Oven Door

[KoviBat]

This wouldn't be just for aesthetics, I think I actually have an interesting idea of what to do with a craftable oven door mechanically.

It can serve two purposes. The primary purpose is that it could allow players access to different-colored ceramics in the mid-game (Bronze Age), rather than locking it to the late-game (Iron Age). The secondary purpose, which is just kind of a neat bonus, is that while baking food in the oven, with the door shut, it can lose heat slower, which helps for baking in bulk.

As stated above, the main purpose is to make different-colored ceramic without needing iron. So the door will be crafted using fire clay bricks, as well as Bronze nails and strips, and potentially a bronze hoop as well. But additionally, the door will have hatches built into it, allowing you to affect the color of the resulting product. In order to fire ceramic, it's also going to need a fueled heat source below it. That, or burning the max firewood in an oven with the door closed will have to bring it to the necessary temperature.

Now, there will need to be a reason you would want to use the Beehive Kiln over this in the late-game. And that reason is going to be quantity. Clay ovens aren't cheap, and neither is Bronze. If you want to fire something in bulk, like shingles, you're going to need to do it in a lot of small batches, or mass-produce ovens, and doors, and fuel. All of that is going to take up a lot more space, and it's just as much (if not more) work than just building a beehive kiln once and not having to worry about all the inconvenience again.

The only thing that needs to be figured out is which way the door opens. Should the hinges be on the left, or right? Or the bottom? Maybe it depends on where you look when you place it. Also how to set up how to open the hatches in the door to get colored ceramic. Could be each mini hatch has its own hitbox and the big one has its own, and you just right click as necessary? Also, it would only be mountable to ovens, like how shelves require walls. That, or it would be something you apply to the oven to change the nature of the block, without taking up a second block of space. Should it take more fuel than the base load an oven takes? How do we handle that? Put six more logs in after the first six are done? All of that is implementation work I'm not prepared to address.

 

So recap. Ovens get an option to improve their base mechanics with reduced heat loss, pottery gets another step in progression between pit kilns, which feel primitive, and beehive kilns, which feel advanced. That sort of homestead/cottage point of progression, where you aren't living in a mud hut anymore, but you also aren't beginning to industrialize quite yet. You get a taste of late-game pottery, but can't have a lot of it unless you plan to grind multiple tiny batches one-by-one. It's accessible enough to not be a massive investment, while being resource-intensive enough to not be easily mass-produced. 

I think it'd be perfect.