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[Neonivek]

One problem that can instantly be hit is simply amount.

One Jet Stone could concievably have 100s of Jet gems

[Shurhaian]

That's already included in the notion of rough vs cut gems.

"Rough gems" are a pretty massive amount of stone, with gem-quality stone buried in the matrix. Compare the weights, and you'll find that despite the increase in price, cut gems are much, MUCH lighter.

Even for semiprecious stones, not all of the rock is going to be of gem quality. Some of it will be riddled with cracks or impurities, or otherwise flawed in a way that keeps it from being useful as a gem. Some of it will be damaged by the process of excavation. And so on.

On the flip side, it would be rather nice if some gemstones, which otherwise don't have a more valuable variant that can be in the cluster, could occasionally be found as a geode, which could give multiple units of cut gems with a good gemcutter. That's a sidetrack, but it does mean that, well, yes, a given unit of stone COULD potentially yield more than one unit of cut, or in this case polished, gems.

[Footkerchief]

Also, having huge amounts of polished jet is only a problem until the game gets some notion of supply and demand.

[Nidokoenig]

There's also the fact that decorating stuff with a low value ore gem is about equal to using a magma glass furnace to churn out endless green glass gems. The only difference would be you could stack up eleventy billion gem-cut ore decorations, similar to what you can do with bone, but that's a pretty crummy and work-intensive way to add value.

[Neonivek]

There's also the fact that decorating stuff with a low value gem is about equal to using a magma glass furnace to churn out endless green glass gems. The only difference would be you could stack up eleventy billion gem-cut ore decorations, similar to what you can do with bone, but that's a pretty crummy and work-intensive way to add value.

Ahh yes I forgot about Glass.

[Grendus]

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. 

Well, there may need to be a distinction. Polished jet is more valuable than, say, polished brimstone. A [gemvalue:x] tag would be a good way to handle this. So all stones could be used as gems, but some would gain value by being polished while others would stay the same or even lose value. So there would essentially be three kinds of gem distinction - polished gem stones, polished stones, and cut natural gems.

There's also the fact that decorating stuff with a low value ore gem is about equal to using a magma glass furnace to churn out endless green glass gems. The only difference would be you could stack up eleventy billion gem-cut ore decorations, similar to what you can do with bone, but that's a pretty crummy and work-intensive way to add value.

It would create value no faster (in fact, probably slower) than using a stonecrafter or mason to turn the stones into other goods. This would be used for training gem cutting and gem setting, and depending on how it was implemented it might produce valuable gems out of specific stones.

[Neonivek]

Though using Jade as Stone requires special tools.

It would actually be easier in my mind to use Jade as a gem. (Speaking in real life terms)

[Footkerchief]

Well, there may need to be a distinction. Polished jet is more valuable than, say, polished brimstone. A [gemvalue:x] tag would be a good way to handle this. So all stones could be used as gems, but some would gain value by being polished while others would stay the same or even lose value. So there would essentially be three kinds of gem distinction - polished gem stones, polished stones, and cut natural gems.

Definitely.  There are additional complexities, though, since Toady is (at some point) going to move away from assigning fixed "prices" to any material in favor of letting cultures do that themselves:

There will be value tags for all of the materials this time around.  I'm probably not going to change the item raws, as the future of the value system is up in the Caravan Arc, which is finally (partially) on dev-next though that doesn't put it exactly close.  In general, the value will depending on all sorts of things like availability and usefulness and civ aesthetics (it's already been doing this last one for a while during trade, though it's still hard-coded based on some of the civ flags), and I doubt a [VALUE:#] will survive the process.  It'll probably be more like the army strength calculations for creatures (without the megabeast death part), where all of the little numbers come together to define the usefulness, and they are filtered through entity ethics-style stuff to attain aesthetic value, and then availability comes up during the world gen and in-play trade sim, though I haven't really thought too much about the specifics as it's quite a way off.

[Grendus]

Well, there may need to be a distinction. Polished jet is more valuable than, say, polished brimstone. A [gemvalue:x] tag would be a good way to handle this. So all stones could be used as gems, but some would gain value by being polished while others would stay the same or even lose value. So there would essentially be three kinds of gem distinction - polished gem stones, polished stones, and cut natural gems.

Definitely.  There are additional complexities, though, since Toady is (at some point) going to move away from assigning fixed "prices" to any material in favor of letting cultures do that themselves:

There will be value tags for all of the materials this time around.  I'm probably not going to change the item raws, as the future of the value system is up in the Caravan Arc, which is finally (partially) on dev-next though that doesn't put it exactly close.  In general, the value will depending on all sorts of things like availability and usefulness and civ aesthetics (it's already been doing this last one for a while during trade, though it's still hard-coded based on some of the civ flags), and I doubt a [VALUE:#] will survive the process.  It'll probably be more like the army strength calculations for creatures (without the megabeast death part), where all of the little numbers come together to define the usefulness, and they are filtered through entity ethics-style stuff to attain aesthetic value, and then availability comes up during the world gen and in-play trade sim, though I haven't really thought too much about the specifics as it's quite a way off.

In that case, a tag for giving materials qualities when polished could be used. For example, polishing jet gives it a dark luster, making it much more aesthetically pleasing, while polishing mudstone is a waste of time. Stones that have been traditionally used for jewelry would simply have more and stronger polish quality tags, making their value more strongly effected by the combined aesthetics values of a civ if that civ favors those particular qualities.