v0.34 Talk:Melt item

These numbers are wildly inaccurate - I just saw an iron breastplate for 150, making that an item value of 15 and a per-bar cost of 17; weapons cost significantly more than indicated. Can I get confirmation on those? The Real Marauder 17:09, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

It looks like the table is mostly unchanged since it was created for 40d, so it's quite possible the data is inaccurate. As long as you've taken quality into account as well as item and material (and trade agreements, if in fortress mode), whatever numbers you see can be used to update the table. Happy editing! --Timrem 18:08, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I experimented with Giant Axe Blades: It costs 1 bar of metal to make, melting gives me 1.5 bars back. This is a 150% return, and a potentially endless source of metal. (34.07) Bug? --SGdYy409Ls 22:46, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

All return rates appear to have tripled compared to whats on the page right now, with an additional doubleing for high/low boots and gauntlets. The highest are leggings (150%), battle axes (120%), and all trap compents (discs 120%, the rest 150%). This puts multi bar items like breastplates back up to the 90% return they were at before their creation started respecting material size, but I have no idea if the two are related. Done on 34.06. --Gestahl 20:10, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

^That's very interesting, about the tripling returns. I would just like to add for reference, that a normal bar itself has a base value of 5. Also, merchants like to bring decorated and well-made goods, to take more of your money...

I've located the actual code for determining melt yields, and here's what I found:

• Furniture (door, floodgate, chair, cage, barrel, table, coffin, statue, chest, bin, armor stand, weapon rack, cabinet, anvil, siege engine parts, pipe section, hatch cover, grate, traction bench, and slab) yields 1 bar, compared to needing 3 to construct. This is as before.
• Chains, instruments, buckets, and animal traps also yield 1 bar, which is exactly how much you need to make them. For buckets, this seems to have been the case for a very long time (dates back to 23a), but the others used to only yield 0.5 bars.
• Ballista arrows, ballista arrowheads, mechanisms, splints, and crutches yield 0.5 bars. Effectively the same as 23a.
• Flasks, goblets, toys, figurines, and scepters yield 0.2 bars. Same as 23a.
• Amulets, crowns, rings, earrings, and bracelets yield 0.1 bars. Same as 23a.
• Ammo yields 0.1 bars per 10 stack size, rounded down, plus 0.1. Same as 23a.
• Coins yield 0.1 bars per 50 stack size, rounded down, plus 0.1. Same as 23a, and notable because it takes 1 bar to mint them and you get 1.1 bars in return.
• Weapons, armor, shoes, shields, helms, gloves, pants, tools, and trap components yield 3/10 times the item's MATERIAL_SIZE, which is effectively 90% returns. For gloves and shoes, however, this works out to 180% returns, which is probably wrong.

--Quietust 15:45, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Furthermore, I've discovered that the "1/10 material size" melting yield has NEVER EVER BEEN TRUE - from version 0.23.130.23a all the way to 0.34.05, melting yields for weapons, trap components, and armor have been fixed at various values depending on the item type. It wasn't until 0.34.06 that Toady actually made them respect MATERIAL_SIZE and return 0.3 bars per unit. --Quietust 14:11, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

It's worth noting that spoilerite items return exactly the stated values in wafers, but cost four times as much. No infinite spoilerite for us, I guess. Abdulijubjub 03:22, 31 August 2012 (UTC)