v0.31:Metal

v50.14 · v0.47 · v0.34 · v0.31.25 · v0.28 · v0.23 This article is about an older version of DF. More Info · V

Metal is a Template:L extracted from Template:L at a Template:L, turning the ore into bars of pure metal. (One Template:L becomes Template:Ls instead of bars.) It is sometimes combined with other materials to form an alloy metal, which is also measured by the bar. An alloy usually improves on the properties of its components to give more uses or increased Template:L. The metal bars resulting from Template:L are used to make items such as Template:Ls, Template:L, Template:L, and Template:L at a Template:L.

Smelting pure ores into the corresponding bars raises the base value from that of stone (3) to that of bars (5). This value is then multiplied against the Template:L of the metal to give the final value for the bar.

Alloys

There are only eleven pure metals in Dwarf Fortress (plus a twelfth Template:L). Many of these can be mixed together to create alloys of one type or another, of which there are another fourteen. In some cases making alloys will result in an overall increase in value, or the resultant alloy will be more powerful when used to forge weapons or armor, though many alloys result in no overall increase in utility or Template:L. (These increases in value can be compared in the "Difference" column of the below table.)

The main use of these alloys is to allow you to stretch any useful metals you have too few of or to create items with distinct colors (for instance, Template:L is Template:L) for furniture, color-coding rooms or levers, or artistic constructions (including Template:L mosaics). In some cases (Template:L, for example) an additional benefit is reduced fuel consumption, as you can create multiple bars of some alloys directly from raw ores with only one Template:L task, bypassing the need to first make bars of the pure metals (and thus using only one fuel unit to produce multiple bars). The number of bars used to create an alloy always equals the number of bars produced: the number of bars input equals the number of bars of output.

For a full chart of recipes for alloys, see Template:L.

List of metals

Pure Metals

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Alloys

(Unless specified, ores of the ingredients may be used instead of bars for alloy reactions) Template:DF2010 metal table head

|} Legend:

• Tile Color corresponds to how items made from that metal are displayed in game, foreground and background colors.
• Reaction indicates the basic recipe for an alloy - this does not include the Template:L used in that creation. See the article for that alloy or Template:L for possible alternatives.

! - You can use only Template:Ls of metal in this reaction, not ores.

• Density is used to determine the different weight of finished objects.
• Melting point is used to determine if a material is Template:L or not: magma is 12000°U.
• Template:L is what the base value of an object made of this metal is multiplied by to determine its worth.
• Value difference indicates the difference between the average Template:L of the required bars of metals vs. the value of the resulting bars of alloy - what went in vs. what comes out, measured per bar. "+0" indicates that the resulting alloy is a perfectly average value of the component metals. For pure metals, this indicates the difference in value between the metal and the ore, separated with commas in cases where multiple ore values differ. Values marked with an asterisk denote ores that can yield multiple metals; on average, the difference in value from smelting either Template:L or Template:L is +1.

Weapon & Armor Quality

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• Combat information is used internally by the game to determine the combat properties of weapons and armor made from this metal:

Density: Used in conjunction with other factors - heavier weapons (higher numbers) hit with more force, light weapons tend to have less penetration.

Impact yield: Used for blunt-force combat; higher is better. This is the raw value divided by 10⁹ (i.e., GPa).

Impact fracture: Used for blunt-force combat; higher is better. This is the raw value divided by 10⁹ (i.e., GPa).

Impact elasticity: Used for blunt-force combat; lower is better. This is the raw value.

Shear yield: Used for cutting calculations in combat; higher is better. This is the raw value divided by 10⁶ (i.e., MPa).

Shear fracture: Used for cutting calculations in combat; higher is better. This is the raw value divided by 10⁶ (i.e., MPa).

Shear elasticity: Used for cutting calculations in combat; lower is better. This is the raw value.

Preliminary Analysis

It's interesting to note that the material order has been changed from previous versions. Adamantine and Steel still take first and second place respectively, but Bronze is now the third best material in the game. Beyond which, Iron has been demoted and is in a close tie with copper as to being the second worst material. Iron makes negligibly better blunt weapons and possibly better cutting weapons. The cutting weapon evaluation really depends on the importance of the various stats as copper has better shear fracture and shear elasticity than iron. As in older versions however, silver continues to hold steady as the worst material available (no longer beneficial with wooden training weapons being available now).

	Best	Better	Good	Fair	Poor	Terrible	Notes
Armor	Adamantine	Steel	Bronze, Bismuth Bronze	Iron	Copper	Silver
Edge Damage	Adamantine	Steel	Bronze, Bismuth Bronze	Iron	Copper	Silver	Some Iron weapons seem to perform about equally well as Copper weapons vs Copper armor(IE useless).
Blunt Damage	---	---	---	Silver	Bismuth Bronze, Bronze, Copper, Steel, Iron	Adamantine	Density seems to easily be the dominating factor overshadowing other properties, but blunt weapons perform poorly regardless so ordering is moot.