Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 10

Author Topic: [Beta-Relz] MMO - Metals and Minerals Overhaul  (Read 30900 times)

Rochndil

  • Bay Watcher
  • Mad Modder
    • View Profile
[Beta-Relz] MMO - Metals and Minerals Overhaul
« on: April 01, 2009, 09:30:23 am »

Greetings!

It's taken a good piece of forever, but the MMO is finally ready for a beta release. The mod should be completely functional as it is, and I've tested it for compatibility with 40D official, 40D18, and several other versions in between. Inter-mod compatibility is more problematic, so be careful about installing or you might end up overwriting some other stuff.

Still in progress:

 - Some of the tiles still suck, I'll either need to improve them myself or find better ones to steal
 - Many (not all) of the various minerals/ores/layers still need color assignments

Comments, complaints, suggestions, and bug reports are welcome!

DFFD linkage:http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=1900

Rochndil, leaving the rest of the original post below...


I've been working on this for some time now, and I've tested most of the key elements (I am SO sick of generating and revealing maps!) and everything works so far. A few elements will require a fairly advanced fort to test, but I'll get there.

In general, I'm trying to accomplish several things:

 - Leverage my personal knowledge of blacksmithing and metalworking, in both historical and modern contexts, to improve the realism and workability of the forging process in DF.
 - Maintain game balance while adding richness to the experience.
 - Reduce clutter where appropriate to streamline playability.
 - Where balance IS changed, err on the side of increased challenge.
 - Include appropriate fantasy-reality elements.
 - Keep it dwarfly!

Much of my work has been built upon the efforts of other talented dreamers and modders. Sean Mirrsen's Minerals mod, Deej's Soil is Fun, and Mephansteras' Civilization Forge all (unknowingly) submitted elements for my current scheme. These elements are used with (presumed) approval of their original creators, and may be withdrawn at their request.

Here is a summary of phase 1:

 - All ore-to-bar reactions removed. They didn't make much sense, and were a bit buggy in some cases. (small exploit removed)
 - Iron smelting overhauled. All iron smelts to Pig Iron first (requiring flux) and THEN to wrought iron (base iron) without. Also, all iron smelting reactions were combined to reduce clutter at the smelter. Yes, you'll NEED flux to make iron, and even more to make steel. Iron will BURN if you get it too hot, and without some flux you'll destroy your output.

As a brief aside, the traditional method of refining pig iron to wrought iron is so dwarfly it's almost uncanny. In the "puddling" furnace, the pig iron is melted, and then stirred with long paddles as the extra carbon and impurities burn out. The melting temperature slowly rises as the metal is refined, and eventually balls of semi-molten metal are formed, voila! Wrought iron is virtually impossible to find in the modern world, but it has many forging advantages over the "mild steel" that you see these days.

 - Steel (Carbon Steel) reaction is basically the same, with batch size increased a bit to preserve your flux/carbon resources. (besides, you don't need all that much of either really)
 - Many mineral distribution schemes were altered, most significantly, magnetite, which I changed from large cluster to vein. A resource isn't valuable without SOME scarcity!

Added numerous metals and reactions, including:
 - Mithril
 - Black (meteoritic) iron and steel
 - Monel (cupro-nickel)
 - Pot metal (good for toys)
 - Cobalt steel (Blue steel)
 - Chrome-moly steel (semi-stainless, not that it matters)
 - Dwarven steel (truesteel)
 - Iridium (cool)
 - Osmium (cooler!)
 - Graphite to coke. (deej)
 - Chromium. Decorative metal. Smelted from chromite (requires aluminum) or from native ores. (Sean Mirrsen)
 - Magnesium. Ingredient metal. Smelted from powdered dolomite, requires carbon. (Sean Mirrsen)
 - Manganese. Ingredient metal. Smelted from pyrolusite. (Sean Mirrsen)
 - Molybdenum. Rare ingredient metal. Smelted from molybdenite, a rare mineral present in chalcopyrite veins in granite and diorite. (Sean Mirrsen)
 - White gold. Decorative metal. Smelted from gold and nickel. (Sean Mirrsen)
 - Dural. Aluminum hardened with manganese and magnesium. Used for armor and ranged weapons.(Sean Mirrsen)
 - Aluminum-bronze. Alternative to iron. Smelted from copper and aluminum. (Sean Mirrsen)
 - Patterned steel. Alternative to steel. Made from iron with raw green glass. (Sean Mirrsen)
 - Cobalt. A bright shade of blue, this metal is poisonous, but still useful. Obtained from cobaltite, but requires limestone, brimstone, and rock salt to process. (Sean Mirrsen)
 - Talonite. Cobalt alloy. (Sean Mirrsen)
 - Bone meal flux - a reaction that turns bones and skulls into flux - put those gobbos to good use.
 
Added the following minerals/ores/gems:
 - Mithril. (truesilver)
 - Meteoritic iron. (exceptionally pure iron, bypasses pig iron stage, produces Black Iron)
 - Boulder. (stone source for soil layers)
 - Alluvial Sand (LIMITED sand source for soil layers - and TRADEABLE!) and reactions to turn it into Raw Green Glass, Raw Clear Glass, and Clear Glass Vials
 - Amazonite. (nice green gem, interest for Microcline, Orthoclase)
 - Peat. (fuel source for soil layers, Deej)
 - Geothite/bog iron. (Iron source for soil layers, Deej)
 - Woody Debris/Rotten Log/Peat/Anthracite/Forge coal/Magerkohle coal. - fuel sources(Deej)
 - Gravel/Sandy debris/Rocky debris/Varmit warren. - local color for soil(Deej)
 - Chalcopyrite. A copper ore, but unusable. Added for flavor. (Sean Mirrsen)
 - Apatite. Phosphate-bearing rock. (Sean Mirrsen)
 - Phosphorite. Another phosphate rock. (Sean Mirrsen)
 - Stannite. Complex mineral that yields copper, tin, iron, and brimstone when smelted. (Deon)
 - Molybdenite, used to get molybdenum. (Sean Mirrsen)
 - Native chromium. It does occur. (Sean Mirrsen)
 - Magnesite. Source of magnesium. (Sean Mirrsen)
 - Marble variations - black, midnight, celestial, green. (Mephansteras)
 - Verdenite, nightstone, bladestone. (Mephansteras)
 - Mica inclusions: Lepidolite, Zinnwaldite, Muscovite, Philogophite. (Mephansteras)
 
Added a waste generation system:
 - Nearly all smelter reactions produce some type of ash as a waste product.
 - Ideally, the fuel source would determine the ash type generated, but as that's impractical, most reactions generate flyash (coal ash).
 - Metal smelting (not alloying, generally) reactions also produce slag.
 - Flyash and slag can be further smelted into Crete blocks - which can be used for building.
 
Changed:
 - Altered Magnetite to vein.
 - Changed color and frequency of Celestial Marble.
 - Changed mica inclusions to CLUSTER_SMALL, to keep them IN the main cluster.
 - Removed anvil option from adamantite, it's too LIGHT to make a decent anvil.
 - Tweaked many mineral distribution types and chances, seeking balance.
 - Changed some gemstone frequencies and distribution.
 - Altered Horn Silver so it spawns on its own, it was interfering with truesilver.
 - Re-formatted minerals, metals, and reactions files for improved readability.

And that's about it for phase 1. I've been testing distribution of resources, as well as the reactions, and that all looks good. Everything is detailed on my metals/minerals spreadsheet right down to the cost of manufacture - which helps keep me square on what does what.

Now, I'm working on phase 2. Ultimately, I need to create a character set that provides a unique tile for each of the following:

 - Soil layers
 - Sand
 - Stone by type (sedimentary, metamorphic, etc.)
 - Ore
 - Fuel
 - Flux
 - Special ores
 
Each type of mineable resource will then be distinguished by color from others of the same type. For a character set I'll probably start with Flying Mage, and steal, er BORROW tiles from other sets like RantingRodent and ShadowLord. I expect I'll have to create a few from scratch, which will be interesting, since my artistic skills are negligible.

If anyone has comments or suggestions on this project, I'll be happy to hear them. I'm aware that much of this ground has been covered before, but I like to think that I bring a somewhat different knowledge set to the project, which will hopefully translate into a unique user experience.

Rochndil, who bit off a big mouthful for his first mod...
« Last Edit: March 02, 2010, 09:14:08 am by Rochndil »
Logged
Build an Elf a fire, keep him warm for a day.
Drown an Elf in magma, keep him warm for the rest of his life!

Akigagak

  • Bay Watcher
  • Omnipimping
    • View Profile
Re: [WIP] MMO - Metals and Minerals Overhaul
« Reply #1 on: April 01, 2009, 09:37:11 am »

*Applauds*

I like those changes.

No, I love them, as I'm a realism whore.
Logged
But then, life was also easier when I was running around here pretending to be a man, so I guess I should just "man up" and get back to work.
This is mz poetrz, it is mz puyyle.

Martin

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: [WIP] MMO - Metals and Minerals Overhaul
« Reply #2 on: April 01, 2009, 12:54:54 pm »

Wow, bone meal flux substantially changes the nature of the game. Finding magma+flux sites can be a massive PITA, but Orc mod + bone meal flux makes any steel viable pretty much anywhere with trees or an underground river/pool.

The other item to add, though I'm not sure if it's possible yet, is to allow the conversion of wood furniture and items into charcoal not unlike how metal items can be recovered.

Overall, this looks fantastic.

Exponent

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: [WIP] MMO - Metals and Minerals Overhaul
« Reply #3 on: April 01, 2009, 01:16:02 pm »

- Alluvial Sand (LIMITED sand source for soil layers - and TRADEABLE!)

By tradeable, I assume you mean it comes with caravans in the form of a rock.  Can you then build a floor with it which can act as a valid sand zone?  Or somehow convert it into a bag of sand?  (I thought smelter reactions couldn't put stuff into bags.)  Or do the caravans actually bring bags of sand, or something else entirely?
Logged

Rochndil

  • Bay Watcher
  • Mad Modder
    • View Profile
Re: [WIP] MMO - Metals and Minerals Overhaul
« Reply #4 on: April 01, 2009, 02:13:34 pm »

Responding to a couple of points, both interesting.

Flux: I honestly haven't had trouble finding Magma/flux sites since I tweaked my gen settings and use Toady's site finder. That said, it would take a LOT of bones to make much flux. Specifying three in the reaction (I'm fairly sure) will grab three STACKS of bones, so you could run out pretty quick when trying to make much steel. The main intention is to allow LIMITED production on flux-scarce or flux-absent maps. Several of the additions are intended to add flexibility to your embark location, ie SOME stone from soil, SOME iron, SOME fuel - not a pile of any.

Sand: Alluvial sand is a limited resource. It spawn in small clusters in soil layers, and must be mined out to produce a "rock" of sand. Poor mining skill WILL destroy this resource. These rocks can individually be smelted (uses fuel) into raw green glass OR (with pearlash) clear glass. Once. NOT useful for production, but very helpful for moods or demands on sand-less maps. Since the material is (in DF terms) a stone, it can be traded for, so, again, a SMALL quantity can be acquired on an ongoing basis. No unlimited free sand here. That would be an exploit, y'know?

Rochndil, who is always interested in hearing new ideas and thoughts...
Logged
Build an Elf a fire, keep him warm for a day.
Drown an Elf in magma, keep him warm for the rest of his life!

Martin

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: [WIP] MMO - Metals and Minerals Overhaul
« Reply #5 on: April 01, 2009, 02:53:02 pm »

Well, I'd probably modify the bone flux to take 3 bones or 3 skulls, if that's possible. There's no reason why a skull wouldn't be equally appropriate. And the orc mod really does lay that many bones on you, especially when combined with axedwarves or enormous steel corkscrews to properly take the orcs apart into separate bone stacks. If skulls could be included, a single siege is likely to produce upwards of 200 separate bone/skull stacks at least once a year (more if they come equipped on mounts). Throw in gobbos, elves, and a well set-up husbandry/butchery operation (I can see butchery by dropping from great height being considerably more useful here), and that's more than enough steel to keep a fortress moving along nicely. I think combined with the nerfing of iron production in the mod, it should balance out decently well.

Rochndil

  • Bay Watcher
  • Mad Modder
    • View Profile
Re: [WIP] MMO - Metals and Minerals Overhaul
« Reply #6 on: April 01, 2009, 03:28:49 pm »

An interesting idea. I'll take a look to see what the tag is for a generic skull. It'd certainly help get rid of the things without making totems all the time.

It's funny, one of my test fortresses was destroyed by an orc invasion, after I discovered that putting [DEEP] on a mineral did NOT prevent it from being available at embark, but DID cause an "alluvial boulder" queen to show up at my barely-started fortress, and bring LOTS of seiges with her. My 20-odd non-military dwarves gave a pretty good account of themselves when 60+ orcs came calling, but that was ultimately the end.

It's also amusing that in all the test games I've done, I've received BOTH a legendary armorer AND a legendary weaponsmith from moods...neither of which has ever graced a "real" game of mine.

Rochndil, always getting the right stuff at the wrong time...
Logged
Build an Elf a fire, keep him warm for a day.
Drown an Elf in magma, keep him warm for the rest of his life!

Deon

  • Bay Watcher
  • 💀 💀 💀 💀 💀
    • View Profile
Re: [WIP] MMO - Metals and Minerals Overhaul
« Reply #7 on: April 01, 2009, 04:05:42 pm »

There's a quite popular Minerals Mod which is no longer developed, you can borrow some things from there I guess. Sean Mirrsen did it (I wonded where did he go).
Logged
▬(ஜ۩۞۩ஜ)▬
✫ DF Wanderer ✫ - the adventure mode crafting and tweaks
✫ Cartographer's Lounge ✫ - a custom worldgen repository

Rochndil

  • Bay Watcher
  • Mad Modder
    • View Profile
Re: [WIP] MMO - Metals and Minerals Overhaul
« Reply #8 on: April 01, 2009, 05:44:30 pm »

I know it well, who do you think inspired me to do this in the first place? :)

I've credited Sean for all the things I stole (borrowed) from the MinMod, and you as well (for Stannite). If, of course, you would prefer I NOT use any of your work in this mod, I'll be happy to excise it at your say-so. I have the highest respect for intellectual property, and always give credit where credit is due.

Rochndil, who is researching a skulls-to-flux reaction...
Logged
Build an Elf a fire, keep him warm for a day.
Drown an Elf in magma, keep him warm for the rest of his life!

Rochndil

  • Bay Watcher
  • Mad Modder
    • View Profile
Re: [WIP] MMO - Metals and Minerals Overhaul
« Reply #9 on: April 01, 2009, 07:55:51 pm »

Good evening.

Per Martin's suggestion, I've added a skull-to-flux reaction. Unfortunately, the current version requires skull type to be specified IN the reagent statement for the reaction. SO, for now I've added a goblin skull and an orc skull reaction. Since reaction CAN be changed without a regen, you could always edit these reactions to cover your two most common skull-donors. Does anybody know if Toady is changing skulls in the next release?

Rochndil, master of skulls, by the power of...nevermind.
Logged
Build an Elf a fire, keep him warm for a day.
Drown an Elf in magma, keep him warm for the rest of his life!

Lamp

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
    • isock.deviantart.com
Re: [WIP] MMO - Metals and Minerals Overhaul
« Reply #10 on: April 02, 2009, 05:31:17 pm »

Oh wow, this looks like it's coming along really well! Good luck, and too bad about the skull thing. Oh well, I'm sure we're just going to have to not be lazy and add a small reaction.

Also, you should fix up the melting and boiling points of the vanilla rocks and metals. Maybe even make up some crazy evil metal only found in evil biomes, same for good, but in a good biome.
Logged
I would like to point out that this is not DF 3.0, but DF 0.3.

Great Cthulhu

  • Bay Watcher
  • Likes metal for its screaming guitars.
    • View Profile
Re: [WIP] MMO - Metals and Minerals Overhaul
« Reply #11 on: April 03, 2009, 01:45:05 am »

I don't know if you'll like it, but I have a mod that updates the thermal properties of a bunch of rocks to make them more realistic. The main effect of which is that a number of them become magma-safe.

If you think it'd make a good addition, feel free to add it. It's called Molten Rocks.
Logged

Rochndil

  • Bay Watcher
  • Mad Modder
    • View Profile
Re: [WIP] MMO - Metals and Minerals Overhaul
« Reply #12 on: April 03, 2009, 07:57:55 am »

Good morning!

Lamp: I don't think it's possible to make a metal/mineral biome-specific. I'm relatively sure that biomes are a surface-only criteria.

Great Cthulhu: I've been thinking about adding your data, and with your encouragement I'll be happy to do so. I've got your mod in my DLs folder already, just need to merge in the updated minerals data and update my spreadsheet appropriately.

I've been busy RL the last couple of days (tax time, oy!), but I'm running a test game to see if everything is working properly. Assuming that it all checks out, I'll move on to serious work on phase 2 shortly. I've already started compiling the data so I know what needs to be changed.

Rochndil, the modding fool...
Logged
Build an Elf a fire, keep him warm for a day.
Drown an Elf in magma, keep him warm for the rest of his life!

sunshaker

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: [WIP] MMO - Metals and Minerals Overhaul
« Reply #13 on: April 03, 2009, 12:02:31 pm »

Maybe add Anthracite coal, maybe add ash production from lignite, add slag as a byproduct of metal refinement (mostly useless except you can build walls from it) maybe add a reaction to convert obsidian into green glass (obsidian is something like 80% Silicon Oxide which is the main component in glass, say 2 obsidian + 1 pearlash = 1 green glass and 1 slag).

Oh and please don't save it as a .rar file I use Ubuntu Linux and I'm having a really hard time finding an archive program that can convert .rar files (every program I have tried has given me the "can not convert this file" or "no usable files located error" it has something to do with most .rar file being version 3.1+ and Linux only able to convert 2.5- versions). This Mod sounds really, really cool and I'd like to be able to use it.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2009, 12:06:20 pm by sunshaker »
Logged

Rochndil

  • Bay Watcher
  • Mad Modder
    • View Profile
Re: [WIP] MMO - Metals and Minerals Overhaul
« Reply #14 on: April 03, 2009, 12:33:29 pm »

You've got some interesting ideas there, Sunshaker. I'm curious though, why ash from lignite specifically? All forms of coal produce flyash as far as I know. Interestingly, I have seen a product that turns flyash into bricks, which is a pretty cool way to use a waste product.

I've never been a big RAR fan, simply because winRAR annoys me. I prefer 7zip and plain old ZipGenius for my own use, and would distribute in a widely-usable ZIP format.

Rochndil, thinking about the advisability of making waste products that require hauling...
Logged
Build an Elf a fire, keep him warm for a day.
Drown an Elf in magma, keep him warm for the rest of his life!
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 10