A method for creating gravel, and a small alternative to the sluice: The Stamp Mill

[Johnny_Madhouse 28]

I read up on these from the links you sent and these are not an alternative to the sluice. They would simply crush rock and the you would send it to a sluice for the crushed parts of it to be sifted. So yeah, not a replacement for the sluice.. Since we already have separated ore from rock I am not entirely sure this device is needed for us.

They would be a replacement for the sluice in the same way a forge is a replacement for the firepit. A stamp mill would just be a relatively high-tech way of seperating ore from rock. By your argument, we don't need forges, because we already have firepits capable of melting down some ores.

The stamp mill would serve as a way of further processing the rocks that are mined while searching for ores, and the gravel produced could be sifted for more small ores. If it helps, think of the small ores as being bits of mineral that were so small that the player passed over them the first time, or maybe so small they were still inside the mined stone.

The stamp mill would enhance the industry already present in the game, and would not detract from it at all. Why restrict our options?

[abandoned mines 119]

They would be a replacement for the sluice in the same way a forge is a replacement for the firepit. A stamp mill would just be a relatively high-tech way of seperating ore from rock. By your argument, we don't need forges, because we already have firepits capable of melting down some ores.

The stamp mill would serve as a way of further processing the rocks that are mined while searching for ores, and the gravel produced could be sifted for more small ores. If it helps, think of the small ores as being bits of mineral that were so small that the player passed over them the first time, or maybe so small they were still inside the mined stone.

The stamp mill would enhance the industry already present in the game, and would not detract from it at all. Why restrict our options?

i totally agree with this, perhaps we should try and ask bioxx himself for advice ?

[Johnny_Madhouse 28]

i totally agree with this, perhaps we should try and ask bioxx himself for advice ?

He reads this forum already, doesn't he? I'm sure the developers have the best idea of what would fit and how it would work, I was just addressing Crysyn's argument that the stamp mill would be unnecessary. No need to pester the author unnecessarily!

[Crysyn 179]

They would be a replacement for the sluice in the same way a forge is a replacement for the firepit. A stamp mill would just be a relatively high-tech way of seperating ore from rock. By your argument, we don't need forges, because we already have firepits capable of melting down some ores.

The stamp mill would serve as a way of further processing the rocks that are mined while searching for ores, and the gravel produced could be sifted for more small ores. If it helps, think of the small ores as being bits of mineral that were so small that the player passed over them the first time, or maybe so small they were still inside the mined stone.

The stamp mill would enhance the industry already present in the game, and would not detract from it at all. Why restrict our options?

Ok so you look at it as a more advanced sluice that can take rock instead of gravel? can any rock be thrown into it and get ore out of it? are you going to get people to stop hunting for metals completely and just dig out strip mines to throw the stone into these things as opposed to having to go hunt for the ores? I am not sure enough thought has been put into this idea as it currently stands over the technical concerns of introducing a new ore-bearing-rock type of rock that can be spawned around veins of ore. Multiple ways of doing things I am all for, but they need to make sense in the world and not just be a thing to add to the world. [shrugs] At the end of the day Bioxx will do whatever he wants to do, but I think more thought needs to go into this before much action is taken in regards to it.

[Johnny_Madhouse 28]

Ok so you look at it as a more advanced sluice that can take rock instead of gravel? can any rock be thrown into it and get ore out of it? are you going to get people to stop hunting for metals completely and just dig out strip mines to throw the stone into these things as opposed to having to go hunt for the ores? I am not sure enough thought has been put into this idea as it currently stands over the technical concerns of introducing a new ore-bearing-rock type of rock that can be spawned around veins of ore. Multiple ways of doing things I am all for, but they need to make sense in the world and not just be a thing to add to the world. [shrugs] At the end of the day Bioxx will do whatever he wants to do, but I think more thought needs to go into this before much action is taken in regards to it.

Yes! Much like in real life, the stamp mill will act to more finely process rocks to locate ore. Any rock thrown in could have a tiny chance to produce a small ore from that rock layer, and gravel otherwise. If necessary, the stamp mill could act as if it has a built-in sluice, and not produce gravel at all, just ore.

This would not require new rock types around veins of ore, only the ability to read existing rock types. The game already tracks what types of ore can be found in different layers, and the stamp mill would just have to be capable of interpreting that data to produce the correct ore for a specific rock type.

Small nodes of metal are not uncommon in nature, and the stamp mill is technology designed to take advantage of that through a 'quantity over quality' approach. Huge piles of rock are reduced to pebbles in order to find a small amount of ore. As I mentioned in the OP, many local mines in my area shut down after getting a stamp mill because they weren't able to supply it with enough rock to break even on costs. Money is not an issue in minecraft, so all we would need to worry about is the providing of energy.

Your claim that people would stop mining entirely is countered by the existence of sluices. We already HAVE a way to get ore without mining. As we all know, the sluice is less effective than finding a vein and mining directly for ore, and I've never seen anyone spend all their time in a desert sluicing sand. The stamp mill would only have to be slightly more effective to be worth it, and would represent a significant time and technology investment. Again, the stamp mill would require the player to reach the Iron Age at least, which takes a fair amount of time. It would be an enhancement of existing technology, and would be a pretty cool accomplishment and tool for players that manage to acquire it.

[Crysyn 179]

>>> SNIP <<<

Your claim that people would stop mining entirely is countered by the existence of sluices. We already HAVE a way to get ore without mining. As we all know, the sluice is less effective than finding a vein and mining directly for ore, and I've never seen anyone spend all their time in a desert sluicing sand. The stamp mill would only have to be slightly more effective to be worth it, and would represent a significant time and technology investment. Again, the stamp mill would require the player to reach the Iron Age at least, which takes a fair amount of time. It would be an enhancement of existing technology, and would be a pretty cool accomplishment and tool for players that manage to acquire it.

Yeah but the sluices are inefficient on purpose to make them impractical once you get your initial set of metal tools and then just a fallback for if/when the worst happens. I do like the social aspects of this of people all chipping in their mined rock to get ore stores for the settlement and while I think large mines should have something more to them than a group of people with a set of picks in a tunnel... This one just for some reasons rubs me the wrong way I accept that that is potentially just me but turning any type of rock potentially into ore seems like one step to far is all. Also, as soon as you turned the rock into gravel with out separate gravel types corresponding to the rock types when it hit a sluice it would make rock gathered from anywhere produce ore found in the area the sluice is in that the gravel gets chucked into.

[Enzer 60]

Totally agree with this idea. I love the way the mod handles things such as firepits, forges, bloomerys and sluices already, a player constructed stamp mill would fit thematically and the concepts behind it would open the mod up for a few new options as well that I could only think as being beneficial to TFC.

The stamp mill could easily run off a stone type-ore database to determine what ores are produced. Make it so that it can only accept one stone type at a time, half a stack perhaps and the ore percentage would be similar to the sluice but also have more "deep" ores have a lesser chance of being produced to not overbalance the system. Gravel could even be produced at a lower rate, say a 4:1 stone-gravel ratio, that way you'd get 8 gravel per fully loaded mill, or even a 8:1 would be fine. If automation is a worry, require the player to empty the gravel from the stamp mill or even have a shifty tray take durability so it has to be replaced every now and then.

Really the point I see to this mill is to help deal with the massive amount of stones you end up picking up once you get to Iron and Steel production. On the server I play on cobbled stone is starting to be in too much of an abundance and is really only used for axes anymore since we'd rather keep our steel for picks, pro picks, chisels, hammers and the occasional saw. With storage the way it currently is, we are having to dig bigger and bigger areas just to hold the stuff and even then we are producing more stone doing that unless we try to checkerboard raw smooth stone from the wall or polish it before we cut. Eventually we are going to have to just start chucking it into a pit, which I feel is a shame and a waste of material. Even if it takes 200 cobble to produce 1 ore due to random chance, it would still make the resource useful in later stages of the mod and will give us most importantly a renewable resource of gravel which I think is rather important.

The only issue I see, as Crysn indicated, would be the gravel not communicating what kind of stone it is to the sluice. However, I think this can be worked around as we have noticed that stone tool heads made from different rock types do not stack with one another, so some hidden data has to be carried to the stones, I think gravel, and only gravel coming from the stamp mill, could get a meta data value attached to it (and you would only need, what, 23 values to tack onto gravel, that isn't that many and again, stone tools seem to do that already). By making it so that the stamp mill can only accept one stone at a time, the output for gravel would still be just fine and you could also make it so it "jams" up if you feed it more stone and the gravel hasn't been emptied from it yet.

[ThinkTank 77]

Overall, a stamp mill could act as an upgrade for the sluice. Giving players somthing which saves them time if they work for it.

Primarly the upgrade should be adding a device which converts cobblestone into a block which the sluice GUI or a tweaked version of it can interact with to producing small ore items.

This device can be manualy opperated, or automatic (water powered) as long as somone feeds in cobble now and then, this would keep the sluice in play from start to finish, as even after you have mined yourself a good load of ore, you are going to have waste cobble. If you can feed it into a stamp and possibly get even more ore over time, then your sluices are still useful.

Plus, a balance between producing enough ore to warrent its construction in the first place (aside from freeing up some time for you to wander off while it processes waste cobble), but not adding a device to the world that can produce enough ore to make seaching for veins obsolete.

so, taking note of the above some thoughts:

1. have a stamp mill produce a 'rubble' block or similar entity instead of gravel, which carrys over a unique data value and is treated diffrently by the sluice.

or

2. have the stamp mill combine with the sluice when constructed in world so the whole process takes place all in a new GUI (still requires water flow but no longer fuctions as a sluice for gravel and sand).

&/or

3. require a 4/1 ratio for it to have a chance of producing a piece of small ore corresponding to the type of rock. This or a similar limiting factor ensuring that stamping cobble isnt an alternative in time and effort to finding an ore vein.

or

4. have a stamp mill as simply a means of producing gravel without having to dig it up from river beds, and potentialy do so automaticaly for a time befor needing to be refilled. The sluice would still be the GUI arbiter for what ores poped out, but with a waterwheel powered stamp mill full of waste cobble upstream from it you wouldnt need to keep running back and forth refilling it every few minutes.

(note: if you have gotten to the point where you can actualy construct all the various working parts implyed in creating an automatic stamp mill, you likly have been mining for ore already, and have a demand & turnover for metals in whatever else you are doing that even said stamp mill going all out, 24/hrs a day, isnt going to satisfy. But then the people that installed these things in real life were just trying to squeeze as much ore out of what they had as was possible.)

[abandoned mines 119]

all very good ideas.

does anyone have modeling skills? we could create a prototype model of the mill and use the picture to have further ideas

heres one of the simple mills i ve seen

[ThinkTank 77]

on a tangent, found this http://www.thefullwiki.org/Medieval_technology

[Jed1314 420]

on a tangent, found this http://www.thefullwiki.org/Medieval_technology

Excellent find ! I'm on my phone so I can't be bothered checking citations right now, but it certainly looks interesting