Refined metals should be usable as a construction material for all metal structures and there should only be one type of each wire

[Michi01]

As I've noticed, virtually all buildings that can be built from metal can either only be built using raw metals or only be built using refined metals. While I think that it's perfectly fine for high tier buildings to only accept refined metals, I think that all low tier and mid tier structures that can only be built using raw metals should also accept refined metals, as many of them stay relevant into the late game and should also be able to have the benefits of refined metals (I hope there will be more of those or more varied ones instead of just giving all of them a +50 degrees overheat bonus). Since all metals and a bunch of other materials can all be used as materials for the thermal shift plate, it shouldn't be too hard to add a generic "Metal" category that allows both raw and refined metal as building materials for certain buildings.
Additionally, I think instead of adding a normal and a "conductive" version of wires, wire bridges, heavy-watt wires and heavy-watt joint plates, there should just be one version of all of these which can be constructed from either raw or refined metals and then have different properties depending on the construction material (they could still look different and have a different prefix after being built and unlocking the ability to build them from refined metals could still require research). The menu just gets unnecessarily cluttered the way it is now.
One last thing, I think the old smelter (that presumably uses coal) that never made it into the game should still be added. It seems really weird that you need to progress so far into the tech tree and build a relatively advanced building to do something that people could do thousands of years ago. I think it would be a nice way of adding a sense of progression to the game if players were forced to start out refining metals with simple coal smelters and then later on could switch to a more efficient electric smelter. I generally dislike that the rock granulator is used for metal refinement and would prefer if it's role of allowing metal refinement in the early game was taken by the coal smelter.

[goboking]

7 hours ago, Michi01 said:

One last thing, I think the old smelter (that presumably uses coal) that never made it into the game should still be added. It seems really weird that you need to progress so far into the tech tree and build a relatively advanced building to do something that people could do thousands of years ago. I think it would be a nice way of adding a sense of progression to the game if players were forced to start out refining metals with simple coal smelters and then later on could switch to a more efficient electric smelter. I generally dislike that the rock granulator is used for metal refinement and would prefer if it's role of allowing metal refinement in the early game was taken by the coal smelter.

I'm of a similar mind.  If fact I would have made the granulator only crush ore into sand and I'd have a smelter be the sole means of early-game metal refinement.  This game badly needs another use for coal.  A trash incinerator, a metal smelter...something.  I also would have thought they'd allow us to convert coal into ash to use as a filtration medium, giving us an infinitely renewable source of filtration.

[Vincie]

1. I love turning coal into ash, but I don;t thing, it could filtrate anything really.

2. Coal is used in smelting both for reduction and heating metallic oxides. The metal refining device seems to use the process of an electrolysis. A coal refining device could use coal for reduction, produce big loads of CO2 and produce refined metals chemically realistically quantitive due to atomic mases of given metals and oxygem.

3. Piryte is an iron sulphide (Fe2S3, FeS, I never remember). This could give us reduction needeng no coal (it only requires heating) and sulphur oxide. A toxic gas to be turned into sulpharic acid. For whatever reason we would need that there.

[BlueLance]

6 hours ago, Vincie said:

1. I love turning coal into ash, but I don;t thing, it could filtrate anything really.

It can be used to filter water.

[Coolthulhu]

+1 for building most buildings out of refined. At the moment you need to keep unprocessed metals just to build all the normal stuff.

Not sure about the wires. Raw wires shouldn't be used with conductive ones in same circuit.

[brummbar7]

3 hours ago, BlueLance said:

It can be used to filter water.

I think you guys are thinking of charcoal.   Not the same as coal or ash and is not produced from coal.

[Michi01]

3 hours ago, Coolthulhu said:

Not sure about the wires. Raw wires shouldn't be used with conductive ones in same circuit.

I think you might've misunderstood, I don't think doing that should be possible and I think if they still have different art and names after being built, people will instantly see that they don't belong into the same circuit. The power crafting menu really just seems unnecessarily crowded with wires, conductive wires, wire bridges, conductive wire bridges, heavy watt wires, conductive heavy watt wires, heavy watt joint plates and conductive heavy watt joint plates.

[LeadfootSlim]

A coal furnace seems extremely logical, but it might preclude the use of the Granulator entirely - unless said coal furnace requires refined metal to build.

Definitely agree on using refined metal to build ordinary structures. Gotta get me some more of that sweet, sweet overheat bonus.

[Michi01]

30 minutes ago, LeadfootSlim said:

A coal furnace seems extremely logical, but it might preclude the use of the Granulator entirely - unless said coal furnace requires refined metal to build.

I don't really like that the granulator is used for metal refinement in the first place, I think it should just be capable of making sand (or maybe still be capable of refining metal, but just be the cheapest and least efficient option). Also I think it's weird that it produces so much heat.

[Mjello]

52 minutes ago, LeadfootSlim said:

A coal furnace seems extremely logical, but it might preclude the use of the Granulator entirely - unless said coal furnace requires refined metal to build.

Definitely agree on using refined metal to build ordinary structures. Gotta get me some more of that sweet, sweet overheat bonus.

Yeah I was hoping for high temperature materials... To build pump and heater  ... So we could have some fun melting ore and cooling back into ingots.

Tungsten has a melting temperature of 3421,9 degrees but only a 50+ heat bonus... I want a pump and a heater with no limiter that can go to this temperature :-).

[McStar007]

3 hours ago, Mjello said:

Tungsten has a melting temperature of 3421,9 degrees but only a 50+ heat bonus... I want a pump and a heater with no limiter that can go to this temperature :-).

The heat added to the machine made of tungsten may not melt it, but will make the components softer and deform easier. That is why buildings have such low overheating temperatures, i think.

[BlueLance]

I do find the Granulator to be the odd one out though, like Michi said it seems a bit odd that you get refined metal from crushing a rock, i would imagine it would be better if using it you got x amount of sand and x amount of raw metals as a surprise. But those metals still need to be processed using a coal smelter or the furnace