OP- I've long wanted an expansion of moodable skills.  If we can make near-worthless "artifact" wooden puzzle-boxes, why not near worthless artifact wax bracelets! I'd personally like to see pottery added to this along with expanding the amount of items one can make with clay.  We can make glass furniture and towers out of clay bricks, but clay tables and chairs are just silly? One thing you didn't think of is the addition of scents to waxes.  Presumably we could also add fragrances to soaps, but this would be a great way of making your higher-end waxes.  Naturally, nobles would prefer having lavender and rose scented candles while the peasants were stuck with plain old PEASANT candles.  You could also use these scented waxes to polish wooden objects, so your nobles can go to sleep at night on top of their shiny orange-scented beds. 
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Improve wax industry, and moodable changes.
« Reply #6 on: May 28, 2015, 11:32:58 am »

Well, I have a mod for that, actually.  (Forum post, if interested.)You can use far more glazes, glazes are made from powders (bone powders in stockpiles because there isn't a better place to put them) that are made by grinding at a millstone, and you get more than one use per ore.  It allows for multi-color glazes.  Still, it doesn't allow for engraving/sewn image-style images on pots, just "bands of rust red iron glaze".

I think statue glazing was added just because it took virtually no effort at all to include, and therefore, had little reason not to include it.  Things like adding raw support for engraving-style upgrades was going to take work, so it wasn't added.  I'd point to the woefully incomplete garden vegetables we have (where dwarves can't recognize what part of the plant to pick, and can't figure out how to plant seeds for the plants even when they have them) as further evidence of things just being dumped in there on a basis of "enh, I'll finish it later".
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Personally, I like [DF] because after climbing the damned learning cliff, I'm too elitist to consider not liking it.
"And no Frankenstein-esque body part stitching?"
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