Editing v0.34:Temperature

{{Quality|Exceptional|21:56, 12 July 2013 (UTC)}}

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Temperatures in ''Dwarf Fortress'' are measured in the game's own, unnamed temperature scale, since termed "Degrees [[Main:Urist|Urist]]" by the community. Temperatures in ''Dwarf Fortress'' are stored as sixteen-bit unsigned integers, which translates into a minimum value of 0 °U and a technical maximum of 65535 °U (2¹⁶-1), although this is internally limited to 60000 °U—60001 °U is used for temperatures which have been set to {{tt|NONE}}. Floating point values are not considered, and when they appear any decimals are either sheared off or rounded away by the game. Urists are scaled logically against the Fahrenheit scale, so conversions are simple, if non-intuitive:

:{{tt|[URIST]}} = {{tt|[FAHRENHEIT]}} + 9968

::::   {{tt|[CELSIUS]}} * 9/5 + 10000

::::   {{tt|[KELVIN]}} * 9/5 + 9508.33

::::   {{tt|[RANKINE]}} + 9508.33

| [[#Boiling point|Boiling Point of Water]]

| [[Creature token#H|Human Body Temperature]]

| 10067^round

| [[wikipedia:Absolute zero|Absolute Zero]]

| 9508^round

| Zero Degrees Urist

| -5555.<span style="text-decoration:overline">5</span>

| -5282.40<span style="text-decoration:overline">5</span>

Values designated with ''round'' have been rounded internally to avoid decimals: for instance, the human body temperature is technically 10066.6, but has been rounded up to {{ct|10067}} in the [[raw file|raws]]. Also interesting is the fact that temperatures in Dwarf Fortress can go ''far, far'' below absolute zero, which is physically impossible; considering Dwarf Fortress also allows [[water wheel#Perpetual motion|perpetual motion]], sometimes it's best not to ask questions.

{{Urist asks|q=I'm a modder who needs to work with temperature conversions all the time. Is there any tool I can use to lessen the amount of work involved?|a=Temperature conversions are usually only useful when [[modding]], and can be annoying to do manually; luckily a simple {{dffd|4028|temperature conversion utility}} has been created for those who find themselves having to convert a lot of temperatures to and/or from degrees Urist often.}}

 

Examples of some temperatures encountered in DF, the most important ones in bold:

{| class="wikitable sortable"

| Alcohol freezes

| {{ct|09850}}

| '''<span style="border-bottom: 1px #0000CC dotted;cursor:help;" title="Below this temperature fat, present on all all organic creatures, will start to take cold damage, eventually killing them.">Lowest survivable temperature</span>'''

| '''{{ct|09900}}'''

| {{ct|09960}}

| Underground, glacier ice

| {{ct|09990}}

| '''Water freezes'''

| '''{{ct|10000}}'''

| <span style="border-bottom: 1px #0000CC dotted;cursor:help;" title="Nether-cap temperatures are fixed to 10000 degrees Urist, regardless of the surrounding environment.">Nether-cap</span>

| [[Creature token#H|Dwarf/human homeotherm]]

| Tiles next to [[magma]] ([[warm stone]])

| '''<span style="border-bottom: 1px #0000CC dotted;cursor:help;" title="Above this temperature fat, present on all all organic creatures, will start to melt (turning into grease), eventually killing them.">Highest survivable temperature</span>'''

| '''{{ct|10078}}'''

| Outside, [[Climate#Scorching|scorching climate]] (varies)

| [[Water]] boils

| [[Wood]] [[fire]] (max)

| Material is [[fire-safe]]

| Common stone melts (varies)

| [[Coal]] [[fire]] (max)

| '''Magma'''

| Material is [[magma-safe]]

==Material values==

* {{tt|[MELTING_POINT:#]}} — This is the temperature at which a liquid material will freeze, or a solid material will melt. In Dwarf Fortress the melting point and freezing point coincide exactly; this is contrary to many real-life materials, which can be supercooled.

* {{tt|[BOILING_POINT:#]}} — This is the temperature at which the material will boil or condense. Water boils at {{ct|10180}}.

* {{tt|[IGNITE_POINT:#]}} — This is the temperature at which the material will catch fire.

* {{tt|[HEATDAM_POINT:#]}} — This is the temperature above which the material will begin to take heat [[wear|damage]]. Burning items without a heat damage point (or with an exceptionally high one) will take damage very slowly, causing them to burn for a very long time (9 months and 16.8 days) before disappearing.

* {{tt|[COLDDAM_POINT:#]}} — This is the temperature below which the material will begin to take frost [[wear|damage]].

* {{tt|[SPEC_HEAT:#]}} — This determines how long it takes the material to heat up or cool down. A material with a high specific heat capacity will hold more heat and affect its surroundings more before cooling down or heating up to equilibrium. The input for this token is not temperature, but rather the [[wikipedia:Specific heat capacity|specific heat capacity]] of the material.

* {{tt|[MAT_FIXED_TEMP:#]}} — A material's temperature can be forced to always be a certain value via the MAT_FIXED_TEMP [[material definition token]].  The only standard material which uses this is [[nether-cap]] wood, whose temperature is always at the melting point of water.  If a material's temperature is fixed to between its cold damage point and its heat damage point, then items made from that material will never suffer cold/heat damage.  This makes nether-caps [[fire-safe]] and [[magma-safe]] despite being a type of [[wood]].<br/>Due to the way fixed temperature is handled, giving a material a fixed temperature will not cause its actual temperature to change accordingly &mdash; instead, its temperature will simply be permanently locked at whatever it was previously. Removing a material's fixed temperature, however, will cause all items made of it to heat or cool until reaching equilibrium with their surroundings. The fixed temperature of a [[container]] does affect its contents, but you can't freeze [[water]] by putting it into a [[bucket]] made from nether-cap because water will not freeze until it cools ''below'' {{ct|10000}}. The fixed temperature of an inorganic material has no effect on unmined walls made from that material, though boulders '''will''' take on that temperature as they are produced via mining.

* A calculation error in the game causes objects in containers to maintain a 1 degree difference from the container, resulting in constant recalculation of temperature values.{{bug|6012}} This incurs a high cost on your processor, and is thus a large drag on your [[frames per second]]. [[Utility:DFHack|DFhack]]'s "fix/stable-temp" stabilizes the temperature of such objects and improves frame rate (though not enabled by default).<br/>If [[maximizing framerate]] is a concern, you can even disable temperatures entirely through an option in the [[D init.txt]]. With this option toggled off, being adjacent to lava will not cause objects (or creatures) to burn, nor will dwarves have any problems running around on top of glaciers naked if they so desire; however more direct tile temperature calculations are still preserved, so contact with magma or dragonfire is still plenty lethal.

* When temperature calculations are disabled, dwarves will refuse to set foot in a cast [[obsidian]] tile (or other tiles previously occupied by [[magma]]).{{bug|6033}}