40d Talk:Melt item

Melting efficency

How material efficient is melting things down? Risim 23:54, 25 January 2008 (EST)

It's not lossless, that's for sure. I could be quite wrong, but something makes me want to say it's around 3:1, based on bars required to create the items. I think overages are lost, but that's just a casual observation. It's really the only way to get certain metals in larger quantities though, assuming importing the bars or ore alone aren't good enough for your means. (Most commonly run into when trying to get certain metals from the mountainhomes before you're ready to bring in humans) --Edward 06:32, 26 January 2008 (EST)

Does smelting need coal?--Koltom 23:53, 29 February 2008 (EST)

It needs fuel. So coal or magma. --Ikkonoishi 00:25, 1 March 2008 (EST)

Well, i got a bar of steel from melting a steel piccolo and a steel toy axe(2 items), however the piccolo was of "*" quality, not sure if the quality affects melting or not, so mentioning it just to be on the safe side.

Equipping melt-designated items

Does designating an item to melt make it forbidden? (for equipping) – unsigned comment by Sphexx

Please sign your edits with ~~~~. Also, no, it doesn't. --GreyMario 22:43, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

Melting items and mandates

I had a noble who had a mandate for two bronze goods. I melted down some bronze things and made a bronze bar from it. But that didn't seem to satisfy the mandate; he still wanted 2 bronze goods. Making bronze bars normally satisfies the mandates though. Can anyone else verify that making bars by melting things wont satisfy a mandate? --Bouchart 23:27, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

You'll get no verify from me as I've never melted anything down. However, I will suggest making goblets when you have a metal mandate. --GreyMario 00:00, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

Agreed, as far as I know, you'll need to make something OUT of bronze not just make bronze bars to satisfy him... that or kill the bastard --Loganis 00:47, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

That´s right. You´ll have to make items out of bronce bars, not bronze bars themselves (even this seems to be part of fullfilling the mandate). --Kami 10:02, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

actually, not exactly.

*melting does not count.

*smelting of ore into bars does count

*making items out of melt bars (of course) does count too --Höhlenschreck 11:04, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Merge with smelting?=

would be senseful, or? --Catpaw 05:32, 24 September 2008 (EDT)

Can't find melt object?

I've got an armor stockpile full of narrow and large iron armor pieces, all marked for melting. Every time I try to Melt a Metal Object though, I get "Kib Duradtirist cancels Melt a Metal Object: Needs melt-designated item." The stockpile is inside and accessible (he's been pulling pieces from it already, and has already melted about a dozen), and I've tried unselecting and reselected the melt-able objects through the stock screen, clicking on them individually, and choosing them en masse; all to no avail. Anyone have any insight or suggestions? I didn't realize that 'dwarves stay indoors' meant 'dwarves stay underground.' --Torasin 23:34, 20 January 2009 (EST)

Which is it?

This article says battle axes and picks are the best for training a weaponsmith, while the Weaponsmith article says trap components are better. Anyone?--Kwieland 19:48, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Following the argument of recovery = itemSize/10, the mentioned trap weapons are better, as their size is 5 and that of of picks and battle axes is 4. --Nahno 21:59, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I said that in the forums, too, and that would be my bad - I forgot to check "trap weapons". Going by the RAW's, that's true ONLY if a trap weapon takes 1 metal to forge - and I don't make trap weapons. If only 1 bar is used, then those have a better return, yes, and those should be changed (and bar use made clear in trap weapon articles).--Albedo 23:07, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Only a singe bar. Yup. Definetely trap components. Changing now.--Zchris13 23:25, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Cow cage

what happens to an animal when you melt a cage? --Confused 20:02, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

If it's an iron cage with a pig in it you could get pig iron. Strant 15:28, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Melting Coins

Continually minting coins and then melting them seems to result in no metal being lost. Could somebody verify? Promothema 21:06, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Melting Different Metals

If a smelter stores all of the data of how much of a bar that is smelt there, does it keep different data of different metals? Destroy the building and that data is lost I'm guessing.--Seaneat 00:18, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Correct on both counts, as the article (now) states.--Albedo 23:44, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Melting bolts/arrows

The question of melting individual bolts was raised, and the test seemed trivial, so when I found myself on a map with harpies and a courtyard full of individual bolts... here are the results of 5 melting runs:

10 stacks of 1 individual bolt = 1 bar

Stack of 12 + 8 individuals = 1 bar

Stack of 18 + 8 individuals = 1 bar

Stacks of (in order) 17+15+6+8+9+12+7 = 1 bar

Stacks of 38 + 36 (war prizes) + 1 + 1 = 1 bar

(All runs were monitored to verify no bar was created early.)

The (imo obvious) conclusion is that a "stack" melts to #/100, rounded up to the nearest 1/10th: stack of 1 = .1, stack of 7, 8 or 9 (or, I'm assuming, 10) = .1, stack of 12, 15 or 17 (or, I'm assuming, 11 or 20) = .2, etc.
So, yes, if you could forge a standard stack of 25 bolts for one bar, and somehow shoot them into (at least) 20 un-broken bolts, and collected those and melted them, you'd then have two bars. Alchemy.
I could envision a captured goblin released onto a narrow ledge 20 tiles (max range) and 1 level higher than your unskilled archers, who likewise would be on a ledge to limit their advance. One hit, he's probably dead, but until then they're sprayin' n' prayin'. If you had a no-skill weaponsmith, that might add a bit to life-expectancy. Might be worth it for steel on a steel-poor map, or just to say you did it.--Albedo 23:39, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Or with adamantine - http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=51423.0 Oddtwang of Dork 19:21, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Pairs of Objects

Shouldn't things like gauntlets and boots and stuff that are made in pairs from a single bar have twice the "percent return"? Or is this already accounted for in the "absolute return (in bars)" - this would be weird since you melt them one at a time. Sergius 18:30, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Not as that chart is laid out, no. That chart shows what you get for melting an object, so "absolute return" is for one item (which is how you melt things, one at a time), not for melting a suit or pair or set. Boots are melted singly, not in pairs, so you only get the return for 1 boot for every melting job. The table in the subsection below that, on "training metalsmith skills", takes that into account - but boots/gauntlets are still less desirable than leggings with regard to that end.
It says "armor item melted" - "item" as in "one", "singular" - but I edited the listings from the usual plural, which may have contributed to your confusion.--Albedo 21:35, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Suspect Information

After locating the item melt yield logic in 0.23.130.23a and also locating it in 0.34.11, I took a disassembly of 0.28.181.40d and found the routine there as well, and the information on this page is all wrong - from what I'm seeing, the melt yields were exactly the same as they were in 0.23.130.23a with the only change being the addition of pipe sections, hatch covers, and grates. Weapons, armor, and trap components do not yield metal based on their MATERIAL_SIZE (armor returns 0.8 bars, weapons/shields/pants/trapcomps return 0.5 bars, and shoes/helms/gloves return 0.3 bars), and buckets returned 1 full bar rather than the 50% claimed on the article page. --Quietust 03:18, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

• I've just tested this in 0.28.181.40d (don't have 40d19 handy) - after making 10 suits of plate mail and 10 suits of chain mail, melting down each set yielded 8 bars. Seriously, who added this info to the article?! --Quietust 03:33, 16 June 2012 (UTC)