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[GoombaGeek]

How about better rust tokens?

1. Oxidization type

[OXIDIZES]
This is the standard oxidizes token, which would go on Aluminum, Titanium (if it is ever added), and many other metals like Lead, Bismuth and Zinc. In this case, the metal tarnishes to a different colour in air, and while the oxide is stable and will not wear the metal (as it does not flake off: aluminum oxide is very strong and transparent and protects the rest of the metal, and titanium oxide has similar properties), it lowers the metal's value or goods made of that metal if the tarnish is very advanced. The solution is to melt them down or possibly make some sort of polish.

[OXIDIZES_SPALLING]
This is what Iron does. You see, iron oxide flakes off normal iron, exposing more iron surface to oxidize, which is called a "spalling oxide". But many other metals oxidize in less obvious ways. The weapon will occasionally leave behind "a dusting of [metal] rust" and get a bit more worn. A spalling, oxidizing metal will have anything made of it get ever so slightly lighter over time. Implies [OXIDIZES].

2. Oxidization rate and conditions

[OXIDIZATION_MIN_TEMP:value]
The metal only oxidizes when above this temperature. Optional. Zinc, lead and many more exhibit behaviours like this, especially molybdenum (which is more-or-less stable at room temperature, but starts oxidizing at 300 Celsius or more).

[OXIDIZATION_MAX_TEMP:value]
The metal only oxidizes when below this temperature. Optional.

[OXIDIZATION_RATE:value]
The metal oxidizes faster, or slower. The value is abstract right now as I came up with it, but follows a linear scale. If MIN_TEMP and MAX_TEMP are set, then this will peak between the two temperatures and decline as it approaches either. If one is not set, it will increase towards infinity (or its melting point...). If neither is set, the oxidization rate will stay the same no matter how hot the metal is. If it is very high, the metal will just catch fire in air and be completely consumed (like caesium). This is so modders can have fun just like everyone else.

3. Oxide properties

[TARNISH_COLOR:color]
Sets the colour of the oxide. Slightly tarnished iron could be "gray tinged with rust" (rust is a DF colour). The colours would proceed something like "gray", "gray, with a touch of rust", "gray tinged with rust", "gray, with rust all over", "rust tinged with gray", "rust, with a touch of gray", and "rust", which would play out over decades. At the point of "gray, with rust all over", the item would gain a "rusty" adjective (if it has the SPALLING token) or an "oxidized" adjective (if it OXIDIZES), and its in-game colour would change. Bismuth oxidizes pink quite quickly, which is why its bars are pink currently: with this change, they would start gray and rapidly become pink.

[TARNISH_DENSITY:density]
For the sake of people who want their oxidizing aluminum to get slightly more dense over time.

[TARNISH_VALUE_WEAPONS:value]
To make the tarnish carry a slight value modifier on weapons, which increases as the metal tarnishes. These values can be negative, but I'm not sure how well DF raws handle negative integers. So, a +rusty iron sword+ will be worth less than an +iron sword+, and the longer you leave it to rust, the less it will be worth. I can't think of any oxides that would increase value (while aluminum oxide may be beneficial, it is undetectable with the naked eye) right now.

[TARNISH_VALUE_GOODS:value]
To make the tarnish carry a slight value modifier on goods, which increases as the metal tarnishes. Some tarnishes could feasibly increase the value, like green patina-covered copper. Others would still be considered detrimental, like iron rust (this isn't modern art, your buyers prefer shiny statues).

[DG]

Sounds like fun. Gives oxidization an effect (value add/minus) without worrying about the more dificult problems of structural strength (rusty iron bridge collapsing, sword breaking, whatever) that probably wont get looked at for a long time. I'd like to see something like this go in at the same time as preventative measures like paint, oil and enamels. I'm not very knowledgable about rust prevention in modern times let alone in historical times, but I think those three were the ones mostly used.

[Telgin]

In general I approve of this idea.  Having rust tokens like this would help differentiate metal wear, and that's a good thing I think.

I think the spalling oxide might be a bit overkill though in the way you've presented it.  Leaving behind dustings of oxide might be too much, even if the chance of it is very low, for example.  I also think that this would really just be justification for an item wearing out even when not in use.  It's hard to tell from your post if you intended for this to actually have an effect on weight, but that's probably too fine resolution for even DF to deal with (does it even handle floating point weights?).

I think having the two oxidizing tokens plus the temperature and rates are good though.  Items that produce spalling oxides will slowly (depending on the rate) wear out even if just sitting in a stockpile.  Putting them in water should probably multiply the rate by a very large amount (100 perhaps).  Prevention would be nice, but I don't know how Toady intends to handle object maintenance, and this would fall under that I think.  Hopefully something better than just melting it down to recreate it.

[GoombaGeek]

In general I approve of this idea.  Having rust tokens like this would help differentiate metal wear, and that's a good thing I think.

I think the spalling oxide might be a bit overkill though in the way you've presented it.  Leaving behind dustings of oxide might be too much, even if the chance of it is very low, for example.  I also think that this would really just be justification for an item wearing out even when not in use.  It's hard to tell from your post if you intended for this to actually have an effect on weight, but that's probably too fine resolution for even DF to deal with (does it even handle floating point weights?).

I think having the two oxidizing tokens plus the temperature and rates are good though.  Items that produce spalling oxides will slowly (depending on the rate) wear out even if just sitting in a stockpile.  Putting them in water should probably multiply the rate by a very large amount (100 perhaps).  Prevention would be nice, but I don't know how Toady intends to handle object maintenance, and this would fall under that I think.  Hopefully something better than just melting it down to recreate it.

Ehh... I was thinking it should leave scatterings of dust very, very rarely. So if the sword rusts for twenty years then there will be a little pile of rust underneath, but the odds of the sword suddenly dislodging a cloud of rust are very low.

And the effect of rust on weight would be just for fun, it probably wouldn't even register on DF's scale but seems like something that would be included anyway.