Bonemeal for mortar and plaster

[AlteOgre]

Proposals

1) Add a recipe to use bonemeal instead of quicklime for the creation of slaked lime (for mortar).

Instead of quicklime, bonemeal can be used in a barrel with water to get a mixture with properties fit for mortar preparation. As bonemeal contains less calciumoxide than chalk- or limestone (notably more fosfates), it would seem justifiable to make slaked lime from bonemeal require a little more calcium containing compound 'volume' than slaked lime from chalk- or limestone would require. A liter of slaked lime would then require a liter of water and 6 'units' of bonemeal.

Optionally, bonemeal may be used to only partially replace quicklime to create slaked lime. For that purpose a recipe could be added that uses 3 units of quicklime and 2 units of bonemeal to create a liter of slaked lime. This may be more realistic, but also be a bit too circumstantial and partially undermine the motivation for this improvement proposal (see below). It's a game after all.

2) Add an extra conversion step to create bonemeal ash as intermediate product by 'baking' bonemeal in a firepit so the resulting bonemeal ash has increased calciumoxide content. In that case a recipe for slaked lime from bonemeal could then require 5 'units' of bonemeal ash per liter.

3) Add a recipe to use bonemeal ash instead of quicklime for the creation of plaster.

If bonemeal ash would be added, this product can directly be used instead of quicklime for plaster preparation. Bonemeal ash contains less calciumoxide than quicklime, so it would seem justifiable to make plaster from bonemeal ash require a little more calcium containing compound 'volume' as plaster from quicklime would require. Two blocks of plaster could for instance be created from 2 blocks of sand and 3 units of bonemeal ash.

Motivation

• Use of bonemeal for these purposes is a real practical possibility as the functional use in both mortar and plaster can be derived from the bone calcium content and composition.
  • Practical realism might make the final product be of different quality because of the bonemeal composition. This may justify creation of different quality products based on the bonemeal content in the ingredient mix (pure bonemeal mortar can result in reduced strength properties, but only partial replacement of quicklime in mortar can even lead to improved mechanical properties of the final product) ... but that may also just be something to be considered in a later stage, if ever.
• It adds to the variety of development options players have by having additional routes towards specific products.
• Limestone and chalkstone can prove hard to find for unlucky players in both sp and mp worlds, so bonemeal may be an interesting alternative resource for them.
• At some point in the game players may find they have excess bonemeal and/or a lack of other sources of lime. Both in sp and mp, players may simply end up with maximised agricultural output and a pile of bones they have no application for. Introduction of seasons may result in revaluation of bone meal as a fertiliser though, but still, any end-game optimised farming and livestock business will eventually end up with a nett output of bones.
  • At the moment this is especially valid for servers. On servers the progress of time continues while players are absent, which results in rapid crop growth and soil refertilisation. This makes the functional use of bonemeal for fertilisation of farmlands much less valuable. Result is that the effective application of bonemeal for soil (re-)fertilisation is devalued and players leave more bonemeal unutilised.

[Streetwind]

I like it.

I've never had any use for bonemeal before - not even as a fertilizer, because it fertilizes the "wrong" thing. Currently every farming related thing is gated by potassium (K) nutrient, as that's what flax needs. In my singleplayer game, I plant more than twice as much flax as all other crops combined. As a result, the N and P nutrients are always available in excess.

On the other hand, I've yet to find any limestone or chalk anywhere, so a substitute - even a poor one - would be welcome.

As far as counterarguments go, though, I'd have to consider how much bonemeal I actually have. Which is not much at all. Barely more than one stack from 60+ hours of gameplay. This is not enough to make a number of blocks that's worth starting a building project with. So that risks relegating this feature to "nice to have, but not really useabale without having lime or chalk anyway to make up the bulk of block production".

...Still, all in all I think I'd probably want this feature to exist anyway.