And here are some answers
Yes, Brass and Steel plates will be mostly used by dwarves. You’ll be able to use them yourself with other factions by unlocking dwarven recipes (similarly to how you unlock Amberstone recipes, through questing) but they’re of no use for now.
Yes, you’re half-correct. The Artificer plays both like an Engineer but also as a Geomancer - it’s like a hybrid of both - however all the things that the geomancer do “naturally” (like stone golems) the Artificer does artificially, so instead of golems made of natural materials and magic, dwarves will have automatons, golems made of metal and steam and that will also be able to perform more jobs (like combat golems or building golems). Also unimplemented for now
That one was supposed to be widely available, but it was unfinished/bugged and went down on the priority list. Sorry! We’ll see about fixing it for the future
I had a teacher that used to say: “no question is dumb, dumb is what you’ll be if you never ask questions”
That said, this is actually a good question! But I’ll just say “yes, there are”