No arrastra or stampmill (pulverizer) to crush ore?

[Cattastrafy]

Probably better suited for suggestion forum, but was curious if this ever came up. Couldn't find anything with a Google search.

I found it interesting after awhile that, with how immersive and realistic vs tries to be, we are using hammers to instantly and easily crush ores into usable nuggets. Makes sense that copper and other low end ores can be done with just a hammer for progression purposes and maybe even realism, but was curious what y'all thought about the addition of arrastras and/or converting higher end ores to require the pulverizer (pretty much a stampmill adjacent or equivalent right?) to crush the ores into a useable substance. Which realistically I believe then had to be further process to remove the gangue via froth flotation or other methods but maybe that's taking it too far.

Arrastra could be another item powered by mechanical power or manual turning, or even powered by an animal!

I'm not an expert on any of these subjects but I know other games use these processes for realism and wasn't sure if it historically made sense for most or all of the ores in vs.

Edited March 13, 2025 by Cattastrafy

[Maelstrom]

There's been at least one suggestion for this.  At one time it was in the dev's roadmap.  The pulverizer can be manually powered, believe it or not.  I believe the helve hammer can also be powered by hand.

[Cetasaya]

Interesting, but im of the opinion that's its too niche and it steps on the toes of several already made items and systems.

If we were able to use the hammer on only copper that would put the hammer in a really narrow usecase.  If we're doing that, we might as well make a wood pulveriser for copper and just get rid of the hammer's ore crushing functionality to keep it less confusing.  Which would require mechanical power and would be a lateral move at best imo.  And of couirse we need saws for mechanical power, and we cant make stone saws, so the pulveriser would have to be operable by hand.  And now i'ts just a more expensive hammer at that point.  A lateral move that would cost dev time for no payoff.

I never heard of an arrastra before but a glance at its wikipedia page makes me think it's just a minor difference to the quern.  And it seems that it was used only in the mediterranian area and only on gold and silver.  Gold and silver are some of the softest metals, so I seriously doubt that a hammer would be any less effective at processing the ore.  The quern can very easily stand in for an arrastra.  The fact that we need special treatment for iron and steel is bad enough imo, no need to make the other metals need yet another niche process.

Looking at that page it says there the gold and silver need even MORE processing and at that piont im of the opinion of gameplay >>>>> realism.  Now if Vintage Story were to go all in on realism, THAT would be interesting, but right now Vintage Story wants to be MORE realistic, not realistic, if that makes sense.  I think very few people would call this a realistic game when we're fighting eldrich horrors and can't die of thirst or sleep deprivation.

But if Vintage Story wanted to go all in and Primitive Technologies itself into a TRULY realistic and unforgiving experience I would be down for that.  Actual temperature exposure times (example; almost instand death if caught in frigid water), thirst, injuries, infections, diseases, realistic water physics, digging a square meter of dirt by hand would take minutes instead of seconds, ect.

So yeah im personally dont see enough of a need for it, but I wouldnt be TOO upset if it was added.  Especially if it didnt prevent the processes we use now from working too.

[Cetasaya]

10 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

The pulverizer can be manually powered, believe it or not.  I believe the helve hammer can also be powered by hand.

Oh, I didnt know either of these.  By the time I built either my windmill has always been up lol.

[Cattastrafy]

Makes sense tbf, I too noticed most of this was a reference to silver and gold for the arrastra anyways. 

And yeah these are all pretty over the top increases to realism, honestly not sure of the exact level vs devs are going for but I'm down with whatever, having a blast one way or the other!

Was just a thought....might increase immersion and add layers to the progression arc if done a certain way but probably just over the top and unnecessary.

[Vratislav]

I'd like to see more use of pulverizer. I build it, join with windmills, crush some ingredients for refractory bricks and maybe once more for sturdy leather, but then it is done.

For breaking ore chunks, the pulverizer would be good, but it should provide more distinct advantage against hammer in the meaning of players' effort than if only ore chunks were allowed to be thrown there. Now, using hammer is very easy and in late game even losing some durability of the hammer is absolutely no deal. So, to bring the pulverizer providing an advantage, the hammer should be probably nerfed.

I have two ideas of such change:
1) Limit the amount of chunks to be crushed by hammer in one go in the crafting grid ( to, e.g., equivalent of one ingot ). However, this seems just as a nuisance.
2) To allow to crush chunks only by putting them on a stone surface one by one and crushing them by hammer outside the grid. It would be more in accordancy with roadmap aiming to get rid of the grid, but again, maybe it is also too much. 

[Maelstrom]

Another way to encourage use of pulverizer to process ore is to provide a bit of additional ore.   Example: put in 20 copper ore chunks and get 22 nuggets to smelt.

[Cattastrafy]

16 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

Another way to encourage use of pulverizer to process ore is to provide a bit of additional ore.   Example: put in 20 copper ore chunks and get 22 nuggets to smelt.

That is a good idea!

I was thinking, perhaps the higher level ores could take more and more durability from the hammer, to the point that it absolutely pulverizes (hahaha) hammers for even a small amount of, say, iron ore. But crushing copper ore does the standard small durability loss it does currently. Then the pulveriziser is soft required for high lvl stuff but not absolutely required.

[Michael Gates]

Here, go read:

This is from a few months back, and it's a different particular device, but the same basic forces apply. If you're going to have a "more advanced," mechanical way to do the thing, you need to keep the hold hand-done way, but make it slower or nobody on earth will use the fancy way. In this case you'd need some kind of platform to put your ore on, and you'd use the hammer, and you'd left-click-and-hold, and *bang* one crushed. *bang* one crushed. *bang* one crushed... over and over. And, this COULD be done! It's just more work, and almost certainly most players wouldn't like it.

Really this kind of thing is better done in mods so the few people who actually want that can get it and everybody else doesn't rise up and kill the dev team for making it take longer to set up a bloomery run. I do value the dev team, they make interesting new critters and stuff.

[Vratislav]

3 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Example: put in 20 copper ore chunks and get 22 nuggets to smelt.

Well, now we are talking. 10% nuggets gain and a block of sand per 5 chunks, and the pulverizer is the winner.

[Thorfinn]

4 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Another way to encourage use of pulverizer to process ore is to provide a bit of additional ore.   Example: put in 20 copper ore chunks and get 22 nuggets to smelt.

Until the pulverizer leakage bug gets fixed, I sure as heck wouldn't touch it for a measly 10%. If I happen to be in the area, so thechunk does not unload and the bug does not manifest, why not?  But me being me, I'll get distracted by something shiny and run off into the hinterlands, and lose any benefit I might have accrued this entire playthrough.

[Thorfinn]

3 hours ago, Michael Gates said:

This is from a few months back, and it's a different particular device, but the same basic forces apply.

I think I would probably build the splitter for about a 50% bonus. 6 firewood instead of 4. At least then there's a reason one might want to lug wood home rather than build your pit in the woods and get the compression you get from hauling charcoal instead of wood. (One stack of wood become 2 stacks of firewood which become about 1/3 of a stack of charcoal.) But I would hate to make the initial charcoal pit even worse.

Edited March 14, 2025 by Thorfinn

[LadyWYT]

5 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Another way to encourage use of pulverizer to process ore is to provide a bit of additional ore.   Example: put in 20 copper ore chunks and get 22 nuggets to smelt.

I think a lot of tech mods for the other block game tend to go this route in order to have a more satisfying result than "the exact same thing as a furnace, but faster and more expensive". I do like the idea though, and think it would work.

Also potentially make the crushed ore smelt a bit faster? Bigger bits take longer to heat all the way through, so logically they would take longer to smelt than smaller bits. Would give even more incentive to make an early pulverizer for processing your ores.

[Maelstrom]

11 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

I think I would probably build the splitter for about a 50% bonus. 6 firewood instead of 4. At least then there's a reason one might want to lug wood home rather than build your pit in the woods and get the compression you get from hauling charcoal instead of wood. (One stack of wood become 2 stacks of firewood which become about 1/3 of a stack of charcoal.) But I would hate to make the initial charcoal pit even worse.

Or build a charcoal pit near home, develop a stock of 64 pine or oak seeds and plant a massive tree farm like TOBG.  Seeds drops are plentiful enough with these trees that the farm is self sustaining and you don't have to traipse farther and farther to get charcoal.  Planting trees on gravel makes collecting everything much easier to see if you've missed picking up seeds.

Edited March 14, 2025 by Maelstrom

[Thorfinn]

1 hour ago, Maelstrom said:

TOBG

Talents of Barry Gibbs?

Townhomes of Beechnut Grove?

Tons of Barley Grain?

Take Off, Billy Goat!?

A grove is a capital idea. Downside is you never find new resources in your grove. You never say, "Oh, look, borax." Kind of a two-fer.

[Maelstrom]

Thorfinn Overeating Big Gumballs