Guides/Metal Treatment

NOTE: You must have Tongs to remove anything from a Chemical Bath without dumping the acid.

Note: Chemical treatment values have changed drastically in T8; the base values for the metals are unchanged. The updated values appear below under Treatment Values.

The goal of metal treatment is to impart certain attributes to the metal placed in a chemical bath. For example, treating metal with cactus sap will increase its corrosion resistance, and will decrease its strength.

The closer a substance's values are to the current values of the metal being treated, the greater the effect it will have. For example, cactus sap has a corrosion value of 72 (corrosion-proof). A metal whose corrosion value is 50 will respond much more quickly to cactus sap than a metal whose corrosion value is 12. It will take much more sap to move the second metal's corrosion value. Treating metal efficiently may require using multiple substances with values close to the current value of the metal, rather than dumping tons of one substance into the tank.

Somebob's Example Recipes and Theory Behind Them

Note: This recipe is unlikely to work for your tank exactly as written due to varying k-values, but will help to explain some of the concepts behind treatment, and should be easily tweakable to work

For the first example, a relatively straightforward recipe will be used to make Hard Corrosion-Resistant ?? for the purposes of building a Steam Shovel.

?? doesn't start all that far from where we hope to end up - Corrosion-Resistance can easily be imparted, but increasing the Strength is slightly trickier. The first ingredient that suggests itself is Cabbage Juice. Cheap, and it has favorable values for both Corrosion and Strength. We'll only see a little movement in Corrosion from this ingredient, but the increase in Strength is key.

10 seconds - the maximum amount of time you get for 1 deben of an ingredient - moves Corrosion bar as far as the ingredient is able to take it, but Strength still has a ways to go, so I need more than 10 seconds. Because in many instances there is little harm from letting a treatment go on slightly too long, and round numbers are easier to type, I treat it for another 10 seconds, which is perhaps a second or two more than strictly necessary.

At this point Strength is getting pretty close to where we want it to be, and Corrosion is on its way, too. The next ingredient of choice is Coal - while Saltpeter would move the Corrosion bar more quickly, it would also move Strength in an unfavorable direction, enough so to be counterproductive overall.

Adding 10 seconds of Coal moves things in a good direction, but isn't quite enough. Another 10 seconds also fails to do the trick, so another 10 are added - again, the full 10 being more than strictly needed. This ends up with the ?? having the attributes Hard, Corrosion Resistant, Conductive, and Purity of 7. Purity doesn't matter for this use, but does for several other uses of treated metal, so it's a good thing to make note of. The extra attribute of Conductive is merely a side-effect of this route of treatment, and is completely irrelevant for our intended use of the metal - extra attributes on a treated metal, or treated board, are simply ignored, so long as the required attributes are present.

My complete recipe for Hard Corrosion-Resistant Conductive ?? is thus 20 seconds Cabbage Juice and 30 seconds of Coal. As this is a relatively simple recipe, it likely will work in your tank with only minor tweaks.

The next example, for the Gold-Plated Stainless Insulative Non-Toxic ?? needed to make Tongs, has much tighter tolerances and a much more complicated treatment, which is unlikely to work the same in your tank as it does mine. As such it will be written up later when I get the time.

Metal Attributes and Properties

Property	Very Low <=13.5	Low 13.5<X<=23	Very High >61
Tensility	Brittle		Ductile
Lustre	Tarnished		Shiny
Strength	Plastic		Hard
Corrosion	Stainless	Corrosion-Resistant	Corrosion-Prone
Conductivity	Insulative		Conductive
Toxicity	Nontoxic		Toxic
Plating			Plated

Note: Stainless will not suit a project that requires Corrosive-Resistant (T9: tried Stainless Insulative Nontoxic Purity 8 steel sheeting to create a Pig sty)

Treatment Values

Note all the values below are not valid. They've been changed in T10 -- Anien
Use the info menu on the chemical bath to see the values till we can update them.

Treatment	Tens	Lustre	Stren	Corr	Cond	Tox	Purity	Plating
Arsenic	72	40	48	0	16	8	(8)	24
Cabbage Juice	24	48	56	32	0	64	(2)	72
Cactus Sap	16	64	8	72	56	24	(6)	0
Coal	40	56	72	16	64	0	24 (4)	32
Gravel	48	72	24	8	40	16	32 (5)	64
Lime	0	24	16	56	32	48	64 (9)	40
Potash	8	16	64	48	24	30	0 (1)	56
Salt	32	8	0	40	48	56	72 (10)	16
Saltpeter	64	32	40	24	8	72	16 (3)	48
Sulfur	56	0	32	64	72	40	48 (7)	8

Metal Salts Treatment Values

Purity value changes to 72 when the metal salts matches the metal being treated.

Treatment	Tens	Lustre	Stren	Corr	Cond	Tox	Purity	Plating
Salts of Aluminum	24	40	32	48	48	40	8	8
Salts of Antimony	24	40	32	48	48	40	8	8
Salts of Copper	24	40	32	48	48	40	8	8
Salts of Gold	24	40	32	48	48	40	8	8
Salts of Iron	24	40	32	48	48	40	8	8
Salts of Lead	24	40	32	48	48	40	8	8
Salts of Magnesium	24	40	32	48	48	40	8	8
Salts of Platinum	24	40	32	48	48	40	8	8
Salts of Silver	24	40	32	48	48	40	8	8
Salts of Tin	24	40	32	48	48	40	8	8
Salts of Zinc	24	40	32	48	48	40	8	8

Untreated Metal Values

Treatment	Tens	Lustre	Stren	Corr	Cond	Tox	Purity	Plating
Aluminum	21	36	36	22	28	29	54	4
Antimony	20	43	37	36	14	29	54	4
Brass	25	43	31	43	31	29	54	4
Bronze	25	40	35	43	31	29	54	4
Copper	28	43	44	58	32	36	54	4
Gold	22	54	51	36	30	29	54	4
Iron	36	29	41	36	18	29	54	4
Lead	16	14	24	36	12	50	54	4
Magnesium	19	29	37	22	24	36	54	4
Metal Blue	37	43	52	61	59	29	54	4
Moon Steel	21	29	34	36	25	29	54	4
Nickel	16	36	29	36	16	36	54	4
Pewter	19	36	29	36	13	43	54	4
Platinum	32	54	39	36	18	29	54	4
Silver	23	47	36	50	32	29	54	4
Steel	35	43	45	36	20	29	54	4
Sun Steel	18	58	39	36	27	29	54	4
Thoth's Metal	46	36	53	58	15	43	54	4
Tin	19	36	26	36	17	29	54	4
Water Metal	16	47	30	36	36	29	54	4
Zinc	25	22	40	29	22	29	54	4