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40d:Glass
Glass is a material that items can be made of, like stone or wood. But although a material, "glass" as such does not appear in a pre-processed form like other materials can, such as wood logs or mined stones - the game only knows finished products made of glass, and also "raw glass", which functions like an uncut gem.
All glass items are manufactured at a glass furnace or magma glass furnace by a glassmaker. There are three sub-types of glass: Green, Clear and Crystal, each with different colour and value, but all with the same uses.
The raw material components of glass are sand, and in some cases rock crystals and pearlash, depending on which subtype you choose. Without sand on your map, you cannot make any but crystal glass items - sand is never imported by caravans.
Green glass can be churned out in massive amounts if produced at a magma furnace, because there are no ingredients other than sand used and sand sources cannot be depleted. This makes it a valuable resource for construction; it is as valuable as any flux stone, but can create a wider variety of final products, including gems and aquariums.
In order to produce glass, sand must first be gathered in bags using the Collect Sand task at any glass furnace. You must designate a sand-gathering zone from the (i)-menu in order for this task to succeed. Collecting sand requires item hauling, whilst moving sand bags to stockpiles requires furniture hauling. You will need spare bags in order to collect sand. Note that although Collect Sand does not utilize the furnace itself, or the skills of a glassmaking dwarf, it will block any subsequent tasks at that furnace until it is finished. Therefore when entering mass production, it is more efficient to have extra glass furnaces strictly set to Collect Sand while the main furnaces run true glassmaking jobs - since collecting sand is generally slower than producing a glass item, a ratio of at least 3:1 is recommended. The "Collect Sand" task consumes no fuel, but is not possible to designate at an un-powered magma glass furnace.
You can import bags, but there is currently v0.28.181.40d no way to trade for sand, (filled) sand bags, raw glass or glass items.
Products
Glass can be manufactured into a wide variety of products:
- Raw green glass is handled by the game like a rough (uncut) gem and therefore makes an excellent training material for practicing the gem cutting skill, given its abundance.
- Raw glass is also a frequent request of dwarves undergoing a strange mood (if you have sand on your map).
- Glass can be formed into blocks which can then be used for most building purposes.
- Glass can be used to manufacture a number of furniture items, including armor stands, boxes, floodgates, hatch covers, grates, portals, statues, tables, thrones and weapon racks.
- Glass can be converted into trap components, such as spiked balls or giant axe blades.
- Glass windows can be made at a glass furnace as an alternative to making windows from gems.
- Cages may be made from glass. A glass cage is called a terrarium, and is unique among cages in that it may be converted into an aquarium using an option in the building tasks/prefs menuqw. Terraria may not be used for justice applications.
- Glass vials are used in some types of plant processing, making extracts, and three clear glass vials are required to build an alchemist's laboratory. This makes the glass industry essential before a soap industry can be established.
- Glass can be formed into various toys and instruments (but not actual crafts).
Glass items often have unique names:
- A glass chest is called a box.
- A glass door is called a portal.
- A glass pipe is called a tube.
- A glass cage is called a terrarium.
Material value
- Green glass has a value of 2.
- Clear glass has a value of 5.
- Crystal glass has a value of 10.
The damage value of green glass weapons is 50%.