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Yes.

Yes, if... (please post what here)

No. I don't want the possibility to lose weapons for any reason other than MAGMA (or other reasons)!

[NW_Kohaku]

There is the 'small detail' of having to make a very hot fire missing in your suggestion; a regular campfire or a crude stone forge along the lines you describe is not going to be hot enough to allow steel weapons/items to be fixed and making such a forge should not be within the ability of a single individual to pull off.

There is also the 'small detail' that all current non-anvil-based fire-working workshops merely takes any randomly-shaped boulder of fire-safe material to make, which they can not only hollow out into a chimney and kiln by hand, but can also mold back into a Schrodinger's Boulder of any desired workshop shape when deconstructed.

DF tends to fudge details in favor of letting players "bootstrap" their economy fairly easily, with the one very odd exception of anvils.

Of course, if we're talking about tools, one of the most egregious abuses of invincible tools and weapons is that a copper pick never breaks, no matter how much (far harder) granite you tunnel through. Having to reforge copper tools constantly would be realistic, but also more than a little bit of a hassle for players first carving out their fortress. 

(Notably, however, copper picks are really easy to reforge - people who tried using copper picks just kept a campfire nearby and a hammer to bang it back into shape, no real "loss" of material, just time to heat and hammer again.)

Toady admits he hasn't played a game past the first setup phases of a fortress for years, which seems to be in large part why that seems to be the stage of the game everything seems designed around, while late-game fortresses are mired in micromanagement Hell while also being devoid of late-game challenges or content outside of HFS.

[Bumber]

If you know that even the adamantine is limited, and needs to be replaced, what happens when you've dug away all the ore that you are sure is safe, and left with the potential for hell to, literally, break loose?

What happens to the broken adamantine? Is it obliterated from existence?

There is the 'small detail' of having to make a very hot fire missing in your suggestion; a regular campfire or a crude stone forge along the lines you describe is not going to be hot enough to allow steel weapons/items to be fixed and making such a forge should not be within the ability of a single individual to pull off.

Steel is harder to break in the first place. It can be repaired in town, if in fact you are correct about steel.

The melting point of steel and iron are the same (at least in the DF raws,) and I know for a fact that a crude forge is enough to shape iron. I suspect steel only needs greater heat for initial forging to rid it of impurities.

[Admiral Obvious]

If you know that even the adamantine is limited, and needs to be replaced, what happens when you've dug away all the ore that you are sure is safe, and left with the potential for hell to, literally, break loose?

What happens to the broken adamantine? Is it obliterated from existence?

There is the 'small detail' of having to make a very hot fire missing in your suggestion; a regular campfire or a crude stone forge along the lines you describe is not going to be hot enough to allow steel weapons/items to be fixed and making such a forge should not be within the ability of a single individual to pull off.

Steel is harder to break in the first place. It can be repaired in town, if in fact you are correct about steel.

The melting point of steel and iron are the same (at least in the DF raws,) and I know for a fact that a crude forge is enough to shape iron. I suspect steel only needs greater heat for initial forging to rid it of impurities.

First, I thought Adamantium was unbreakable. I don't know how dwarves "forge" it into weapons, but the raw says that it should be nigh unbreakable. Too bad diamonds don't have any useful material values in their raw, as that'd be the closest measuring tool we'd have for candy durability.

As for steel, I think it more needs pressure AND heat to create, and remove impurities.

[NW_Kohaku]

There is no fire that can be used to forge candy.  Its melting point is high enough that you could literally make a boat out of the bluemetal sail upon the surface of the sun without it melting. 

It cannot be hammered into shape - not only would it break the hammer before it bent, but its bend point and its shatter point is the same amount of pressure. 

The only rational way it can be made into finished goods in the first place is if it is produced from some sort of chemical reaction like concrete where it "hardens" into a molded shape, or outright magic. (I've always presumed that candy clothing was basically like chain mail, hardened links woven together, although it might actually be a substantially different, far less rigid molecular structure of the same material.)

It may be possible to reverse whatever process "sets" the candy in the first place, although that depends on how much change raw candy goes through to become a wafer, then candy tools.

Otherwise, if candy were to shatter (somehow, although it would practically take dropping an oceanliner on a thin plank of candy to do so,) it's irrecoverable.

[Neonivek]

There is no fire that can be used to forge candy.  Its melting point is high enough that you could literally make a boat out of the bluemetal sail upon the surface of the sun without it melting. 

It cannot be hammered into shape - not only would it break the hammer before it bent, but its bend point and its shatter point is the same amount of pressure. 

The only rational way it can be made into finished goods in the first place is if it is produced from some sort of chemical reaction like concrete where it "hardens" into a molded shape, or outright magic. (I've always presumed that candy clothing was basically like chain mail, hardened links woven together, although it might actually be a substantially different, far less rigid molecular structure of the same material.)

It may be possible to reverse whatever process "sets" the candy in the first place, although that depends on how much change raw candy goes through to become a wafer, then candy tools.

I always figured actually that they forge Candy by monkey chaining the pieces together.

[Bumber]

But you can't get a rigid sword or a detailed figurine from chaining. It's probably more like sewing, with strands piercing through tiny holes in the wafers, binding one layer to another. The more stitches, the less flexible.

"Melting" down candy equipment would presumably involve pulling out all the little threads woven between the rigid wafers.

[NW_Kohaku]

"Melting" down candy equipment would presumably involve pulling out all the little threads woven between the rigid wafers.

The problem with that sort of concept of candy is asking why, if candy "thread" is deformable enough for pulling like that (without slicing through your fingers with its incredibly sharp filiments), is it capable of holding an impossibly rigid blade?

Either it's impossibly rigid and you can't pull the threads out because that would require the threads bend, or it's a loose, flexible fabric and it would bend like a wet noodle when you hit someone with a candy sword.

This is why I say that there must be some sort of chemical reaction "setting" candy like concrete behaves differently before and after setting, because its properties mean it would be impossible to work in the state detailed in the raws.

[Admiral Obvious]

I suppose things are created by stacking individual hair like threads of the candy, each layer reinforcing the other.

The part that still doesn't make sense would be how they actually cut the thing, so they can stack the layers, unless candy comes out in a pile of chunks instead of a giant single boulder worth that we see. That would make some sense of turning it into "wafers", as it would be a multi layer stack of disconnected candy, like a stack of paper. Then when making something you layer the candy "paper" together to make something out of it.

Not sure how it would hold together if my hypothesis is true though.

[NW_Kohaku]

If you want to go with a "thread" theory, then keep in mind that each thread has to be subatomic in width, because that's how sharp an edge can be maintained...  Good luck tying all those microscopic threads together.

[Bumber]

The problem with that sort of concept of candy is asking why, if candy "thread" is deformable enough for pulling like that (without slicing through your fingers with its incredibly sharp filiments), is it capable of holding an impossibly rigid blade?

The thread would have to be made rigid, too. Another possibility is that they can be fused together (reversibly), and are layered like paper mache.

The only thing we really know is that the process involves some degree of heat (assuming I'm not misremembering it needing fuel,) but not just that alone. Maybe saliva+heat, and any wafers lost on reforging is Urist accidentally eating the candy.

If you want to go with a "thread" theory, then keep in mind that each thread has to be subatomic in width, because that's how sharp an edge can be maintained...  Good luck tying all those microscopic threads together.

Urist McPhysicist Posits Adamantine Strands as Subatomic, One-dimensional "Threads"; Mountainhome Scholars Balk!

[NW_Kohaku]

The thread would have to be made rigid, too. Another possibility is that they can be fused together (reversibly), and are layered like paper mache.

The only thing we really know is that the process involves some degree of heat (assuming I'm not misremembering it needing fuel,) but not just that alone. Maybe saliva+heat, and any wafers lost on reforging is Urist accidentally eating the candy.

It has a [FUEL] token just like every other smelter reaction, even though no fire that could possibly melt or even soften the candy could possibly be produced with a single lump of coal, and any fire hot enough would melt the furnace before the candy. 

Again, I would suspect there to be some sort of catalyst causing some chemical change (found solely in dwarven picks, craftsdwarf workshops, and dwarven smelters,) similar to the way that flux brings the melting point of iron down low enough to make steel.  Strands of candy are in some alternate state that leaves them flexible, which can be shaped and molded, then a chemical reaction hardens it like concrete is hardened.

Urist McPhysicist Posits Adamantine Strands as Subatomic, One-dimensional "Threads"; Mountainhome Scholars Balk!

Layering one-dimensional objects on top of one another still creates a one-dimensional object.  Zero times any number still equals zero. 

Rather, I've seen the ludicrously low density explained as an extremely unusual molecular structure, in much the same way that charcoal and diamonds are both carbon, but one is far denser and shows far different properties than the other. 

That said, especially if we are to believe that sub-atomic edges are literal, and not a stand-in for some sort of odd effect like a continuous electromagnetic field generated by "inert" metal, it may even be some sort of exotic particle arranged in molecule-like formation.

[Bumber]

Again, I would suspect there to be some sort of catalyst causing some chemical change (found solely in dwarven picks, craftsdwarf workshops, and dwarven smelters,) similar to the way that flux brings the melting point of iron down low enough to make steel.

It doesn't have to be in picks. Adamantine ore isn't solid adamantine.

I don't think that's how flux works. To my understanding it just bonds with oxides as the iron cools. Charcoal can burn at twice the melting point of iron with sufficient oxygen, just slightly above the temperature of DF magma.

Layering one-dimensional objects on top of one another still creates a one-dimensional object.  Zero times any number still equals zero.

They vibrate in other dimensions. It was a nod to String Theory.

[GoblinCookie]

There is no fire that can be used to forge candy.  Its melting point is high enough that you could literally make a boat out of the bluemetal sail upon the surface of the sun without it melting. 

It cannot be hammered into shape - not only would it break the hammer before it bent, but its bend point and its shatter point is the same amount of pressure. 

The only rational way it can be made into finished goods in the first place is if it is produced from some sort of chemical reaction like concrete where it "hardens" into a molded shape, or outright magic. (I've always presumed that candy clothing was basically like chain mail, hardened links woven together, although it might actually be a substantially different, far less rigid molecular structure of the same material.)

It may be possible to reverse whatever process "sets" the candy in the first place, although that depends on how much change raw candy goes through to become a wafer, then candy tools.

Otherwise, if candy were to shatter (somehow, although it would practically take dropping an oceanliner on a thin plank of candy to do so,) it's irrecoverable.

Chemical reactions are indeed the only thing that could forge or smelt adamantium.  If it can be surmised that adamantium smelting is restricted to the dwarves for that reason, only they know how to make it soften/liquify.  In the former case it can be beaten into shape while in the latter case it can be molded into shape, provided that air or water or something basic can be used to revert the reaction and return it to a solid state. 

[Pvt. Pirate]

i'd say: make it so that weapons and armor need to be taken care of or they'll slowly decay and be less effective.
also make it so that the user can to some degree change how much this happens.

[Putnam]

Um. There was some discussion earlier on material properties, and, like, I didn't see much that was right?

1. YIELD refers to strength, the point at which elastic deformation gives way to plastic deformation; any pressure in pascals greater than the number given will permanently deform the object. This is only taken into account for wounds.

2. FRACTURE refers to fracture strength, the point and which a material breaks. Pressure in pascals greater than the number given will break the object. Still only matters for wounds.

3. STRAIN_AT_YIELD refers to how much, as a percentage*100, the will have deformed by the time it reaches its YIELD point. For example, TENSILE_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:50000 on a material with TENSILE_YIELD:100000 means that the material will have become 50% longer once it's been stretched with 100 kilopascals of pressure; this applies to lower amounts, so 50 kilopascals will be 25% stretch and so on.