[Feature Request] New interesting way to make charcoal?

[UndeadZeratul]

Considering this mod relies heavily on charcoal, would it also make sense to provide an interesting and fun way to produce it aside from the plain vanilla way of just smelting logs? I love how Terra firma craft has you making an actual charcoal pit; but you wouldn't want to just steal their ideas. There are other real world methods of making charcoal such as sealed metal containers in place of dirt mounds. Maybe there could be a new multiblock structure that could take in a bunch of wood, and when lit, would burn for a while and output some charcoal (at a bit of a loss).

I've just been trying to think of some fun ways to produce this cheaply renewable fuel, and I figured if there's any mod that already exists that's in line to do something like this, TSteelworks would be my first guess since it centers around blacksmithing and using charcoal almost exclusively.

[ephys]

I like that idea, though I'm going to need new textures and I'm the lamest at making good ones. But I'll try to write down a nice mechanic and see about the design later (:

[pixe1reality]

How about a multiblock charcoal pit? You put a determined amount logs down (Can set limits, dunno what to set them to to avoid massive fires), cover it all up with dirt or anything that isn't flammable except for one spot, light the logs on fire, QUICKLY cover that hole up, wait half a day, and get a ton of charcoal?

[UndeadZeratul]

That's basically what Terra firma craft does to produce charcoal; you can place logs into a pile of 16 in one block, place several of those in a covered mound, light a small fire in the center, cover it with one more pile of wood and dirt, and if done right it will start smoking. Come back in a day or so and you'll have a reduced pile of charcoal that you have to shovel out. It's actually a nice way to work for your free fuels.

Especially when you have automated tree farms giving you metric tonnes of wood, giving players a way to EARN their fuel is better than just taking their fuel to make more fuel.

[pixe1reality]

IMHO we could take that charcoal pit idea, tweak it and make that a early-game mass-charcoal producing method (It makes tons of it, and makes 2-3 charcoal from 1 log but is EXTREMELY slow), while the normal smelting recipe is much, much faster for those who have factories set up for that sort of thing, but miss out on 2-3 charcoal from 1 log. You could still keep up with supply and demand for charcoal with both methods.

[UndeadZeratul]

Either way you go, I'd prefer it to be configurable. Different preferences for different people/packs. I prefer the "amount in vs out" rather than "time investment vs convenience". you put in 1 log and get 3x the charcoal? Just set up several pits and let them all run in tandem, suddenly you have near infinite fuel; rinse and repeat.

Now if you could change how long it takes as well as how much it requires and gives out, that would be nice. The quicker convenience method could give less, or the mass charcoal pit could be completely manual, and thus the extra labor is the cost of a bit more charcoal.

[pixe1reality]

that's pretty much it ^

[TorakWolf]

Hum, but there's the RailCraft Coke Oven. Well, it would be good to obtain more than 1 per log anyways. Oh, I forgot, but you can actually enchant TiC Lumber Axes with Luck and Auto-Smelt to get multiplied coal ( as long as you allow doing so in the TiC config file ), and then use OpenComputers robots to use the tools. Yeah, they can use tools just like activators...

[RCXcrafter]

I'm going to need new textures and I'm the lamest at making good ones.

I'd be happy to make some textures for you if you like. Edit: I'll send you some private messages about that, this isn't really the place to discuss that.