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[Zaerosz]

I ask because dragonfire apparently has weird properties where anything made of metal is safe, but stone, even magma-safe stone, will catch fire and boil away, and organic materials will just burn to ashes, but the wiki doesn't say anything about glass.

[Witty]

My quick test in the arena seems to show that glass items (statues, instruments) will evaporate if exposed to enough persistent dragonfire.

[Loci]

Yep; glass items become "molten glass", then "boiling glass". Earthenware items become "earthenware" (a glob), then "earthenware" (a gas). Rounding out the set of second-string materials, wax melts and then burns.

The earthenware result is interesting since the raws lack melting and boiling points (and strings for liquid and gaseous states) but do include [IS_STONE]. I'd say that's more evidence that dragonfire does not operate via temperature.

[Quietust]

The earthenware result is interesting since the raws lack melting and boiling points (and strings for liquid and gaseous states)

No they don't - the melting/boiling points are inherited from STONE_TEMPLATE (with values of 11500 and 14000), and the liquid/gaseous states are set to "earthenware" because the game sets them using STATE_NAME_ADJ:ALL (i.e. SOLID, LIQUID, GAS, POWDER, PASTE, and PRESSED).

[Melting Sky]

I ask because dragonfire apparently has weird properties where anything made of metal is safe, but stone, even magma-safe stone, will catch fire and boil away, and organic materials will just burn to ashes, but the wiki doesn't say anything about glass.

As far as I know metal is the only substance in the game that has a weird buggy resistance to dragon fire even though the melting and boiling points of every metal are well below dragon fire's temperature.

[ScegfOd]

really? aren't you thinking of armor protected because the dragonfire was deflected by a shield? IIRC I've had steel laying around during a dragon fight (from a dead combatant) that got melted by dragonfire before.

[Loci]

No they don't - the melting/boiling points are inherited from STONE_TEMPLATE (with values of 11500 and 14000), and the liquid/gaseous states are set to "earthenware" because the game sets them using STATE_NAME_ADJ:ALL (i.e. SOLID, LIQUID, GAS, POWDER, PASTE, and PRESSED).

Oops. I guess I should pay closer attention when I'm digging through the raws.

As far as I know metal is the only substance in the game that has a weird buggy resistance to dragon fire even though the melting and boiling points of every metal are well below dragon fire's temperature.

From my testing, raw adamantine (ore) and slade (stone) also appear dragonfire-proof.

really? aren't you thinking of armor protected because the dragonfire was deflected by a shield? IIRC I've had steel laying around during a dragon fight (from a dead combatant) that got melted by dragonfire before.

Yes, really. I have loose metal items that have withstood years of constant dragonfire in v0.34. Was your experience on a previous version?

[ScegfOd]

Yeah I guess so, might've been .31

[GavJ]

It could be that materials are being heated up by dragonfire, but are cooling off rapidly enough that during the cooldown period of the attack, they get down far enough to negate the heating. This would get more powerful the further you get from ambient temperature, making each material have an equilibirum point somewhere in between dragonfire temp and ambient temp, possibly based on its specific heat, and if the equilibrium point + variance is less than melting point, it might not ever melt.

Just a theory.

[Melting Sky]

It could be that materials are being heated up by dragonfire, but are cooling off rapidly enough that during the cooldown period of the attack, they get down far enough to negate the heating. This would get more powerful the further you get from ambient temperature, making each material have an equilibirum point somewhere in between dragonfire temp and ambient temp, possibly based on its specific heat, and if the equilibrium point + variance is less than melting point, it might not ever melt.

Just a theory.

I initially also thought this bug might be specific heat related but when I looked through the raws and the relative specific heat values between the metals and materials that were readily vaporizing such as stone, and it didn't support the idea. For instance iron with a specific heat of 450 doesn't melt, but marble with a specific heat of 800 does, yet adamantine with a score of 7500 is also immune. The one material that should be naturally immune or at least extremely resistant to dragon fire is adamantine. It has an extremely high melting point and a specific heat of like 7500. (Nether Cap is a special case that should probably also be immune given its magical cold properties.)

We have metals that do not vaporize under dragon fire with spec. heat scores both above and below that of stones that will boil away which definitely seems like a bug.

I looked through the bug reports and didn't see any mentions of the dragon fire + metal bug but I'm not sure if the "known" bug list I went through was comprehensive or not. Does anybody know if this has ever been formally brought to Toady's attention?

[Quietust]

The one material that should be naturally immune or at least extremely resistant to dragon fire is adamantine. It has an extremely high melting point and a specific heat of like 7500.

Adamantine has actually been demonstrated to not be immune to dragonfire, though it takes a lot of it to melt it - go into Arena mode, spawn a Blizzard Man (which will itself never die to dragonfire) wearing adamantine armor, then spawn at least a dozen dragons to toast it to cinders (but make sure they can't actually reach it) and the armor will eventually melt.

[GavJ]

For instance iron with a specific heat of 450 doesn't melt, but marble with a specific heat of 800 does, yet adamantine with a score of 7500 is also immune.

The theory isn't just specific heat. It's that PLUS melting point PLUS ambient temperature PLUS dragon rate of fire (and how many dragons, I suppose). Adamantine and iron both have higher melting points than marble.

* The melting point is what you have to get to to melt it.
* The equilibrium point would be the same for all materials in a given situation, in a given ambient temperature, for a given rate of dragonbreath application
* The specific heat would determine the variance (amount of swing back and forth from coolest to hottest in a cycle of breath). High specific heats = less variance, so if the equilibrium point is nearer the melting point, it might survive with a higher specific heat while a lower one wouldn't (because it won't swing high enough right after breath to surpass melting point at the very top of the graph).

You could melt any theoretical material at all with any melting point below 50,000 or whatever dragon breath is. But to do so, you might need multiple dragons synchronized so that every tick is a dragonbreath tick with no time to cool down.

As you go down in melting point from the actual heat of dragonbreath, the need for constant application should fall gradually until at some unknown point, a single dragon on max rate of fire can melt the material.

[Melting Sky]

The one material that should be naturally immune or at least extremely resistant to dragon fire is adamantine. It has an extremely high melting point and a specific heat of like 7500.

Adamantine has actually been demonstrated to not be immune to dragonfire, though it takes a lot of it to melt it - go into Arena mode, spawn a Blizzard Man (which will itself never die to dragonfire) wearing adamantine armor, then spawn at least a dozen dragons to toast it to cinders (but make sure they can't actually reach it) and the armor will eventually melt.

I had some adamantine chains sitting around that were hit with dragon fire and they survived thus I assumed they were completely immune like other metals. Apparently it is an exception to the metal rule which is rather odd. If adamantine melts then it suggest the other metals surviving is completely an unintentional bug. It has the highest specific heat and highest melting point of any substance in the game, if it eventually melts, everything should. 

[GavJ]

Apparently it is an exception to the metal rule which is rather odd.

No, the other metals will all melt as well, IF they are loose items like the chain.

But there is a major difference between something getting hit once vs. something being bathed over and over and over rapidly with blast after blast...

[Melting Sky]

Apparently it is an exception to the metal rule which is rather odd.

No, the other metals will all melt as well, IF they are loose items like the chain.

But there is a major difference between something getting hit once vs. something being bathed over and over and over rapidly with blast after blast...

There are people who have reported letting a dragon breath fire on a variety of metal items for years on end without them melting. If I remember right one of them was a lead or pewter crown which isn't even fire safe let alone dragone fire safe. You can make a dragon breath fire indefinitely by giving it a target on a different Z level to fire at. It can't aim up Z levels so it just site there breathing fire for eternity.