40d Talk:Gem

most of the gems have specific environments, but it would be a huge pain to organize it VengefulDonut 19:12, 9 November 2007 (EST)

Toady One said under such metals as Bismuth bronze that he was trying to avoid using names specific to real-world places. I see several gems where he wasn't able to avoid it. --Alfador 23:10, 9 November 2007 (EST)

Large Gems

So... What's the difference between large gems and cut gems? Xaque 09:42, 7 November 2007 (EST)

Large gems are a "finished produce." Cut gems are used to decorate stuff VengefulDonut 19:12, 9 November 2007 (EST)

So how do I make large gems for a mandate? All the ones I have cut just end up ordinary sized (no label). Yvain 04:45, 3 April 2008 (EDT)

Ok there is a small percentage chance that a gem will be cut into a large gem. Had to cut some 20+ gems to fill my mandate. Yvain 06:12, 3 April 2008 (EDT)

You make large gems by having a legendary gem cutter try several times. Rkyeun 00:00, 11 September 2008 (EDT)

Actually, when a rough gem is cut into a large gem, is the large gem is a by-product (meaning a cut gem AND a large gem are produced) or is it that only a large gem is produced?

A large gem is produced instead of a cut gem. HeWhoIsPale 17:59, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Glass bar

However, this appears to requires a Glass Bar, which is not possible to create at the current time.

I'll have to double check this when I get back to the machine with dwarf fortress on it - but I seem to recall being able to make 'raw glass' which made a glass block. I would also suggest changing the redirect for glass to gem - there is a significant amount of material that is unique to glass that is not appropriate for gems in general. --Shagie 03:22, 10 November 2007 (EST)

Can't make glass bars. You can make raw glass which comes out as a rough gem, or you can make glass blocks. Glass blocks are not gems and one cannot become the other. Rkyeun 00:00, 11 September 2008 (EDT)

Availability

Alright, during my hours of game play, I've found out that depth(in z-levels) and the maximum rarity/value of available gems within the current layer are connected. The deeper you dig, the more valuable gems you'll find. However... With modding I've discovered that it's impossible to find very valuable metamorphic, sedimentary and igneous extrusive only gems. Since those layers never reach the necessary depth. It also means that more valuable metamorphic, sedimentary and igneous extrusive only gems are a lot more rarer than their igneous intrusive counter parts. Could anyone conform this? Noctis 13:29, 20 November 2007 (EST)

Whoops! I messed up the layers! Fixed it. Oh, and the rarity of a gem seems to be dependent on it's value. Noctis 08:58, 21 November 2007 (EST)

Have you tried maps with steep cliffs? VengefulDonut 14:37, 21 November 2007 (EST)

I haven't run tests on steeper than 4 Z-level cliffs, but from what I gather, the maximum rarity of gems available at the any given depth is calculated based on the relative depth not absolute depth. Meaning that, wherever you are, you need to dig the same amount of Z-levels to reach any specific rarity of gems. It's the same as stone layers. If there's a cliff within a biome, then the underlaying layers will begin at a higher Z-level below the cliff, depending on high the cliff is. I hope, that I'm not too confusing here... Noctis 08:38, 22 November 2007 (EST)

I suspect it may work by the listed depth. The number that shows up when you look at a tile, which refers how many levels you would need to count directly upward to reach the surface. On a severe cliff map you can easily have a "depth" of 15+ among the sedimentary layers. VengefulDonut 16:36, 23 November 2007 (EST)

Once I found a star sapphire(?) quite shallow within the mountain, I found it when I was building my prison so I only had about 70 Dorfs at the time, bug or luck? Hoborobo 08:30, 10 August 2008 (EDT)

Rock crystal

Can anyone confirm that this gem can be found in this version? In what stone layers/at what depth did you find one? It's material value should better be like that of a diamond because raw crystal glass is needed for moods from time to time.--Another 09:38, 22 November 2007 (EST)

According to forum, people have round it Coelocanth 12:24, 23 November 2007 (EST)

I can confirm finding a cluster of rock crystal in ver 40d. It was on the bottom level of my map (z=134) in a layer of diorite. --Jellyfishgreen 16:37, 5 January 2009 (EST)

I found some recently, but then lost the fortress so I can't tell you the level. I'm using version 40d. 76.21.242.134 15:26, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Just got some, in a layer of diorite, too. It was the bottom layer. --Karl 20:08, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Redirects

There should be a redirect for each gem type to the subsection containing that gem. For example, I just created Heliodor as #REDIRECT [[Gem#Semi-Precious]]. IMO, any game item should go straight from the search box to the most relevant article: that is what redirects do. So if when a whole slew of redirects show up linking here... yeah, ididit.GarrieIrons 04:55, 11 February 2008 (EST)

What the various gems look like in real life

I got bored one afternoon and put together a website with pictures of most of the various gems listed in the game. It is located at [1] --Gemmy 16:04, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

http://www.geocities.com/dwarven.gemologist/gems.html

"Sorry, the page you requested was not found." --Savok 18:00, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

Wow, I thought after ten years of building websites that I would automatically double check my links. It's fixed now. --Gemmy 01:05, 17 March 2008 (EDT)

I have to say, Gemmy, that is awesome! Pariah 09:20, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

the location now is http://www.geocities.com/dwarven.gemologist/gemvalues.html --Confused 15:06, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Organization

Is there any reason the page is organized as it is? Wouldn't it make more sense to sort gems alphabetically within rarity categories? Or at least group similar gems (ie, Opals, etc...) within rarity categories? Because the current layout is not useful for locating particular gems. --Squirrelloid 01:02, 25 April 2008 (EDT)

You're right. You should go and organize it.--Richards 01:11, 25 April 2008 (EDT)

Went ahead and did it, since it was getting on my nerves as well. --Sinergistic 22:22, 4 January 2009 (EST)

Ok, the current setup is nice, it's alphabetized, but I was just looking at the creatures page, and it hit me. Why don't we do the same thing for the gems page? We could sort it by name, value and location. However, I don't know how the wiki syntax for that would work. I will attempt to figure it out for my self unless someone wants to point me in the right direction. I was thinking of just adapting the creature page to the gems page, but the more I look at it, the more I think it was written excusivily for the creature page. I shall investigate. --Sinergistic 19:05, 7 January 2009 (EST)

It's possible - it just takes some time. Which I don't have as I'm currently supposed to be working on a school project. Btw, if you're curious, header template, row template, redundant footer template. --GreyMaria 19:20, 7 January 2009 (EST)

Sweet, that worked wonderfully. I think it looks much better now! --Sinergistic 21:06, 7 January 2009 (EST)

If the gems were named backwards (Jasper, brown) then similar types of gems would end up together alphabetically. VengefulDonut 09:36, 11 January 2009 (EST)

quality

can gem cuts get quality modifiers?

no, but normal rough gems will occasionally be cut into a large gem- the item does get a quality modifier. (and that is usually how legendary gem cutters are born)

moonstone

isn't a gem unless some new version was released

Yep, it is a gem. I can post a screencap if needed. --Toloran 21:16, 9 August 2008 (EDT)

I found it t0o... I'll see if I can add the info. Zara 11:45, 10 August 2008 (EDT)

Raws
[MATGLOSS_STONE:MOONSTONE] [VALUE:2][COLOR:7:7:1][TILE:15][GEM:moonstone:STP] [ENVIRONMENT:METAMORPHIC:CLUSTER_SMALL:100]

VengefulDonut 11:25, 12 August 2008 (EDT)

Game vs. Real Gem Locations

Am I the only one getting annoyed at some of the bizarre decisions made by Toady One with respect to gems? Rubies and Sapphires are both produced in igneous rock, although generally mined from placer deposits because they are sparsely distributed. Ruby forms in extrusive igneous, typically basalt. Why they are found in Bauxite in the game I can't even begin to fathom, especially as Bauxite is only notable as an *aluminum* ore (although not within the technology level of the game). Placer deposits should be gravels or the sedimentary compressions thereof (probably sand and/or sandstone in the game, although that's not quite right because the game doesn't handle riverine deposits at all - or we should have dwarves able to pan for gold/gems).

And diamonds igniting when contacting magma is really funny considering Kimberlite is cooled magma that brought the diamonds up from the lower mantle.

--Squirrelloid 11:14, 3 December 2008 (EST)

I don't know enough geology to say anything about the Rubies and Sapphires, but the Diamonds catching fire does actually make sense. Diamonds are nothing but pure carbon, add a bit of oxygen and a good deal of heat and soon nothing will be left. The Diamonds form slowly as the magma cools into Kimberlite, and the reason they don't combust when surrouned by warm stone is due to the lack of oxygen for the carbon to bond with and the massive pressure. --Alkyon 13:24, 3 December 2008 (EST)

Diamonds are much older than the Kimberlite deposits. They don't form in the Kimberlite - they form in the upper mantle and are brought to/near the surface by the Kimberlite. Most diamonds on the market are over 1 billion years old. So the actual diamond survives magma temperatures for its trip to the surface. Just because they're carbon doesn't mean that carbon is easily available for oxidation - at some temperature diamonds revert to graphite and then can burn, but that requires temperatures in excess of 1700 degrees C. As magma (in-game) is between 1300-1400 deg C, it shouldn't cause diamonds to become graphite, and thus they shouldn't burn. --Squirrelloid 14:00, 3 December 2008 (EST)

The thing that really gets to me is the adamantine. Gairabad 18:22, 11 December 2008 (EST)

Question

I'm still new to DF, and I'm wondering if there's any strategy I should be following to try to find gem stone. Currently I just dig long thin tunnels semi-randomly in the hopes of hitting something. Are there certain types of rock where gems are more likely? I have a dwarf in a mood who wants rough gems, but I can't find any around. --Emeraldemon 18:07, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Use exploratory mining and hope you hit something. --LegacyCWAL 19:07, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, read the gem listing for the type of stone it's found in. And, as suggested, read exploratory mining.

By the way - "sortable" listings ROCK!

"cut glass"

Is the main use of cut glass to encrust items?Garrie 11:52, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

The main use of cut glass is to train up your gem cutters.--Zchris13 17:18, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

But once you've cut the glass, yes, it's used to encrust items. Cut glass can also be used to make "glass" gem windows, but a glass window made directly at the glass furnace will be worth far more. --Quietust 17:38, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Merged all tables into one and added 'Rarity' column

As I wanted my first thing on this wiki to be something that isn't a change of the raw information, so I decided to do something organisational based.
I wanted to arrange them all by value. I hope this new arrangement is OK with everyone. Deco 15:10, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

B is for Bold - nice work!

Is there a way to use an invisible tag to sort the "Rarity" column by rarity, and not alphabetically? Currently, clicking that sorting yields a purely alphabetic result:

• Ornamental
• Precious
• Rare
• Semi-Precious

Not as useful as it might be. If we could somehow bump Semi-P up to live between O & P, that would be better yet imo. Invisible would be better than not, but even numerical values (or Roman Numerals??) might be better for organization. Meh, still a huge improvement, even without.--Albedo 19:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Stones being crafted?

One of my dwarves recently (apparently) carved a Banded Agate into a stone idol and a Bloodstone into a bracelet without a mood or any sort of special instruction... the game files don't seem to say anything unusual about the gems, that I can see... does this just happen sometimes? Are my dwarves going blind? Has anyone else ever experienced this? Dorque 01:41, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

As has been noted more clearly on the article page, gem cutters will occasionally turn a rough gem into a craft (bracelet, amulet, earring, scepter, idol, etc.) or "large gem" rather than producing cut gems suitable for encrusting onto other goods. --Quietust 17:40, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Higher level gem cutters

Do higher level gem cutters really make more large gems? That seems rather counterintuitive. It would make more sense for higher level gem cutters to just make gems faster and have higher quality modifiers for large gems with the chance of creating a large gem being the same, regardless of level. I'll test this out once my gem cutter reaches legendary. --Overspeculated 16:45, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, they really make more large gems. Truly low level gem cutters don't make any at all. In fact, I consider gem cutting to be one of those skills that a dwarf should stop doing before he gets too experienced at it - i'd rather have the cut gems to use. --Squirrelloid 20:55, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I said I would test it, and I did (albeit a bit late). I had a legendary cutter cut 30 gems (raw green glass) and a bunch of no skill cutters cut 30 gems (also raw green glass). The legendary cutter produced 22 cut gems and 8 large gems. The no skill gem cutters produced 21 cut gems and 9 large gems. From this I conclude that gem cutter skill does not affect the chance of producing a large gem, with this being a constant regardless of skill (like I suspected). I'm guessing that the chance to produce a large gem is 1/3rd or perhaps 30%. --Overspeculated 23:11, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Might be worthwhile to do another test with rough gemstones, since the game is known to treat them differently - specifically, rough gems can be made into either large gems or crafts, while raw glass can only be made into large gems. It might also be worth checking if the gem's value has any effect on the frequency of crafts. There's also the possibility that the dwarf's personality could have an impact (namely, a creative dwarf might make more crafts), so it might be wise to use the same dwarf for all of the tests, using Dwarf Companion to reset Gem Cutting skill between each set of tests. --Quietust 00:07, 29 January 2010 (UTC)