Lime Pit

[LuuBluum]

Right now lime, oddly enough, requires metal production (hammers) to produce and doesn't require anything beyond crushing some limestone. However, this seems both oddly limiting (lime certainly was produced before metalworking) and also just not really able to get the sort of volume of lime production that existed back in the day. After all, quicklime was both useful in plaster and mortar. Also of course realism concerns (lime requires cooking limestone, not crushing) but that's more of just an added perk to this proposal rather than the underlying goal.

 

So, doing this would be simple enough. Dig a reasonably large pit in dirt, line the sides in cobblestone so the dirt doesn't fall in (or not; all that matters are that the sides are fireproof). Leave a hole in one of the sides of the bottom that leads out to open air, so the fire can burn without issue of airflow. Line the bottom with firewood blocks, cover on top with limestone (just the straight stones. I don't recall if stone piles are a thing but they'd probably have to be made a thing for this, but that seems reasonable as a way to store stones?), light fire through the bottom channel hole, and then simply let burn until the stones start to glow red. Takes a few days, ideally would require some stoking of the fire but that can be omitted for the sake of making it easier to do. Then the fire is simply left to burn out and the stones to cool off. What's left, besides a bunch of ash, is a bunch of brittle rocks that, if broken up (can be done by hand, or just make it that when collecting the burned rocks you just get lime powder in inventory) and mixed with water, turn into quicklime.

 

Putting it simply, rather than have lime be the product of smashing limestone with a metal hammer, replace it with something that's a mix of a firepit and a charcoal pit that can be done without the need for metal tools. Neater, more realistic, and brings the benefit of lime without needing metal tools first.

[Philtre]

Interesting, but you would still need barrels for making leather and mortar and planks for making plaster blocks, so you would still need to get to smithing before you can do anything with your lime....

High-throughput processing option already in game: build a quern, build a windmill, attach the former to the latter, throw a stack of chalk rock or whatever into the quern and knock off for lunch.

[LuuBluum]

Ah, fair enough. I suppose it'd require other changes to make it more cohesive with plaster-before-metal as a concept. Oh well; I suppose I'd be better off doing things like this with mods of my own.