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[ronnietucker]

I've managed to hit a ton of gold, but I couldn't see a way of making gold armour. Are some metals not used in making armour??

OK, it might not be great for protection, but a small army of gold covered dwarves would be pretty spectacular.

Thanks for reading.

[delphonso]

Yep, several metals are for furniture only, and it follows pretty reasonable logic of: is this something that would actually keep you alive? Copper, bronze, iron and steel are the basics. You'll see most options arrive in caravans, and if you only have gold, then you can just sell gold stuff to them in exchange for their useful armor.

No gold armor (unless you mod it in), but if you want spectacle, you can use that gold to decorate the armor, which I always thought would look amazing. Spikes and rings of gold jangling off steel plate!

[ronnietucker]

Yep, several metals are for furniture only, and it follows pretty reasonable logic of: is this something that would actually keep you alive? Copper, bronze, iron and steel are the basics. You'll see most options arrive in caravans, and if you only have gold, then you can just sell gold stuff to them in exchange for their useful armor.

No gold armor (unless you mod it in), but if you want spectacle, you can use that gold to decorate the armor, which I always thought would look amazing. Spikes and rings of gold jangling off steel plate!

Cool. Thanks for letting me know.

Yeah, I've currently been selling the gold off for goodies. But I hadn't thought of gold decor on the armour. That'd be nice. Good idea.

Not that my military dwarves last that long...   

[MonkeyHead]

The reason some are not used for armour is their awful material properties. This is relevant if you get a moody armoursmith who demands metal bars. Be careful to ensure they get bronze or better. A tin helmet is pretty useless despite being an artifact.

[doublestrafe]

The reason some are not used for armour is their awful material properties. This is relevant if you get a moody armoursmith who demands metal bars. Be careful to ensure they get bronze or better. A tin helmet is pretty useless despite being an artifact.

Likewise, a gold boot or sword is terrible. But a gold war hammer from a mood is awesome, and platinum is even better. Heavy things thump better.

[Starver]

Unless it's changed without me noticing, there's no real restrictions (in entirely vanilla DF) about what metals are potentially used in moodcrafting[1], as already alluded to, but of course you're at the whim of an actual mood being sparked. And then it relies upon the degree you can quickly restrict and redirect the actual materials that end up getting picked up for usage.

'Candy' warhammers are a notable ideal (for giving the Hammerer a nerfed discipline-weapon), but that has its own problems to produce.

I imagine fine pewter chainmail/whatever would be funny, for a different reason.


[1] Within the broad group of metals, maybe, in the specific case of the base-MAT upon which the armour/weapon is centred. Although otherwise unavailable metal beds are possible in a bigger cross-MAT-type example, so I'm unclear as to the exact back-end 'thinking' that goes behind the choices. Maybe the wiki has the definitive info on this, if you can't find the research on the forum.

[muldrake]

Yep, several metals are for furniture only, and it follows pretty reasonable logic of: is this something that would actually keep you alive? Copper, bronze, iron and steel are the basics. You'll see most options arrive in caravans, and if you only have gold, then you can just sell gold stuff to them in exchange for their useful armor.

You generally don't want to sell raw metal or bars directly, but have a master craftsman build exceptional+ furniture or finished goods out of them and encrust them in cut gems, which makes the value skyrocket to a high multiple of the combined values of both raw materials.

If you have even tetrahedrite, smelt it into copper+silver and use the silver to create high quality items as well.  You can do something similar with galena although ending up with a bunch of lead bars isn't particularly thrilling and unlike copper, it's nearly useless except for things you don't want to move anywhere (because it takes forever).

[Schmaven]

It does mess up other jobs, but forbidding metal types from the Z Stocks screen is quick and easy.  The game auto-pauses when a moody dwarf claims a workshop, so I usually wait until that moment to see whether it was a forge or a tailoring/etc. shop, check their item preferences, and forbid accordingly.

Just remember to stop melting other metal gear down, and un-forbid the other bars once they've grabbed a couple of your choice.  It's the 1st bar that determines the item's composition.

[muldrake]

It does mess up other jobs, but forbidding metal types from the Z Stocks screen is quick and easy.  The game auto-pauses when a moody dwarf claims a workshop, so I usually wait until that moment to see whether it was a forge or a tailoring/etc. shop, check their item preferences, and forbid accordingly.

Just remember to stop melting other metal gear down, and un-forbid the other bars once they've grabbed a couple of your choice.  It's the 1st bar that determines the item's composition.

And if it's something like a tailor's shop, don't forget to ban any cotton candy threads you might have unless you actually want a single left sock made of the stuff.

[Mobbstar]

The reason some are not used for armour is their awful material properties.

I want to clarify that, technically speaking, the game explicitly deems metals eligible in their definition.  The material properties are ignored, as evidenced by brass, which is good enough to have historically been used for armour (though only rarely, because plain copper is cheaper and easier, and bronze is better if available).