Point of firing Bricks?

[NorPhi]

Cutting a heavy rock into four lighter blocks for construction is a no brainer, but what is the point of making bricks? You only get one, it takes fuel or lava (which usually is far away from clay), burning them takes forever and you only get one. It looks like blocks are not magma safe either (I somewhere read that clay is but I doubt that now).
Is there any benefit for making blocks except them being marginally more valuable than most rock blocks? The clay I'm using is fire clay btw. the bricks are stoneware.

[Esca]

The lower weight and greater value are basically the only purpose. Apparently fire clay bricks should be worth 4? If that's accurate and you have a local supply, it's the most valuable "infinite" block material you could have (aside from trade, farming metal with a smelter, etc).

It's also a pretty easy go-to when you're training potters, since they don't have quality levels. I did something similar with glass, just letting idle people gather and dedicated crafters spam blocks until legendary, then built a tower out of it.

[RadCon One]

Clay based blocks are nice because you have an infinite amount of them and can safely make a uniform fort from them very easily due to this, whereas using any other block type requires you to find and mine it in limited quantities.

I do think though that all "make block" actions should produce 4 units of the parent type, be it rock, metal, clay, etc.

[NorPhi]

I think with metal you get 4 bars per ore, so you get 4 blocks out of them after all.

For bricks, they are not really infinite if you are dependent on fuel. The game allows me to just build with clay directly and even with hauling that seems to be faster than operating two magma-fuelled kilns with clay deposits relatively nearby.

[RadCon One]

Originally posted by NorPhi:

I think with metal you get 4 bars per ore, so you get 4 blocks out of them after all.

For bricks, they are not really infinite if you are dependent on fuel. The game allows me to just build with clay directly and even with hauling that seems to be faster than operating two magma-fuelled kilns with clay deposits relatively nearby.

Fuel is infinite in the form of trees / large mushrooms if you want to use the traditional kiln, and even more easily achieved if you use the magma kiln which requires no fuel at all other than a space of lava.

[NorPhi]

Lava tends to be deep below the ground, clay at the surface, unless you come up with some stupid dwarf trick to get the clay next to the kiln, you still have the hauling. So what's the point if all the waiting for hauling claiy, fuel to be produced and bricks to be fired if you could just have your dwarfs haul the clay directly to the building site?

[RadCon One]

Originally posted by NorPhi:

Lava tends to be deep below the ground, clay at the surface, unless you come up with some stupid dwarf trick to get the clay next to the kiln, you still have the hauling. So what's the point if all the waiting for hauling claiy, fuel to be produced and bricks to be fired if you could just have your dwarfs haul the clay directly to the building site?

Minecarts exist in the game and are great for hauling, some people even use them to haul lava to the surface and to then make a lava tile wherever they need. Alternatively you can create a pump system and get lava to the surface that way.

[Sophtopus]

Would definitely recommend to pump stack the lava if that's the route of choice, as the Magma Sea is full of dangerous creatures.

[WizDum]

Originally posted by NorPhi:

Lava tends to be deep below the ground, clay at the surface, unless you come up with some stupid dwarf trick to get the clay next to the kiln, you still have the hauling. So what's the point if all the waiting for hauling claiy, fuel to be produced and bricks to be fired if you could just have your dwarfs haul the clay directly to the building site?

Considered a Quantum Stockpile, but instead of just stopping one or two levels down, you have a drop shaft all the way down?