Raw adamantine

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Raw adamantine

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Uses
Extract adamantine strands (100%) Masonry Stone crafting Construction
Properties
Material value 250☼ Fire-safe Magma-safe Melting point 25000 °U (m) Boiling point 50000 °U (m) Ignition point none (m) Solid density 200 kg/m³ Specific heat 7500 J/kg·K Color aqua
Wikipedia article

v50.14 · v0.47.05 This article is about the current version of DF. Note that some content may still need to be updated. More Info · V

This article or section contains minor spoilers. You may want to avoid reading it.

The ore of adamantine is absurdly valuable, and can be processed into one of the most valuable materials in the game, both in monetary value and utility. Its discovery is both a blessing and a curse; it has a massive value even unrefined, and weapons and armor made from it are very likely among the best possible. Its high melting point means you can easily use it to build magma-safe mechanisms and floodgates, but this is not recommended due to its scarcity and value in other items.

Raw adamantine has a Material Multiplier of x250. For a comparison to other mined materials, generic stone has a MM of x1, obsidian x3, native silver x 10, native gold x30, and native platinum x40. Processed adamantine "metal" has a multiplier of x300, the highest in the game of any material.

Adamantine is so valuable, both in price and usefulness, that a special message pops up when your miners discover a vein of it.

Location

Every map can contain adamantine, regardless of the location. Very small maps can lack adamantine veins, usually however multiple veins are present (~1 per 4 embark squares). If an adamantine vein is located in an embark square, it will be in the center of this square.

More specific statistics, summarized from this forum post:

There is one adamantine vein generated in every 2x2 embark grid, randomly placed. Thus, every 16x16 region square has exactly 64 veins. A 2x2 embark aligned to the grid will have exactly 1 vein, while a 2x2 embark offset from the grid may have as few as none or as many as 4. Over all the possible configurations of 2x2 embarks, your odds are as follows: 20.4% for zero veins, 60.6% for one vein, 17.8% for two veins, 1.8% for three veins, and 0.1% for four veins, with an average (not surprisingly) of 1.

A 3x3 embark is guaranteed to have at least 1 vein, an average of 2.25, and a maximum of 4. An unaligned 4x4 embark still has a minimum of 1, but an average of 4 and a maximum of 9; aligning it with the grid gives you exactly 4. Moving up to a 5x5 increases the minimum to 4 and the average to 6.25, but at the expense of lower framerates. If you're planning on making the HFS a major part of your fortress and don't cheat with reveal, an aligned 4x2 embark is the smallest you can generate that is guaranteed to have multiple veins (and therefore a high chance of multiple entrances, reducing the risk that one of the veins will not be traversable).

Storage

Raw Adamantine is stored in stone stockpiles with "Raw Adamantine" enabled in that stockpile's 'other stone' category. Once extracted, adamantine strands will be stored in Cloth stockpiles which have the appropriate materials enabled.

Veins and Mining

A profile view of an adamantine vein travelling through an underground cavern, solid rock, and a magma sea. For more detail and resolution click the thumbnail.

It's worth noting that a tile of Raw adamantine, when mined out, will always produce a stone. Raw adamantine veins, in contrast to usual ore veins, span z-levels nearly exactly straight upwards, and are thicker than many gem clusters. Adamantine veins can span from 5 to 30-40 z-levels, sometimes even significantly more. Despite being impossibly strong in its refined form, a simple copper pick works fine for mining it out, and the vein is full of raw adamantine ripe for the diggin'. Just make sure you don't dig too deep...

One serious downside to mining veins of raw adamantine is that they are hollow, and digging into the hollow section will lead to a certain spoiler, triggering dangerously large amounts of fun which can and usually will wipe out even a mature, heavily defended fortress. On the bright side, the location of all adamantine veins will be revealed at this time.

Hollow sections are always 2x2 tiles in size, encased by a 4x4 unbroken block of adamantine. A hollow section on one z-layer shares at least one x or y tile with the hollow sections above and below it. Using these constants, it is easy to determine where the hollow sections are not and mine the "safe" areas only, allowing you to mine about 50% of the vein safely. However, one wrong designation can lead to disaster.

Adamantine can be found in vertical pillars in the magma sea. This makes mining difficult, as one must either drain the area around the pillar to mine the pillar fully, or in cases of thicker pillars, mine out only the interior without breaching the exterior layer (and thus flooding the interior with magma). However, with the access to vast amounts of water almost guaranteed on any map thanks to underground lakes, it might be possible to use selective flooding to cool the magma around the adamantine, and build walls of obsidian around them.

Raws

[INORGANIC:RAW_ADAMANTINE] [ITEM_SYMBOL:'*'] [THREAD_METAL:ADAMANTINE:100] [STATE_NAME_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:raw adamantine] [STATE_NAME_ADJ:LIQUID:molten raw adamantine] [STATE_NAME_ADJ:GAS:boiling raw adamantine] [DISPLAY_COLOR:3:7:1] [TILE:156] [MATERIAL_VALUE:250] [SPEC_HEAT:7500] [MELTING_POINT:25000] [BOILING_POINT:50000] [SOLID_DENSITY:200] [LIQUID_DENSITY:2600] [MOLAR_MASS:55845] [IMPACT_YIELD:2500000] [IMPACT_FRACTURE:3000000] [IMPACT_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:0] [COMPRESSIVE_YIELD:2500000] [COMPRESSIVE_FRACTURE:3000000] [COMPRESSIVE_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:0] [TENSILE_YIELD:2500000] [TENSILE_FRACTURE:3000000] [TENSILE_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:0] [TORSION_YIELD:2500000] [TORSION_FRACTURE:3000000] [TORSION_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:0] [SHEAR_YIELD:2500000] [SHEAR_FRACTURE:3000000] [SHEAR_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:0] [BENDING_YIELD:2500000] [BENDING_FRACTURE:3000000] [BENDING_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:0] [DEEP_SPECIAL] [MAX_EDGE:1000] no swords until you can pick mats [ITEMS_HARD] [IS_STONE] [STATE_COLOR:ALL_SOLID:AQUA]

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Sedimentary	Calcite · Chalk · Chert · Claystone · Conglomerate · Dolomite · Limestone · Mudstone · Rock salt · Sandstone · Shale · Siltstone
Igneous	Intrusive Diorite · Gabbro · Granite Extrusive Andesite · Basalt · Dacite · Obsidian · Rhyolite
Metamorphic	Gneiss · Marble  · Phyllite · Quartzite · Schist · Slate
Ore	Adamantine, raw · Aluminum, native · Bismuthinite · Cassiterite · Copper, native · Galena · Garnierite · Gold, native · Hematite · Horn silver · Limonite · Magnetite · Malachite · Platinum, native · Silver, native · Sphalerite · Tetrahedrite
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