by Hans_Lemurson » Sat Mar 23, 2013 12:07 am
My observations seem to suggest that the quantity of each item does not matter, only the number of kinds of things.
Pie Dough and Oatmeal crackers made from the same flour end up with the same purity, even though Pie Dough uses more flour. The elemental composition of the flour is averaged with that of the water. With Flour that is 35/23/25/17, you will get dough that is 30/24/25/21.
Similarly for Smelting, there is a difference in Ore purity with and without Lime, but you get the same purity for 1 lime as you do for 20, though I'm not sure of how it's averaged. It's much less penalizing than water in pie dough.
The reason you see such dramatic drops in Purity when mixing ingredients is that Purity is roughly proportional to the square of the highest Element.
If you have flour that's 5/85/5/5, that's a purity of *runs calculations...* 64% with 6.76x multiplier. Multiplier = (9 * Purity) + 1
If you make it into Pie dough, it's now 15/55/15/15, with a purity of 16% with a 2.44x multiplier.
Because of this huge loss in food purity when impure substances are used, Cabbage Crumbs are considered something of a "Wonder Food" since they can be made entirely from high-purity ingredients (no water!).