Ceramic industry

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v50.14 · v0.47.05

This article is about the current version of DF.
Note that some content may still need to be updated.

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Introduction to Ceramics

The ceramic industry produces a variety of goods used for trade, storage, constructions, and decoration in support of a fortress. Although the industry produces a fairly limited variety of goods when compared to others, ceramic goods are naturally worth three to ten times the value of similar goods made from common stone or wood, making it a lucrative option for wealth creation. Ceramic goods are divided into three distinct categories (called wares) based on the raw materials used. Items produced from generic clay are considered earthenware, items produced from fire clay are considered stoneware, and items produced from the stone kaolinite are considered porcelain. In order to ensure water tight earthenware containers (i.e. jugs & large pots), as well as to increase overall item value, earthenware items require an additional production step called glazing. The ceramics industry also produces Gypsum plaster which is critical for Dwarven healthcare. Pearlash, a critical production material for the glass industry is also created as a crossover material from the ceramic industry.

All ceramic goods are produced by a potter at a kiln which requires a fuel source. Regardless of material category, the specific goods that can be produced are:

Jugs, large pots, bricks (clay blocks), statues, crafts, and beehives. Furnace operators produce gypsum plaster and Pearlash.

Industry Requirements: Resources, Facilities, and Labor

Resources: Clay, Fire clay, Kaolinite, Ash (from Wood), Cassiterite, and fuel
Facilities: Kiln or Magma kiln, Wood furnace
Labors: Item hauling, Potter, Furnace operator, Glazer, Mining (for Porcelain / fuel), Wood cutting (for fuel).
Crossover industry requirements: Gypsum plaster stone: gypsum, alabaster, selenite, or satinspar); Potash (for Pearlash)

Categories of Ceramic Wares:

Earthenware

Earthenware ceramics are made using generic clay which can be collected from any generic clay soil tile using the clay collection activity zone, which are are typically the most abundant and readily available ware type. Earthenware items have a base value of 3☼ (equivalent to the highest value stone - obsidian). Earthenware items are not water proof and as such require a finishing step of glazing should the intended final use require liquid storage. Glazing can also be used to increase the value of the item.

Stoneware

Stoneware ceramics can only be made from Fire clay which is a fairly rare type of soil/clay. As with generic clay, Fire clay is collected using the clay collection activity zone. Stoneware items have a base value of 4☼. They do not require glazing in order to be water proof.

Porcelain

Porcelain ceramics can only be made from the stone Kaolinite, which is a fairly rare. Kaolinite is a dark red stone found in sedimentary layers that must be mined rather than collected, making it a finite resource, (similar to crystal glass as used in the Glass industry). Porcelain items have a base value of 10☼ (equivalent to silver.) Porcelain items are naturally water proof (do not require glazing).

Earthenware Production:

Raw Material Collection: Clay
Earthenware ceramics require generic clay as the basic raw material. There are several types of soil that provide clay, including clay, clay loam, sandy clay, and silty clay. To collect clay, you will need to do the following:

Use the Activity zonei function and select an area of soil (preferably in a secure, underground area) that contains clay, then select c to ensure that the zone is designated for clay collection.
Ensure that at least one Dwarf has the item hauling labor enabled, which is the labor required to collect clay from a zone.
Select a Kiln and issue a clay collection order. If you plan on producing a lot of items, it is a good idea to set this order on repeat.

As long as at least one tile of clay is available on your fortress map you will be able to harvest clay indefinitely, but there are associated problems with single source tile collection zones, for example cancellation spam will occur if there are multiple haulers attempting to collect clay while the single tile is occupied. Ideally your collection zone should contain 4-6 tiles of clay providing soil, and should increase based on your overall ceramic production goals. Once harvested, clay appears on the map as a boulder (similar to stone boulders), and it does not require any kind of a container for storage or transport. If there are no stockpiles set up to store the clay, the clay boulder will be left at the collection site, and will be transported by a potter once it is needed.

Item Production: Firing Clay
Earthenware items are produced at a kiln by a Dwarf with the potter labor enabled. Select the kiln and then designate the item to be made. There is no requirement to first create items on a potters wheel, so it is assumed that your potter hand throws the items to be made and places them directly into the kiln for firing, which strengthens and hardens the item. Kilns require a fuel source, whereas [[magma kiln]s can produce all items using magma as the fuel. A standard kiln will consume one unit of fuel per job. (For a discussion of fuel sources, see the fuel industry.)

Glazing

Glazing is a process that covers a selected ware with a substance that, when re-fired, results in a glassy, non porous coating which serves to protect the ware, make it impermeable to liquids, and to enhance its visual appeal. Earthenware must be re-fired with a glaze material (or medium), of which there are two types (ash and cassiterite / tin) to produce a completed glazed product. Earthenware ceramic containers must be glazed in order to hold water or more importantly booze and oil. Glazing also increases the value of the items, the amount determined by the type of glaze medium used. Glaze mediums are applied at a kiln to jugs, statues, large pots, and crafts made from either stone or ceramics, by a glazer. Earthenware items re-fired in a kiln with a block of ash produce ash glazed items which adds 50☼ to the items value. Earthenware items re-fired with boulders of cassiterite produce tin glazed items which adds 100☼ to the items value. Cassiterite is an ore which, when smelted, produces tin, and is typically rare, and usually cannot be purchased from caravans. Note that glazes are not products in themselves, you do not make a glaze and then apply it to the ware. It is effectively a unique (to ceramics & some stone items) form of item decoration.

Production of Glaze Medium

Ash blocks are produced by a wood burner at a wood furnace using the logs of felled trees.
Cassiterite is an ore of tin, collected by mining. It is typically rare, and when present, is used to support the metal industry.

Stoneware Production:

Raw Material Collection: Fire clay
Stoneware is notable in that it can only be made from [fire clay]. The collection of fire clay is done exactly the same as regular clay collection.

Item Production: Firing Fire Clay
Stoneware items are produced by firing them at a kiln by a Dwarf with the potter labor enabled. Kilns require a fuel source, whereas [[magma kiln]s can produce all items using magma as the fuel.

Porcelain Production:

Raw Material Collection: Kaolinite
The stone kaolinite must be mined and collected as with other stone resource gathering. It appears dark red in color, and is a sedimentary stone found in large clusters. The presence of kaolinite and wood or bituminous coal (for fuel) in abundance can result in rapid (sometimes ~~too rapid~~ lots of fun) wealth generation for a fortress.

Item Production: Firing Porcelain
Porcelain items are produced at a kiln by a Dwarf with the potter labor enabled. Kilns require a fuel source, whereas [[magma kiln]s can produce all items using magma as the fuel.

Benefits of Skilled Labor & Strange Moods

A skilled potter will generate items of a higher value. If fuel is in ready supply, a potter can be quickly skilled up by churning out earthenware craft items. It appears that neither potter nor glazers are susceptible to strange moods.

Due to a bug, glazers currently receive no experience for glazing, and will therefore never improve in skill. As the values associated with glazing are based on the material used, it can be assumed that high skill in glazing would likely only reduce the amount of time to complete production, rather than increase value. ^Bug:4577

Advanced Industry Management

1: Optimal Clay Collection: A robust ceramic industry will demand a lot of clay, so it is a good idea to put a dedicated kiln on repeating collection orders, preferably with nine redundant iterations to prevent the manager from tasking any other production from that kiln. Clay collection is time-consuming, and if you are outstripping your supply you will start to see job cancellations as the potter's increasing skill / speed of production outpaces the clay supply. To ensure a smooth production process have several dwarves with item hauling enabled for each kiln set to gather clay and make sure you have a large gathering area.
2: Managing your Stocks: Clay is stockpiled under Stone, and each clay boulder takes up a single tile, so its a good idea to create fairly large clay stockpiles close to your kilns. Wheelbarrows may be useful for collecting clay, but it needs to be determined if a second collection trip occurs for each clay boulder produce in collection, (e.g. one trip to harvest the clay and one to transport it) which might diminish the utility of the wheelbarrow. It may be more efficient to create a stockpile right next to your collection area, and then create a second stockpile next to your kilns, which takes from the first (in which case wheelbarrow use will save time.) Alternatively, quantum stockpiles are a useful space saving, (but management intensive) alternative. Kaolinite boulders also takes up a full tile, so somewhat large stockpiles are useful for that as well.
3: Ware Specific Production: If you are fortunate enough to have both generic and fire clay, as well as kaolinite, or you purchase the material from caravans, you will want to control the ceramic item produced by the related ware type. This is challenging, as you can't fine-tune what your dwarves will use through the kiln menu or the Manager's screen. 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 'give' and 'take' options within stockpiles, and the use of dedicated kilns. Ideally you should create a single kiln for each ware type and link it to a dedicated stockpile using the take option. You should also link the kiln to a fuel stockpile, (you can use the same fuel stockpile for each kiln). (See stockpile for additional details.) Another approach uses the fact that dwarves will always go for the nearest available resource. Make a custom dedicated stockpile right next to a kilns isolating the raw material, and you can more or less force the potters to use that material over another. If you only have one production kiln, this has the major disadvantage of requiring you to haul raw material back and forth when you change ware type, as dwarves will have to carry away the no longer needed material and carry in the newly desired one.
4: Glaze Specific Production: If you have lots of wood and cassiterite available allowing for both glaze types, you will face the same production problems as you would with multiple ware source material. Optimally, dedicate one kiln to a stockpile with a specific glaze material (ash or cassiterite), a fuel stockpile, and an earthenware goods stockpile. You can chose (control) the item to be glazed, and by linking the kiln to a specific glaze material stockpile, you will also control the glaze type. It is also useful to keep a Wood Furnace producing ash and a wood stockpile close by, which should keep your stocks of ash readily available. Ash is produced as a block, and is stored in bins, so your ash stockpile can be fairly small and still hold a considerable amount of ash.
5: Linking Ceramics with Glass: As there is some natural overlap with the glass industry with regard to materials required, it may be useful to set up your ceramics industry near your glass industry. Potash makers use ash at Asherys to produce potash, which in turn feeds kilns that make pearlash, which is used to make clear glass and crystal glass. As ceramics already requires ash production, and uses kilns as the primary production facility, there is some efficiency advantage to be had by linking the industries.

Notes, Tips, and Tricks:

Embarkation: To ensure that you can set up a basic ceramic industry, make sure that either "clay" or "shallow clay" in shown as available in the embark screen. The specific type of clay available, (such as fire clay) cannot be determined ahead of time, (unless you use DF Hack's pre-embark estimate, which is not always accurate.)
Raw clay boulders can also be used in construction.
It is possible to create clay soil tiles in areas where there are no naturally occurring tiles. When an underground plant (trees, shrubs, grass or moss) grows on a muddy stone floor tile (after discovering a cavern) and is either trampled, gathered, cut down or removed via building a dirt road on top of it, the floor tile turns into a soil type appropriate to the biome - for biomes which lack soil layers altogether (such as mountains and glaciers), a random soil type will be selected, which might sometimes be clay.

Stupid Dwarf Ceramics

Create an oriental themed fortress using porcelain statues, and ceramic blocks for internal construction.

Being somewhat sensitive as to their height (or relative lack thereof) in comparison to other sentient races, the ingenious yet vertically insecure Dwarves are prone to compensate for their diminutive stature by making "really big things". Take, for example, the ceramic statue. Given that the average statue is large enough to take up the entire space of a tile upon which it is placed (thereby prohibiting passage), and therefor it must be considerably larger than a chest or cabinet (large furniture items which do allow pass through), it can only be surmised that the statues are quite large. It follows that a "really big kiln", (say 10-12 feet tall) would be required to fire one of these "really big statues" using incredibly accurate temperature control.