ATITD Wiki: Users/EldradUlthran/Distillation

Distillation

Distillation is done in an Alembic using Wine and Beer to make Spirits, you also consume a small amount of Charcoal in the process. There are 8 types of spirits and 7 different levels of quality. The types of spirits from coolest to warmest are Wood, Worm, Grain, Grass, Fruit, Vegetable, Mineral and Fish. The quality of spirits from highest quality to lowest are Ra, Life, Air, Fire, Water, Earth and Grey. Every spirit has a type and quality such as "Grass Spirits of Fire" except for "Grey Spirits" which are such a low quality that they have no type.

Potential

When you add wine or beer to an Alembic a number appears on the right hand side above the circle next to the word "Pot:". This is the potential that is currently in the alembic that can be turned into spirits. There are two types of potential, warm and cool. Warm potential is created from Residual Sugar in wine. Cool potential comes from Tannin in wine. Each point of potential assigned a place on the heat bar and they are spread out evenly throughout the possible range. Taking a look at the image bellow the red line on the left hand side of the bar represents the range for Warm potential and the blue bar represents the range of possible Cool potential. Beer can have both warm and cool potential (and supposedly even potential in the fruit area) however given that it is much easier to large potential wines in significant quantities this guide assumes you are using wine.

Notes in these boxes are unneeded for use of the alembic so feel free to skip them. They may however lead to a greater understanding of exactly how it works.
It is unknown wether potential is perfectly evenly distributed over the appropriate range or if there is some randomness in the distribution. Additionally it is unknown wether each potential has a more exact value than can be seen given the number of pixels on the scale.

Now to turn a point of Potential into spirits you must adjust the heat. The heat will constantly move if you have the "+" button pressed it will increase and if you have the "-" button pressed it will drop. Each tick the heat moves and if there is a point of potential close enough to the new heat value it is turned into a spirit. When you turn your first four points of potential into spirits you won't notice any change except a dot will be added on the bar with a spirit type next to it, and the circle may change color. This is because you always lose 4 spirits off of your final product. Once you have converted a 5th point of potential you will start gaining "Sink". Sink is just a counter for the total quantity of spirits you will get if you "Reverse the flow" now.

Again it's possible that potential and heat have more accurate values than can be displayed on the scale however working on a per-pixel basis seems to be sufficient so if there are sub-pixel values the tolerance for how close the heat must be to become a spirit is on the order of .5-1 pixels.

Type and Quality

Type is determined by the average of all potential which has been converted into spirits (including the 4 that will be wasted). This average is tracked by the black dot on the bar. The dot will be labeled with the current type based on which bracket the average is in (see image above). If the average is exactly on the line it will be considered as the lower spirit. It's important to note that you need Warm potential to make Vegetable, Mineral and Fish spirits and need Cool potential to make Wood, Worm, Grain and Grass. So it is generally a good idea to use wine with high tannin to make the lower four types and either wine with high residual sugar to make the top three.

Quality is determined by how far away each spirit you've made is from the average. The closer together the points that you convert to spirits are the higher the quality. You can track the current quality using the circle on the right hand side which tells you the current quality and gets darker as the quality drops. Note that quality only cares about each point's distance from the average so it doesn't matter if some of the points come from different type blocks than the type you're trying to produce.

Most likely quality is a function of the sum of the squared error.

Making Fire Spirits

Fire spirits are the highest quality which can be made at roughly a rate of 1 spirit per tick for all types. To make fire spirits first chose and prepare the appropriate type of wine for the potential you need. You can either adjust the heat then add the wine or add the wine first then "Dump just the Distillate" once the heat has reached the appropriate area. Pick a point on the scale which is inside the block of the type of spirit you would like to make. If you're making Fish, Vegetable, or Wood spirit you want to pick a point towards their neighbor since there isn't any potential in half of their box, otherwise just go for the center of the box. Any time your heat goes above the point you picked hit the '-' any time it goes bellow hit the '+'. Make sure your charcoal never runs out (if it does you'll lose the batch), if you make a mistake early on and get a point very far away from the average you want "Dumping just the distillate" will allow you to just lose the work you've done so far but not the wine (though the potential you've already converted will be lost). Continue making spirits until a) you get bored, b) you're concerned about your quality dropping, c) you have enough spirits or d) when the heat is near the point you chose your sink is no longer increasing. (C) means that you have used up all the potential in that location and that bottle of wine is done.

Making Fruit Spirits

Notice that there is no potential ever inside the fruit block. To make fruit spirits you must get the average inside the fruit bracket without actually having any points there. The hardest part is keeping the quality high enough that it doesn't drop to grey spirits.

To start off you'll need a significant quantity of cool potential and a bit of warm potential. So use either a tannin wine with a bit of residual sugar or a combination of tannin wine(s) and residual sugar wine. Adjust the heat to the Fruit block and dump the distillate or add the wine(s). Let the heat drop so that it hits the top of the Grass block converting pot into sink. You want to get almost every point from the very top of the Grass block so if heat drops too close to the top with out actually going down you'll want to switch to "+". Keep adding grass 1 at a time from the highest possible point until you have a good quantity (at least 40-50 in the sink, more if you'd like to make more fruit spirits). You should have Grass spirits of Life currently. Now do the same thing with a very small quantity of Vegetable points (these will have to come from the half way point in the vegetable block since the potential doesn't go lower). Stop converting Vegetable potential the moment the average switches to fruit (or grey). At this point you should have Fruit Spirits of Earth. If you have grey spirits or want to make more Fruit Spirits you can repeat the process. Generally you do not want to dump out the distillate if you have a significant quantity of spirits converted from the top of grass as you may run out of them, better to either keep converting more grass to increase the quality or just start over with fresh wine.

Making High Quality Spirits

To make very high quality spirits you will need to use a trick similar to the beginning of making Fruit Spirits. You will need to have at least one side of the spirits you want empty of any potential. This is easy for Fish, Vegetable, Grass and Wood because they're on the edge of areas which never have any spirits. If you'd like to make high quality Mineral, Grain or Worm you will first need to convert then "Dump out just the distillate" all of the potential on one side of them. This can be very time consuming especially for very high potential wines.

To clear out an area of all potential you want to make sure you are always go towards the edge you're clearing unless you are up against that edge. Then assuming you're going in the right direction you want to "Dump just the distillate" every tick. Dumping the distillate every tick let's you easily see when you've cleared out an area (because the average dot won't appear) and let's you accurately keep track of where your heat currently is.

Once one side is clear you want to stop dumping the distillate and start adding points as close to that edge as possible. The higher quality you want the more often you should move away from the edge even if you haven't converted a point yet. If you move away each time you convert a point you'll probably end up with air or maybe life.