How does one make a mod that changes what the forge accepts as fuel?

[NastyFlytrap]

I hate that i cannot put peat and firewood into it. There is literally 0 reason why i cant use peat to heat up my ingots, other than artificial limitations by the game. Right now, with the forge mod im using that lets me smelt the ingots back into their molten form, works, but not for iron, and i just ended up with a bunch of iron blooms and ingots that could be reheated with peat, except that the forge doesnt accept that, and now i am pissed i have to use my precious charcoal on this.

 

Making charcoal takes so much effort and its used up so fast god damnit.

[Thorfinn]

If making charcoal is a pain, just think how much worse making a mod will be.

Just cheat it in if it bothers you that much. Throw an ingot into some deep hole, switch to creative, give yourself an axe or whatever else you wanted, and switch back. If your conscience is bothering you too much, throw away a few peat bricks, too. A hammer every once in a while.

Life's too short to let something like that ruin your day. 

[EDIT]

If you really want to make a mod to make this easier, do something simple like a crafting recipe to turn 2 peat into 1 charcoal. That's what really angers you, right? That charcoal is so hard to do?

Edited November 25, 2024 by Thorfinn

[Thorfinn]

Oh, hey, I had another thought. A flint axe can make something like 16 charcoal, right. Just make a recipe that turns flint axes directly into that 16 charcoal. Add three stacks of wood and a flint shovel that makes 24 charcoal if you want to be more or less honest about the resources (other than time) that it would actually take.

Edited November 25, 2024 by Thorfinn

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, NastyFlytrap said:

Right now, with the forge mod im using that lets me smelt the ingots back into their molten form, works, but not for iron, and i just ended up with a bunch of iron blooms and ingots that could be reheated with peat, except that the forge doesnt accept that, and now i am pissed i have to use my precious charcoal on this.

So if I'm understanding correctly, you're already using a mod that either modifies the vanilla forge, or adds its own separate forge item? For making a mod the best starting point is probably poking around in the game's code until you find the bit for the forge, and then copy/paste what's written for accepted fuel and modify it to accept peat/firewood to use the same model and burn at the same temperature and duration. Which that will be time-intensive, but the bigger issue that I see is if you're already using mods that change how the vanilla systems work, you'll either need to remove those mods, or do extra work to make sure whatever mod you make is compatible with the others that you're already using.

In any case...I agree with @Thorfinn. It's likely going to be much less hassle to build a bigger charcoal pit(more charcoal per firing), cheat in charcoal, make a recipe mod instead, or just find a mod that already does something similar(like make charcoal easier to get).

[NastyFlytrap]

12 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

So if I'm understanding correctly, you're already using a mod that either modifies the vanilla forge, or adds its own separate forge item? For making a mod the best starting point is probably poking around in the game's code until you find the bit for the forge, and then copy/paste what's written for accepted fuel and modify it to accept peat/firewood to use the same model and burn at the same temperature and duration. Which that will be time-intensive, but the bigger issue that I see is if you're already using mods that change how the vanilla systems work, you'll either need to remove those mods, or do extra work to make sure whatever mod you make is compatible with the others that you're already using.

In any case...I agree with @Thorfinn. It's likely going to be much less hassle to build a bigger charcoal pit(more charcoal per firing), cheat in charcoal, make a recipe mod instead, or just find a mod that already does something similar(like make charcoal easier to get).

The mod i meant is smeltable ingots. Lets me smelt stuff back into molten materials. Problem is, it doesnt support iron for some reason. With copper ingots i can just stuff them into the crucible with this, use peat to heat it and it'll be workable, and the only reason i cant do that with iron is that the crucible doesnt accept it.

 

Letting me put peat into the forge is a better solution anyway because:

1: Its the immersive way of doing things

2: It gets hot enough to get iron workable, but i cant do that because of artificial limitations by the game, like not letting me put peat into the forge. I want that limitation gone

 

Its not so much about the effort, as keeping the interactability of the game, and the immersion.

 

Edit: I was wrong, the aforementioned mod does let me melt ingots, but not blooms or partially finished blooms, which is my problem. Either way, letting the player use peat to heat things that have a workability temperature lower than 900C is the correct solution here, hence why i want to make that a reality.

Edited November 25, 2024 by NastyFlytrap

[Thorfinn]

Iron is a special case, though. The game is being nice to you. IRL, there's a reason the Iron Age didn't happen until they figured out charcoal -- the forging temperature of iron is nearly 1400C. That's why the game uses bloomeries -- without the air draw, you can't even get charcoal hot enough to melt iron. You need bellows or something to get it hot enough to beat out. Wood or peat do not get hot enough with a natural draft, in any practical forge size. The real problem there is that the residual moisture and volatiles start the characteristic fireplace popping, throwing sparks all over the place. The benefit of charcoal is all those gasses have been driven off.

What I'm saying is this is not the artificial restriction you are making it out to be, but a nod to realism. Even if it's not obvious.

[NastyFlytrap]

12 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Iron is a special case, though. The game is being nice to you. IRL, there's a reason the Iron Age didn't happen until they figured out charcoal -- the forging temperature of iron is nearly 1400C. That's why the game uses bloomeries -- without the air draw, you can't even get charcoal hot enough to melt iron. You need bellows or something to get it hot enough to beat out. Wood or peat do not get hot enough with a natural draft, in any practical forge size. The real problem there is that the residual moisture and volatiles start the characteristic fireplace popping, throwing sparks all over the place. The benefit of charcoal is all those gasses have been driven off.

What I'm saying is this is not the artificial restriction you are making it out to be, but a nod to realism. Even if it's not obvious.

Ugh......

 

Ok.

 

I am not trying to melt, iron, for which the temperature is circa 1400 celsius. Yes, i know. Thanks for telling me.

 

Im trying to soften it. For which the temperature is like what, 730?

 

I appreciate the response, but this is not what im talking about at all.

 

Edit: I have been talking about the forge, all this time. Do you turn iron ore into iron blooms/ingots, on the forge? No.

 

I swear i cant make up my mind if i have communication problems when its only like 1 out of 500 people who are incapable of understanding what im saying, and those people are always doing this, consistently, every time. Surely the problem isnt in me if its the same, ultra low amount amount of people, every time. Surely this isnt my fault.....

Edited November 25, 2024 by NastyFlytrap

[Krougal]

I get it. I've wondered myself why the forge doesn't accept peat and other fuels.

I don't know how much trouble it would be to make a mod for it.

It might be trivial and it might be a lot of work. 

Would also need to check the temperatures needed to work all materials as there are probably a few it isn't hot enough for.

[Thorfinn]

27 minutes ago, NastyFlytrap said:

I am not trying to melt, iron, for which the temperature is circa 1400 celsius. Yes, i know. Thanks for telling me.

No, the melting point of iron is 1538C.

The forging temperature is 1371C.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forging_temperature

Forging below that point results in too many microfractures, so your forgings are not very tough, and is very hard on your tooling.

730 is dark red. That's not even enough for proper annealing. You need to be at least in the orange to yellow range.

27 minutes ago, NastyFlytrap said:

I swear i cant make up my mind if i have communication problems when its only like 1 out of 500 people who are incapable of understanding what im saying, and those people are always doing this, consistently, every time.

No. The problem is that so many of your premises are incorrect.

Edited November 25, 2024 by Thorfinn

[Krougal]

4 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

No. The problem is that so many of your premises are incorrect.

Still not a reason to try to talk someone out of making a mod.

That is part of why I haven't bothered trying myself though, because peat produces too low a temperature for iron and steel and I really just don't forge enough other materials for it to be worth the effort to me.

 

[Thorfinn]

That's fine, @Krougal. I'm just saying that it's non-trivial as a first mod. @LadyWYT explained why that's the case and he can figure that out for himself, I'm just basing it on personal experience -- people who are easily triggered almost never have the persistence to take on more than a relatively simple script. Definitely not  something with this many tentacles as a first project.

Thus, as a first project, take on something vastly easier.

[EDIT]

As I recall from reading the code a couple versions ago, it would be fairly easy to change the forge to take only peat as a fuel. I wondered exactly the same thing -- using peat to soften copper, in my case, or at least to pre-heat ingots. It turned out to be more involved than just sucking it up and making more charcoal or putting in the effort to find and mine coal.

Edited November 25, 2024 by Thorfinn

[Thorfinn]

There is another possibility -- rather than making a multi-fuel forge, just create a second forge that uses peat. That would be a good intermediate. And, I don't know, maybe you won't need the charcoal one at all. I've always assumed in a game that pushes on reality as closely as VS does, iron is not forgeable until at least light cherry, which is fine for something like horseshoes, but would not be where you would try to forge a blade. 

Can you actually forge iron in the game at 730C?

[Krougal]

6 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

There is another possibility -- rather than making a multi-fuel forge, just create a second forge that uses peat. That would be a good intermediate. And, I don't know, maybe you won't need the charcoal one at all. I've always assumed in a game that pushes on reality as closely as VS does, iron is not forgeable until at least light cherry, which is fine for something like horseshoes, but would not be where you would try to forge a blade. 

Can you actually forge iron in the game at 730C?

I vaguely remember from high school metalshop (several decades ago it was a thing) bright cherry red, which was like 3k (F of course) or 1648C, which we can't even reach with straight charcoal in the forge, would need bellows. Granted you can work iron at lower temps. A quick google says 1371C is good enough to reduce risk of cracking, etc.

According to VS wiki, 1482C is the smelt point for an iron ingot, so not even close.

As far as the modding, yeah, a quick peek through code and it's non-trivial. Several files would need to be patched, and I don't even know where all of them are. 

[NastyFlytrap]

2 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

No, the melting point of iron is 1538C.

The forging temperature is 1371C.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forging_temperature

Forging below that point results in too many microfractures, so your forgings are not very tough, and is very hard on your tooling.

730 is dark red. That's not even enough for proper annealing. You need to be at least in the orange to yellow range.

No. The problem is that so many of your premises are incorrect.

The game outright states that its like 730 something. Are you kidding me here?

 

Like last time, i wasnt arguing about the damn real life accuracy of this shit, i was talking about the raw game mechanic, in the game!

 

No wonder i blow a gasket every time i talk to you.

 

Its lower than 900C. Reaching this temperature lets me work the iron. This temperature is lower than the temperature of peat. Therefore i should be able to use peat to get it to this temperature or higher.

 

I dont give TWO SHITS about how it works in real life!

 

Please... I beg you. I dont want to be a dick but you are a pain in the ass. Please go away.

[Thorfinn]

Then just f-ing change it to peat! You don't need my permission! You have a very odd way of demonstrating that you don't want to be a dick. If you don't want to be a dick, just grow uup and ignore things that trigger you. 

[LadyWYT]

3 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

That's fine, @Krougal. I'm just saying that it's non-trivial as a first mod. @LadyWYT explained why that's the case and he can figure that out for himself

I mean...I just wrote up a quick response before going to bed, trying to outline how one might begin making a mod like the concept requested, but also trying to point out why that might be the more frustrating route to take. I'm not a modder--I've made like...a handful of mods/textures for a couple of games, and those were just minor tweaks for my own personal enjoyment. In that limited experience, it took me several hours worth of work just to make something that wouldn't crash the game, and then another few hours or so hammering out the remaining issues until the project is something actually playable. The more stuff that's involved with the mod, the more effort it takes to get working.

That's also why I tend to try to find a pre-existing mod that accomplishes what I'm looking for first; it's less work and frustration and I can jump back into playing the game. Hopefully OP can find what he's after.

[NastyFlytrap]

2 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I mean...I just wrote up a quick response before going to bed, trying to outline how one might begin making a mod like the concept requested, but also trying to point out why that might be the more frustrating route to take. I'm not a modder--I've made like...a handful of mods/textures for a couple of games, and those were just minor tweaks for my own personal enjoyment. In that limited experience, it took me several hours worth of work just to make something that wouldn't crash the game, and then another few hours or so hammering out the remaining issues until the project is something actually playable. The more stuff that's involved with the mod, the more effort it takes to get working.

That's also why I tend to try to find a pre-existing mod that accomplishes what I'm looking for first; it's less work and frustration and I can jump back into playing the game. Hopefully OP can find what he's after.

All i want is to never see him again. At this point the mod is irrelevant. I am just sick and tired of his schizophrenia

[LadyWYT]

6 minutes ago, NastyFlytrap said:

All i want is to never see him again. At this point the mod is irrelevant. I am just sick and tired of his schizophrenia

Pretty sure there's an Ignore feature on your forum profile that you can use for that.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

Charcoal is actually so painfully easy to make I'm not even sure why this is even a question right now? part of playing games like this is building a stockpile of materials you're going to need. Charcoal is one of them. I'd consider coal peat to be more precious than charcoal given that you cannot craft it from an easily-renewable resource.

Edited November 25, 2024 by traugdor

[Teh Pizza Lady]

Also to answer your original question on making the mod:

> How does one make a mod that changes what the forge accepts as fuel?

Behold the VS wiki: https://wiki.vintagestory.at/index.php/Modding:Developing_a_Content_Mod

[Krougal]

34 minutes ago, traugdor said:

Charcoal is actually so painfully easy to make I'm not even sure why this is even a question right now? part of playing games like this is building a stockpile of materials you're going to need. Charcoal is one of them. I'd consider coal peat to be more precious than charcoal given that you cannot craft it from an easily-renewable resource.

Well, you can dig up huge amounts of peat, and it is on the surface, so unless you live in the warmer zones and have to travel far to get peat that's a non-issue.

Yes, trees are also on the surface and they grow everywhere.  The tree has to be cut down, cut into firewood, stacked, burned, wait 20h, dig up charcoal. Sure it's easy, but it's a rather involved process. Peat is ready to use.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 minute ago, Krougal said:

Sure it's easy, but it's a rather involved process. Peat is ready to use.

Oh, no denying that peat is easier...if you can find it. My point was rather that peat isn't renewable. OP was saying that he preferred to use peat or firewood because it was less precious than charcoal.

My argument was that the non-renewable resources should be considered more valuable. Hope that clears things up.

[Krougal]

2 hours ago, NastyFlytrap said:

The game outright states that its like 730 something. Are you kidding me here?

Like last time, i wasnt arguing about the damn real life accuracy of this shit, i was talking about the raw game mechanic, in the game!

Its lower than 900C. Reaching this temperature lets me work the iron. This temperature is lower than the temperature of peat. Therefore i should be able to use peat to get it to this temperature or higher.

I dont give TWO SHITS about how it works in real life!

Well we were discussing both, it's still worth knowing since it seems the likelihood of things being changed in this game to be inline with reality tend to be high.

I forgot workable temperature is half smelting in the game.

[Krougal]

5 minutes ago, traugdor said:

Oh, no denying that peat is easier...if you can find it. My point was rather that peat isn't renewable. OP was saying that he preferred to use peat or firewood because it was less precious than charcoal.

My argument was that the non-renewable resources should be considered more valuable. Hope that clears things up.

They would be if the map wasn't nearly infinite.  True, I wouldn't call charcoal precious, that is a little dramatic. When I start bulking steel the charcoal can feel like a non-renewable resource too, trees take a long time to grow, and there's another piece of work; need to go shear leaves for saplings to remain sustainable or travel ever further for timber. Trees are either everywhere and in your way or there are none for miles around.

I think op's point is we should have more options.

Edited November 25, 2024 by Krougal

[Teh Pizza Lady]

2 minutes ago, Krougal said:

I think op's point is we should have more options.

Whether we should or should not is the debate, I guess.

I'm inclined to say that it doesn't matter since mods exist and OP originally expressed interest in making one. Discussion should center around that, for which there is already a linked wiki page.