Author Topic: Industrial Magic - Fabricate  (Read 29691 times)

Offline Lokiyn

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Industrial Magic - Fabricate
« on: August 24, 2012, 07:11:25 PM »
In addition to its many other uses, fabricate holds a special place as being one of the most vital spell/power to be put into industrial use. This is primarily for two reasons, Refinement and Versatility.
A Short Introduction
The versatility of fabricate is obvious. Take any raw material and convert it into any product of the same material. No non-enchanted matter is out of reach of this effect. Although I believe there is and ever will be some debating on the issue of multiple products from a single casting, even limiting oneself to single unit products there is a vast wealth of uses for the effect.
Refinement is, to me, one of the keys to fabricate. As long as enough of the finished material is within the influence of the effect, you can produce the finished product. This makes the spell excellent for shortcutting one of the largest problems to industrial processes. Sorting materials and acquiring pure samples of compounds.
The Tools of the Trade
Largely, a normal society relies on refineries and mines, and naturally occurring concentration of minerals and other compounds to adequately supply its commercial needs. This is not due to a lack of materials in many cases, but a lack of process or techniques to safely and cheaply extract from lesser sources. Fabricate however, allows one to ignore the relative concentrations of materials in a sample in favor of merely the presence or absence. The effect on production of certain raw materials is huge simply due to the presence of many industrial compounds in the very ground we walk on.

The Spell

Fabricate
Transmutation
Level:Sor/Wiz 5
Components:V, S, M
Casting Time:See text
Range:Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target:Up to 10 cu. ft./level; see text
Duration:Instantaneous
Saving Throw:None
Spell Resistance:No

For this exercise, let’s examine the fabricate spell cast from an item at a caster level of 10.

Our spell range is 25 + 5*(10/2) or 50 feet.
A simple use of the formula for a sphere nets us 523,598.7756 ft^3.
If we assume any such item would be placed at ground level and be restricted to a hemisphere below the surface of the earth, we change that number to 261,799.3878 ft^3 this is about 14,710.22695 m^3 or 14,710,226,951 cm^3

The Statistics

If you’ll note in the previous section we arrived at the area effected by fabricate in cm^3 rather than ft^3. The reason for the cm^3 value is to multiply it by the lowest average density for the earth’s crust (obtained here) 2.69 g/cm^3. This new value is the multiplied then converted to arrive at a value of 19,785,255.25 Kilograms. The chart below lists the values for smaller than CL 10.

CLRangeKg
74010,130,050.69
8 & 94514,423,451.08
105019,785,255.25

With these numbers in hand we can now turn to our target in more detail.
Continental Crust.
Average Density 2.69 - 2.74 g/cm^3
Rounds / Day = 24*60*10 Or 14,400
To save a little space, I’m going to merge the composition table and results table into one slighty larger table for ease of reference, again using the CL 10 Numbers.
A few notes first. Because of rounding issues from multiple sources the data below is only “mostly” accurate. In actuality the numbers are off by .1% or more, which doesn’t matter to most people, but it bears mentioning for the trace elements near the bottom of the chart. I’m also going to split up the chart some into different categories, depending on who you play with these charts will be in order of usability, with the straight up unquestionable uses to the more esoteric charts.

Dealing in Compounds

The first instance of fabrication will most not likely deal with elements. Instead the beginning industrialist will focus on the compounds found in the crustal matrixes. Most of these are discernible under a strong enough magnification lens and it is simply the difficulty of extracting the compounds in pure or solid forms that limit their viability, In addition most of these compounds are very Hygroscopic and are present in their “wet” forms. A simple application of heat is enough to convert the materials back to the “pure” form with little trouble.

OxidePercentKGSpec GFt^3Mass
SiO260.611,980,0002.65160,912.6513,205.55Tons
Al2O315.93,140,0004.0227,802.443,461.22Tons
CaO6.41,260,0003.3513,387.671,388.90Tons
MgO4.7920,0003.589,147.111,014.12Tons
Na2O3.1610,0002.279,564.96672.4Tons
Fe as FeO6.71,320,0005.758,178.301,455.04Tons
K2O1.8350,0002.355,301.26385.81Tons
TiO20.7130,0004.231,093.91143.3Tons
P2O50.110,0002.39148.9311.02Tons

You’ll no doubt notice that I’ve rounded off the KG values. Once again due to rounding, the “common compound” charts left out room for the other elements, checking the compounds elements against a more detailed elemental abundance table I rounded down on the kg until the values represented ~99.6% of the total mass, to allow for the trace compounds and elements.

SiO2 – Silicon Dioxide (Quartz)
In soil this is the microcrystalline aggregates, fabricate shapes the raw material into a finished product, usually clear quartz crystals that can be molded or shaped or cut via magic or mundane means. Used as such, SiO2 provides an unprecedented raw material for any ceramic products including windows, lenses, mirrors, and utensils. Used as a substitute for glass this material would be very cheap. As an example, if it takes 500gp to cast fabricate you would get a crystal 1 cm thick and about 304 ft^2 of pane “glass” So for a 2/5” thich pane, you spend about 1.6 Gp (32.8$) a foot. Using modern thicknesses of 2.5mm you get 4.1 Sp per square foot or 8.2$ a square foot.
That doesn’t even consider how important using crystal/glass storage containers compared to pottery or wood containers is to food preservation. However this pales to the next item
Al2O3 – Aluminum Oxide (Corundum)
Just like Quarz, the Aluminum Oxide compound has many properties that are useful in society, expecially in its crystalline forms. As panes or as material for ceramic bowls and other utensils, Corundum is one of the hardest materials known, Powdered it has many uses and can replace many of the smaller metal components in complex devices…. Also it makes great toothpaste.
CaO – Calcium Oxide (Quicklime)
Another interesting substance, quicklime, when provided in large quantities has several interesting uses and applications. In addition to being the origin of the phrase “limelight” Quicklimes more interesting property lies in its ability to produce large quantities of heat. When combined with the strength and thermal properties of Aluminum Oxide it has a wide variety of uses. To illustrate I’ll demonstrate one possible use of quicklime, Non magical sterilization of water, which can be dialed up or down as the need demands (the same process that could boil a barrel of water could also be used to make a “hillbilly hot tub”
Quicklime Heater
Note that as an energy storage device CaO is fairly inefficient, compared to wood for example. CaO holds about 1.1 MJ/Kg compared to a 16.2 Mj/Kg average for wood. On he other hand it can be packed and carried easier and used in more subtle quantities with the right heat sinks.
MgO - Magnesium Oxide (Magnesia)
Na2O
Fe as FeO - Iron (II) Oxide (Wüstite)
K2O - Potassium Oxide
TiO2 - Titanium (II) Oxide
P2O5 - Phosphorus pentoxide


Metals of antiquities

These materials have been known since long before any industrial revolution and are common knowledge. In our history these have been known almost as long as there are records

ElementSymbolCrustal abundance (ppm)[3]KG @ 10 CLSpec GVolume ft^2Tons (lb)
ironFe63,0001,246,471.08077.8745,634.63831,373.9851Tons
copperCu681,345.39748.965.34471.483Tons
leadPb10197.852611.340.621436.1857Lb
tinSn2.243.52767.3650.210495.9609Lb
silverAg0.081.582810.490.00543.4895Lb
mercuryHg0.0671.325613.5340.00352.9224Lb
goldAu0.00310.061319.30.00010.1352Lb



As you can imagine these would be the logical “first step” materials a caster would try to extract. I’ve included the Volume in ft^3 to help players calculate how many castings it takes to extract all the useful metals in an area. As it takes fabricate 1 round per ft^3 to extract a mineral, any such device would take ~ 12 days to extract just these seven metals. However because all but iron is present as trace impurities, you’ve only extracted roughly 6-7% of the mass from the target area (based on an average distribution). Volume wise its a little more complicated as you are breaking Compounds into elemental mixes, A quick rough calculation shows a Volume decrease of close to 50%
« Last Edit: December 04, 2012, 04:17:28 PM by Lokiyn »
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Offline Endarire

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Re: Industrial Magic - Fabricate
« Reply #1 on: August 24, 2012, 07:15:32 PM »
Lokiyn, this feels genius!  It's very much what I'm going for with the campaign setting of The Metaphysical Revolution.

What other articles do you have in this series?

Offline caelic

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Re: Industrial Magic - Fabricate
« Reply #2 on: August 25, 2012, 12:38:05 PM »
I love stuff like this.  I've done a few essays in the same vein--for instance, one on the transformative effects the Decanter of Endless Water would have on a society.  (Setting aside the mass population explosion potential represented by an endless, portable supply of disease-free water, it's also a limitless supply of hydraulic power.)

Offline Endarire

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Re: Industrial Magic - Fabricate
« Reply #3 on: August 25, 2012, 05:50:09 PM »
May I get a link to that, caelic?

Offline Mithril Leaf

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Re: Industrial Magic - Fabricate
« Reply #4 on: August 25, 2012, 07:54:08 PM »
I want to use greater fabricate and a decanter of endless water as a psion to form myself a hydraulic power suit mid-battle now. I know astral construct is easier, but it's not as lasting.

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: Industrial Magic - Fabricate
« Reply #5 on: August 25, 2012, 08:17:23 PM »
Long-time no see, Lokiyn! Glad to see you found these boards!  :clap
I don't pee messages into the snow often , but when I do , it's in Cyrillic with Fake Viagra.  Stay frosty my friends.

Offline Lokiyn

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Re: Industrial Magic - Fabricate
« Reply #6 on: September 04, 2012, 03:18:45 PM »
Quicklime heaters

The “Barrel” in dungeons and dragons is most closely analogues to the “Cognac” Wine Barrels, an old English Firkin of Wine, or 1 ½ hogsheads of beer. While not listed as such in the core manuals, these numbers have been extracted from the http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040406a article.
With that, we only need a few more numbers
While water is 7.48 Gallons to the cubic foot, for this it becomes easier to do the math in SI units, thus
1 ft^3 = 28,316 cm^3
Ergo a Barrel holds 283,160 cm^3 of water which is also its water weight in grams baring significant impurities.
Since it takes 4.2 Joules to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree Celcius we only need one more value to complete our math, and that is quicklimes reaction with water. 1 Mol of CaO + 1 Mol of H20 = Ca(OH)2 and 63.7KJ of energy.

Starting with the assumption that the water is at a moderate temperature (let’s say 50 F or 10C) we can determine that we need 4.2 joules x 283,160 grams x 90 C = 107,034,480 Joules (107034.48 Kj). And thus we need 1680.29 Mols of CaO to heat our barrel up to boiling. At 56.0774 Grams per mole we need 94,226 Grams of CaO or about 28127 cm^ of the stuff + 30,245 Grams of water. Or a shorter equation

x=76212500 y/15710949
“X” = Volume of water
“Y” = Volume of Reactants
Since volume is X+Y=Z and Y is derived from of X we can merge the formulas and get this final formula for a complete system
“X” = Total Container Size (in Ft^3)
“Z” = Volume of Reactant Component (in Ft^3)
“Z” =15710949 * “X” /91923449.

So a barrel with has a 3 foot long 18 inch diameter metal or ceramic section inside of it, capped and sealed with 78Kg of CaO (Raising the empty weight of the barrel to 202-220 Lb) can be filled with 518 Lb (62 Gallons of water), Adding 6.6 Gallons of water to the heating element will then raise the water in the tank to 100 degrees Celsius within a matter of minutes. This works with more than water of course.

Consider a Barrel of vegetable oil. As any frycook is aware most Vegetable oils have a fire point somewhere between 400-450C, So we’ll use 450 as our target, and we’ll use canola as our oil.
Using the same technique as above.

Ft^3OilReactantsGal
10.006.943.0651.89

Here we have a barrel of oil that when water is added, quickly accelerates the temperature of 51.89 gallons of oil to 450 degrees, hot enough to make dry pine burst into flame, much less most oils. Using the rules in the core book for oil, that much spread about would turn a 55 ft radius area into a temporary firestorm (1d3/round; 2rds) if the ground is smooth.

Ideally the metal container would be a self contained object with a "fire" pin and the CaO separated from the Water by a wax barrier. once the pin breaks the wax seal and allows the CaO and water to mix the heat would quickly dispose of the remainder of the wax and allow a better mixing.
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Offline McPoyo

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Re: Industrial Magic - Fabricate
« Reply #7 on: September 04, 2012, 03:52:01 PM »
There was a thread on 339 somewhere involving using the creation spells to fill vats of oil to gravity feed street lamps and similar, and how it was vastly superior to other light producing magical means. It then turned into "any world with magic pretty much becomes post-industrial revolution London". I can't find it anymore, but would be useful for furthering this discussion if anyone else could.

Offline caelic

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Re: Industrial Magic - Fabricate
« Reply #8 on: September 04, 2012, 05:27:08 PM »
May I get a link to that, caelic?


I'll see if I can dig it up.  The original post seems to have vanished into the void.

Offline Lokiyn

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Re: Industrial Magic - Fabricate
« Reply #9 on: September 04, 2012, 08:36:39 PM »
That was the one that compared the gp per ft^2 of light generated by light spells and then used minor creation to generate oil at the rate of (CL * 1 ft^3)/Minute [7.48 Gallons]

Then used a high tank and the stats for fuel consumption and lighting for lantern combined with volume taken up by the pipes to light city blocks correct? I think i wrote that one as well before i wrote the minor creation and you thread. I know i've pointed it out a couple of times. At least once that i can recall in the old eberron forums comparing the endless flame lanterns to a minor creation set up


I think it was something along the lines of a hooded lantern consumes 1pint per 6 hours, or .044 Oz per minute, and a minor creation Wondrous Arch, produces 957 oz per minute, so could power 21542 hooded lanterns if there was no loss Or with, 1/32 inch interior radius pipes connecting all the lanterns in a grid pattern would light up 539 lanterns or a 985 x 985 ft block, with 4x redundancy?

Costs about 1 Gp / 200ft^2? after you factor the pipes and the lanterns into the cost
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Offline McPoyo

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Re: Industrial Magic - Fabricate
« Reply #10 on: September 04, 2012, 08:41:11 PM »
That would be the one.

Offline Lokiyn

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Re: Industrial Magic - Fabricate
« Reply #11 on: November 30, 2012, 12:13:59 PM »
I Dug up the original table for using [light] spells to illuminate a metropolis, just for any world builders who want to estimate the cost / benefits.

Realistically anyone would use the cheapest method available to them For comparison i added several of the non magical light sources.
Non magical items start off at a really low cost, but with the need to replace the fuel as it is consumed the cost continues to rise over time compared to a one time fee magic item

NameWiz/Clr/Arc LvlArea (5x5)Gp/Ft^2Ft^2/Gp
Glowing Orb (F)31130.02247.124
Continual Flame (M)2500.05617.952
Dancing Lights0500.7961.257
Light of Lunia11131.0620.942
Light0501.1940.838
Nimbus of Light11131.4150.707
Wall Of Light (sphere)36153.8980.257
Daylight34523.9790.251
Battlefield Illumination48044.1780.239
Righteous Aura44524.9520.202
Luminous Gaze1506.3670.157
Light of Mercuria21136.3670.157
Wall of Light (Wall)324010.0000.100
Dawn Shroud545211.9370.084
Candlelight0312.7330.079
Light of Venya311315.9160.063
Faerie Fire1350.9300.020
Guiding Light1350.9300.020
Handfire1350.9300.020
Rosemantle13101.8600.010
Crown of Brilliance (M)650424.1480.002
Heartfire23611.1550.002
Aura of the Sun412713.0150.001
Curtain of Light591600.0000.001

Area (5x5)Cost / 24HrsCost / Year
Torch500.01996.9718
Lantern, Common280.00070.2067
Lantern, Bullseye1130.00440.0559
Lantern, Hooded1130.00260.0541
Sunrod1130.00351.0334
Hearthfire (1 Use)500.00130.2427
Lantern (Hearthfire), Common280.00130.4304
Lantern (Hearthfire), Bullseye1130.00450.1118
Lantern (Hearthfire), Hooded1130.00280.1101

As an aside, cities tended to be really dense in the middle ages, roughly 25 - 40 k people per square mile. Assuming that there was a "city block" format for the city of 5 ft wide roads around each block (making 10 ft avenues)

A metropolis of 25,000 people would look something like

Population25000
Density (Pop/ Mile^2)30000
Miles ^20.833333333
Block"200x200
Avenue"10
% Avenue0.092970522
Streets ft^22,159,891.16

Which 2.2 Mil ft ^2  divided by glowing orbs 47 gp per foot nets about 46,000 gp to light up the streets with bright illumination, once.
This is compared to about 230,000 gp to use the cheapest light source per year listed above of hearthfire lanterns

(at 1 hp per inch of thickness the orb described by the focus component of Glowing Orb is roughly 2 inches in radius, weights about 3 pounds)
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Offline McPoyo

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Re: Industrial Magic - Fabricate
« Reply #12 on: November 30, 2012, 12:30:39 PM »
Advantage to the creation arch for oil power is that the orbs are duration: Permanent, and thus subjective to dispelling.

Offline Halinn

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Re: Industrial Magic - Fabricate
« Reply #13 on: November 30, 2012, 08:13:21 PM »
Advantage to the creation arch for oil power is that the orbs are duration: Permanent, and thus subjective to dispelling.
Not an issue unless people like going around dispelling the city lights. But yes, there would probably be a small annual budget for replacements, perhaps assuming that 5% of all the lights will be dispelled over the course of a year or something like that.

Offline nijineko

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Re: Industrial Magic - Fabricate
« Reply #14 on: November 30, 2012, 08:45:30 PM »
isn't the prohibitive cost the reason why mythals were invented?

Offline McPoyo

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Re: Industrial Magic - Fabricate
« Reply #15 on: November 30, 2012, 08:49:39 PM »
Mythals require the death of a high level caster, that's rather prohibitive as a cost.

Offline Halinn

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Re: Industrial Magic - Fabricate
« Reply #16 on: November 30, 2012, 09:18:15 PM »
ML1 item of psionic minor creation costs 2000 gp, and produces enough oil to cover 21543.9 lanterns/lamps. Operating costs for 3 untrained laborers to activate said item every minute is ~109.6 gp/year. It might be cheaper overall to use common lamps than hooded lanterns, since they're a fraction of the cost.

Offline nijineko

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Re: Industrial Magic - Fabricate
« Reply #17 on: November 30, 2012, 09:19:11 PM »
Mythals require the death of a high level caster, that's rather prohibitive as a cost.

not all of them do. that's just an option to shorten creation time.

Offline Lokiyn

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Re: Industrial Magic - Fabricate
« Reply #18 on: December 01, 2012, 05:28:38 AM »
Continuous Activation Minor Creation

1[PL] x 1[ML] x 2[Dur] x 2000 [Base] = 4000gp

It'll run itself once you start it up. (or you can be cheap as hell and use a psionic "trap" at 1 x 1 x 500 gp) it automatically trips itself if the float drops too low and refills the tank.

Common Lanterns cover 15^2*PI = 706 ft^2
Hooded Lanterns cover 30^2 *PI = 2827 ft^2

More importantly reducing the amount of pipe used extends the amount of lanterns each minor creation item can fuel, i'm sure there is an optimal point somewhere. But i'm out of time this morning   
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Offline McPoyo

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Re: Industrial Magic - Fabricate
« Reply #19 on: December 01, 2012, 07:37:27 AM »
Depends. Either duration is relevant, in which case viscosity is much more important for determining pipeline size without an impeller pump to force it along (and might result in spewing lanterns) so that the actual coverable area is even smaller, or it's irrelevant and the pipe size only matters when first filled.