Dummies guide to material science (Old)

This page is about discontinued content. The following information is not current. It is kept for historical purposes.

Introduction

This book is meant to give you a brief overview and explanation of the materials, their properties and how to work them.

General information

Under normal circumstances a material can only have one additive used on it - any further additives are lost.
However, there might be certain chemicals or materials that allow to work materials beyond this limit.

Additives can have all kinds of effects on materials.
Some will change the stats of a material while others will give it special or unique effects.

Some combinations of materials and/or additives might produce unique alloys / materials.
These fixed recipes and their resulting materials will usually have a special ability, use or just good stats.

Different departments have different manufacturers, each with different recipes.
You might sometimes be able to find blueprints for manufacturers while exploring.
These blueprints will add a new item to the craftable objects of manufacturer when used on it.

Material properties

Siemens coefficient

How well a material conducts electricity.
Values range from 0 = Non-conductive to 1 = Perfectly conductive.

Heat transfer coefficient

How well heat can transfer through a material - how insulating it is.
Values range from 0 = Perfect insulation to 1 = Heat transfers without loss.
A common spacesuit will have a value below/around 0.1.

Protective temperature

How high of a temperature this material can shield something from.
Higher is better.

Thermal conductivity

How well heat can transfer through this.
Only applies to walls and such. See Heat transfer coefficient

Heat capacity

(Honestly, who even knows anymore? This atmos code is a mess)
(Fairly sure this does SOMETHING)

Permeability coefficient

How well chemicals can penetrate this material.
Values range from 0 = Can not penetrate to 1 = Goes right through

Disease resistance

How well this material can shield a person from diseases.
Values range from 0 = No protection to 100 = Complete protection.

Melee Protection

How well this material will protect from melee attacks.
Reduces both damage and stamina damage. Higher is better.

Bullet Protection

How well this material will protect from bullets.
Bullet damage will be divided by this. Higher is better.

Explosion resistance

If applied to a wall or another solid object this
determines how well that object will shield objects behind it from an explosion.
Higher is better.

Explosion protection

How well this material will protect from explosions.
Reduces both severity and damage from explosions.

Radiation Protection

How well does this protects against radiation. More is better.

Magical

Does this material allow wizards to channel magic?

Value

How valuable this material is.
Higher is better.

Damage

How damaging this material is when used on items.
Higher is better.

Quality

Determines the quality of items made using this.
This can have many different effect but higher is always better.

Durability

How durable objects made from this are.
More durability means that the objects can take more damage.

Hardness

How hard objects made from this are.
Can have different effects depending on the object. What value you want depends on the item.

Autoignition temperature

At which temperature this material will ignite.

Burn output

How much energy this material outputs while burning.

Instability

How likely it is that the material fails during manufacturing and possibly use. Higher is worse.

---