CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA — pull request #9580 by Coolthulhu (2014-10-17 11:29:01+00:00)
Title: Glass shard recipe from sand

I wrote a glass shard recipe to make sand less of a placeholder.

The recipe is actually a combination of two processes: first is making of soda ash, second is the actual glassmaking.

I based the soda ash formula on Hou's process: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_carbonate#Hou%27s_process
While IRL it probably wouldn't be used on a small scale, we currently have no method of getting soda ash. Alternative method could be getting it from the ashes of some trees or producing it from lime and ammonia and salt.

Actual glassmaking is based on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_glass#Roman_glass_production
While Romans used lime as a stabilizer, lime currently doesn't seem to spawn, so I added a second possible source of calcium: bone meal (bone ash is used in some ceramic products, so it could probably be used in glass).

It's obviously up to improvements, splitting to 2 different processes (maybe more) once soda ash gets a different use or a different source source and maybe balancing, but I think it's better than nothing and having sand just as a placeholder.