Refactory bricks T3 bloomery

[Laskuna]

Allow to build bloomery with t3 Refactory bricks.

[Irulana]

T3 bricks bloomery of course should drop more bricks after destroying it.

[Buggi]

A mod does this atm

[Windego]

I'd say if we're already at this with the tier 3 bricks.. Why not make it instead of dropping the bricks upon breaking it, drop the two parts instead? So you don't have to re-build every single one each time. Considering you're already going through the trouble of making tier 3 bricks anyway.

[AdrianNumbers]

On 10/27/2021 at 3:14 PM, Windego said:

I'd say if we're already at this with the tier 3 bricks.. Why not make it instead of dropping the bricks upon breaking it, drop the two parts instead? So you don't have to re-build every single one each time. Considering you're already going through the trouble of making tier 3 bricks anyway.

The thing is bloomery is in its nature temporary structure. Its construction (mainly dimentions) makes its life time limited , to get the temperature needed for it to work it must be fairly airtight (apart from ventilation holes) so after its done with smelting its much easier to just demolish it , than trying to remove bloomes through those small holes , unfortunantly its impossible to not damage any bricks in the process thus the loss of some bricks . I honestly dont see how higher tier of bricks would help with that. But if its only the abillity to use tier3 bricks i dont see any problem with it , in bloomery brick tier shouldnt change anything in how it works in my opinion , bricks only act as barier for heat to escape and higher triers dont improve that aspect , as such if players want to use certain tier of bricks to build bloomery let them but it shouldnt change anything from machanics perspective.

[shadou66]

As far as I am aware bloomeries were not temporary structures.  While some were small compact affairs with a simple draft system, others were quite large and had water wheels attached to run a bellows.  The ore and charcoal was added to the top of the bloomery, heated to just under smelting temperature to add carbon and remove impurities, and the resulting "bloom" fell to the bottom and was then shoveled out to be further worked into wrought iron.  In fact, if the temperature in the bloomery got too hot, the iron would be absorb too much carbon and become unworkable by the forges of the time.  Many bloomeries were still in use in the late 1700's until they were eventually replaced by blast furnaces. 

Now a small home-made bloomery would probably be temporary because as Adrian pointed out there wouldn't be any way to contain the heat and control the airflow in such a small structure without sealing all the openings.  But, these simple one use bloomeries weren't usually made from expensive ceramic brick.  There are stone and brick bloomeries still standing in West Virginia, USA from the colonial era. I'm pretty sure you could find quite few medieval bloomeries still around in Europe. So, perhaps a better built bloomery need not be destroyed with every use. How any of this applies to glass making, eh, I don't know.

[AdrianNumbers]

Well this time it was me that constrained myself to only game elements (i mean boomery in game is of the type of those home-made ones in size i mean) , still my arguments mostly stands true i think :

1. i mean the bloomery in game is to small to make it more than one use because of conflict betwen acessabillity and ariflow controll 

2. its not the heat that breaks the bricks but destroying the structure to acess blooms inside , so brick tier shouldnt make any difference in bloomery's working

that said it little confusing that we need bricks to build such small bloomery . Im writing a sugestion on metalurgy as a whole but still need some time to work out some details for it to be done , one of the points im going to make there is about bloomeries :

Bloomery as it is now is overpriced and ovecompicated for what it gives us , as such i sugest to rework it entirelly 

1. Bloomery in its most primitive form can now be build with blue or fire clay, assembly looks like this first take dry grass shift+right click on the ground from menu similar to knapping select bloomery assembly next add some sticks and fire wood all of that will act both as scafolding for clay and be used to prefire the bloomery later , next take clay and add it on top of wood you will thus buid structure similar to :

but with smaller from hole , after you are done with assemble you need to ignite the wood inside wait for it to burn out , fill it up with iron ore and charcoal , wait and break it after its done.

after breaking you will get iron blooms along with crushed blue or fire clay that later can be used to make chamote by crushing it (chamote mortar is a must have material for making higher tier matalurgy realated structures) you can also get chamote by crushing any clay products. You need iron to make chamote.

The whole idea is you need to build this small bloomery to get first few ingots of iron that will enable you to make better structure that wont need so much hussle to maintain.

i will post the whole rework sugestion for metalurgy later in the week (if i dont get stuck in work XD) and it will i hope clarifie all question marks.

[Windego]

Well the idea and concept of realism is enticing, for sure. But that wasn't the leading thought for my suggestion to get the two whole parts of the bloomery back / IF / we use tier 3 bricks as  OP posted above.
I said that because making tier 3 bricks in and of itself is an expensive progress for much later in the game once you're making steel.
Because salvaging one or two bricks more per bloomery hardly seems worth the effort needed to make tier 3 bricks.
Whereas having the two parts drop instead /would/ arguably make it more worthwhile the effort.
Plus... If we stick too close to realism then we'll get regular plain tasks that become too tedious for a lot of players to actually enjoy doing.
And I think the least anyone would want is to have people leave because the game is getting too taxing in terms of tasks.
There is a fine line between having a game to enjoy, and seeing a game you play become your work.

Edit: The picture above makes more sense to have it all completely destroyed after the process is complete because it's made of one solid thing.
Bricks on the other hand... And how we just 'add' the top on at the very last.. Makes sense to just at the very least, drop the top as one item instead of a bunch of bricks, especially if you use tier 3 bricks.
Because if we go with realism here... We should then also be using a binding agent to seal the top and bottom of the bloomery together, which we currently don't do...
See my point?

Edited November 6, 2021 by Windego

[Silent Shadow]

I think that some people just want a more permanent bloomery where they don't need to break it completely down after each bloom. You could do this with a sacrificial clay door fitted into an arch in the furnace (fill with a mini-game like the pottery forming?). The majority of the furnace would be intact and reusable, but subject to damage over time and thus higher refractory furnace material would be better for lasting longer (similar to cementation furnace) if not necessary to start.

[Maelstrom]

On 11/6/2021 at 3:18 AM, Windego said:

 We should then also be using a binding agent to seal the top and bottom of the bloomery together, which we currently don't do...
See my point?

I think a binding agent is implied with the destruction of the bloomery.  Otherwise heat would escape through the bloom rather than the chimney of the bloom.

[Windego]

3 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

I think a binding agent is implied with the destruction of the bloomery.  Otherwise heat would escape through the bloom rather than the chimney of the bloom.

In thought, yeah, but if we're to go full technical and as realistic as possible, you'd expect to add a binding agent manually to each brick when you construct it rather than magically glue them together with the power of air. Like an additional piece of raw fire clay, or something.
The entire thing would get too complicated to really enjoy doing it at all because you're already going through the trouble of making a bloomery of all things out of tier 3 bricks, and you get maybe, possibly, a brick or two in return.

The multi block structure that resembles the steel production furnace, which would act as an upgrade from the standard bloomery mentioned by @Silent Shadow sounds a whole lot better than having to waste precious resources to make a bloomery just so you could save four pieces of fire clay here and there.
Simply because you'd be able to make more in one go than having to construct individual bloomeries for a large glass or iron harvest.

Having the option to just, do that, I'd say is inherently not a bad idea. But if it's worth the trouble when you think of it without ANY benefit other than saving a singular brick or two.. That's a different matter in and of itself.

[Maelstrom]

In the end it's a question of how much realism is desired in a game.  Too much realism and why call it a game?  I think tier three bricks for a bloomery is getting to that level.