Water collection should go faster

[SekoETC]

Current figures:
25 grams with a waterskin
200 grams with a water pump that requires steel and a wrench.
400 grams with a well that requires rope that requires a rope machine that requires steel and iron.

Also the latter ones require a bucket that takes either a carving knife or iron and a bunch of smithing tools. But that's minor compared to the other investments.

In making alcohol, gathering the water is the slowest step when in real life water is one of the basic things in life, used several litres a day. The numbers should be multiplied by ten or at least 5.

I once counted the daily production rates for barley alcohol, using different water gathering methods and with a water skin, it's much less efficient than using propane that requires less steps and can be used for iron and steel production. With a water pump, it's slightly more efficient than making propane, by this I mean a couple more grams a day.

Distilling barley (wood)

Output per day of labour

* 275 grams of alcohol
* Automated project

Required resources

* 500 grams of barley
* 800 grams of water
* 80 grams of wood

500 grams of barley / 875 g/a day = 0.57

800 grams of water = 32 days of work with a waterskin!!!
Or 4 days with a water pump
Or 2 days with a well.

80 grams of wood = 0.26667 days with no tools, this time can be ignored because it's so short compared to other times.

With a water skin, alcohol is produced 8.37 grams a day. Try getting drunk with that. It's 7.5 times more expensive than iron. (Using 63 g/a day as a reference.)

With a water pump, 56.86 grams a day. Still more expensive than iron.

With a well, 96.94 grams a day.

Is this pure alcohol then, the one that only exists in statistics?

[Sicofonte]

Maybe Cantr world is one moon of Arrakis.

Has ever anyone wondered why Cantrians can't swim?

Maybe because the Cantr seas are made of fine sand (like those in FF XII), or maybe because that "water" is made of uranium hexafluoride (UF6), and that's the reason for never raining in Cantr (and the Uf6 would bring another excuse for our shinny green air).



Speaking seriously, I think water is too expensive in Cantr, more than wood or even comparable to iron in those places where hemp is not available (cotton rope is very expensive). It clashes with players' expectations from real-life.

[sem]

How about a more primitive tool for gathering water? Maybe a shaduf, which could be made from wood, stone, hide or leather (for the bucket), and sinew or reed (for the ropes and bindings)? Maybe good for 100g/day? Should at least be usable in lakeside locations.

[Nakranoth]

Is this pure alcohol then, the one that only exists in statistics?

Not quite but it's pretty close. It does need to be reasonably pure to run a car with.

So far as wanting to use a waterskin for operating a still goes, that's outright madness. I'd personally go insane trying to fill a real life still using a waterskin...

As far as the other two go though... I'm really not quite sure weather or not they need tweeking, and I honestly won't until fuel consumption actually goes live... *looks at ProgD* What's going on there y'all?

[ceselb]

I also think it may be on the low side. However, I don't think it will be changed until fuel goes live, no real way to gauge the implications until then. It is also quite realistic, imo, as alcohol or biodiesel can't replace oil in any useful way.

[Talapus]

The numbers should be multiplied by ten or at least 5.

As things are currently, an effective distiller (using one of the grains) will spend 90% of his time gathering water. If you increase the output of water, it will cause a huge change in the output of alcohol which will skewed.

...it's slightly more efficient than making propane...

You forget though that it takes 1.33 grams of propane to equal 1 gram of alcohol. Not to mention that propane was supposed to be a better choice for fuel then alcohol.

Is this pure alcohol then, the one that only exists in statistics?

It is only as impossible as it is to have any pure substance. Pure ethanol is no less possible then pure water. The stills presumably have a reflux column, which would give an output of as close to 95.5% EtOH as possible (the azeotrope for water/EtOh mixtures at one atmosphere). Generally for fuel, most of the remaining water is removed through one of a variety of methods. However ethanol can easily be used for fuel even without drying it, and I presume that is when cars in Cantr would run on.

[SekoETC]

Propane was supposed to be better than alcohol? But it will not be, right? Since I only went through the building of a pot still thinking propane is the least efficient fuel because it's easiest to produce, and I wouldn't want to be stuck gathering gas all the time to afford the fuel for the trip to the place with the gas. Also thinking that it might be nice to rp drinking alcohol, or maybe it could be given a function that you could actually eat it and go tipsy. But with it being supercondensed, it will be too expensive for anything.

And I only spoke about "pure alcohol" because it's hard to think that there would be such a huge loss of water in process. Well, maybe there is but the amounts processed would be in litres, not grams.

[sem]

it's hard to think that there would be such a huge loss of water in process.

Actually if the initial fermentation produces a wash with around 10% alcohol, and the final distillate is around 95% alcohol, you've lost about 90-95% of the water, so the proportions used may allow for some recycling.

[Frits]

Are you suggesting adding a machine to recycle water?

[Sicofonte]

Or we could add rain (green, of course), some buckets, maybe a cistern...

[sem]

I was suggesting that, since the still only requires about a third as much water as you might expect given the figures I used, some is already being recycled.

[Gran]

800g a day with a well?that's ridicoulous!!!I miself can get 20kg or 20 litters or water in less than one hour with a well!!!

[Nakranoth]

You're forgetting that cantrian grams are non-linear... seeing as how a cantrian can only hold 15kg, I doubt they'd pull 20 from a well nearly that quickly.

And again, it's there to function as a cap to productions to make alcohol and the like more potent. If water is cheaper, then 1 gram of alcohol won't bring you as far, and you've increased the volume of the stuff.

[SekoETC]

Well yeah, no one seems to know yet how potent fuels will be so I assume it won't be in line with stuff in real life. It will have to be light because those blasted motorbikes can't carry much of anything, if fuel weighted as much as it does irl, you could hardly even bring food along on bike trips. It's very easy to panic when there's no information, no knowledge of when fuel consuming might kick in. You might think ok, it's not coming any time soon, I think I'll go on a field trip while it's still possible and then bang, you're a couple of years walk away from nearest civilization and ... well, it was said that vehicles will be given a full fuel tank when it hits but we don't know how long said tank even lasts.

[wichita]

The projects requiring water were analyzed in a lot of detail. This would be a major disruption and things would need to be rescaled to maintain balance. I do not see any real gain that could be achieved from it.