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[SixOfSpades]

I want Tinkers (Metalcrafters) to be able to gild various types of hard objects, like weapons, furniture, and most types of hard finished goods, like totems and pottery. In essence, this is just yet another way to decorate an object--or is it?

When gilding, the layer of added metal (it can be any metal, not just gold, despite the name of the process) is very, very thin--sometimes only a few atoms thick. So in almost all cases, the change wrought by the addition is completely negligible, and useful for cosmetic purposes only. But today I thought . . . candy.

Let's consider an iron breastplate gilded with candy. Assuming that the gilding process uses 5% of the metal used to make the base item (meaning, 3 candy bars will get you 20 candy-coated breastplates), then for Yield and Fracture, the math is (Iron + (Candy * 0.05)). For Elasticity, it's ((Iron * 0.95) + (Candy * 0.05)). This means the composite breastplate would have combat specs of . . .

Impact Yield: Impact Fracture: Impact Elasticity: Shear Yield: Shear Fracture: Shear Elasticity:

Iron 542 1080 319 155 310 185

Candy 5000 5000 0 5000 5000 0

Gilded 792 1330 303 405 560 176

Steel 1505 2520 940 430 720 215

Gilded Steel 1755 2770 893 680 970 204

Okay, so candy-coated iron is still clearly inferior to steel--but for a dwarf civ with a very unfortunate total lack of access to flux, or (if technologies are ever implemented) if they haven't discovered how to make steel yet, gilding might just be a very viable technique to make a little bit of candy go a surprisingly long way.

There's also the cosmetic implications: An enemy can't tell that the armor is only plated with candy. Having just one juggernaut charging down on you is bad enough, how will your army react to seeing twenty of them? There's also the inverse to be considered; dwarves wearing candy armor gilded with copper, to make them look like easy prey.

Thoughts?

[Orange Wizard]

Couldn't you add a smelter reaction? Say, 19 iron bars + 1 adamantine bar = 20 adamantine-gilded iron bars?

[Putnam]

Nono, see, you should use the proper moduli of elasticity for that. So elasticity wouldn't be 303, it'd be iron * 0.95 + adamantine * 0.05, like you said. For IMPACT, we would use the bulk modulus, and that value is:

((170*0.95) + (17,975,103,574  * 0.05)) = 898755340. Bulk modulus for adamantine derived from bulk modulus in material of density of 200 kg/m³ where speed of sound is approximately speed of light.

792/898755340=might as well be 0

So that's still zero.

The shear thing is approximately the same.

[skyte100]

This is actually completely useless for military. In real life, gilding primarily uses gold leaf, and coating copper in iron is still copper. And Id rather not do anything to morale right now. Even with candy, there isn't enough to cause any notable change in the strength of the metal.

And the fact that there are different types of gilding, some of them cant be used because we don't have the necessary chemicals in the game. The remaining methods are basically "pressing gold leaf onto the item when its hot" and painting it.

Now...maybe if we used pitchblende...

[sackhead]

I thought gold was one of the only  metals that you can Gild something with as its hard to get a later than thin. I have never herd of say "iron leaf or foil"

[Dirst]

I thought gold was one of the only  metals that you can Gild something with as its hard to get a later than thin. I have never herd of say "iron leaf or foil"

There's always aluminum.  Most appropriate for hats

[skyte100]

I thought gold was one of the only  metals that you can Gild something with as its hard to get a later than thin. I have never herd of say "iron leaf or foil"

Cultures have also used silver, copper, and a mixture of gold and silver. Gold is the most common for its value.

[Bumber]

I thought gold was one of the only  metals that you can Gild something with as its hard to get a later than thin. I have never herd of say "iron leaf or foil"

There's always aluminum.  Most appropriate for hats

Tin works too.

[Neonivek]

Gilding will definitely have purpose if materials could ever break, rust, or do anything else.

[SixOfSpades]

Couldn't you add a smelter reaction? Say, 19 iron bars + 1 adamantine bar = 20 adamantine-gilded iron bars?

I'd much rather not, as that would open the door to literally hundreds (if not thousands) of freaky new alloys--and every one of them would need its own name, unless you'd enjoy seeing dwarves with material preferences like "She likes an alloy of 5 parts copper, 2 parts nickel, and 7 parts pig iron".

Nono, see, you should use the proper moduli of elasticity for that. So elasticity wouldn't be 303, it'd be iron * 0.95 + adamantine * 0.05, like you said. For IMPACT, we would use the bulk modulus, and that value is . . .

I just grabbed the numbers off the wiki, & did some basic crunching. As you're the one working on bringing the real material properties into the game, I'll defer to your data, I just wanted to toss up a comparison of "canon" candy-coated iron with "canon" steel.

This is actually completely useless for military. . . . Even with candy, there isn't enough to cause any notable change in the strength of the metal.

You are correct in that, in traditional gilding, the actual amount of metal added would very likely be far less than 5%--less than 1%, even. But that's because traditional gilding really was for decorative purposes only, the artisans had no reason to use more gold than was actually needed. But dwarves are more than metal-savvy enough to notice that adding candy to something makes it better, harder, faster, stronger, and would of course take advantage of this fact by "overloading" the gilding metal to something like 5% of the total--I chose this number simply because it seemed convenient to have the Tinker's Workshop keep track of its in-house metal stockpiles in terms of "twentieths of bars", in the same way that Smelters currently keep track of tenths of bars. Besides, 5% feels like a good balancing point, giving players the option of
A) Equipping their best champion in pure adamantine, head-to-toe, or
B) For the exact same cost in adamantine, decking out two whole squads in candy-coated steel.
To sum up, traditional gilding would be cosmetic only, but this structural gilding allows more gameplay flexibility at no cost to realism (maybe?). But you're wrong about it being useless for the military. In a minute, I'll add to my OP, giving the calculations for steel plated with adamantine (canon numbers again, sorry Putnam, by all means post your own sets if you wish).

And the fact that there are different types of gilding, some of them cant be used because we don't have the necessary chemicals in the game. The remaining methods are basically "pressing gold leaf onto the item when its hot" and painting it.

Also true. Given adamantine's stated flexibility (absolutely none), it seems fairly obvious that once it's been formed into bars, it can only be worked when heated--which would prove extremely problematic if the working temperature of adamantine is higher than the melting temperature of what you're trying to use as the substrate. Then again, raw adamantine's fibrous nature might just mean that "gilding" with it is the easiest thing ever: Just wrap the object in tight-fitting adamantine cloth & hold it over a fire. Or something.

Gilding will definitely have purpose if materials could ever break, rust, or do anything else.

I know that gold never takes any kind of tarnish, and I think a couple of other metals exhibit similar resistance to corrosion & the like, so plating with any of these metals would indeed be a perfect sealant. But given dwarves' fondness for both metals and battle gear, I find it highly unlikely that any Urist worth his beard would neglect his armor to the point of rust, no matter its composition.


Oh, and there's another reason why some players might prefer gilding over pure: Item quality. If you're going for solid adamantine, you have to give it to your best smith and pray that he pops a masterwork. If you're gilding, you can just use any random Tinker . . . at a workshop pulling from a stockpile that's already been set to accept masterworks only.

[Putnam]

Adamantine's stress-strain curve is a friggin vertical line. I'm not sure if heating will reduce its moduli of elasticity any.

[Dirst]

So your smith makes a thin breastplate out of adamantine then later adds a thick coating of iron to the inside of it.

[skyte100]

As I said, Gilding wouldnt have a military application. But I had a thought. Candy holds the sharpest edge in the game right? Well, what if the edge of the blade was pure candy while the flat of the blade was another metal. The thought has merit.

[Batgirl1]

Even just having purely-decorative gilding would be pretty cool as a value booster and all, especially if we could gild non-metal items.  Use 1 bar of gold to gild 3 wooden cages, sell to caravan, profit.  And there's the rust-proofing, as mentioned.

[endlessblaze]

As I said, Gilding wouldnt have a military application. But I had a thought. Candy holds the sharpest edge in the game right? Well, what if the edge of the blade was pure candy while the flat of the blade was another metal. The thought has merit.

I also had this thought.

I also recalled someone saying that an addy bolt would lack momentum to pierce anything but a silver or lees one with addy edge....