Mid-game pottery firing method

[Heegrim]

It’s crazy how expensive the beehive kiln is just to unlock different coloured ceramics. There should be a small mid-tier kiln that does not require iron doors.

I have seen videos by Primitive Technology where he creates a kiln that basically looks like the bloomery to fire ceramics. 

It should be 1x1 like the pit kiln but made of fire bricks and give access to one of the beehive kiln colours (like the orange/gray). Or just let us put a single small clay item inside the existing bloomery to fire them this way (storage vessels would need the beehive kiln, but a crock or small stack of tiles would fit perfectly). 

[Rainbow Fresh]

As I have already discussed in an earlier thread revolving around this mechanic, I am all in favor for a mid-tier solution between "lighting grass in a dirtpit on fire till kingdom come" and "spending all my money on a shiny new microwave for colors". Something that is maybe more efficient than a pit kiln, or atleast less resource consuming in the long run while also being simpler and cheaper to set up than the beehive kiln. Making a reusable pit kiln out of something that you just need to add fuel to while still being limited to 4 small/1 big items in their natural color would already be great.

1 hour ago, Heegrim said:

[...] kiln that basically looks like the bloomery to fire ceramics. 

It should be 1x1 like the pit kiln but made of fire bricks [...]

[...] Or just let us put a single small clay item inside the existing bloomery to fire them this way.

I don't, however, see much point in that. The only annoyance of pit kilns is that they feel both too primitive for all the rest of the technological advancements we make, and that they require alot (but primitive/abundant) resources to run. If we could only put a single small item in the bloomery, which then also - because it is the bloomery - makes us lose something as valuable as firebricks with each firing, that would be an even worse ratio and as such I'd rather stay with burning grass in a dirt hole all game long. It needs some advantage over the pit kiln and beehive kiln both (the latter being it being cheaper and simpler, most likely) while also having drawbacks to each (with the former then likely being higher initial setup cost)

[Heegrim]

3 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

As I have already discussed in an earlier thread revolving around this mechanic, I am all in favor for a mid-tier solution between "lighting grass in a dirtpit on fire till kingdom come" and "spending all my money on a shiny new microwave for colors". Something that is maybe more efficient than a pit kiln, or atleast less resource consuming in the long run while also being simpler and cheaper to set up than the beehive kiln. Making a reusable pit kiln out of something that you just need to add fuel to while still being limited to 4 small/1 big items in their natural color would already be great.

I don't, however, see much point in that. The only annoyance of pit kilns is that they feel both too primitive for all the rest of the technological advancements we make, and that they require alot (but primitive/abundant) resources to run. If we could only put a single small item in the bloomery, which then also - because it is the bloomery - makes us lose something as valuable as firebricks with each firing, that would be an even worse ratio and as such I'd rather stay with burning grass in a dirt hole all game long. It needs some advantage over the pit kiln and beehive kiln both (the latter being it being cheaper and simpler, most likely) while also having drawbacks to each (with the former then likely being higher initial setup cost)

Since you can use firewood to fuel the beehive kiln, the same should go for firing pottery in the bloomery. Lower temp fuel means less heat-stress on the bricks and a much lower chance of losing bricks as well as less fuel used (and no sticks needed!). Fireclay is craftable now so it’s not as big of an investment anyways. 

Maybe you can only fit a few pieces of firewood in it at a time so you have to tend the fire for a similar amount of time as the beehive kiln to get a complete firing. Or instead, you place the bloomery on top of a firebrick grating and put the fuel underneath. This would be a simple way to teach players how fueling the multiblock structures work too. 

[williams_482]

I suggest a smaller (2x2 interior) beehive-like kiln structure built from the same fire clay brick blocks, which doesn't have any hatches or even a reusable door. Instead, the entrance is sealed off with an all fire brick "door", perhaps made from 6 fireclay bricks arranged 3x2 in the crafting grid. Once placed, this "door" cannot be opened, but instead must be broken, dropping ~20% of firebricks used in construction (like a bloomery). 

A 2x2 kiln does not allow a normal chimney, so players can't easily look at the pottery to check progress. Players would also no doubt want to circumvent the lossy "door" by breaking the more durable brick blocks for access. We can solve these problems together by making the "door" revert to a non-functional cracked state once all the pottery in the kiln has finished firing, necessitating breaking and replacing it for subsequent firings. Because the door would be broken after each firing it can't be used to store kiln level metadata, so block breaking checks would have to happen on each firing instead of after 168 hours like the beehive. As a result, the damage chance for brick blocks would have to be much lower than the beehive's 50% for regular firebrick, perhaps 5%? The goal would be a break chance that produces slightly worse overall attrition per firing than a full 168 hour beehive kiln cycle. 

I think this kiln would produce the same pottery colors as a beehive with zero hatches open, but that's negotiable. Pit kiln colors or three open hatches would be somewhat less intuitive but might be better for game balance, as those are (I imagine) less desirable colors. 

To keep fuel efficiency in line with the pit and beehive kilns, this kiln would ideally only require stacks of 16 peat to fire, instead of 24. It would occupy a middle ground in terms of non-fuel material cost and ease of use while (probably) unlocking one of the four new color sets. 

What do you think? I'm not sure if what I'm proposing would be strong enough for me personally to use it, but I also tend to be fine with pit kilns for a while and am happy waiting for iron to get the beehive going. The extra grass and sticks just aren't that much of an expense, especially one shears and scythe are available. 

[LadyWYT]

I'd propose letting traders be interested in colored ceramics, and perhaps buy the plain stuff for cheap on occasion. As it stands currently, by the time you get a beehive kiln up and running you've already got pretty much all the ceramics you'll need, and throwing away old stuff isn't too satisfying. Wouldn't mind seeing building traders sell hatch doors on occasion as well. They can already sell iron doors, so selling the hatch doors gives players a way skip some of the production process, if they're willing to pay for it.

On 5/29/2026 at 11:47 AM, Heegrim said:

It should be 1x1 like the pit kiln but made of fire bricks and give access to one of the beehive kiln colours (like the orange/gray). Or just let us put a single small clay item inside the existing bloomery to fire them this way (storage vessels would need the beehive kiln, but a crock or small stack of tiles would fit perfectly).

I'd rather see some glaze options instead of a smaller kiln. Some glazes could be easy to acquire and fire into different basic colors in a pit kiln, giving players the option of a few more pottery colors early in the game. Other glazes could require higher/more precise firing temperatures to produce better colors, meaning that the player will need to build a proper kiln.