[MUD-Dev] Re: Spell components, chemistry, and the like...

[Chris Gray]

[quzah:]

 >{
 >"molten gold", COTYPE_METAL_GOLD, COFORM_LIQUID,
 >COTEMP_HOT_HD, COSIZE_MODERATE, (volume), (weight/volume),
 >(heat_to), (cool_to), (found where), ...
 >},

I'd love to help, but I'm not at all sure where the above is supposed
to fit in, and what all the fields are for. Is 'CO' a prefix for
"component", and these are things that can be spell components?

Anyway, even while baffled, I came up with this thought:

In the real world, the connection between one form of an element and
another is often not at all obvious. For example, diamond shares
very little with charcoal, yet they are both (mostly) carbon. Gasseous
carbon would be similarly different. So, if you are expressing things
which have different physical properties, you probabably have to do
all forms of any given material. In that sense elements aren't any
different from compounds. If you want a spell to be able to use any
kind of carbon, rather than just diamond, for example, then you will
have to link the diamond and charcoal entries together somehow.
Note that you can grind up both charcoal and diamond, and then they
behave much the same at the coarse level.

Now, that is an extreme example. In the case of solid gold versus
gold dust, the properties are the same at the fine level, and differ
only at the gross level. Gold dust is sort-of a fluid and can be
blown away, but both are untrue for solid gold. However, the difference
between gold dust and a gold bar is exactly the same difference between
copper dust and a copper bar. So, I would suggest that gold and copper
both be examples of metals, which can exist in a variety of states.
Roses would be an example of a plant, for which those states are only
vaguely relevant (I suspect you can't have molten roses - heat would
cause chemical breakdown, and you would then have something other than
a rose).

Hmm. I bet I haven't helped at all. That's what I get for typing at
midnight!

--
Don't design inefficiency in - it'll happen in the implementation. - me

Chris Gray     cg at ami-cg.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA