Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Grendus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_%28lignite%29

Polished jet has been historically used as a gemstone. Although this was more common in the 19'th and early 20'th century, the practice dates back to 10,000 BC. I think jet should be treated kind of like the gemstone equivalent of magnetite. Give it a value of 2 to match least valuable gems, it wouldn't be an incredibly valuable gemstone but it might be something useful to train your gem cutting and gem setting dwarves on maps with no sand, and would be a fun thing to allow your dwarves to use for decoration.

While this is moddable, I think it should be part of the standard package.

[Shurhaian]

Agreed. For that matter, there should be veins or clusters of stone that are crystalline and can be cut; rock crystal comes to mind(Civilization Forge makes it reasonably common, but in vanilla it's far, FAR rarer than it should be).

Come to think of it, aren't some metal ores semiprecious stones in themselves? Malachite comes to mind.

[Warlord255]

Should be considered an extremely low-grade gem, but as far as I know a lot of the rare-but-common ones like sard and tiger iron are about as low as possible right now. It'd be good to use it for gemcutter/setter training, as right now there's no feasible alternatives to mass trickle imports (setters only) or sand maps.

A good way to put these to use would be a mass-consumption item for jewelry, like a string of jet beads, made with about 10 or so Cut Jets.

[Grendus]

One thing that might be worth considering would be to add in rock polishing as a profession. Some common stones and pebbles can be polished and smoothed into the equivalent value of ultra-common gems like quartz. An interesting (if not period appropriate) idea would be to add in a rock tumbler which requires power that would create gems from regular rocks. The gems would have the same value as the raw stone, so a polished limestone pebble would be worth 6 while a polished alunite pebble would be worth only 3. Some stones, such as jet, could have a special tag that makes them more valuable than normal when polished. But here I'm just spitballing, in general jet itself should be treated as a gemstone.

As for rare-but-common gems, glass has a value of 3 and can easily be mass produced with magma. Even if you remove magma, wood only has a value of 3 and sand is valueless so you're essentially turning wood into a value 3 gem, likewise if a limit on gatherable sand is ever implemented. Jet at a value of 2 would add at most 40 db of value to an item, and that's at masterwork decoration. It would actually be a reduction in value if you compare it to using the jet in stonecrafting, the point would be to make jet stone useful as a training or decorating stone, not for value.

[Footkerchief]

Come to think of it, aren't some metal ores semiprecious stones in themselves? Malachite comes to mind.

Polished hematite makes gorgeous jewelry.

[Sensei]

This is easily modded.

[Shurhaian]

Is it? Something that acts as both STONE and ROUGH at the same time?

I'm not familiar with any game examples...

[Footkerchief]

Is it? Something that acts as both STONE and ROUGH at the same time?

I'm not familiar with any game examples...

He probably meant a reaction to turn it from STONE into ROUGH.  And that will be easy in the next version -- stick [REACTION_CLASS:STONE_GEM] on all relevant stone types, create a single reaction that only accepts reagents that are of item type STONE and whose material belongs to that reaction class, require stonecrafting or gem cutting or something for the job, then maybe create a custom workshop for the reaction.

That said, I think this suggestion was about what should be possible in the vanilla game.

[Grendus]

There are many suggestions that are doable through modding. Jet being used as a gem was something that wasn't an unheard of practice, and setting it as a low value gem doesn't upset the economic structure of the game at all, since the same jet is worth more if turned into a stone craft (unless you change jet's tags to turn it into a gem instead of stone instead of smelting it into a jet gem).

My purpose with this thread though was to say that jet should be considered a gem in the common game, either through a workshop (be it simply smelting or creating a new type of workshop to polish it) or simply have jet treated as a large cluster gem much like magnetite is a large cluster ore.

Edit: On the subject of other stones that can be polished into jewelry, magnetite makes a kind of dark, shiny jewelry when polished. Of course, the jewelry is highly magnetic (making it's most common use for scam magnetic-therapy), but it's fairly beautiful. If set with other gemstones, I could see it selling very well.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Hortun]

Malachite also falls into the possible low grade gem boat; it has also been used in jewelry historically.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malachite

[Grendus]

Also, I misread the quality multiplier. A Masterwork decoration with a 2 value stone will have a value of 10 x stone value x quality modifier, or 240, which is still less than crafting a 3 value stone into 3 masterwork jet mugs.

[Bricks]

Polished stone definitely makes sense, especially for decorations.  I'll definitely be modding in a polisher's workshop in the next version, I guess using the gemcutter's job.

[de5me7]

i live near a town called whitby where jet is still commonly sold in jewelry stores. Was mined in the area in the 19th century.

I approve of this suggestion

[Neonivek]

Isn't Jade a Stone and not a Gem?

According to the Wiki the game treats it like a Gem

[Footkerchief]

Isn't Jade a Stone and not a Gem?

According to the Wiki the game treats it like a Gem

Well, they're both just minerals.  That's kinda the point of this thread -- there shouldn't be a hard and fast distinction.