How to set up a metal industry in Dwarf Fortress

Mastering a metal industry in Dwarf Fortress will guarantee your fortress is economically affluent and that your army can defend it. Mining, smelting, and crafting metals enables you to make weapons and armor on your army, or simply make fancier commerce good and furnishings. But it’s not all the time straightforward to know what ores smelt into what metals or how to make alloys.

Our Dwarf Fortress metals information will make it easier to perceive what ores you’re discovering, set up your metal industry, and begin making beneficial alloys and weapons.

Metal industry from begin to end

Any metal industry in Dwarf Fortress begins with discovering metal ore. That’s the straightforward half, actually. You’ll discover metal ore simply by digging — it’ll get left behind as you dig via sure kinds of rock.

From there, you’ll want to smelt the ore in a Build (b) > Workshop (o) > Furnaces (u) > Smelter (l). Smelting additionally requires gas, although. That comes from charcoal produced from logs in a Build (b) > Workshop (o) > Furnaces (u) > Wood Furnace (f) or from both bituminous coal or lignite become coke at a Smelter.

Smelting produces metal bars which might be then labored at a Build (b) > Workshops (o) > Metalsmith’s Forge (i). That’s the place you’ll make every little thing from weapons to furnishings to devices — a course of that makes use of extra gas.

Types of metal ore in Dwarf Fortress

There are 12 kinds of metal that come from the 17 completely different metal ores you may discover underground in Dwarf Fortress.

Smelting one piece of every of the above metal ores at a Smelter will produce 4 bars of metal. For the 2 ores that produce two completely different metals — Galena and Tetrahedrite — 4 bars of the primary metal listed shall be produced together with up to 4 bars of the second metal.

Raw Adamantine is barely completely different. Raw Adamantine wants to be processed first at a Craftsdwarf’s Workshop with Extract Metal Strands. Those strands are then woven into material at a Loom (after which into Adamantine clothes at a Metalsmith’s Workshop) or made into Adamantine Wafers at a Smelter.

Metal Alloys in Dwarf Fortress

Combining these 12 metals at a Smelter enables you to make an extra 14 Alloys.

When you create an Alloy at a Smelter, you’ll have the selection to both use ore or use bars. Using bars is much less environment friendly, producing two bars of Alloy for every operation (1 Silver Bar and 1 Copper Bar produce 2 Billon Bars). Using ores, alternatively, produces eight bars (1 Zinc ore and 1 Copper ore produce 8 Bronze Bars).

Pig Iron and Steel require extra supplies. In addition to further bars of charcoal or coke, you’ll additionally want Flux stone — Calcite, Chalk, Dolomite, Limestone, or Marble.

Metal and Alloy values

Below, we’ll checklist the worth — the bottom price you’d get when buying and selling with a Caravan — of a single bar of every Metal or Alloy.

The base worth of a bar of every Metal and Alloy enables you to see how (comparatively) beneficial one thing created from that metal can be — a Gold throne shall be value multiple produced from Bronze, for instance.

Metal and Alloy makes use of in Dwarf Fortress

Every metal can be utilized in Construction — constructing issues like flooring, partitions, and Workshops. Every metal besides Bismuth can be utilized in making furnishings (issues like cupboards, barrels, and thrones) and metal crafts (like earrings, goblets, and crowns).

Picks can solely be produced from Adamantine, Bismuth Bronze, Bronze, Copper, Iron, and Steel.

Anvils want to be Adamantine, Iron, or Steel.

Armor and Weapons can solely be Adamantine, Bismuth Bronze, Bronze, Copper, Iron, or Steel.