Salt Extraction Machine

[Piscator]

Probably not, but you could have a second boat docked to yours from which you can.

The solution with a still producing either salt or water feels suboptimal but it's the best I can think of, too.

So, what about salt extraction at the shore?

[Elros]

So, what about salt extraction at the shore?

Well that is a different story... I mean whoever decides which town has which resources would have to approve that since doing that would be pretty much giving every coastal town salt. I am not sure if they would want to go for that since that would make salt an extremely large commodity...

[Piscator]

Well, it all depends on how easy the salt extraction is. If you could only produce 50g of salt per day and would need 500g of wood or an equivalent amount of other fuel, salt extraction from seawater would only be used if there's no other way to get salt.

The Spanish/German main island for example has no native deposit of salt. It would be nice to be able to make leather in a very expensive fashion rather than not being able at all.

[Sunni Daez]

Probably not, but you could have a second boat docked to yours from which you can.

Nope, you have to undock from the bigger boat to fish...

[Piscator]

That's what I meant. You could undock, catch some fish, redock and continue your journey with fresh provisions. You still wouldn't have to come to land.

[Elros]

Well, it all depends on how easy the salt extraction is. If you could only produce 50g of salt per day and would need 500g of wood or an equivalent amount of other fuel, salt extraction from seawater would only be used if there's no other way to get salt.

The Spanish/German main island for example has no native deposit of salt. It would be nice to be able to make leather in a very expensive fashion rather than not being able at all.

We have been leaning more torward adding the salt collection on ships as another project to the already implemented solar still which does not use wood. So, the solar still would not be a good idea for gathering salt in coastal towns.

However, we could make a entirely seperate machine to gather salt at coastal towns. One that used a large amount of another resource such as wood or coal like you suggested...

[Piscator]

However, we could make a entirely seperate machine to gather salt at coastal towns. One that used a large amount of another resource such as wood or coal like you suggested...

That's exactly what I'm aiming at. After all the topic is "salt extraction machine", not "other use for solar still".

edit: And you wouldn't even have to add a new machine as such. A firepit and a pot as a tool should be enough. The project would have to check if it's started in a coastal location though. I'm not sure if that's technically possible.

[Elros]

And you wouldn't even have to add a new machine as such. A firepit and a pot as a tool should be enough.

Yeah, I was doing some research and boiling salt water is a successful way of gathering salt. It will evaporate the water and leave a pile of salt. It takes a whole lot of salt water though to get a little salt. If we introduce this concept on coastal towns then we would have to have a bucket project to gather salt water, and then you would use the salt water on the boiling project...

The project would have to check if it's started in a coastal location though. I'm not sure if that's technically possible.

Yes, it is very easy. We have a "is-coastal" tag. Thats how it lets you build boats and docks only on coastal towns and not inland.

[Doug R.]

If we introduce this concept on coastal towns then we would have to have a bucket project to gather salt water, and then you would use the salt water on the boiling project...

Wouldn't it be a ton easier to require a bucket as a tool for the project and skip the gathering salt water part entirely? Seems more efficient to do it in one step instead of two, and you don't need to add a new resource.

[Caesar]

If we introduce this concept on coastal towns then we would have to have a bucket project to gather salt water, and then you would use the salt water on the boiling project...

Wouldn't it be a ton easier to require a bucket as a tool for the project and skip the gathering salt water part entirely? Seems more efficient to do it in one step instead of two, and you don't need to add a new resource.

So you'd cook the water on a wooden bucket?

[Doug R.]

No, you'd cook the water on the evaporator, which would require a bucket (like refining steel requires bellows).

[Elros]

If we introduce this concept on coastal towns then we would have to have a bucket project to gather salt water, and then you would use the salt water on the boiling project...

Wouldn't it be a ton easier to require a bucket as a tool for the project and skip the gathering salt water part entirely? Seems more efficient to do it in one step instead of two, and you don't need to add a new resource.

Yes I agree, I wasn't thinking clearly...

The projects would be something like:

Fire Pit > Refining Salt(small pot)
Tools: Small Pot and Bucket
Resources: 300 grams of wood
Output: 50 grams of Salt per day
Coastal Towns Only

Fire Pit > Refining Salt(small pot)
Tools: Large Pot and Bucket
Resources: 500 grams of wood
Output: 100 grams of Salt per day
Coastal Towns Only

How does this look? More or less salt per day? Remember, we don't want the output to be too high because this system is allowing every single coastal town to have salt.

Edited: Forgot the wood...

[*Wiro]

I think it uses too much wood.

[Doug R.]

I would base the resource usage like this:

Find a cooking project that requires water and wood. Assume that you use half the water boils off in the project (this is probably a very liberal estimate, but I'm erring in favor of the players here).

Find out the concentration of salt in seawater. Calculate how much salt you'd get by boiling off that same amount of water. Double the wood. Wallah!

If the results of this don't make sense, then the project you're basing it off of doesn't make sense either.

[Piscator]

Yes, it is very easy. We have a "is-coastal" tag. Thats how it lets you build boats and docks only on coastal towns and not inland.

Well, I knew that, but I wasn't completely sure whether it was possible to use the tag only on some projects of a machine.

As for the parameters. Seawater on earth contains 35g of salt per liter. Cantrian seawater may contain less (~20g?) because there's pike swimming around in the sea. To evaporate one liter of water you need about the energy stored in 100g of coal or 200g of wood. As there's always a loss of energy, this values would at least have to be doubled if we want to keep it realistic.

This would result in using 200g of coal or 400g of wood to recieve 35g (20g) of salt which seems to be a very low rate. I assume it should be tweaked a little to take Cantrian resource gathering rates into account.

On the other hand, actively evaporating saltwater was rarely used in RL if I remember right. People usually relied on the sun to get the necessary energy.

edit: And I don't think it should require a bucket. You could scoop the water directly with the pot.

2nd edit: I also think that definitely other fuels than wood should be usable. Otherwise, producing salt for food purposes would be pointless as food could be prepared easier by using wood directly.