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Author Topic: Cannot make pig iron?  (Read 531 times)

imperium3

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Cannot make pig iron?
« on: March 10, 2011, 04:40:01 am »

For some reason my smelters don't have the option to make me pig iron. It's odd because I seem to have everything i need (a few iron bars, a huge heap of coke and chalk coming out of my ears). But the option just doesn't seem to be there.

Is it an old bug? (I am still using 31.14 because I didn't want to risk my already genned world)  Or am I just missing something?
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Hans Lemurson

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Re: Cannot make pig iron?
« Reply #1 on: March 10, 2011, 04:50:45 am »

I know that sometimes when the ingredients for multi-component reactions are far apart, the smelter doesn't recognize the task as available.  I once have "Smelt Native Gold" and "Smelt Tetrahedrite" as options, but NOT "Make electrum bars (use ore)".

Fortunately, you can still order these things through the Manager.  j-m-q to add a new task, but you'll need a dwarf selected as your manager and assigned a chair.  I usually assign my bookkeeper to be my manager as well for simplicity. I was able to make my electrum in this manner, and it may work for your Pig-Iron too.
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Girlinhat

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Re: Cannot make pig iron?
« Reply #2 on: March 10, 2011, 04:57:04 am »

I think it's a difference of style.  Making alloys is a proper reaction in the reactions_smelter.txt raw entry.  Melting ores is based off the much more basic rule that all ores have a chance of producing metal bars, usually 100% but tetra has a 20% for silver too.  Either way, melting ores and making alloys follows different rules, and alloys seem to be governed by distance.  Magma forges can be far away from the bar stockpile, so it gets messy.  Try relocating one bar closer, and it should appear.  I had issues with pottery as well, using a magma kiln and clay on the 3rd layer down, which was ~80 or some odd distance.

imperium3

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Re: Cannot make pig iron?
« Reply #3 on: March 10, 2011, 05:01:38 am »

Ah, that's interesting. It is distance that's the problem - while coke and iron were close by, the chalk stockpile was at the other end of my industrial section. I removed the dump designation from a closer stray lump, and pig iron magically became possible  :D Thanks.
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Socks inspire the same sort of emotions in dwarfs that Helen of Troy inspired in the Achaean Greeks. Although it is said that Helen's face launched a thousand ships, socks have surely launched a million ultimately-fatal Store Owned Item tasks.