Do you think Steel ore should be Iron ore instead?

Started by Vas, February 08, 2015, 02:07:50 PM

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Would you rather the game use the realism of iron ore, or the questionable steel ore?

Iron Ore
Steel Ore

TrashMan

Can someone explain to me what's so elaborate about smelting iron ore?
How is that different from cutting stone?

Cryonist

I vote to have Iron Ore spawn on the map, have Iron drop from these Iron Ore and use that as a first level material. Maybe in the future we can have steel as a more advanced metal but its just weird to mine up steel right from the ground.

Vas

Quote from: TrashMan on February 11, 2015, 05:02:56 AM
Ever heard of degradation/decomposition?
Steel won't last millions of years.

The whole "we found a million year of spaceship and it still works" is high fantasy.

Yea!  My space ship only lasted nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine years.  :|
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Igabod

I support the idea of renaming Steel to Iron. I also support the idea of adding in multiple metals (which I suspect is coming before too long anyway). I'm not sure I like the idea of having to smelt iron and coal to make steel unless you are also able to build things out of iron (with lower stats than steel) and let steel just be a higher quality building material. It might even be cool if building walls out of steel had a thinner wall graphic than those of wood, stone, gold, silver and iron. Plasteel should also have a thinner wall texture.

Mithradates

#34
Quote from: TrashMan on February 11, 2015, 05:26:37 AM
Can someone explain to me what's so elaborate about smelting iron ore?
How is that different from cutting stone?

I'll do this as simply as I can.

Steel is Iron with some small amount of carbon in a semi-crystalline matrix. This is usually achieved by burning coal, wood, or charcoal (charcoal is essentially pressure-cooked wood) in furnace made of a material designed to refract heat more than absorb it (effectively keeping the heat in), while the metal is kept in a crucible which is made of a material with a significantly higher melting point that what you are attempting to melt (Kianite clay, for example; run-of-the-mill stone isn't going to cut it). As the iron ore melts, the carbon released into the air from the burning material is mixed with it and forms chemical bonds. Dross (the impurities) are scooped away (almost certainly lighter than the molten iron, so usually on the top), and the molten metal is poured, usually into an ingot mould (ingots are highly pure metal bars/rounds) and allowed to cool until solid. From there they are either dumped into water, or allowed to cool naturally. Slag is the counter to dross - the mixtures of Iron and things which are heavier than it usually stay behind when the pour is made, as they solidify before the pour is made. These can be recast later.

From the ingots, one can resmelt the ingots (which are mostly pure, meaning less 'clean up' time than before), and cast them into various moulds and allowed to cool. As well, Ingots can be smithed, which takes far longer, requiring much more skill, but producing stronger results. I won't go into all the specifics of smithing, but this is the basic principle.

Stonecutting is taking a chisel to a rock. and hitting it with enough force to chip a little away, but not crack the entire stone.

I hope that helps.

Also, just as an aside - did you know that Titanium is actually much weaker than most steels? It is considered to be so 'strong' because it weighs so little compared to steel - and is much stronger than other light-weight metals such as aluminum and magnesium. I especially want Tynan to read this bit, in case he plans on implementing titanium into the game; one of my pet peeves is when people make titanium out to be some super-strong material, when in actuality it is not. Luckily, the actual casting of titanium is a rather difficult process, requiring extremely high temperatures (1600+C) and a low-oxygen environment. Perfect for some late game research.

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TrashMan

I meant from a gameplay/mechanical/micromanagement standpoint.

In both cases you have resource A that you take to crafting station B to make resource C.

Mithradates

#36
Quote from: TrashMan on February 19, 2015, 03:17:02 AM
I meant from a gameplay/mechanical/micromanagement standpoint.

In both cases you have resource A that you take to crafting station B to make resource C.

Well, this would require two resources, at a minimum. If you're using charcoal, then that is an entirely different step (and trust me; you're using charcoal) that needs to be done beforehand. If you're making ingots (you are), then you have yet another step.

Electric smelters would work for cast iron...and of course there are other ways of melting iron and adding carbon rather than burning the carbon.
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Vas

Quote from: Igabod on February 16, 2015, 04:33:08 PMI'm not sure I like the idea of having to smelt iron and coal to make steel unless you are also able to build things out of iron.
The idea was exactly this sorta.  You make things out of iron, but those stronger type things like guns, need to be made from steel or better.  Iron is a weak metal so things made of iron will also be weakish.  Steel would be sort of optional for many things, an iron bed or a steel bed.  Obviously the steel bed would last longer in a fire or under attack or whatever, but yea.

Quote from: TrashMan on February 19, 2015, 03:17:02 AMIn both cases you have resource A that you take to crafting station B to make resource C.
Read my reply to the above quote.
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Mithradates

Quote from: Vas on February 23, 2015, 12:38:44 AM
Quote from: Igabod on February 16, 2015, 04:33:08 PMI'm not sure I like the idea of having to smelt iron and coal to make steel unless you are also able to build things out of iron.
The idea was exactly this sorta.  You make things out of iron, but those stronger type things like guns, need to be made from steel or better.  Iron is a weak metal so things made of iron will also be weakish.  Steel would be sort of optional for many things, an iron bed or a steel bed.  Obviously the steel bed would last longer in a fire or under attack or whatever, but yea.

Actually, Iron isn't *that* much weaker than steel. It would be more akin to the difference between stone types than anything else.

Regarding Firearms; remember that for a few hundred years, cannons were made of bronze and brass - including the ridiculously big ones, such as the Basilica Cannon of 1453.

QuoteDuring the autumn of 1452, Orban set to work at Edirne, casting one of the largest cannons ever built, while Mehmed stockpiled substantial quantities of materials for guns and gunpowder: copper and tin, saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal. Workers excavated an enormous casting pit and melted scrap bronze in the brick-lined furnaces, superheating it with bellows and pouring it into the mold.

What finally emerged from Orban's foundry once the molds had been knocked off was "a horrifying and extraordinary monster." It was 27 feet long. The barrel, walled with 8 inches of solid bronze to absorb the force of the blast, had a diameter of 30 inches, enough for a man to enter on his hands and knees and designed to accommodate a stone shot weighing something over half a ton. In January 1453, Mehmed ordered a test firing of the gun outside his royal palace. The mighty bombard was hauled into position near the gate and primed with powder. Laborers lugged a giant stone ball to the mouth of the barrel and rolled it back to sit snugly against the gunpowder chamber. A lighted taper was put to the touchhole. With a shattering roar and a cloud of smoke, the mighty projectile hurled across the countryside for a mile before burying itself six feet into the soft earth.

I'd be fine with them degrading more quickly.
Romani arma in omnis habent, acerruma in eos, quibus victis spolia maxuma; audendo et fallundo et bella ex bellis serundo magni facti. Per hunc morem extinguent omnia aut occident.

Vas

31 votes for Iron, 11 votes for Steel, why hasn't steel been renamed to Iron yet? >.>  You can't really turn steel into anything.  For the sake of having a metal you can upgrade and realism, steel should be renamed to iron, and then the ability to upgrade iron into steel should be added.  Plasteel however, is plastic steel, and should be made a different way, if we ever add plastic making to the game.

I just wanted to bump this while I have enough internet to actually post and load something.
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SSS

Plasteel isn't necessarily a portmanteau of plastic and steel. It could also be a version of the present-day fiberglass/steel composite, though I don't know how strong that is in comparison the normal steel. (After looking into it a bit, I believe I'm thinking of "metallic glass", which is indeed stronger than steel.)

It hasn't been changed to iron yet because this isn't a democracy. It's a benevolent tyranny. Tynan will change it if he agrees it should be changed.

My take on this is that fun >>> realism, full stop. I don't particularly mind if we call it iron instead of steel (though not everything steel is currently used for would make sense for iron either, such as the solar panels), and I myself have pointed out that using silver would make more sense for power conduits (it's an even better conductor than copper). However, adding multiple steps to getting stuff shouldn't be done unless there's a really good reason from a game mechanics standpoint, in my opinion, or it bogs down the game unnecessarily. This might work if we swapped the roles of stone and steel, but then you run back into the realism argument all over again because (for example) granite is actually harder than steel even though it's more difficult to shape, so giving steel more hitpoints doesn't necessarily make sense. (We could argue this further with blunt vs. sharp damage since granite is more brittle [to my knowledge], but you get the idea.)

I'd rather just chill with the game mechanics than pursue realism, since there's always going to be some relinquishment. Games are like reality unless noted- I see no problem with admitting this isn't like reality, which the game does indeed do. Saying no sort of lore could possibly cover it just seems needlessly stubborn, to me.

tl;dr: While I'm not specifically against iron ore rather than steel deposits, more globally I'm against the idea of pursuing realism if it doesn't enhance the gameplay, which this seems to fall under: How would this enhance the gameplay?

Kegereneku

Same as above.
Fun > realism

And even if it was Iron it wouldn't change the fact that colonist are molding complex technology, cryptosleep casket, ANTIMATTER REACTOR, without any tools. (and even with tools it wouldn't make it less crazy)
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Matthiasagreen

Quote from: Kegereneku on May 26, 2015, 08:18:15 AM
Same as above.
Fun > realism

And even if it was Iron it wouldn't change the fact that colonist are molding complex technology, cryptosleep casket, ANTIMATTER REACTOR, without any tools. (and even with tools it wouldn't make it less crazy)

I bet they all come with sonic screwdrivers. That is how so much gets done.
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Vas

It's not like renaming steel to Iron will change anything for the worse.  It's a realism change that doesn't hurt the game.  :P  Like renaming Metal to Steel, it didn't hurt anything, other than the realism.

I made another poll to hopefully help, because some players aren't registered to the forums and such.
http://strawpoll.me/4471638/
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keylocke

tl;dr :

i agree that steel ore should be called iron ore, then plasteel can be changed to coal. then in order to craft steel, the players must smelt iron with coal.

i think the forging and smelting process opens up the possibility of creating "stuff" from more types of materials, without having to add more ore "types" to mine. since you can combine different types of materials to produce new building materials.