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Author Topic: Many types of Iron/Steel?  (Read 3966 times)

AceSV

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Re: Many types of Iron/Steel?
« Reply #15 on: November 07, 2017, 11:26:48 pm »

Any idea if using a non-smelter workshop to produce iron/steel will affect its appearance in caravans or in sieges?  Because I'm thinking you'd need to make iron ores not be regular ores anymore. 
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Aranador

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Re: Many types of Iron/Steel?
« Reply #16 on: November 08, 2017, 06:32:04 am »

If you have an entity available reaction that produces a metal bar, your entity will have access to that metal, even if it has no access to any raw reagents.

In my MLP mod, I defined a 'sword blank' as a tool object for my 'exotic' metal so that there was no way to simply buy it from the caravan.

I should add - the entity had access to the reaction that produced the tool, but not access to the tool itself.
« Last Edit: November 08, 2017, 05:53:28 pm by Aranador »
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Xyon

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Re: Many types of Iron/Steel?
« Reply #17 on: November 14, 2017, 04:39:41 pm »

Instead of doing fantasy metals, you could try introducing some modern steel to the game if you really wanted to make different steels.  2nd and 3rd generation advanced high strength steels could be interesting. But I can see how this wouldn't fit with the rest of the game.

Why not making an alloy of steel/adamantine or bronze/adamantine that may have properties lower than the divine metals, but still higher than base metal quality.  Something like 1 wafer + 5 bars = 6 bars of the new metal.
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Xilian

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Re: Many types of Iron/Steel?
« Reply #18 on: November 27, 2017, 06:06:27 pm »


There are a few duplicate materials in there, particularly cast iron and 'blast iron'. Blast furnaces output cast iron, or in some configurations pig iron which is just more impure cast iron. Pig iron could be used as cast iron though, so the difference in name is more to denote their purpose. Crucible steel and wootz are also mostly the same thing, wootz is just crucible steel specifically from Indo-Persia and parts of Central Asia. You could still make wootz a more laborious and expensive to make crucible steel, have it require some exotic plant stuff or something. The exact recipe was lost and the qualities may also have been down to rare ore inclusions.

Chinese blast furnaces had an addition known as a puddling furnace, which is just a big pond which was filled with furnace output and stirred as it cooled. This had the convenient effect clearing out most impurity from the iron. I use this type of furnace in my own mod, since ancient Chinese metallurgy and Dwarves seemed to go together well enough.


Regarding the wootz steel I recently saw a documentary on youtube about it. not sure if I'm allowed to post links here, but I can give you the link. Its about a group trying to recreate original Wootz like in Saladin's sword, and it seems they get pretty close.

Regarding China, its nice to see some people pointing it out, cause in my experience Chinese ancient metallurgy is often forgotten when talking about Steel. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Chinese create wrought iron from their cast iron and used a combination of both to get high-carbon steel?
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Ultimuh

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Re: Many types of Iron/Steel?
« Reply #19 on: November 29, 2017, 09:10:47 am »

Interesting ideas. Posting to keep a watch on this.
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Xyon

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Re: Many types of Iron/Steel?
« Reply #20 on: November 29, 2017, 09:17:52 am »

I don't think there'd be much mechanical benefit to trying to make different types of steels that you would expect from a historical basis.   You could try experimenting with different colors of steel though, by alloying different metals into the steel purely for the cosmetic and cost modifications.  There was some 'gilding' of metals that was done, but in this game it would probably be simpler just to mix up new bars.

"Rose" Steel
"Gold" Steel
"Blue" Steel
etc.
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AceSV

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Re: Many types of Iron/Steel?
« Reply #21 on: November 29, 2017, 09:20:43 am »

Regarding China, its nice to see some people pointing it out, cause in my experience Chinese ancient metallurgy is often forgotten when talking about Steel. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Chinese create wrought iron from their cast iron and used a combination of both to get high-carbon steel?

Cast iron has more carbon than steel does, whereas wrought iron has less carbon than steel, so it doesn't make sense that they would have decarburized it into wrought iron and then recarburized it into steel.  Although, this may have occurred at some point. 
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could God in fact send a kea to steal Excalibur and thereby usurp the throne of the Britons? 
Furry Fortress 3 The third saga unfurls.  Now with Ninja Frogs and Dogfish Pirates.

Xilian

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Re: Many types of Iron/Steel?
« Reply #22 on: November 29, 2017, 10:57:02 am »

The sources I read state they melted wrought iron and cast iron together to get steel. Other sources simply don't mention how steel was made and simply state the wrought iron derived from cast iron was used to make steel. It's interesting cause in China everything was derived from cast iron and they cast aside the bloomery quite early for the blast furnace, and then used a finery hearth to create wrought iron from cast iron.

About how to utilise different kind of steels in DF. You can let different raw entities have access to different kind of steel, they might not necessary need to deviate too much in quality but it makes it nice for immersion purposes as not all civilisation in history managed to get the same kind of steel (think wootz). Another interesting thing is to have different processes leading to steel, once more for immersion. I think if you mess around with the strength of the different steels you can have certain steels specifically for armour that are rather weak weapons and vice versa. Furthermore you can specify what a particular material could be used for. So if you want to add a super metal you can make it either only available as a armour material, a weapon material or even only as a furniture material.

Edit: for the superior kind of steel: you can have a civ you can't play use it, so you can only acquire it through war or trade that balances it out somewhat. The only problem with that is, that with dwarven physics you can make equipment, smelt it and end up with more metal than you made the weapon from.
Edit2: about the smelting of wrought iron and cast iron together, I don't know how they did it, but I've never read any source mentioning the use of crucibles for this.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2017, 11:01:20 am by Xilian »
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