(WIP) The building blocks of civilization.

[AllisonIsLivid]

I'm working on a materials mod for the early game, with utility in any tech level, that's focused on clay. Atlas told me he wasn't ever totally happy with the Atlas Materials mod, and it steps on a lot of other popular mods' toes, since it introduces so many materials. My aim was to strip it down to the most basic element, and then expand on that.

So I focused on clay and bricks. Both present there, but not in many other mods. I've personally wanted a stand alone clay and adobe mod since I got frustrated with Medieval times, but missed that building material after I removed it.



As of now, the mod adds three new minables, red, blue, and grey clay, with hues about as close to real life as I can manage. I'm not happy with the vanilla stone texture for them, so I'm considering borrowing from Cupro's stone mod, to see if I can get it more detailed looking.



In addition to the two clay types, there are designated spots for digging sand and mud from appropriate ground types. You can also crush chunks into sand. I'm working on a compatibility patch between that and Rainbeau Flambe's fertile fields and Concrete mods which also feature sand pits and rock crushing.

The clays can be combined with sand, and baked into bricks at kilns (fueled and electric variants) which allow you to produce a fair number of cheap building materials, more resistant than wood, but less so than stone. For maps with little rock to mine, or scarce wood to spend on cheap construction, they're a nice boost.



Mud can also be combined with hay and baked in the kilns to produce adobe, which is far easier to come by the materials for, but generally on par with wood in terms of quality. Minus it's not being flammable. The result is cheap materials, potentially infinitely producible (provided you have power/fuel, and pawns with nothing better to do than slowly dredge up materials) AND which have some significant limitations on what they can be used to build.



Rather than be considered "Stony" stuff, theses are all "Bricky" stuff. They can be used to construct walls, but not doors, and only some types of furniture. They can't be used to make weapons, though in a pinch, you can grab a sack of bricks and throw them at attackers.

My next step is to expand the concept a little bit. Clay as a sculpting material is proving strangely difficult to implement. But once I have it sorted out, I intend to have three simple materials for artists to work with, which are likely better than most stones, but will require an investment of time and skill to make. Sculpting Clay, Terracotta, and Porcelain statues should all be in place before I launch this, officially. I'm considering a few additions down the line, such as classical style pottery sculpture alternatives, but the mod is basically functional now, and tests well.

[Scorpinax]

This seems really awesome! Will the kiln/furnace be locked behind a research requirement? This seems especially useful for tribal starts, but the varied colors of walls means i'd probably be using it well into the late game just for aesthetic purposes alone.
If you wanted to take it a step further, what about decorative terracotta floor tiles? They could have high beauty but take a long time to lay down.

If you decide you want help with some art assets like pottery or floor tiles i'd be glad to help

[AllisonIsLivid]

Oh thank you! I definitely plan to add flooring once I've got the basics in place, and if you can make some vanilla style art that's exactly what I need! The kilns and most of the art were done by Atlas, so in a way I'm just curating and refining his work.

To answer the question, there's going to be one research topic (brick making) that enables the fueled kiln and all the recipes for bricks and adobe, as well as terracotta and porcelain recipes.

The electric kiln and bulk brick making recipes will be unlocked by electricity, since they're a very simple tech. A recipe for sculpting clay will require fuel refining, since chemfuel is an ingredient. But this way it won't add much to the research table at all.

[Scorpinax]

Alright, I went ahead and whipped up 2 kinds of pots. Big and small. I wanted to see what you think before i go ahead and make 10 bajillion types of varities like im prone to do, because i definitely want to do a few more varities of each size of pot!

I used the small and large sculptures as reference, these are pretty much exactly the same size as sculptures of their respective size. I put a pedastal on the big pot but can easily take it off if you'd rather not have those on the big pots: i just figured it was the most 'vanilla' thing to do in this situation. Hope you like em!

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[AllisonIsLivid]

Oh wow! These are perfect, and with your permission, I'd like to stick them in for the initial release.

If I can make a few small requests? One thing I had wanted was a tiny sort of pot, that could be placed on table tops. So smaller than small sculptures. It made sense to me, as clays are generally used for little things, and only rarely for large sculptures or constructions. I'd leave the rest up to you in terms of how much you feel like making, but the things I'd had in mind were: a tea pot, a little spice jar, a stoneware bowl, and a Chinese moon flask. Obviously, you don't need to worry about the painting details. I'll figure that step out while I make masks for these.

No pressure, but please keep in touch! I'm actually just shy of ready to release the first version. I finally got sculptures working! There's no way for me to require that they be fired before being displayed, but with pottery, I can add that extra step, no problem.

I might brighten up the red brick end product for sculptures as well. I like the color for the actual bricks, but for sculpting, it's kinda dull. I still need a graphic for the sculpting clay resource as well. I may be able to manage that on my own. It's just a slab of clay after all.

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