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[Darkgamma]

1 Wafer > 50 Coins > 50 Wafers > 2500 Coins > 2500 Wafers > ....

[Alastar]

Brass gets you the biggest increase in value.
Bronze gives you a moderate increase in value and is a useful weapon material.

Bismuth Bronze needs 2.5 as much labour (and fuel if you have no magma smelters) per bar as regular bronze because you can't make it directly from ore.
However: It's slightly more valuable and requires half as much tin. Worth it if tin is scarce or you gain metals from melting rather than mining.

Fine Pewter is even more labour and fuel efficient than Bronze, for the same value increase. Theoretically useful if you don't need bronze as a weapon material and cassiterite is more abundant than copper. I rarely bother because I can never get enough weapon-grade materials (projectiles and traps if nothing else).

Billon gives a nice value increase if you have tetrahedrite or galena as the only silver source, it's value-neutral otherwise.

The other alloys are useless or dominated by something else.
For example, Lay Pewter is more valuable than the raw indegredients but instead of 8 bars of Lay Pewter (value 24) we could have 2 bars of Bronze (worth 10), 4 bars of Fine Pewter (worth 20) and 2 bars of Lead (worth 4), total value 34.

[spook54321]

Bismuth Bronze needs 2.5 as much labour (and fuel if you have no magma smelters) per bar as regular bronze because you can't make it directly from ore.

2.5?  No its more like 4 times the jobs/fuel as regular bronze (or more if using goblinite instead of copper ore).

Lets add this up

Bismuth Bronze cannot be smelted directly from ore, so you must acquire the bars, requiring four jobs to smelt the tin, bismuth, and two copper ore into bars.  Then another four jobs to combine all the resulting bars into b-bronze.  Altogether eight jobs to get 16 bars.

Regular bronze can be smelted directly from ore, thus only requiring two smelting jobs of one tin and copper ore each to get 16 bars.

[Alastar]

Oops... for some reason I fell back into thinking "1 ore -> 1 metal" again. Thanks for the correction.

[Hyndis]

1 Wafer > 50 Coins > 50 Wafers > 2500 Coins > 2500 Wafers > ....

So, build a 4x4 embark filling fortress of admantine blocks out of a single thread of adamantine?

[krenshala]

Bismuth Bronze needs 2.5 as much labour (and fuel if you have no magma smelters) per bar as regular bronze because you can't make it directly from ore.

2.5?  No its more like 4 times the jobs/fuel as regular bronze (or more if using goblinite instead of copper ore).

Lets add this up

Bismuth Bronze cannot be smelted directly from ore, so you must acquire the bars, requiring four jobs to smelt the tin, bismuth, and two copper ore into bars.  Then another four jobs to combine all the resulting bars into b-bronze.  Altogether eight jobs to get 16 bars.

Regular bronze can be smelted directly from ore, thus only requiring two smelting jobs of one tin and copper ore each to get 16 bars.

While this is true, Bismuth Bronze is less expensive to embark with when doing a "make it all yourself" embark.

Cassiterite, Native Copper, and Malachite are 6 points per ore, and Tetrahedrite is 9 (but gives you some silver), while Bismuthinite is only 3 points.  This means it cost 21 embark points for 16 bismuth bronze bars (27 if using tetrahedrite), but it cost 24 points for 16 normal bronze bars (30 for tetrahedrite).

If you bring the wood to burn for this, it does become 8 wood (8 points) + 1 cassiterite (6 pts) + 1 bismuthinite (3 pts) + 2 native copper (12 pts) or 29 points for 16 bismuth bronze bars versus 6 wood (6 pts) + 2 cassiterite (12 pts) + 2 native copper (12 pts) or 30 points for 16 bronze bars.  So, if you are bringing the wood, the difference is almost negligable.

If you source your wood at the embark site, however, it is still a savings of 3 embark points per 16 bars.  And granite (or marble) is 3 points per boulder at embark.   Myself, I've been bringing just enough wood to get the first batch of bismuth bronze made, then making an axe to source the rest of the required wood: 1 stone (or stone block if your mason has already started) for the wood furnace, 1 stone for the smelter (can be the same stone if needed), 4 charcoal to smelt two copper, one bismuthinite and one cassiterite, 1 charcoal to make bismuth bronze bars, then 1 more charcoal to make a bismuth bronze axe.  Thats 1 or 2 stone and 6 wood to start chopping more wood for fuel.  Less if you have your carpenter build a training axe, but I consider that to almost be an exploit and don't do it.

[Calech]

While this is true, Bismuth Bronze is less expensive to embark with when doing a "make it all yourself" embark.

Cassiterite, Native Copper, and Malachite are 6 points per ore, and Tetrahedrite is 9 (but gives you some silver), while Bismuthinite is only 3 points.  This means it cost 21 embark points for 16 bismuth bronze bars (27 if using tetrahedrite), but it cost 24 points for 16 normal bronze bars (30 for tetrahedrite).

If you bring the wood to burn for this, it does become 8 wood (8 points) + 1 cassiterite (6 pts) + 1 bismuthinite (3 pts) + 2 native copper (12 pts) or 29 points for 16 bismuth bronze bars versus 6 wood (6 pts) + 2 cassiterite (12 pts) + 2 native copper (12 pts) or 30 points for 16 bronze bars.  So, if you are bringing the wood, the difference is almost negligable.

If you source your wood at the embark site, however, it is still a savings of 3 embark points per 16 bars.  And granite (or marble) is 3 points per boulder at embark.   Myself, I've been bringing just enough wood to get the first batch of bismuth bronze made, then making an axe to source the rest of the required wood: 1 stone (or stone block if your mason has already started) for the wood furnace, 1 stone for the smelter (can be the same stone if needed), 4 charcoal to smelt two copper, one bismuthinite and one cassiterite, 1 charcoal to make bismuth bronze bars, then 1 more charcoal to make a bismuth bronze axe.  Thats 1 or 2 stone and 6 wood to start chopping more wood for fuel.  Less if you have your carpenter build a training axe, but I consider that to almost be an exploit and don't do it.

All wood is 3 points at embark, but you do get 3 units of wood free with every participating wagon. If you wanted a really minimal approach, you could build a wood furnace from a unit of ore (after changing the economic stone settings), make a couple of units of ash plus some charcoal, build the smelter with ash, smelt your ores (including the one from the wood furnace), build the forge using an anvil and ash, then forge ahead with your metalworking.

[krenshala]

Ah, you are correct. Wood is 3 points per log.  Figures the one value I assumed I knew was the one I was misremembering. I looked up the rest because I wasn't sure, and had them all correct.

This, of course, means normal bronze is slightly less expensive at embark if you bring the wood instead of chopping it down on site.  Of course, the wagon gets you enough for a training axe and a carpenters shop if you decide to go that route.

[AutomataKittay]

Bismuth Bronze needs 2.5 as much labour (and fuel if you have no magma smelters) per bar as regular bronze because you can't make it directly from ore.

2.5?  No its more like 4 times the jobs/fuel as regular bronze (or more if using goblinite instead of copper ore).

Lets add this up

Bismuth Bronze cannot be smelted directly from ore, so you must acquire the bars, requiring four jobs to smelt the tin, bismuth, and two copper ore into bars.  Then another four jobs to combine all the resulting bars into b-bronze.  Altogether eight jobs to get 16 bars.

Regular bronze can be smelted directly from ore, thus only requiring two smelting jobs of one tin and copper ore each to get 16 bars.

While this is true, Bismuth Bronze is less expensive to embark with when doing a "make it all yourself" embark.

Cassiterite, Native Copper, and Malachite are 6 points per ore, and Tetrahedrite is 9 (but gives you some silver), while Bismuthinite is only 3 points.  This means it cost 21 embark points for 16 bismuth bronze bars (27 if using tetrahedrite), but it cost 24 points for 16 normal bronze bars (30 for tetrahedrite).

If you bring the wood to burn for this, it does become 8 wood (8 points) + 1 cassiterite (6 pts) + 1 bismuthinite (3 pts) + 2 native copper (12 pts) or 29 points for 16 bismuth bronze bars versus 6 wood (6 pts) + 2 cassiterite (12 pts) + 2 native copper (12 pts) or 30 points for 16 bronze bars.  So, if you are bringing the wood, the difference is almost negligable.

If you source your wood at the embark site, however, it is still a savings of 3 embark points per 16 bars.  And granite (or marble) is 3 points per boulder at embark.   Myself, I've been bringing just enough wood to get the first batch of bismuth bronze made, then making an axe to source the rest of the required wood: 1 stone (or stone block if your mason has already started) for the wood furnace, 1 stone for the smelter (can be the same stone if needed), 4 charcoal to smelt two copper, one bismuthinite and one cassiterite, 1 charcoal to make bismuth bronze bars, then 1 more charcoal to make a bismuth bronze axe.  Thats 1 or 2 stone and 6 wood to start chopping more wood for fuel.  Less if you have your carpenter build a training axe, but I consider that to almost be an exploit and don't do it.

Bismuth bronze might be cheaper if you have one of those high-quality coal ( I forget which one gives 9 coke pieces ), but otherwise it's not really worth the extra labor and you could forge more bronze from ore with each fuel for each embark point ( both of the coals are 3 pt too, as much as wood are, IIRC ). I find it a bad idea to hope for enough trees at embark points, after having a few supposedly forested embarks be almost treeless.

[Ubiq]

So long as you have lignite or bituminous coal, bismuth bronze is always the cheaper option than bronze since the component parts for bismuth bronze plus the coal for fuel the have same cost total as the component costs for bronze alone. It has a really high yield on investment as well; a single bismuth bronze trap component can easily pay for everything you brought with you. 

And, sure, it takes more jobs, but Furnace Operator is a good skill to start leveling early on in a fort anyway. The last thing you want is to have to wait on a Novice or Dabbling Furnace Operator to smelt ore when trying to set up a military or construction project. I always take along a Furnace Operator on embark these days since I embark with a lot of the things to make bismuth bronze with.