v0.34:Ceramic industry

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v50.14 · v0.47 · v0.34.11 · v0.31 · v0.28 · v0.23 This article is about an older version of DF. More Info · V

The ceramic industry is one of the major crafting industries, forming clay, kaolinite, and fuel at a kiln into fairly expensive ceramic goods with the pottery and glazing skills. It is one of the three industries that necessitates fuel, the others being the glass industry (to which it is very similar) and the metal industry. Although it has a fairly limited variety of goods when compared to masonry or similar trades, ceramic goods are naturally worth three to ten times those of common stone or wood, making it a lucrative option for building wealth given the opportunity. The goods that can be produced are jugs, large pots, bricks (clay blocks), statues, crafts, and beehives, and three types of ceramics can be produced—earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain.

Raw materials

Clay and kaolinite

The most important raw material for ceramics is clay, which is a type of soil that appears in layers. Finding out whether or not you have clay is easy: unlike the base material for the glass industry, sand, clay is reported as either "clay" or "shallow clay" in the embark screen, and if you want to establish a ceramic industry you should have clay available. What type of clay you have available cannot be determined ahead of time (except with external utilities).

There are two types of clay: the garden variety clay loam, sandy clay, and silty clay, and the special fire clay. The first three are used to produce earthenware, the most common ceramic material with a value multiplier of three (still more then any wood and any stone other than obsidian). The chief disadvantage of earthenware is that it must be glazed in order to store liquids, a process that is described below. The last, fire clay, is used to fire stoneware, which has a value multiplier of four, does not need glaze to store liquids, and is more valuable despite not being more difficult to produce - if you have fire clay, this is a free 25% value boost to your ceramic industry.

The last material and the only non-clay source of ceramics is also the most valuable - kaolinite, which produces porcelain. This is a dark red stone found in sedimentary layers that must be mined out, making it a finite resource, unlike the other two (and very similar to crystal glass). This is balanced by the fact that porcelain goods have a value multiplier of ten, on par with mid-range ores like silver; since it is no more difficult to produce (just requiring some mining) and also does not require glazing, having kaolinite on the map is a boon for any fortress.

As long as you have even a single square of clay, you will be able to create as many ceramic goods as your fuel sources allow for; any clay square will create a lump of clay when worked, although clay will only be collected from squares designated for with by a clay collection activity zone.

Fuel

Every operation at a kiln requires fuel. More often than not your ceramic industry will be an opportunistic offshoot off of your metal industry, the central industry that turns ores into useful stuff and the only way to make armor and weapons (well, armor and weapons worth anything in battle), and as such you need a large amount of fuel available, or access to magma for magma forges. For a discussion of fuel sources, see the fuel industry.

Clay collection

Before you can create any ceramic goods you must first collect some clay. To do so, you must first designate a clay collection activity zone (i) with at least one valid clay tile somewhere in it (although having only one will cause supply issues). Dwarfs with the item hauling labor enabled will then form the clay into lumps, and either take it to an appropriate stone stockpile, or leave it there for the potter to collect his goods. Because you will constantly need more clay, it is a good idea to build and put a kiln on repeat orders for it, preferably with nine redundant iterations to prevent the manager from tasking anything there. Unlike sand for the glass industry, collecting clay does not require any sort of container.

Firing

One you have the clay (or kaolinite) collected and the fuel ready (if needed), you can designate stuff at the kiln to be fired. A standard kiln will consume one unit of fuel per job; a magma kiln uses no fuel. The kiln does not allow you to select which type of ceramic to produce, specifically; instead the potter will take the closest available material, be it ordinary clay, fire clay, or kaolinite. This is the final step, and a skilled potter working a kiln can produce his goods at a steady clip.

Glazing

Glazing is a process that covers a material in a coat of varnish (the eponymous glaze), protecting it, making it shiny, and, as with other "embellishment" processes, adding to its value. If you have a lot of earthenware materials and want to use it for storing liquids, glazing is necessary; otherwise it just makes your things more valuable. Glaze can be applied to jugs, statues, large pots, and crafts made from either stone or ceramics, is performed at a kiln, and is done by separate glazers.

There are two types of glazes, ash glaze and tin glaze. The first uses a unit of ash, produced by a wood burner at a wood furnace with the logs of felled trees. The second uses tin bars, a relatively scarce metal only available if you have cassiterite on your map, and is thus sourced from your metal industry. Much like kaolinite, this is a mineral resource you may or may not have, but are lucky to get: where ash glaze is worth 50☼, tin glaze is worth 100☼.

Industry management

The order occupies a kiln this way and requires the item hauling labor, not pottery or furnace operating. Clay collection is time-consuming, and your potters will quickly become adept at working the material, to the point that you may see job cancellations at the potter outpaces his suppliers; to ensure a smooth process, either have multiple potters with item hauling enabled, or make sure you have a large gathering area and a large number of people with the job enabled (or both).

The biggest frustration with the ceramic industry is that you can't fine-tune what your dwarfs will use. You can't tell them exactly what material to fire or what kind of thing to glaze, only what to make and what type of item to glaze. This can be solved by using the fact that dwarfs will go for the nearest available resource; make a stockpile right smack next to the potters, fine-tune what goes in there, and you can (albeit with some tedium) more or less force them to use or target one material or another. This has the major disadvantage of requiring you to haul things back and forth when you switch orders, as dwarfs will have to carry away the sandy clay and carry in the kaolinite.