Alternative source of limestone for steel production

[Sevio]

As I understand it, in the current version of Cosmic, there is only one way to get limestone to make steel: by cracking surplus eggs from huge critter farms, which is a micromanagement-heavy task. Separate from the issues with ranching though, is that it is only a low volume renewable source.

What about adding a more accessible, high-volume source that isn't renewable? There already is a source of limestone that has a basis in reality and is otherwise fairly useless: Sedimentary Rock! As a catchall name, this could easily include rock types suitable for limestone extraction. It could be processed in the kiln to limestone. Or if you need to lock access away a little bit further into the game, you could use Regolith for it instead, or allow both but with a more efficient conversion for Regolith.

[thewreckedangle]

2 hours ago, Sevio said:

otherwise fairly useless: Sedimentary Rock

nooo. its not useless. needed to get smooth hatches (via stone hatch)

[Sevio]

So far there are multiple ways to tackle a problem in ONI, those not inclined to ranching will prefer to use the metal smelter and deal with the heat with another machine. The same can go for Sedimentary rock and limestone. From what @turbonl64 said here, there appears to be plenty of Sedimentary rock even after using it for hatches.

[ImpalerWrG]

Limiting us to Calcium as a Flux for Steel making is silly, MANY thing can be a Flux.  You can even just reduce Iron Ore with Hydrogen, you just need something that will pull the oxygen from FeO2, CO from combustion of carbon is what's done in a blast furnace but its not the only way to smelt.