Jade

Jade is a rare material with high beauty, but with little other purpose.

Acquisition

Jade veins occur rarely on most maps, and must be mined before they can be used. Jade can occasionally be found in random cargo pods, and may be purchased from bulk goods traders. Once you've completed the research necessary to construct a deep drill, it can also be found in small deposits underground.

Jade may occasionally be dropped by tribal raiders, as part of raid loot.

Ore

Jade tiles have 1,500 health each, making them one of the faster ores to mine. They can be found in smaller veins, ranging from 2 to 8 tiles in size. Each mined block has a base yield of 40 jade, however this is modified by factors such as the Difficulty setting and the mining yield of the pawn.

Usage

Jade is not required for any recipe. However, jade can be used as "Stony" stuff, so it can be used for items like walls, sculptures, and clubs. As buildings, it has a high beauty rating.

Unlike other stone types, beds made from jade suffer no penalty to Rest Effectiveness.

Analysis

Jade is relatively scarce and hard to find. It is best used for beauty.

Beauty

The most efficient uses of jade are:

Sculptures. Sculptures are very beautiful, and jade sculptures more so. A normal small sculpture costs 50 jade for +135 beauty, then modified by quality. Jade sculptures allow for very high beauty in 1 place.
Fences. Each fence costs 1 jade, but gives +10 beauty. 50 jade would give +500 beauty. Until you can create masterwork sculptures, fences give more beauty per jade then any other item. They also have the advantage of being low wealth. Therefore, fences are great at raising a room's beauty (and thus room Impressiveness).

However, jade fences consume a lot of space; they are worse than sculptures at raising the pawn beauty need. Colonists check for beauty within an 8-tile radius, and you can't easily fit 50 or so fences into a colonist's sight. In addition, the actual space constraint can be an issue for many base setups.

If you have a surplus of jade, then it can be used for walls, beds and other furniture, though these are less effective for beauty. Jade structures are poor as defenses, as they have lower HP.

"Omnistructure" barracks / dining / recreation / workshop room, built with room to spare for fences.

Weapon

Jade has a surprisingly high Blunt damage rating. It is better than all materials short of uranium. However, the only blunt weapon that can be made out of jade is the club. Jade can be an acceptable material in the early game, as a jade club would be stronger than a steel mace (of normal or worse quality).

Lost Tribe scenarios also start with the jade knife, which would otherwise be uncraftable. As an actual weapon, the jade knife is worse than even a wooden club.

Trivia

Despite being unavailable for use in any Apparel in the current version, it has stats for armor and insulation.

Gallery

One jade
Partial stack
Full stack

Version history

0.17.1546 - no longer a small volume material.
? - vein size increased from 1-6 -> 2-8 and yield increased from 35 -> 40

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