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[Hans Lemurson]

Gems seem to be completely useless.  Rather than being a valuable export commodity (like I attempted with my very first fortress), they are only worth anything if used to decorate items.  Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to encrust anything worthwhile with Gems, and if your gem-setter isn't skilled enough, then you're wasting the gems as well!

Has anybody found a practical use for gems other than getting rid of them by making a bunch of -<<+rope reed fiber ropes+>>- or <<alunite hatch covers>>?

[Sphalerite]

Gem windows.  Usually just architectural decoration, although I did find it useful in my sea serpent farm to be able to build a wall that would block liquids but permit line-of-sight.

[Sutremaine]

Gems are one of the odd things where the finished product is of less worth than the rough materials. You'll get far more cut diamonds and rubies from traders than you'll ever get from the ground, so you might as well put that unique rough star ruby in a (modded) display case. Going by the embark screen, a steel chain mail is worth as much as a blue diamond figurine, and I know which I'd rather work on producing.

It would be really cool if gems could have a had a tag that told the game to always create a history-referencing idol or whatever, because then you'd still have something unique.

[Jacob/Lee]

I never really got into the gem industry, I just usually make a stockpile, make a set of cut gems then leave it for any moody dwarves.

[NecroRebel]

If you arrange for singular pieces of furniture to be encrusted with a large number of gems (or a small number of very valuable gems), you get something that's actually quite useful for noble bedrooms. It is difficult to get a high-value bed, for instance, since they cap out at 120 Urists naturally, but put a few good gems on it and you can get something that'll make your Duke happy.

Also, gems are so common that it's probably easier to get a legendary gem setter than a legendary metalsmith, especially if your magma is deep down and you have no easy route through the caverns, so making common-stone furniture and encrusting it with decent gems can be easier than making valuable metal furniture, and it avoids the potential problems with making precious-stone furniture as well.



Also, if you've got magma and sand, a legendary gem setter (or more than one) is just another source of free money. Just encrust every finished good you've got, and your exports can be increased in value dramatically.

[Randy Gnoman]

I love gems!  I jealously hoard them.  I use them to decorate furniture for the benefit of my dwarves, to make shiny colorful windows, and even use some to decorate the crafts I have set aside for trading.  They're actually my main import:  I ask for lots and lots of gems, then I use some and hoard the rest, then because of the greatly enhanced value of my trade goods I can buy even more gems the next year.  Even with sizable gem stockpiles, filled to the brim with bins, I frequently end up with surplus gems piling up in the trade depot.  Because they're gems, and gems are to be coveted.  That is their purpose.  Because they are gems.  Gems.  GEMS!

[Hans Lemurson]

I'd thought about making valuable beds, but how exactly would you go about encrusting a SPECIFIC piece of furniture?

[shmelse]

I'd thought about making valuable beds, but how exactly would you go about encrusting a SPECIFIC piece of furniture?

lock the furniture in the room with the gems and the workshop. drop stuff in through the ceiling when you want it encrusted; don't let your encruster have access to anything else he might put gems on. 

if you don't want to go that hardcore, though, he'll pick up the nearest thing to the workshop, so I generally just have a furniture stockpile surrounding my gem workshop and change its settings based on what I want encrusted.

also, tbh... i horde gems. they're so shiny. and pretty. yes, must have more!!  brb, mining for gems... 

[BlackRat90]

Gems make fun multi colored windows, also early on they make good trading materials.

[NecroRebel]

I'd thought about making valuable beds, but how exactly would you go about encrusting a SPECIFIC piece of furniture?

Well, you could make a 1-tile furniture stockpile that accepts only a very specific set of items, for instance masterwork tower-cap wood beds, directly below the center tile of the jeweler's shop. Let that stockpile get filled, then remove it (and have no other stockpiles that will accept the specific piece of furniture). Set your jeweler to encrusting furniture, and they'll choose the nearest piece of furniture to them. If they don't choose that specific bed, either forbid the piece of furniture that they did choose after they get to the workshop, or have a furniture stockpile someplace that accepts that type of furniture, or put in 2 encrust jobs of the same gem type. Since the closest piece of furniture is then the specially-selected one, given that it was 0 squares away straight below or already in the workshop, and isn't liable to getting tasked for anything else since there's no stockpiles for it, it will be encrusted next. Just pile on the gems, then, until you're satisfied as to its value.

Alternatively, if you're not willing to go the old-school route outlined above, make a burrow that includes only your jeweler's workshop, your gem stockpile, your jeweler's bedroom, your food and drink stockpiles, your dining room, and the specific piece of furniture you want encrusted. Assign your jeweler to the burrow and he won't task items outside of the burrow, so he won't choose anything but that one specific piece of furniture (unless some other furniture slips into the burrow somehow). Given how much simpler and more effective this method is, you can see why we were clamoring for burrows before their introduction

[Urist Imiknorris]

I use gems to make my gold crafts even more ridiculously valuable.

Also, they make all my corpse-looted crap count for created wealth.

[brucemo]

It is easy to get a legendary weaponsmith, and about as easy to get a legendary cook.

One masterwork steel serrated disk is worth 45,360 dwarfbucks.  A good roast is similar value and the ingredients are even easier to get.

Beyond a point, money is not a problem in this game.  That point is probably reached before you get a legendary gem setter and a decent number of cut gems.

Likewise, given that a fort can have many z-levels, it is not hard to scrape together a large area for a noble bedroom.  You can use normal masterwork (or even lower quality) furniture, smooth the walls, and maybe engrave a patch.  You can keep a duke happy in three 11 x 5 rooms, without much engraving (not that engraving is a problem of course), without high-value natural floors, or artifacts.  It would be interesting to see how small a room could be (without artifacts or special stuff) and meet their needs.

So you can gem encrust stuff but there's no necessity now.  Probably an interesting and fun thing to do if you want to go that route, but not necessary.  You could decide that you aren't going to go beyond a certain size with a room, and try to fit the stuff in.  Problem is that this might happen while you are still doing other interesting stuff and/or don't have the gems.

To answer the OP's question though, I save my gems until I get a legendary setter and cutter via green glass, then I start a new fort because of FPS problems.

[Hans Lemurson]

I'm just encrusting all of the ammunition it my fort in the vain hope that it will increase its deadliness.  It probably won't, but I'm sure the goblins will appreciate the smoky quartz sticking out of their abdomen.  It's the best thing I can think of to do.  I don't have any wealth problems, and my Baroness is sleeping on an artifact bed, and I have 15 bins full of the assorted gems that I've discovered while digging out my fortress.

I think the real problem is that gems require a large amount of effort to be worthwhile on both the part of dwarves and the player, without seeming to be actually valuable.  It sort of defies your common sense of "gems = $$$".  I guess they can be valuable once you've got a skilled gem-setter, but how many years do you have to wait before you can actually get some USE out of that ruby cluster?

[shlorf]

I encrust furniture with mid value gems, and finished goods with low value. Some of the precious gems i save for artifacts.

[Mister Always]

I don't much see the point in encrusting. Usually I foist them, along with my hoards of useless stone crafts, onto the caravans. For booze, cloth, leather, thread, and bags, usually.

I start by trading away the low-value ones (to clear space). Then if there's more shit I want and I need more money, I start trading spinels and stuff. Then crafts.

I have so many crafts. So many.