Dye

Main / Skills / Alchemy / Natural substances / Dye

Dye, used to colour clothing and items with.

Dye is made from various items and water and is used to paint items and walls.

Colors

• Black - Tannin and iron lump (difficulty 40, hardest dye to make)
• Blue - Woad
• Green - Copper lump (minimum .8 kg)
• Red - Cave bug or scorpion cochineal
• White - Zinc lump

Note: The more difficult colors can not be made until after having made some of the easier colors or healing covers to gain natural substances skill. Start with green, or maybe blue.

Tools required

• Any container that can hold liquid, like pottery jar or small bucket

Items required

• Water
• Cochineal
• Copper lump
• Tannin and iron lump
• Woad
• Zinc lump

Method

1. Put appropriate item in inventory.
2. Put water in container.
3. Activate item.
4. Right-click on water in container and select Create > Miscellaneous > <color> dye.

Ratio

• Black - at least 1kg of water per acorn. Produces 1kg of tannin per acorn. 1kg of tannin per 1kg of iron lump. Larger amounts of tannin and iron produce larger amounts of dye.
• Blue - at least 1kg of water per woad. Produces 1kg of dye per woad.
• Green - 1kg of water per 1kg of copper lump. Larger amounts of water and copper produce larger amounts of dye.
• Red - at least 1kg of water per cochineal. Produces 1kg of dye per cochineal.
• White - 1kg of water per 1kg of zinc lump. Larger amounts of water and zinc produce larger amounts of dye.

When using more water or tannin than metal the amount of metal determines the amount of dye produced. Sometimes a water to metal ratio that's not exactly 1:1 will only use the same amount of water as metal and leave some water in the container. You will get the message that Not all the dye would fit and the dye is lost. Therefore it is advised to use an exact 1:1 ratio.

Since combining dye results in small loss of quality it is advised to create dye from one larger piece of metal instead of many 1kg pieces.

Notes

• The dye color shows up as the color of the word "Dye".
• Resulting dye will have three color values: red, green, and blue.
• R=255 G=255 B=255 is pure white.
• Dye may be combined and the values will average out (although they will be about 2 points closer to grey across the board).
• The higher the quality is, the brighter and less grey the color will be.
• Red, Green and Blue dye can be improved using the base material.
• The amount of water used does not seem to affect creation chance or resulting QL or RGB value.
• Dye and water cannot be mixed to make a paler dye.
• When making dye with metal lumps, there is no need to heat them up first.
• The quality of the cochineal does not affect the success chance when creating red dye.
• If failing to make green dye the mass of the copper lump is decreased by 0.1.
• If failing to make red dye the quality of the cochineal is reduced by 0.5.
• If failing to make blue the woad is destroyed
• To get rid of unwanted dye, just right-click and select Pour - don't worry, it won't leave a stain.
• Black dye has little effect on a light source (No black light) and only dims the light a little. And it doesn`t dim light sources around it.
  • Testing reveals An excellent black dye (R=12 B=12 G=13) on a 45ql lantern light looks the same as a 40ql no dye lantern and a little dimmer than a 43ql white dyed lantern.

Usage

1. Activate dye.
2. Right-click on item and select 'Paint'.

Paintable items include: building walls, chests, barrels, buckets, signs, carts, catapults, pottery, lanterns, statues, and boats.

The amount of dye used depends on the item being painted:

Object	Amount, kg
Armchair	0.14
Banner	~0.04
Bed	5.76
Bucket	0.10
Catapult	43.20
Chair	0.15
Cheese drill	0.09
House wall	1.00
Huge tub	18.00
Lamp	0.06
Lantern	0.015
Large barrel	2.00
Large cart	24.60
Large chest	2.40
Metal torch	0.02
Round table	0.29
Rowing boat	6.05
Shop sign	0.01
Small barrel	0.36
Small cart	6.05
Small chest	0.36
Small raft	6.05
Small sailing boat	5.40
Small sign	0.01
Spirit castle	2.00
Statues	0.16 to 3.33
Statuette	0.00

The following items art thought to be paintable, but we do not generally have large enough containers to hold the dye required. (Fountain Containers have been used for boats.)

Object	Amount, kg
Knarr	~240
Cog	819.84
Colossus	(Unknown)

Removal

To remove dye from a painted object, use a metal brush on it.

Image

Example of Dyed items.