I would say no silicon, only gravel, to make it easier for people to use it in the beginning. I was happy that this mod made gravel more useful. Silicon is already used often i think. If any other ingredient should be added, i think it should be water, from ice, as in the advanced life support mod.

I tried to add that water through scripting so it remains optional but the assembler won't use it for some reason even though I can see it in the requirements.

Hmm, I have one more idea to test actaully (for that water requirement).

I've been reading the article about the composition of concrete and maybe I've the following proposition:

- gravel
- silicium ore
- magnesium powder
- iron ore (trace)

(Calcium ore not in the game but gravel may consist as a large part of it)

This mix may coincide with concrete found on earth, and i tried to add a little twist for space use to it. the gravel and silicium ore should consist as the largest part of it with iron as a trace element to it.

The reason I've added magnesium powder is as a kickstarter for the bonding proces (concrete hardening is quite subjected to environmental temperatures), since water would not be quite the best way in outer space. Magnesium powder would then be a fast way to start a more chemical approach and start the chemical reaction. And it would be equivalt to Calcium since it's from the same alkali group. with the same chemical properties.

Water can also be added but only as a minimal component, you wouldn't want to be wasting water in outer space after all.

Ok, interesting, any suggestion on the quantities ? :P

Also just to be clear, we're talking about ingots, I don't think anyone is going to go through the trouble of keeping raw ore around just to convert it into concrete.

I agree with Feeble's logic. Considering the balance involved in how much ore you get from a voxel of ore and how that translates into ingots...let's say...3 silicon ingots, 6 gravel, 1 magnesium powder per voxel? Since it's measured per voxel I don't think you want it to be too expensive.

Digi. Feel free to tear apart my Material and Component mods to see how I got assemblers to take the ingots. Might be easier to read then the game's sbcs since I olny added the data files required.

By the way, we can use floating point values in ingot numbers (e.g. 0.5).

Not sure if 6 gravel is enough, personally I wouldn't go over 1 on any other ingot and still use 10 along with it.

@Geneticus
Well I made a blueprint which takes ingots, gravel :P thanks though :}

I would do something like this, 60% Gravel, 25% Silicium (sand), 10% Magnesium (concrete mix) and 5% Iron

You could also add an option to make reinforced concrete, since realistically the forces of gravitational movement in space would destroy concrete since it has a low tensile (twisting/turning) strength, however a high compression strength. So you could add a version that requires more iron as rebar, OR a better idea (although more difficult) add stages of construction rather than direct placement, have one stage be framework requiring small metal tubes or large tubes as placement and scaffolding. Either way, I like the idea of using stone (gravel) as a building block, since it is the most abundant. I am excited to see the finished product of this mod. Good work!

In the game there are the hard blocks and the basic blocks maybe you could add something like that for concrete. Have a basic one (easy to make) and a harder one (more effort to make).
Try it out

Except that this isn't a block and to add any kind of structure would require spawning either stations or smallships as static grids in order and would require many checks and limitations and would complicate it beyond proportions xD

What I can do is to add concrete in increments since it can varry in size and right now it places them at full size.

But I'll do that when I have an alternate click to swap between increments and full voxels.

Oprindeligt skrevet af Feeble:

I've been reading the article about the composition of concrete and maybe I've the following proposition:

- gravel
- silicium ore
- magnesium powder
- iron ore (trace)

I like his idea :)

my votes on a 10/3/3/1

Silicon is realistically extracted from sand and gravel and doesent usually appear in its natural form its almoast always bound into some sort of silicate mineral

furthermore the silicon ingot is a silicon boole

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boule_%28crystal%29

and in that crystaline form would not be mixable into any sort of concrete.

In the context of survival, I somewhat like the idea of using at least two ingredients to make it more mid-game or late-game. Amazing work by the way!

I like the idea of a multi-part mix so far as building full walls and structures out of concrete. But if this mod does go that route, I'd like a guide included or an old mod version that just uses the base mix. My usage for this involves the Asteroids start: Mine some stone by hand, process it, build a flat space out of concrete to be used for my mining base.

A larger, more involved mix would make a simple base like the thumbnail much more prohibitive for a single manufactory to handle