by wolf1000wolf » Fri Apr 01, 2016 4:09 am Or maybe its just so long people didn't want to read it.
But here's the method/mechanics I propose.
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1) Build a "Furnace" out of bricks, hard metal.
2) Craft a "Empty Clay Crucible" out of clay. The clay crucible has 2.2kg space/weight in it.
3) Fill the clay crucible with wrought nuggets, branches, leaves/whatnot. Lets say wrought nuggets weigh 0.1kg each, branches weigh 0.02kg and leaves weigh 0.01kg each.
4) Seal the clay crucible with sand and clay, producing a "Sealed Clay Crucible."
5) Place the sealed clay crucible into the furnace and heat for N hours. Furnace holds up to 4-6 clay crucibles and is fueled by coal with its max temperature scaling with quality of Furnace and heating temperature scaling with quality of coal used.
6) Take out your "Heated Clay Crucible", cool them in a Cooling Tub for N hours.
7) Smash the "Cooled Clay Crucible" apart and get either slag, N kg Lump of Cast Iron, or N kg Lump of Steel.
8) Work that lump on an anvil or crucible to turn it into bars/nuggets of steel depending on the weight. Lets just say 1 bar of steel = 1kg.
Whether you get slag, cast iron or steel and what quality they come out would depend on an arcane formula that mimics whether you gave your mix the correct amount of carbon. This can be done by taking into account the amount of your wrought, the types of branches/leaves and the qualities of their Essence/Substance. How long you have to heat your clay crucibles depends on the quality of the steel you're making. How long you have to cool your crucibles depends on the quality of the steel and quality of the water.
Example:
Lets say Wrought Iron has a base Carbon % of 0.1%, scaling(in reverse) with quality of its Substance. I put in 20 nuggets of q20 wrought Iron, giving me (20*0.1*(sqrt(10/20))) = 1.41 units of Carbon.
Lets say Steel should have a Carbon % of between 1%-2%. That means my 20 nuggets of wrought needs between 20-40 units of Carbon in my Crucible for it to turn into a Lump of Steel.
Each branch gives 1 unit of Carbon, scaling with Essence. I put in 20 q20 branches, giving me (20*1*(sqrt(20/10)))= 28.28 units of Carbon for a total of 29.69 units of Carbon in my Lump. So far so good.
The amount of time and the temperature I have to leave the clay crucible in the Furnace depends on the quality of steel I'm making. Since I'm using all q20 mats, my clay crucible contains q20 Metal Mixture. I need to heat my Clay Crucible for at least 2 hours at a minimum of 1000 Heat units, scaling with Quality, therefore I need to heat my Clay Crucible at (1000*(sqrt(20/10)) = 1414 Heat units.
A q10 Furnace has a maximum Heat of 1500 scaling with quality and each tick (5mins) of heating goes up by 50 units of Heat, scaling with Vitality of the Coal. Since I only need a 1414 Heat temp, my q10 Furnace is enough to make my q20 steel. I somehow have q30 Coal though, leading to my Furnance heating up by (50*(sqrt(30/10)))= 86 Heat per tick, needing only 17 ticks to get to the desired temperature instead of 29 ticks at q10 coal.
Once my Furnace hits the desired Heat, the timer for the Clay Crucible starts counting down to 2 hours aka 24 ticks. Total amount of time I have to leave my Clay Crucible in the Furnace is thus 41 ticks (roughly 3 and half hours). Or I could have put the Clay Crucible into the Furnace for less time only after the Heat level is reached but I have no reason to with my current setup goals.
After 3 and half hours, I take out the "Heated Clay Crucible" (using a two handed Tongs) and put it in a basin of water for cooling. I need to cool my 1500 Heat Clay Crucible back to 0 Heat for me to smash it apart and get the Lump of Steel.
q10 Water cools at 50 units per 5 mins, thus I need to leave my Clay Crucible in there for 150 minutes using my q10 water.
Thus after another 2 and half hours, I take my "Cooled Clay Crucible" out, smash it at an anvil to get a "Lump of Steel 2kg". I can then work it at the anvil or crucible to turn them into 2 Bars of Steel q20.
HUZZAH. HOW'S THAT?
Thoughts:
In my example, total time of heating/cooling = 6 hours. However, after taking out the "Heated Clay Crucible" and putting it in the water, I don't really have to take it out until I want to. Thus, the times that I need to actually be there in this scenario is once at the beginning, another time after 3 and half hours, and finally at the end when making the Steel Bar.
If I were a hermit with limited time, I could also shorten the amount of time the steel takes to heat by using higher quality Coal. If I don't care as much about time, I could use lower quality coal. Also, if I just want ANY quality steel, I could make a q10 mixture, which take less Heat , thus less time in the furnace.
I can't be super lazy and just wait for the Clay Crucible to cool down in the Furnace though as eventually the Furnace fuel will run out, the Heat levels will fall, and thus reset the progress of my Steel, thus I have to take the Clay Crucible out before Heat falls too much. However, if I fuel my Furnace continually, I can keep my Furnace's Heat stays above my required levels, thus making more batches of Steel without waiting for the initial heating time (9 ticks in my case).
Temperature of the Furnace should take into account quality of its fuel, thus preventing fueling the Furnace with highq coal in the beginning to reach the desired Heat and then fueling with crap coal later. Max temperature of q10 Coal can be say, 1500 Heat. Thus, even if my Furnace had a higher Max temperature, using q10 coal would only ever reach 1500 Heat.
With this process, low quality steel is fairly quick to make while higher quality steel now requires multiple high q materials and or furnace/coal. A heterogeneous quality of materials will result in either lower quality mixture or different heating/cooling times. Quality of Steel is gated to a certain extent by Furnace and Coal quality.
Ideas:
Carbon content for different types of branches/leaves can vary? Might be more database work for our devs though, but would be interesting.
Quality of the Clay Crucible could affect loss of Carbon during heating process if quality is lower than mixture. Or just do the whole "Clay Crucible quality softcaps Mixture quality" thing.
If the devs want to make steel even HARDER or add a level of attrition, just have carbon quality of branches/leaves be in a Range rather than a set number. This will result in a perhaps unavoidable failures due to RNG, but that can be mitigated if you don't use up the full 2kg+ capcity of the Clay Crucible and only put in say 1kg worth of wrought nuggets and branches. The lower the amount of material, the less the possible variance.
Another addition can be adding Flux material (sand, limestone, other stones, etc) into the Clay Crucible for an effect on quality of the mixture.
Thoughts/critiques?
