Make bronze makeable

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Pilot
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Re: Make bronze makeable

Postby Pilot » Sat Jul 17, 2010 1:16 pm

If they let us burn small bones we kill 2 birds with a stone ;)
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Re: Make bronze makeable

Postby SekoETC » Sat Jul 17, 2010 1:43 pm

I support bone meal. Just burning bones whole would be a bit too simple, and besides, if there is bone meal then you can grind both small and large bones to get the same product.
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Re: Make bronze makeable

Postby Piscator » Sat Jul 17, 2010 2:22 pm

Seems a bit pointless to grind bones while they are strong, instead of calcinating them first and then pulverize the ashes.
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Re: Make bronze makeable

Postby Rusalka » Sun Jul 18, 2010 9:03 pm

Whatever. The goal is to obtain phosphorus, I don't care so much how :)

Here is a real discription of the process:

"Bones and rice husk are arranged in alternate layers in the form of a
mound, covered with dry leaves and finally plastered over with wet
mud. A few small holes are made through the mud plaster to provide
ventilation and fire is started by introducing a few red hot cinders
amidst a layer of rice husk. The rice husk burns slowly and the bones
get charred by the heat produced. The calcined bones are removed after
the mound cools down and powdered in the household mortar. The bones
lose their organic matter and get reduced in weight by about 40
percent, which raises the proportion of phosphoric acid in the
material. The phosphoric acid content of raw and calcined bones are 23
and 37 per cent, respectively. Calcinations is an easy method of
preparing bones for application to land, that can be adopted by small
peasants, without recourse to costly machinery or any special
equipment."

There are even number we can use :)

I wouldn't bother much about making it "balanced" since You guys wanted to remove phosphorus completely from bronze making.
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Re: Make bronze makeable

Postby Piscator » Sun Jul 18, 2010 9:35 pm

Actually I still do. Phosphorus shouldn't have been in the process in the first place and keeping it in makes no sense if you look at it unbiasedly. If you were creating a game, would you demand of people to burn bones before they make bronze? I highly doubt it. I found the idea of using bone phosporus highly attractive at first, too, since it would kill two birds with one stone, but in time I realized that a two-stone solution would be much more convincing.

Also, just for your information, we had the plans for the overhaul of the bronze system pretty much finalized and ready for implementation when this thread was reactivated, so bear with me if I seem stubborn.
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Re: Make bronze makeable

Postby Rusalka » Sun Jul 18, 2010 9:44 pm

Ok, I just see this bronze problem for a long long time now. Just wanted to stimulate people a bit to finalize it.
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Re: Make bronze makeable

Postby Piscator » Sun Jul 18, 2010 9:57 pm

Maybe I would have started already, if this thread hadn't popped up again. :wink:
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Re: Make bronze makeable

Postby Rusalka » Tue Jul 20, 2010 4:35 pm

Just don't forget that I still want phosphorus from bones - for making fertilizer :)
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Re: Make bronze makeable

Postby Doug R. » Wed Jul 21, 2010 3:01 pm

ichi wrote:One of my characters is going to be very unhappy if you make phosphorus useless. He spent a lot of time finding and mining it. Perhaps you would like to convert his remaining stock of phosphorus into diamonds or something else of value?


Phosphorus is already nearly useless, having only one use, and that use is never utilized.

Giving it more uses is irrelevant to the discussion of removing it from bronze, which was artificial in the first place. Remove it from bronze, get things on track, and then discuss using it for something else.
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Re: Make bronze makeable

Postby Piscator » Wed Sep 08, 2010 2:26 pm

I finally got around to make the changes. This means in detail:

- Bronze can now be made from just copper, tin and (char)coal in the primitive and regular smelting furnace. Using the fire pit and deck grill is no longer an option. You also can no longer use wood directly, but since small kilns don't require clay anymore, you shouldn't have any problem converting wood into charcoal.

- All bronze weapons except the battle axe, the long sword and the bagh-nakh have been disabled, since they were hardly built anyway. When weapon diversification finally makes sense, we can (re)implement additional bronze weapons.

- Bronze weapons and tools now require a cast mould as a tool, but none of the regular forging hammers to give bronze technology a distinct profile. Sharp-edged items also require a small sharpening block (which can be built without the mallet now.)

- The manufacturing process of the remaining bronze items has been simplified and now requires one or two steps, instead of three. If the new system proves its worth, we can apply it to steel weapons, too.

The wiki is still being updated so you won't find all changes there yet.
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Re: Make bronze makeable

Postby Chris » Wed Sep 08, 2010 4:58 pm

How available are copper and tin, compared to hematite and limestone? If copper and tin were as common as stone and wood, it might be worth the effort. But they aren't.
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Re: Make bronze makeable

Postby Mars » Wed Sep 08, 2010 4:59 pm

Piscator wrote:- All bronze weapons except the battle axe, the long sword and the bagh-nakh have been disabled, since they were hardly built anyway. When weapon diversification finally makes sense, we can (re)implement additional bronze weapons.


The change is very good. I played since 1413 day - and only one time I have got a bronze in my hands. There was maybe a 100 grams. Nothing more :lol:

But, what about weapons now? My kings and lords have a big collections of swords, axes and etc in their palaces. They always want to have a rare bronze weaponS too. What may have to do?
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Re: Make bronze makeable

Postby Piscator » Wed Sep 08, 2010 6:03 pm

Well, you can still build battle axes, swords and bagh-nakhs. If there's a really good argument for another weapon type, we can put it in, but I wouldn't like to have a weapon that simply has no advantages whatsoever. If you just want to have a collection, try to find one of the very few now obsolete weapons that have been built. It shouldn't be much more than a dozend. :wink:

Globally, copper and tin are considerably more rare than hematite and limestone, but that doesn't really matter if copper and tin are more available where you live. You also need comparably little tin, which makes it easy to import.

The performance parameters of bronze are by the way still a matter of discussion. Bronze could very well end up being equal or near equal to steel.
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Re: Make bronze makeable

Postby Doug R. » Wed Sep 08, 2010 6:14 pm

Chris wrote:How available are copper and tin, compared to hematite and limestone? If copper and tin were as common as stone and wood, it might be worth the effort. But they aren't.

Historically, copper and tin are also rare in this world also. The only reason they were used over steel is because iron needed to be mined, whereas you could go pick copper and tin out of mountain streams. Once they discovered "bog iron" - iron that could be pulled right out of swamps, bronze as a material for mass production fell off tremendously, relegated to works of art. This, despite the fact that bronze is in some ways superior to steel (in hardness and cutting - some 2000 year old excavated bronze swords are still sharp). Other than cost (wars were fought to control the supply of copper and tin), bronze also has to be cast and cooled very precisely, making it unforgiving to work with. If you screw up your sword, you need to remelt it and start from scratch. Steel is worked, so if you mess it up, you just work it more. So, iron wins on cost, availability, and ease of use.

Bronze in Cantr was meant to be a bridge to steel tech for primitive civilizations. It should still be considered this, just more reasonable to make.
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Re: Make bronze makeable

Postby pipok » Thu Sep 09, 2010 1:51 pm

Piscator wrote:All bronze weapons except the battle axe, the long sword and the bagh-nakh have been disabled, since they were hardly built anyway.
It's ridiculous.
A bus is harder to build. Or a large ship with two masts, all sails, and all that cabins & cargo stuff. Why haven't you disabled them then?

To build or not to build a bronze dagger? If some bronze weapons are hard to make - leave a decision in hands of characters. There was no need to disable them. My charrie has been planning to make a bronze shield, and some bronze weapons. Just to be different, to show all strangers a superiority of his culture. Even if he is not able to make any bronze jewelery, not a single ring - because of some obscure Will of Gods. He wanted to have many bronze items, because bronze has been so hard to make. This is the challenge.
But now Gods said: "we don't want you to work harder and have them, so you shall not have them, dude." Hail and Glory, My Masters! All I need and all I want is to collect potatoes every day, all my life! It's easy.

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