Crucible - unforbidable/tfcplus-bids GitHub Wiki
Description
Clay crucible and Fireclay crucible offer an alternative mechanics for smelting ores and alloying compared to a classic TFC crucible. The clay crucible is available in the Stone Age and is designed to replace the pottery kiln smelting, and it has limited capabilities.
Recipes
Clay and Fireclay crucible are crafted from clay and fireclay respectively, using the following knapping pattern.
Clay crucible needs to be fired in a kiln before it can be used.
Additionally, a Fireclay crucible can be converted to and from a classic TFC crucible, as long as there are no items inside (molds), retaining the molten metal content and temperature.
Usage
A crucible needs to be placed on top of a lit forge to function. If the fire goes out during the operation, input materials will stop heating up and the liquid metal may solidify. Simply lit the forge up again to resume the function.
Crucible can smelt multiple stacks of material at once, but it might take a very long time to happen. As materials melt, they disappear from the input slots and their resulting metal is added to the molten metal inside the crucible.
The materials in the input slots can be manipulated freely at any time, but doing so will result in the input material temperature to reset to zero. There is also a short delay before the input materials begin heating up.
Should the total volume of resulting metal of all the input materials exceed the remaining storage capacity of the crucible, the heating won't start.
Liquid metal can be added directly into the crucible, e.g. from an unshaped ingot mold, as long as the metal melting temperature does not exceed the maximum temperature of the crucible.
Liquid metal can be removed from the crucible into a mold. Make sure the resulting alloy is valid or you will end up with an UNKNOWN metal in your mold. Liquid metal cannot be removed while input materials are being smelted, or while liquid metal is being added into the crucible.
Comparison
The following are the differences from the classic TFC crucible:
- Allows smelting of multiple input materials at once
- Automatically mixes alloys inside after a countdown when inactive
- Items inside are dropped when the crucible block is broken
- Crucible block tooltip displays the content and temperature in the inventory
- Cannot be used to catch pig iron under a blast furnace (conversion recipe is available)
- Optionally, displays the expected output in the GUI (see Config section below)
Capabilities of all crucibles:
| Crucible | Input | Size | Max Volume | Max Temp | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Classic | 1 item | Any | 3000 | ? | Can catch pig iron |
| Clay | 4 stacks | Small only | 1500 | 1100 | Cannot smelt larger items (such as anvil) |
| Fireclay | 12 stacks | Any | 3000 | 1800 |
More on the temperature
A crucible keeps track for two separate temperatures - solid input temperature and molten metal temperature. The temperature of the crucible itself, as a container, is not considered, and pre-heating an empty crucible has no effect. The temperature displayed to the player is the combined temperature, which takes into account the volume and the heat capacity of all the respective metals.
Neither temperature can exceed the maximum allowed temperature of the crucible, however raising the temperature of the forge can still be useful, as higher temperature of the heat source helps reaching the maximum allowed temperature faster. This means that coal, blowpipe and bellows (and especially the automation of bellows) may all help with the speed of the smelting.
In addition, a Clay Crucible has reduced heat efficiency and the heat it receives from the forge is slightly reduced. This means that the materials will heat up at a slower rate in a Clay Crucible compared to a Fireclay Crucible. And more interestingly, it means that a blowpipe (or bellows) is necessary to melt Copper in a Clay Crucible when charcoal is used as the fuel.
Molten metals inside the crucible are heated or kept hot from the heat source. Adding solid input materials will not lower their temperature, because the temperature of the solid materials is tracked separately, however the combined temperature will be lowered. Removing the solid input materials will also not affect the temperature of the molten metals. Removing all input materials will render the combined temperature equal to that of the molten metals temperature.
Solid input materials are heated up from the heat source, as well as from any molten metals inside the crucible that have higher temperature. This means that smelting additional ores in a crucible that already contains molten metals will progress faster. How much faster depends on the properties of the materials. For example smelting Copper ore into a tiny amount of molten Tin will help only marginally.
Automatic alloy mixing
Molten metal gets automatically mixed and becomes the respective alloy metal after a countdown when the crucible is inactive and the temperature is such that all the components are liquid.
It is not necessary to allow the molten metal to mix together. You can ignore this, and start adding more components, or start pouring the molten metal into molds. You can entirely prevent this by placing an empty mold into the liquid input slot, if you wish.
Please note that the molten metal becomes the respective alloy when poured into a mold, mixed or not. Also, mixed alloy will still merge with more components as long as the ratio of the components is appropriate.
Allowing alloys to mix does have some advantages. For example because Bronze melts at a lower temperature than its main component, Copper, the molten Bronze alloy requires less temperature to keep liquid once mixed together.
Variable heating speed of input material
The speed of heating input material varies. This is to reflect the ability of the material to transfer heat, the purity of the material, and whether we are smelting ore or heating up previously smelted metal.
Poor Ore chunks smelt slower than Normal Ore chunks, and Rich Ore chunks smelt faster. Native Ore chunks smelt faster than non-native ore chunks. Metal items such as ingots, sheets and others heat up much faster than raw ore chunks.
Ore chunks can be broken into Ore Bits to improve the smelting speed, with poor quality, non-native ore chunks benefiting the most.
Making glass
A crucible can be enclosed within a Furnace, which allows the crucible to reach temperatures that are high enough to make glass.
Molten glass can be retrieved from the crucible into a sheet mold to create glass pane, or with a ceramic blowpipe for making bottles, or with a Metal blowpipe for crafting various other glassware that might be available.
There is a chance that a clay crucible will get ruined due to the very high temperature. When this happens, break the crucible with your hand or pickaxe to retrieve a Lump of Glass and the heat it up in a new crucible to get molten glass. The chance of a crucible getting ruined is configurable and the default setting is that it happens every time.
Config
| Name | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| enableOutputDisplay | Set this to true if you wish to see the crucible output in the GUI | false |
| enableExactTemperatureDisplay | Set this to true if you wish to see the exact temperature in the GUI (hover text) | false |
| enableClayHandBreakable | Set this to true if you wish to be able to break a Clay Crucible by hand easily | true |
| enableFireClayHandBreakable | Set this to true if you wish to be able to break a Fireclay Crucible by hand easily | false |
| enableClassicHandBreakable | Set this to true if you wish to be able to break a classic TFC crucible by hand easily | false |
| solidHeatingMultiplier | Higher values increase the heat transfer to solid input materials from the heat source | 3 |
| solidHeatingFromLiquidBonusMultiplier | Higher values increase the heat transfer to solid input materials from molten metal that is already in the crucible | 3 |
| liquidHeatingMultiplier | Higher values increase the heat transfer to molten metal that is already in the crucible from the heat source | 6 |
| coolingMultiplier | Higher values increase the heat transfer rate when cooling down | 1 |
| furnaceOverheatingRuinChance | The chance of clay crucible to get ruined after making glass (0 = never, 1 = always) | 1 |
Notes
- Fireclay crucible has a blueish/gray color as to be distinguished from a classic TFC crucible
Planned features
- Clay crucible will replace the smelting of ores in kilns which will be disabled
- Fireclay crucible will be able to catch pig iron under a blast furnace (pending TFC API interface)
- Glass blocks will be created in the crucible when glass solidifies