Granite blocks

Granite is the strongest of all stone blocks and is best suited to build walls in the fighting area.

Acquisition

Granite blocks are cut from granite chunks at a Stonecutter's table. It takes 1,600 ticks (26.67 secs) of work to cut a single chunk into 20 blocks.

Analysis

As the most durable building stone, granite blocks have almost 10% more hit points than their nearest competitor, limestone, and more than 21% more than the third strongest sandstone, making it the preferred building material for anywhere that you expect to take damage or even as the default wall material where another material is not indicated. For example, a colony may chose to build tables and bedrooms walls from the beautiful marble, while all other walls, including the outer walls, will be made from granite.

If available, both uranium and plasteel significantly outperform granite, with 47% and 65% more HP respectively. However, both materials are both more expensive and rarer to encounter than the relatively common granite. Thus, they should only be used as needed and are typically relegated to constructions that will be a particular focus for damage, such as planned defensive positions or the walls at the receiving end of a killbox.

Production strategy

This section is transcluded from Stonecutting maximization.

Stonecutting speed is controlled by the cutting pawn's General Labor Speed stat which is determined by a pawn's stats and capacities rather than any skill. Thus, maximization is based on improving that stat and removing process inefficiencies rather than grinding for experience.

General Labor Speed

General labor speed is affected by manipulation, sight and global work speed.

Sight decreases general labor speed if below 100%, but offers no benefit above 100%.
Manipulation can be improved with bionic or archotech arms, or with drugs that improve Manipulation or Consciousness such as Go-juice or Wake-up.
Global work speed can be improved by certain traits, such as Industrious or Neurotic, a Leader's Work Drive, and the drug Wake-up, which stacks with the drug's manipulation improvement.
General Labor Speed can also be directly increased by +50% Production specialists, and those affected by their Production Command.
- The ability stacks with the role, but a specialist cannot self-buff.

Like other workbenches, using a stonecutter while outdoors, having no light, or under extreme temperature will negatively affect production speed. Care should be taken to avoid these conditions. Pawns with damaged vision / manipulation, or with traits such as Lazy should avoid stonecutting unless they are otherwise unoccupied.

While being a production specialist will lock out a pawn out of many other work types and the quality increase is useless for stonecutting, a stonecutter may want to become a specialist regardless. You can have as many specialists of a type as you wish, and the role can always be removed if the pawn is required for another role or once a sufficient stockpile of blocks has been made. Note that there is a −15 <Role> lost if you decide to switch or remove the specialist role later. If a temporary role switch is still untenable, consider placing the stonecutter table in range of your regular production specialist's workstations to benefit from their aura.

Process efficiency

Using shelves placed directly adjacent to the crafting position will remove travel time to pick up new chunks for cutting, as described on that page, so long as:

Sufficient haulers are present to bring chunks to them.
The bill is set to drop the blocks on the ground.

If there are insufficient haulers, removing the shelves and instead positioning the cutting table next to the chunk stockpile is ideal.

Placing an armchair or other chair will not improve production rates, but will ensure that the pawn remains comfortable and happy while cutting. It's worth mentioning, with the Ideology DLC installed, slaves are ideal as stone cutters as the task doesn't raise any of the pawns skills. The -15% work speed from slaves is offset by a lack of need for recreation. Adding a circadian half-cycler further increases efficiency by removing the need for sleep at the cost of -15% consciousness.

Version history

0.7.581 - Added, previously there was only generic "stone".

Materials

Stony: Granite blocks • Limestone blocks • Marble blocks • Sandstone blocks • Slate blocks • Jade
Metallic: Gold • Plasteel • Silver • Steel • Uranium • Bioferrite
Woody: Wood
Leathery: Bearskin • Birdskin • Bluefur • Camelhide • Chinchilla fur • Dog leather • Elephant leather • Foxfur • Guinea pig fur • Heavy fur • Human leather • Lightleather • Lizardskin • Panthera fur • Patchleather • Pigskin • Plainleather • Rhinoceros leather • Thrumbofur • Wolfskin • Dread leather
Fabric: Alpaca wool • Bison wool • Cloth • Devilstrand • Hyperweave • Megasloth wool • Muffalo wool • Sheep wool • Synthread
Other: Gray