Permanent Functional Charcoal Pits Concept

[Soldritch]

I think it would be awesome to be able to make permanent functional charcoal pit structures with the use of doors/trap doors. Essentially having a regular door to go in and clear out the charcoal and replace firewood, with the trapdoor uptop serving as the airlock above the initial fire to start the process. Does anyone have any ideas on how to achieve this, or is it just not possible with the way the doors work? I thought I saw that doors counted as solid blocks when building rooms, but I guess that doesn't transfer over to Charcoal Pits? I even tried the metal doors/coke oven door with no luck. I just feel like it would be nice to be able to upgrade our charcoal pits, as we progress, rather than having a random hole in the ground.


Edit: When trying this the pit would light but never started the charcoal making process, i imagine because it isn't considered "air-tight" with the doors vs. solid blocks

Edited May 12 by Soldritch
adding context

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Soldritch said:

Edit: When trying this the pit would light but never started the charcoal making process, i imagine because it isn't considered "air-tight" with the doors vs. solid blocks

Correct. I tried this in one of my worlds, though I had a dirt block on the top instead of a trapdoor. Since the trapdoor has holes in it and the solid doors do not, I was hoping it would count as an airtight room. However, a couple days went by--more than enough time for charcoal to finish--and the pit was still smoking. I didn't hear it outright burning to ash though. Quickly removing the door and replacing it with dirt proceeded to allow the charcoal to finish cooking properly.

It would be really nice though if we could build a more permanent pit with a door and trapdoor for access. Not that digging out dirt to access the goodies is hard, but it's a bit more time-consuming than just opening a door.

[Soldritch]

That's what I figured and ran into with my testing as well, it didn't turn to ash but wouldn't become charcoal either. And I agree, using and removing dirt isn't a hassle at all, I just enjoy making builds that combine form + function; so having the option to make an aesthetic charcoal pit would just be awesome. Even if they leave doors as is and add in some new pieces, like airtight doors/trapdoors. I wouldn't mind spending some extra, or even more expensive materials on them. Perhaps they could even provide bonus warmth for winter or something on regular houses. Idk

[LadyWYT]

3 hours ago, Soldritch said:

Even if they leave doors as is and add in some new pieces, like airtight doors/trapdoors. I wouldn't mind spending some extra, or even more expensive materials on them. Perhaps they could even provide bonus warmth for winter or something on regular houses. Idk

What about using clay to seal the doors?

[Soldritch]

4 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

What about using clay to seal the doors?

That could be cool! I'd even be fine with them going a step further, and maybe using clay + hide + solid door in the crafting grid to create a sealed door/trapdoor or something. 

[Maelstrom]

Been wishing for this since 1.15.  I'd be okay with gatekeeping it behind iron doors since charcoal isn't needed en masse until steel anyways.  But I agree with the aggravation of digging/placing dirt to make charcoal.

[Soldritch]

14 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Been wishing for this since 1.15.  I'd be okay with gatekeeping it behind iron doors since charcoal isn't needed en masse until steel anyways.  But I agree with the aggravation of digging/placing dirt to make charcoal.

For sure, I could totally see it being an iron age thing! And adding in solid iron trapdoors as well

[Thorfinn]

Personally, unless they took away the current option, I'd probably build it once, then never again. It's just way too convenient to place charcoal pits out where the trees are, and convert 4 stacks of logs into about a single stack of charcoal. Yes, it means that I spend some nights in May and June chopping wood instead of gathering sticks, but at some point, you have more sticks that you will ever use in the rest of the game. Might as well do something useful with the time since exploring or hunting are not options.

[Maelstrom]

Or spend a day chopping down redwoods to fill a guargantuan pit so one doesn't constantly make miniscule pits all over creation.

Different strokes for different folks an' all.

Edited May 14 by Maelstrom

[Thorfinn]

Sure. Redwoods just tend to be a bit far away from spawn to be useful unless there's a translocator that comes out somewhere close. If you keep your head on a swivel and check for local rifts before dark, you can pretty easily fill a decent-sized charcoal pit, 12+ stacks of logs, even on a high rift activity night. Roughly 3 stacks of charcoal per pit. Even one such is enough to keep things going until you are ready to make steel.

Having a couple more charcoal pits that size keeps you from having to waste time making a coke oven, because, really, how many batches of 16 steel ingots does one really need?

[Maelstrom]

I do have such a translocator, and most worlds I end up having easy access to such forests.  My recent gargantuan pit is 7x7x6 which takes slightly more than 4 trunks of logs to fill. 

I like to have a set of steel chain (which is OP imo) and steel plate armor which takes over 100 ingots for all the plates involved, then there's the tools (filling that gargantuan charcoal pit typically takes 2-3 steel axes) so, yeh; I need a bunch o' steel.  But that's my personal playing preferences for being extremely blackguard.  I typically don't use any ranged weapons once I have gambeson armor or better.