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[bjlong]

I'd like to see the traces be used in engravings.

This is a finely crafted image of a dwarf. It has diamonds for eyes. The dwarf is in agony. This references the mage Borgle McMagic turning Urist McDwarf's eyes into diamonds in the year 184.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I'd like it if there were different *quality* ores in the game, so that some needed little or no processing, other than digging out of the ground (gold nuggets, would work as it currently is in the game), while most would need to be pulverized by a rock-crushing machine (or a few good dorfs with sledgehammers), and then melted.

Miners would still only get ore as commonly as they now get stones. In addition, the blacksmith skill would be used to determine how much pure metal you'd extract from a given example, so this might actually be random, until the blacksmith has his/her shot at it, in ye olde blacksmith shoppe.

This would definitely curb the ready supply of precious metals, making them a lot more, well, *precious* (and more realistic), and it would also raise the lowly but ubiquitous Blacksmith in importance.

It's historically fairly accurate, since one of the midieval blacksmith's primary tasks was beating the everloving hell out of ore, until it became metal.

This could just be represented as a percentage chance for the blacksmith to get metal, per block of ore, based on the skill of the blacksmith.

Having a rock-crushing machine (a simple water/labour-powered barrel crusher would work) might reduce the time it took to extract any metal, and might also be the best means of extracting any gems-possibly giving you an additional percentage chance to extract a gem from a gem-bearing rock.

Gems might still be occasionally found by the miner, especially miners of high skill, but a rock crusher would give a second (small percentage) chance of turning up a gem that wasn't obvious to the miner.

As an aside--it's not just gold nuggets that are found "loose", in water or mud, or even scattered on the ground, gems can be found too, they just tend to be hard to identify, compared to gold nuggets.

[Jurph]

I think that marbling stone with its metal would go a long way towards fixing the "Native Platinum Statue" exploit whereby a statue carved from a single platinum nugget has the same value as a statue made from three platinum blocks.  It makes perfect sense that a statue made of kimberlite with diamonds sparkling in it would be carved by a mason, polished to a shine, and would be much more valuable than a plain kimberlite statue.  It would not, however, be as valuable as a statue minted from pure platinum bars. 

If I had to model it I'd say that ore- or gem-bearing stone crafted by a mason should receive a natural "decoration" using the more valuable material with quality modifiers rolled independently (use the gem setting skill for gems, or the metalworking skill for veins of ore).  Even re-rolling the masonry skill would be okay.  Look at the results you get from a legendary mason working with mundane materials, legendary mason working with marbled stone, legendary mason with legendary skill in decorating, and lastly a Dwarven supply chain of competent smelters and legendary metalsmiths...

Olivine statue, masterpiece quality: 300
Olivine statue, masterpiece quality, with an uninspired platinum decoration: 700
Olivine statue, masterpiece quality, with an exceptional platinum decoration: 2,700
Platinum statue, masterpiece quality: 12,000

In the system I've outlined, the value scales nicely with the amount of work required.

[Silverionmox]

This link discusses medieval ore smelting in a game context. Look at the fuel requirements!
http://www.modernparapsychology.com/Gamer/Moloch/Smelt.html
It does need to be broken down with hammers, but smelting and smithing are quite separate processes.
I'd rather balance the rarity of metals in worldgen (they aren't that abundant, if you play for more than a decade). It's no fun to have some of your gold ore turn out to be duds, especially when you have but a single vein - or even none. Different quality ores would be ok, because you know what you're getting when you're melting a given piece of ore. Though in that case, the whole vein should be the same quality, otherwise it's going to average out anyway.

The value of stuff shouldn't be determined absolutely, but by in-game factors: the likings of the dwarves. Being dwarves, they would also value rare minerals because they're rare. For elves, it's probably just another rock. Dwarves would also value refined metals more as a part of their culture, but for example malachite has its own aesthetic qualities and should not automatically be more valuable when melted down.

[Jurph]

The value of stuff shouldn't be determined absolutely, but by in-game factors: the likings of the dwarves. Being dwarves, they would also value rare minerals because they're rare. For elves, it's probably just another rock. Dwarves would also value refined metals more as a part of their culture, but for example malachite has its own aesthetic qualities and should not automatically be more valuable when melted down.

I would guess that elves would find furniture made from some brown and green marbled stones to be very desirable in a home made from wood because of the coloration.  Also, certain brightly-colored gems, especially gems that aren't common in forests and the surface world, would be prized for their rarity.  You might even have a particular elven king who fondly remembers something golden that his father imported from the Mountainhomes, and during his reign, his own favor boosts demand for gold across the kingdom... decades after his death, gold would still be associated with royalty.

[SolarShado]

You might even have a particular elven king who fondly remembers something golden that his father imported from the Mountainhomes, and during his reign, his own favor boosts demand for gold across the kingdom... decades after his death, gold would still be associated with royalty.

It's things like this that remind me how Fing awesome this game will be when it's finished...
(Don't get me wrong. it is now, but that this kind may arise randomly in the future... in a game...)

[SirHoneyBadger]

That's why I love this game, and why Toady deserves so much credit: Nothing touches DF in terms of sheer ambitious scope.

[Jurph]

If I had to model it I'd say that ore- or gem-bearing stone crafted by a mason should receive a natural "decoration" using the more valuable material with quality modifiers rolled independently (use the gem setting skill for gems, or the metalworking skill for veins of ore).  Even re-rolling the masonry skill would be okay.  Look at the results you get from a legendary mason working with mundane materials, legendary mason working with marbled stone, legendary mason with legendary skill in decorating, and lastly a Dwarven supply chain of competent smelters and legendary metalsmiths...

Olivine statue, masterpiece quality: 300
Olivine statue, masterpiece quality, with an uninspired platinum decoration: 700
Olivine statue, masterpiece quality, with an exceptional platinum decoration: 2,700
Platinum statue, masterpiece quality: 12,000

I thought of another way to model this, which is for the stone to appear within the mountain as "decorated" already, with the decoration's quality related to the amount of ore present in the stone.  A piece of olivine with 50% or more platinum running through it could be considered decorated at the masterwork level... but when smelted could yield an additional bar or two of ore as well.  Carving a statue from the rock would retain the decoration -- and the boost in value -- but smelting could conceivably yield as much or more value if you have the facilities and the artisans.

[Draco18s]

Jurph...

I think we could edit the raws to do that, or nearly.

Your Hematite ore becomes your base stonetype, then inside put clusters of increasing rarity of -hematite- +hematite+ and *hematite* (or whatever) and then add the appropriate smelter reactions.

With the new material system coming out I could see it as even more plausible.

[lucinthus]

Errmm...  a single square represents a maybe 3-5 foot square area.  If you find NATIVE metals, gold silver copper, thats about the smallest area you are going to find it in, and usually wound around alot of gangue, often quartz.  The act of breaking it all free is going to make the rock so small as to be unusable.  Gems, you will usually find as clusters, and there are places where caves have been carved through gem clusters, and the walls polished up with chunks of gems right there, in europe and even here in the US where I am.  Its a real thing, gem walls like that.

as for ore, ore veins can be massive.  The form of appearance of ores, veins, clusters, ect, is pretty damn realistic as is.