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Dwarf Fortress => DF Dwarf Mode Discussion => Topic started by: NCommander on May 04, 2015, 10:03:20 pm

Title: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: NCommander on May 04, 2015, 10:03:20 pm

Given the success of the Marksdwarf version of this, and realizing people have issues getting training to work *at all* with melee dwarves, I wanted to write a second guide that goes into much more detail and explains the skills much more in-depth:

If you just want to know how to get training to the point you get reliable badasses, skip down to part 2.

Large parts of this guide are based on research on this thread by Urist Da Vinchi (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?action=printpage;topic=97090.0)

0. Understanding Military Skills

Melee is controlled by 17 different skills, plus an addition four which are used in training, these are as follows.

Weapon Skill

These control how lethal a dwarf is with a given weapon. There are five dwarves normally use, and an addition four that can sometimes rarely crop up in migrants, or modded games.

 * Axedwarf
 * Hammerdwarf
 * Macedwarf
 * Speardwarf
 * Swordsdwarf
 
For clarity purposes: Morningstars use the mace skill. Crossbows in melee use Hammer, blowguns and bows use Sword.

In addition, if you use foreign weaponry, the following are also important
 * Knife User - Controls knifes, daggers, and large daggers (large daggers are the only large weapon dwarves can use)
 * Lasher - Controls whips, and flails
 * Pikeman - Controls pikes.
 * Misc Object. User - Controls basically everything else.

If a dwarf somehow gets a equipped with a non-weapon in the weapon slot, they'll use the Misc. Object User skill. There's no assoicated lord title with this, but it appears to work just like all the other ones above. Headshots was famous for having a dwarf that picked a backpack as a weapon, and thus maxed it out. Shields are use the Misc. Object Skill for cases when a dwarf bashes someone in the head with a shield. If you want to max this skill, give a dwarf two shields and let them train. As long as the criteria are met, dwarves will do demonstrations related to misc object user in addition to the above.

It is possible, though not confirmed, that a dwarf set to pick up "Individual Choice, Melee", and has points in this skill (due to tantruming or such) may choose a random object and pick it up. However, its not recommended to use either individual choice options, you sometimes get ranged dwarves using an axe, or a hammerdwarf who likes bows.

Furthermore, in theory, some dwarves should be large enough to actually wield a pike, but due to a bug, will never attempt to pick one up. The same applies to 2H swords, and several other weapons in fortress mode. Adventure mode seems to ignore size issues in this regard for the most part, and thus its practical to have a dwarf use a pike there. Once a dwarf hits level 12 (Great), they become a master of that weapon, and are collectively known as weaponlords. The key difference is lords do not get bad thoughts on being on patrol duty. The age old bug of training causing patrol duty thoughts has been fixed to my knowledge; I haven't seen it in any recent fort.

The bug about large dwarves not being able to use large weapons is here: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=5812
In older versions of DF, fighters who became legendary were known as champions. This no longer exists in the traditional sense, however, once you have a baron, you can appoint a champion but as best I can tell, it doesn't appear to actually do anything (I tend to make my most badass dwarf the title thought).

Fighting Skills

A weapon skill is not enough, they need additional skills to survive and use in combat. The next group I call fighting skills, with a "weapon" skill related to unarmed combat.

 * Discipine - controls if a dwarf will breakdown in fear and retreat. Higher is usually better (marksdwarves with this at high levels probably will charge into melee)
 * Biter - How strong of a bite a dwarf has (and they WILL train this, see below)
 * Dodger - Controls how frequently a dwarf dodges and how successfully
 * Striker - How strong a dwarf punches
 * Kicker - How strong a dwarf kicks

There's also two special skills that go with this:
 * Fighter - Superskill; exact usage is not clear, but if it works like archer, it controls if a target dodges, and response. No one has successfully scienced the specifics of fighter, but it will level up the fastest of all them since ANY combat action will boost it. Ranged equivalent is Archery
 * Wrestler - "Weapon" skill of unarmed combat. Wrestler is the only dangerous skill in sparring, but all dwarves in melee may attempt to do wrestling moves in addition striking with a weapon, this will level up consistently through demostrations and sparring.

Defensive Item Usage

There are two skills that relate to armor and shields

 * Shield User - controls how often a dwarf autoblocks with a shield. A dwarf with Legendary+5 Shield User basically prevent anything from connecting that can be blocked with a shield. Even with low levels, a dwarf will use shields *a lot*. Unfortunately levels up slowly.
 * Armor User - controls armor movement penalities. At legendary, the weight of armor is negated. Also appears to control the chance of something glancing off (this is a relatively recent change). Levels up at a glacier speed, though dwarves DO give armor demostrations; four years of training which had everything at Legendary+5, and armor user was still at 6 ...

Demonstration Skills

Demonstrations can be drastically more effective than sparring *if* the associated skills are relatively high.

 * Teacher - determines the amount of experience given to students during a demonstration.
 * Student - determines the amount of experience actually applied to a skill from a demonstration.
 * Observer - exact effects unknown; in adventure mode, increase chances of spotting an ambush. In fortress mode, this levels up during sparring, and will *drastically* level up if you get into the rare condition that dwarves are watching a sparring match. (as in, will go from zip to level 10 if the sparring match lasts awhile).
 * Organizer - Controls the speed as which a demonstration "starts". Very little usage. With no skill, it takes an in-game day for a demonstration to start

Toady specifically commented on Teacher and Student in the release notes for one of the DF2010 releases

Quote from: Toady One

Release notes for 0.31.12 (July 25, 2010):

Aside from the major bug fixes listed below, I made skill increases a little faster during training.  Part of the problem is with how classes work -- the teacher and student skills are important, and they can heavily amplify the effects, so the gains for people without those skills were small.  Now it'll be even more extreme that the base rate has increased, so we'll have to see how that plays out in forts that get good teachers.

Other Military Skills
For completion sake, the following are military skills, but are either unused, or related to ranged dwarves
 * Marksdwarf/Bowman/Blowgunner - controls crossbows/bows/blowguns. Weapon skill with range controls how frequently a target hits
 * Archer - Controls if a target dodges and such (was recently scienced http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=150323.0 (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=150323.0))
 * Ambusher - Technically a military skill. Controls how effectively a dwarf sneaks. Normally only used by hunters in fortress mode.
 * Military Tactics/Coordination/Balance - Military Tactics is used in worldgen, Coordination and Balance are unusued, but presumably relate to mounts.
 * Tracker - Unused in fortress mode
 * Thrower - Used when a object is physically thrown. Thrown opponents uses the wrestling skill. Never trained via demostrations or sparring.
 * Miner - pick weapon skill. Shows up as foreign under the uniform screen for whatever reason. As mining is considered a civilian labor, you'll end up with an elite wrestler vs. Elite Pike User. If they do demonstrations with picks, its possible you could train a miner to legendary without a single mining designation.

Other Important Skills
 * Crutch-walker - If a dwarf looses or breaks a leg, they will get a crutch through the hospital, and level this skill up, it levels stupid fast. If a dwarf attacks with a crutch, it will use Misc Object Skill.
 * Swimmer - Controls what happens if a dwarf dodges into water. If none at all, they'll be stunned upon landing, and almost certainly drown. At novice, if they land on a ramp, they can move back onto solid land if they don't drown while stunned. At Adequate and above, they will not be stunned and get back into the fight. A fall into water that's multiple Z level *can* prevent the fall from being lethal, a dwarf will immediately swim straight up, then to solid land. Dwarves will path through water that is 3/7, but no deeper. At 4/7 to 6/7, they can swim without drowning risk no matter what. If 7/7, if the tile above is "Open Space", they also will not drown if not stunned.

To summarize: if you want your moat to not claim your dwarves lives in case they dodge: make it two 2-level deep (more is better), with open space above and that they are level 2 or better in swimmers. Assuming they only fall one Z level, this will avoid them slamming down one Z level.

Unknown: if dwarves drink water while swimming, or will eat their provisions. It might be completely possible to get a dwarf to punch out a shark with the right setup though.

1. Understanding Demonstrations, Sparring, and Individual Ranged Training

Dwarves actively have (in general) four possible jobs they can be doing, in roughly this order of priority
 - Group based training
 - Individual Training (they also do this if there off-duty and don't have another job to do)
 - Sparring
 - Archery Training (if equipped with a bow, the squad has bolts, and has an archery range for the squad)

Group based training, individual training and sparring require a barrack to be defined for that squad with "Train" enabled. Archery ranges don't count as a barrack for this. Individual training and demostrations train ONE skill at a time. Demonstrations can only happen if the leader of a demonstration has some experience in that skill (Dabbling is enough to meet this). Dwarves will only attend a demonstration if its a fighting skill, *or* its the weapon they're currently equipped with (that is to say, if you have a squad of two dwarves, one with a spear, and one with an axe, you'll never get axe or spear demonstrations. Ranged dwarfs will attend demostrations for their weapons base skill; so marksdwarves will attend hammer demonstrations. They will however start and attend wrestling demonstrations as all dwarves can wrestle; this is also why wrestling levels up as fast as it does via demostrations; a dwarf can always wrestle.

For sparring, a dwarf must be at least novice in their weaponskill. Dwarves with unequal skill levels *will* spar, but not frequently. If two dwarves are very close in skill levels, they spar much more frequently, this can be maximized by using position assigning. This is actually a good thing as demonstrations tend to be more effective once teacher and student get high enough. Furthermore, three and four way spars are possible; I suppose you could get a ten way spar, but I've never seen it happen, and 3/4 dwarves sparring together are very rare.

If multiple dwarves are under a train order together, and some are sparring, they may choose to watch (I believe this shows up as Watch Combat or something similar in the u menu, its very rare). When this happens, those watching will have their observer skill skyrocket. I'm not sure if they get any other skill gains by watching; I can't reproduce it frequently enough to science it. If a marksdwarf spars (this is very rare, possibly a bug), they'll use their crossbow as a hammer and gain hammerdwarf skills. Sparring is always safe *unless* a dwarf has open hands. The problem is that wrestling skills are valid when sparring, and the dwarf choosing to suplex or throw a dwarf, which sends them flying. This won't happen as long as all dwarves have a weapon and shield. If you're training wrestlers, have a hospital handy; the injuries usually aren't bad unless they hit a wall.

It is unknown if the old issue that injuried dwarves (even grey) never spar is still true; I haven't noticed it either way, and most of my training happens by demostration vs sparring.

Demonstrations require that *all* the dwarves in the order are present, and others will wait until that happens. The practical upshot is that demonstrations take a very long time to go with the default settings because if one dwarf is sleeping, the others will wait for the sleeper or just do individual training. Due to a bug, the time increase is calculated exponentially (dfhack had a tweak to fix this). In other words, "Train, 10 minimum" will cause them to train so slowly that you'd be lucky to get a novice after a year.

The following skills *can* be taught via demonstration:
 * All melee weapon skills
 * All ranged skills (including Archery and Crossbow. Seems to happen very rarely since will compete with Hammer as a trainable skill, but it is possible to train an elite marksdwarf without them firing a single bolt)
 * Dodger
 * Biter
 * Kicker
 * Striker
 * Misc. Object User (maybe, I don't remember if I've seen this recently)
 * Armor User
 * Shield User (maybe?)

Fighter doesn't appear to cause demonstrations to form. Armor and shield also do not appear to cause demonstrations to happen; these skills only level up during sparring as best I can tell.

As stated above, a weapon demonstration will not happen if two dwarves in the same order have different weapons. You can use that to reduce demonstrations and get dwarves to spar more frequently.

Experience Gains

In summary, here's what to know about the types of training:
 - Individual Combat Drills raise one skill by a little bit, they're the slowest way to get anything to raise and appear to raise one skill at a time. You want to avoid these to the extent possible
 - Demonstrations raise one skill factored by teacher and student. In addition to the skill demonstrated, dwarves gain some student/teacher experience, causing future demonstrations to become even more effective. Thus if you can get them to do and complete demonstrations quickly, this will outpace sparing for training. However, not all skills can be demonstrated. If you embark with a student/teacher at 5 and no other skills, they will become a weapon level at novice within a week. This allows for rapid replacement of losses once you have your initial set of badasses.
 - Sparring simulates real combat. Its not clear if experience gains are the same, but this will train all skills a dwarf can learn a little bit.
 - Archery training gives 8XP per bolt. If combined with my ulitimate marksdwarves guide, you'll get elite marksdwarves in about a year.

2. Equipping Your Badasses-To-Be

Professions To Watch
Wood cutters, miners, and hunters use weapons as civilians. Draftings these guys might give a massive equipment mismatch spam. To fix, disable their civilian labor, and if necessary forbid the item they're carrying.

On Armor
There's a LOT of confusion about armor and dwarves. There's a great armor chart on the wiki (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Armor) that shows what covers what, but its still slightly confusing on what you can equip your dwarves to be.

Here's the first thing I recommend. DON'T USE METAL ARMOR FOR NEWBIES.

I'm serious. With older versions of dwarf fortress, the weight would slow them down, but not enough to make training ineffective. The hauling update caused armor encumbrance to become much worse; an untrained dwarf in full metal will move so slowly that training will become a crawl. For raw recruits, use leather. My default embark these days is a proficient leatherworker, and a supply of dogs to train up an animal trainer, which become war dogs, then slaughter then.  Leather counts as armor, so it will train armor user during sparring, but not have any additional weight penalties. Bone should also work as well, but I've never made armor out of it. Contributions welcome on weight penalties due to bone armor.

Strictly speaking, a metal shield and weapon will slow them down, but not nearly as much as a full set of armor.

A full set of leather armor is as follows:
 - Leather armor (that's what its called)
 - Leather helm
 - Leather gauntlet
 - Leather high boots (if your civilization can make these; I haven't seen one in a long time that can't, this may no longer be factor)

Failing high boots, you need leggings and low boats. Each piece costs one leather, so that's four for the set. For a 10 dwarf squad, that's 40 pieces. If you make leather shields, add another one to the cost.

Make sure you use exact matches when you specify it on the equipment screen, or some dwarves will consider clothes a proper replacement.

When To Switch To Metal

Admittedly, this is a matter of taste. By time they hit weapon lord status, a dwarf's physical attributes are pretty damn good, but my training methods leave armor user wanting. Regardless, I'd switch them roughly around then if I have metal production ramped up. While they'll still move slower than normal dwarves, the additional stat gains allow them to move fast enough to not bog under. Metal armor also seems to increase armor user training rate.

How To Equip With Metal Armor

Each piece of metal armor covers a specific slot of the dwarf. Unfortunately, with metal alone you can't get 100% coverage. Masterwork steel is the best material for most armor because you can mass produce and import it, and its superior at deflecting budging blows; I then use candy robes ontop for full coverage *and* increasing deflection of piercing and sharp weaponry. Unfortunately adamantine robes degrade; this IMHO, is a bug, and either a small raws tweak -or- a dfhack plugin can be used to fix it. However, it only takes one piece of adamantine thread to make a robe, so it is by far the most economical of it, and it still takes 5 years to degrade entirely.

Assuming your civilization can make high boots, this is the best coverage you can go for
 - steel helm
 - steel mail shirt
 - steel gauntlets
 - steel high boots
 - steel breastplate
 - steel greaves
 - adaminite robes

This gives great protection at the lowest weight possible. Appartantly rigidness is now important in dealing with armor based on new science and breastplates and greaves are very important. It costs 10 bars of metal for the full set (3 for the breastplate, 2 for the mail shirt and greaves, and 1 each for the gauntlets, boots and helm), plus an additional two for a shield and weapon.

You can add breastplates if you wish, but they may bug up. See below for an explanation.

Robes can bug up due to the equipment mismatch problem listed below. See below for instructions.

On Weaponry

There's a lot of debate of what weapons to use. Here's roughly whats best at what, and note no weapon wins all around

 - Axes: Most effective on organic enemies the same size or slightly larger than your dwarf. Does slashing damage
 - Swords: Most effective on enemies that have to be beheaded to kill like bronze collisi.
 - Spears: Gets bonused on kebashable enemies, and ones that dwarf your dwarves. Use on forgotten beasts, titan, megabeast and demons!
 - Hammer: Does bludging damage, very effective on full body zombies, as well as armored foes the above can't get through.
 - Mace: Does bludging damage, slightly worse than hammers, but much higher chance of mangled and finally putting down killable undead.

Dwarves will get attached to a weapon over time, but will *still* obey uniform requirements. If you get a dwarf that gets stuck welding something you don't want, as a last resort, set the squad down, tell them to use civ clothes. They'll either store the weapon in a stockpile, or in an weapon rack, at which point you can forbid it or mark it for dumping. It is unknown if named weapons get the bonuses normal artifact weaponry does.

Provisions

Dwarves can carry food and booze if they're in a squad and will use this instead of going to a stockroom to get something. I recommend doing so, though beware the bug below on this. To carry food, they need a backpack, which must be made from leather and costs one piece each.

Booze can be carried in a waterskin made from leather, or a vial or flask made out of metal, porcelain, or glass.
 
Equipping Troubles (and why mall shirts, breastplates, and robes bug up)

Dwarves tend to be idiots on equipping things and do it in the wrong order. The full problem is described in the following bug:
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=1445

In effective, instead of trying to put things on in the order they have to be worn, they'll put them in in the order the item was produced in your fortress. So if you make breastplates before mail shirts, they'll put the breastplate on first, then fail to put the mail shirt on, spamming equipment mismatches and getting stuck. This also happens if you try to assign socks or something to a dwarf. There is a workaround.

When you create the uniform, exclude the breastplate from the uniform, and then add your squad members to the squad. Then go to each dwarves individual equip screen, and add the breastplate. This prevents them from switching their equipment to different items. You have to do it 10 times each, but you only have to bother when doing equipment changes. For the same reason, if you want to switch a dwarves equipment fully, stand down the squad and make sure they have "Inactive - Civ Clothes" in their Inactive schedule, which will get them back in base clothes.

The same thing applies with robes. If you're trying to get to get mail shirt, breastplate, robe, have the mail plate in the uniform, wait for equipment to finish being picked up, add the breastplate, wait, then the robe.

Also, if you want to give them socks, assign the socks, then the shoes. Leggings might also have the same problem, not 100% sure; if so, its socks, then leggings, then boots.

Backpacks equip reliably for me, but may give others headaches. Quivers are known to bug up with metal armor due to this reason. To fix the above for backpacks: remove all food/water assignments, they won't claim a backpack if not ordered to carry supplies. Quivers are more annoying, you have to remove the bow, and then add it last. Waterskins go on the armor itself (strangely), and thus shouldn't bug up as long as everything else is equipped properly.

I always recommend using "Replace", and Exact Matches on equipment when using metal, it helps with the screwups. Leather armor doesn't overlap, and is fine to leave over clothing.

Dealing With The 'm' Menus

Welcome to the worst part of this guide. The military menu will hurt, but I'll try and make it as quick and painless as possible. We'll take this screen by screen, and I am going to recycle part of my ulitmate ranged guide here.

We'll start with defining a uniform. Pull up the n screen. In this example, I'm giving leather equipment for spear dwarves. Create a new uniform with 'c', and call it something like Spear Training. Make it look like this, using 'M' to select the material.

(http://imgur.com/Ub51HjP.png)

Now press 'p' to go back to the positions menu. When you create the squad, it will ask for a uniform. This is misleading; the game *only* applies the uniform to the first dwarf selected. We'll fix that in a moment. Select your recruits, like so, then switch to the 'e' menu. Select your squad, then press 'U' (that's captain U) to bring up the uniform selection screen.

This example shows it correctly for marksdwarves:

(http://i.imgur.com/U4Iz9ua.png)

If done correctly, you have Weapondwarf 10/10 on the top. If incorrect, you'll get 1/1 Weapondwarf, 9/9 Wrestlers. Remember the equip bugs above if you're using this screen. You can mix and match dwarves in a squad. If you do so, you'll see the count on top as something like 5 axedwarves, 5 speardwarves. Uniforms and equipment are tied to the actual position, not the dwarf. This is counter-intuitive, and may cause issues if a dwarf dies, a replacement is drafted, and his equipment is forbidden.

Switch to the supplies screen and set this as you feel. I recommend three food, and carry booze. Note: they don't always seem to claim waterskins effectively. I'm as to unsure of the cause or a fix.

Switch to the schedule menu. This is where the magic happens. The default order of Train, 10 minimium, is *wrong*. Use x to delete out the orders, the game will show "No Scheduled Order" in its place. Repeat for all months.

The schedule should look like this:

(http://i.imgur.com/y3MOsUc.png)

Press o to give an order. Press o until Train comes up, then set the minimum to 2. 3 also works well if your dwarves have some skill in teacher and student. Generally, I don't bother. It should look like this:

(http://i.imgur.com/P3h2D1U.png)

Press Shift-Enter to give the order. Repeat 5 times so all positions are covered. This forces the max demonstration size to be two, working around the inverse square problem relating to training times. They'll finish demonstrations quickly, leveling up student and teacher at a decent click (as well as organizer), and cause them to hit lord status in about a year, legendary 1.5-2 years from start. If you want to encourage more sparring, see the footnote.

Give the order a custom name so you can spot it easier, and copy and paste to all months.

It should look like this when you're done.

(http://i.imgur.com/3MWeflc.png)

Activate your squad, and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

---

Appendix: Attempt to encourage more sparring

The Train, minimum 2 order causes dwarves to pair off with each other, using whoevers available at the time. By assigning a position (by pressing right, then selecting positions when you GIVE the order (you can't edit them later)), you can pair off two specific dwarves. If you make a squad that's half axe, and half sword, they will not do demonstrations related to their weapon skill, just their fighting one. This should encourage more sparring, but it hasn't been fully tested. Furthermore, pairing off dwarves into sets should also encourage them to spar more in general because their skill gains should be consistent with each other at all times.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Zachski on May 04, 2015, 11:51:34 pm

It's been months since I last played, but what are some precautions I should take if I want to make a team of, say, killer wrestling monks?  Since I've seen people note that wrestling sparring often results in fatal injuries.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: NCommander on May 05, 2015, 12:09:17 am

Quote from: Zachski on May 04, 2015, 11:51:34 pm

It's been months since I last played, but what are some precautions I should take if I want to make a team of, say, killer wrestling monks?  Since I've seen people note that wrestling sparring often results in fatal injuries.

Oooh, tricky. The obvious answer is give them armor while try train, but that's kinda a copout. The best I can suggest is giving them Training, Minimum 1 10 times, and give them a barrack. That should force them to do only individual combat drills but it will be very slow, quite possibly 10-15 years to get legendary. If you go for bonus points, you can give them a tiny bedroom, make it a barrack from the bed, and have them spend it in mediation.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Zachski on May 05, 2015, 12:39:17 am

Quote from: NCommander on May 05, 2015, 12:09:17 am

Quote from: Zachski on May 04, 2015, 11:51:34 pm

It's been months since I last played, but what are some precautions I should take if I want to make a team of, say, killer wrestling monks?  Since I've seen people note that wrestling sparring often results in fatal injuries.

Oooh, tricky. The obvious answer is give them armor while try train, but that's kinda a copout. The best I can suggest is giving them Training, Minimum 1 10 times, and give them a barrack. That should force them to do only individual combat drills but it will be very slow, quite possibly 10-15 years to get legendary. If you go for bonus points, you can give them a tiny bedroom, make it a barrack from the bed, and have them spend it in mediation.

I was thinking about the armor solution, mostly.  Would a leather helmet help protect a dorf's head from caving in when thrown into a wall or the floor?  Or would you need steel helmets?

Either way I may want to put the hospital (complete with its own well) right next to the barracks if I go the sparring route, along with enough doctors and "nurses".  The solo route doesn't seem worth it if it'll take 10-15 years.

And hey, that's one way to train up medical skills...

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: vjmdhzgr on May 05, 2015, 12:41:14 am

Quote from: Zachski on May 04, 2015, 11:51:34 pm

It's been months since I last played, but what are some precautions I should take if I want to make a team of, say, killer wrestling monks?  Since I've seen people note that wrestling sparring often results in fatal injuries.

It's pretty rare, it's just occasionally dwarves might throw their sparring partner and the impact can injure them. It's normally just a broken bone, but I suppose if it hit the head it could be deadly. If you're really worried about something that has only happened to me like, 8 times in my two years of playing in which most my military squads had dedicated wrestlers then I guess you could make a room out of a light wood like rubber or featherwood then have them train in there to lessen the damage. Armor never helped in those situations.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: vjmdhzgr on May 05, 2015, 12:42:51 am

Quote from: NCommander on May 04, 2015, 10:03:20 pm

* Armor User - controls armor movement penalities. At legendary, the weight of armor is negated. Also appears to control the chance of something glancing off (this is a relatively recent change). Levels up at a glacier speed, though dwarves DO give armor demostrations; four years of training which had everything at Legendary+5, and armor user was still at 6 ...

When was that glancing off chance added? Also in my experience armor user trains up far faster after giving them full armor, though still quite of slowly.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: NCommander on May 05, 2015, 01:15:42 am

Quote from: vjmdhzgr on May 05, 2015, 12:42:51 am

Quote from: NCommander on May 04, 2015, 10:03:20 pm

* Armor User - controls armor movement penalities. At legendary, the weight of armor is negated. Also appears to control the chance of something glancing off (this is a relatively recent change). Levels up at a glacier speed, though dwarves DO give armor demostrations; four years of training which had everything at Legendary+5, and armor user was still at 6 ...

When was that glancing off chance added? Also in my experience armor user trains up far faster after giving them full armor, though still quite of slowly.

In my current fort, I just spotted Give Armor Demostration. Guess they do teach that skill by demostrations. Now if there was just a way to keep them doing that.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Zachski on May 05, 2015, 01:47:24 am

Quote from: vjmdhzgr on May 05, 2015, 12:41:14 am

Quote from: Zachski on May 04, 2015, 11:51:34 pm

It's been months since I last played, but what are some precautions I should take if I want to make a team of, say, killer wrestling monks?  Since I've seen people note that wrestling sparring often results in fatal injuries.

It's pretty rare, it's just occasionally dwarves might throw their sparring partner and the impact can injure them. It's normally just a broken bone, but I suppose if it hit the head it could be deadly. If you're really worried about something that has only happened to me like, 8 times in my two years of playing in which most my military squads had dedicated wrestlers then I guess you could make a room out of a light wood like rubber or featherwood then have them train in there to lessen the damage. Armor never helped in those situations.

Okay, thanks.  Still might not be a bad idea to have a hospital immediately there to treat post-sparring injuries.

And thanks NCommander for the great guide :D

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Skullsploder on May 05, 2015, 02:46:57 am

Great guide NCommander, once again, but i Ai must add a few fairly anecdotal notes from my own experience (mainly uniform stuff):
Assigning picks to a miner squad is super easy. All you have to do is put them on full time duty and include picks in their uniform. Super simple stuff. Picks are listed as foreign weapons for some reason, but it makes no difference. Also, you can get civilian miners to carry food and drink and do individual drills when not digging by putting them in a squad and assigning them a barracks, but not giving them any uniform and setting them to inactive: civ clothes.
Breastplate issues, backpack issues, etc I have none of. I haven't had such issues since I scienced armour layering for myself. All I do differently to what you do is that I don't equip clothing. Maybe I'll run into issues if I do. Also, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU ASSIGN SOCKS TO A DWARF. They WILL go into battle missing a high boot.
Also: Breastplate and greaves are must-haves. In 34.11 your fluid armour set would work just as well if not better than a set which included maximum rigid pieces, but in 40.xx rigid armour actually protects significantly from blunt impact.
Newbies being slow in heavy armour is fine. A dwarf in full steel is virtually indestructible. At worst, he'll lie in the middle of a clump of goblins and level up armour user to maximum while they exhaust themselves (as long as he has a breastplate and greaves to deflect blunt impacts). Just don't send him against a forgotten beast.
And one last thing, VERY IMPORTANT. You make the same mistake in your marksdwarf guide. That is, saying that encumberment slows down attack speed. It doesn't. A marksdwarf in full steel will fire at the same rate as one with no clothing at all. This is new in the 40.xx versions. And let me reiterate that full steel using rigid plates is virtually indestructible, especially since ranged weapons are no longer railguns that punch through steel with wooden bolts... but you must have full rigid steel to reliably block all bolts the goblins have access to.

If you could consider those points and possibly change your guides to reflect them, I would be honoured :)

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: NCommander on May 05, 2015, 03:02:58 am

Quote

Assigning picks to a miner squad is super easy. All you have to do is put them on full time duty and include picks in their uniform. Super simple stuff. Picks are listed as foreign weapons for some reason, but it makes no difference. Also, you can get civilian miners to carry food and drink and do individual drills when not digging by putting them in a squad and assigning them a barracks, but not giving them any uniform and setting them to inactive: civ clothes.

So you're right. Thus edited. Still not sure if they'll do mining demonstrations.

Quote

Breastplate issues, backpack issues, etc I have none of. I haven't had such issues since I scienced armour layering for myself. All I do differently to what you do is that I don't equip clothing. Maybe I'll run into issues if I do. Also, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU ASSIGN SOCKS TO A DWARF. They WILL go into battle missing a high boot.

Are you checking the dwarves to see if they're actually wearing it? They generate equipment mismatch if they're being idiots, but if they simply can't put it on, they'll check a green on the equip screen but not have it equipped. If you can confirm its no longer an issue, I'll amend the guide.

Quote

Breastplate issues, backpack issues, etc I have none of. I haven't had such issues since I scienced armour layering for myself. All I do differently to what you do is that I don't equip clothing. Maybe I'll run into issues if I do. Also, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU ASSIGN SOCKS TO A DWARF. They WILL go into battle missing a high boot.

I don't recommend it either, but I can see someone wanting to give socks to their dwarves. I'll clarify.

Quote

Newbies being slow in heavy armour is fine. A dwarf in full steel is virtually indestructible. At worst, he'll lie in the middle of a clump of goblins and level up armour user to maximum while they exhaust themselves (as long as he has a breastplate and greaves to deflect blunt impacts). Just don't send him against a forgotten beast.

The problem is training. While the steel protects them in combat, they move so slowly during drills it doubles the time to mint lords. 4-5 years is a bit too long to churn out lords. I put them in full steel once get reasonable stat gains (I *finally* have enough steel in this fort to do so, just waiting for the armorsmith to hit legendary to start churning out pieces.

Quote

Also: Breastplate and greaves are must-haves. In 34.11 your fluid armour set would work just as well if not better than a set which included maximum rigid pieces, but in 40.xx rigid armour actually protects significantly from blunt impact.

Hrm. I'll note it above.

Quote

And one last thing, VERY IMPORTANT. You make the same mistake in your marksdwarf guide. That is, saying that encumberment slows down attack speed. It doesn't. A marksdwarf in full steel will fire at the same rate as one with no clothing at all. This is new in the 40.xx versions. And let me reiterate that full steel using rigid plates is virtually indestructible, especially since ranged weapons are no longer railguns that punch through steel with wooden bolts... but you must have full rigid steel to reliably block all bolts the goblins have access to.

Its fine for ranged dwarves. In the time it gets them moving in steel to the front entrance, goblins could rush past them, or gang up on them ten at a time. Also, for maps without flux or iron, steel production in mass quantity becomes painful and they may have to deal without for several years.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Socks Guide - Understand equipping socks
Post by: taptap on May 05, 2015, 03:37:20 am

Quote from: Skullsploder on May 05, 2015, 02:46:57 am

Also, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU ASSIGN SOCKS TO A DWARF.

I don't share this experience, my dwarves have socks and highboots just fine. (I do care that socks are listed above boots in the equipment screen, maybe it matters?) I have however the problem that I have to assign two socks (although it is meant to be pairs) for my squads to properly equip socks, everything else that is paired works fine with only assigning one (pair).

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: thegoatgod_pan on May 05, 2015, 08:36:24 am

 shields out of metal? I always use wood for that. I also pile on numerous shields and cloaks, just like in adventure mode, though some people consider that exploity.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: NCommander on May 05, 2015, 08:54:56 am

Quote from: thegoatgod_pan on May 05, 2015, 08:36:24 am

shields out of metal? I always use wood for that. I also pile on numerous shields and cloaks, just like in adventure mode, though some people consider that exploity.

Shields count as bludging weapon when used. Sliver would be ideal, but any metal works great. Also confirmed they do train misc object user as demostrations.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Eldin00 on May 05, 2015, 12:05:09 pm

Quote from: NCommander on May 05, 2015, 01:15:42 am

Quote from: vjmdhzgr on May 05, 2015, 12:42:51 am

Quote from: NCommander on May 04, 2015, 10:03:20 pm

* Armor User - controls armor movement penalities. At legendary, the weight of armor is negated. Also appears to control the chance of something glancing off (this is a relatively recent change). Levels up at a glacier speed, though dwarves DO give armor demostrations; four years of training which had everything at Legendary+5, and armor user was still at 6 ...

When was that glancing off chance added? Also in my experience armor user trains up far faster after giving them full armor, though still quite of slowly.

In my current fort, I just spotted Give Armor Demostration. Guess they do teach that skill by demostrations. Now if there was just a way to keep them doing that.

I had one fort where one squad consistently did armor demonstrations, after I added a migrant who showed up with Armor User of 10 to their squad. The squad all made it to 12 ranks in armor use within 2 years (most of the first year was slow gains due to the teacher not having any teaching skill). So I *think* that having one dwarf in the order who is much better at armor use than the rest will make armor demonstrations more frequent, though I haven't tested it extensively. I have noticed that skill demonstrations are usually led by the dwarf with the highest value in the skill being demonstrated (from among the dwarves sharing the same order).

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Devin on May 05, 2015, 12:21:39 pm

A suggestion for training the wrestling monks - if serious injuries in wrestling usually come from being thrown into a wall then it might work to make the training room a very large space and have the armor stand or weapon rack 'room' only cover the center of the space without getting near the walls.  Hopefully that'll give them room to throw one another without being close enough to a wall that they'll hit it.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: vjmdhzgr on May 05, 2015, 06:38:20 pm

Quote from: NCommander on May 05, 2015, 01:15:42 am

Quote from: vjmdhzgr on May 05, 2015, 12:42:51 am

Quote from: NCommander on May 04, 2015, 10:03:20 pm

* Armor User - controls armor movement penalities. At legendary, the weight of armor is negated. Also appears to control the chance of something glancing off (this is a relatively recent change). Levels up at a glacier speed, though dwarves DO give armor demostrations; four years of training which had everything at Legendary+5, and armor user was still at 6 ...

When was that glancing off chance added? Also in my experience armor user trains up far faster after giving them full armor, though still quite of slowly.

In my current fort, I just spotted Give Armor Demostration. Guess they do teach that skill by demostrations. Now if there was just a way to keep them doing that.

When was the glancing off chance added though, and where did you hear of it from? I'm quite curious as I had always heard that armor user had no effect on the armor's effectiveness, and if it does than there's some significant potential effects from that I really want to be aware of.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: NCommander on May 05, 2015, 07:06:11 pm

Quote from: vjmdhzgr on May 05, 2015, 06:38:20 pm

Quote from: NCommander on May 05, 2015, 01:15:42 am

Quote from: vjmdhzgr on May 05, 2015, 12:42:51 am

Quote from: NCommander on May 04, 2015, 10:03:20 pm

* Armor User - controls armor movement penalities. At legendary, the weight of armor is negated. Also appears to control the chance of something glancing off (this is a relatively recent change). Levels up at a glacier speed, though dwarves DO give armor demostrations; four years of training which had everything at Legendary+5, and armor user was still at 6 ...

When was that glancing off chance added? Also in my experience armor user trains up far faster after giving them full armor, though still quite of slowly.

In my current fort, I just spotted Give Armor Demostration. Guess they do teach that skill by demostrations. Now if there was just a way to keep them doing that.

When was the glancing off chance added though, and where did you hear of it from? I'm quite curious as I had always heard that armor user had no effect on the armor's effectiveness, and if it does than there's some significant potential effects from that I really want to be aware of.

I read it in other Bay12 threads, and a search show a few passing references, but I can't actually find a definitive science thread on it. I'll strike it from the article once I'm awake enough to safely edit the wall of text.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: oasis789 on May 07, 2015, 03:09:20 pm

If wrestlers are throwing when sparring, probably not a good idea to train near any open stairwells or pits then.

Will furniture in barracks cause issues? That is, will dwarves get hurt when thrown into tiles with weapon racks, armor stands and the like?

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Skullsploder on May 07, 2015, 04:00:22 pm

Never been an issue for me. But you guys are looking at training injuries the wrong way. They are a good thing. Each time they skid on the ground after being thrown, they gain armour user skill. I have a barracks that uses a checkerboard of pillars to force the dwarves to fall when they dodge while sparring, sorta like a less exploity danger room that makes more sense and kills less children. I like to think they're doing some sort of full plate shaolin training.

Also injuries increase detchment (ddoesn't care about anything anymore) which dereases stress.
And the injuries are never serious if they're in full plate, so it gives good medical experience without risking lives.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: vjmdhzgr on May 07, 2015, 06:48:04 pm

Quote from: oasis789 on May 07, 2015, 03:09:20 pm

If wrestlers are throwing when sparring, probably not a good idea to train near any open stairwells or pits then.

Will furniture in barracks cause issues? That is, will dwarves get hurt when thrown into tiles with weapon racks, armor stands and the like?

I'm pretty sure they get injured just from hitting floors, but I suppose I don't actually know if dwarves can collide with furniture. Has anybody ever seen a creature projectile hit furniture, or seen on that probably should of hit furniture but didn't? I'm quite curious now.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Max™ on May 07, 2015, 08:22:03 pm

Unit projectiles ignore furniture and fortifications, lord knows I've got more experience than most with this now.

I have no idea how often dorfs will try to grab walls to stop themselves in flight but I rely on it to keep myself alive as an adventurer by putting a weapon and shield in the same hand to keep the other free.

Now, what I was mainly posting about, there are certain skills which train attributes which you don't want to dump as an adventurer: focus, willpower, intuition, spatial sense, and kinesthetic sense.

Focus helps numerous combat related skills, willpower is important to keep from passing out from a broken finger, spatial and kinesthetic sense aid in aiming weapons/parrying/etc, intuition aids in blocking/parrying/dodging. There is a far too comprehensive list on the wiki about what skills raise said attributes but I know stuff like doing a bunch of knapping and wrestling small animals and such does tons for your survivability/effectiveness. I'm not sure what the most effective way to get dorfs to train spatial/kinesthetic would be but I'm sure there is one.

The armor skill and ground collision stuff is very true, I've slid like ten or fifteen tiles after flying across half of a 17x17 map and been uninjured or only had light bruising with tons and tons of "is deflected by the armorpiece" stuff.

I think the specific glances away message is when attacking material and defending material are equal or defending is better, I saw it when whacking at at a steel colossus with a steel hammer and bronze axe, similar happens when you take a copper axe to a bronze colossus. There is a size related component too though, as it happens sometimes with stuff like the freaky thick clothing on demon masters in gobby sites.

Oh, don't neglect mail shirts, they cover unique areas not protected by other stuff, helm+mail+gauntlets+high boots covers everything, then you add in the breastplate/greaves for full hard+soft coverage, with hood+cloak on top for facial feature defense oddly enough.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: oasis789 on May 07, 2015, 09:31:02 pm

Quote from: Skullsploder on May 07, 2015, 04:00:22 pm

I have a barracks that uses a checkerboard of pillars to force the dwarves to fall when they dodge while sparring, sorta like a less exploity danger room that makes more sense and kills less children. I like to think they're doing some sort of full plate shaolin training.

I'd like to see this checkerboard barracks design

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Devin on May 08, 2015, 12:23:21 am

Say, how well do picks actually work as weapons compared to spears, hammers, axes, etc?

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Tarqiup Inua on May 08, 2015, 05:54:35 am

Quote from: oasis789 on May 07, 2015, 09:31:02 pm

Quote from: Skullsploder on May 07, 2015, 04:00:22 pm

I have a barracks that uses a checkerboard of pillars to force the dwarves to fall when they dodge while sparring, sorta like a less exploity danger room that makes more sense and kills less children. I like to think they're doing some sort of full plate shaolin training.

I'd like to see this checkerboard barracks design

I second this! It sounds interesting!

Maybe it would help to make wooden floor in the barracks, too? The injuries from collisions are dependent on the density of object into which creature crashes, so the best barracks for melee training might be featherwood floors and walls.

Then again, maybe then the injuries wouldn't happen and they may be a good thing, as Skullsploder mentioned.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Max™ on May 08, 2015, 09:58:46 am

Picks work great but get stuck in stuff a bit more than an axe or sword, lots of body parts flying through the air though.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Skullsploder on May 08, 2015, 05:52:21 pm

Quote from: Tarqiup Inua on May 08, 2015, 05:54:35 am

Quote from: oasis789 on May 07, 2015, 09:31:02 pm

Quote from: Skullsploder on May 07, 2015, 04:00:22 pm

I have a barracks that uses a checkerboard of pillars to force the dwarves to fall when they dodge while sparring, sorta like a less exploity danger room that makes more sense and kills less children. I like to think they're doing some sort of full plate shaolin training.

I'd like to see this checkerboard barracks design

I second this! It sounds interesting!

Maybe it would help to make wooden floor in the barracks, too? The injuries from collisions are dependent on the density of object into which creature crashes, so the best barracks for melee training might be featherwood floors and walls.

Then again, maybe then the injuries wouldn't happen and they may be a good thing, as Skullsploder mentioned.

Yay people are interested in something I did! Here it is. It's a bit cluttered, since my forges haven't been running recently to get rid of the discarded equipment.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(http://i.imgur.com/nGEUR9q.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/3g1Vv6s.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/mTL50vK.png)

Sorry for the lack of cropping. I've recently shifted to a slightly newer second hand computer and haven't got anything set up properly yet, aside from the bare essentials like DF. The barracks is that square of pillars in the centre.

Just the two level drop is plenty. AFAIK the size of the hit makes no difference to armour user skill gained. The reason this is a good thing to do is that letting your armour deflect the blow is the absolute last resort in combat. A dwarf will first dodge, then block, then parry, and then only take the hit. Since gaining armour user skill requires taking hits, sparring quickly becomes useless for armour user skill as dwarves become capable of blocking the vast majority of shots with ease. So the pillars force a situation where the dwarf cannot dodge or block. They take up to four hits per fall, and unless they fall on their cheek or something stupid they invariably receive no damage; although I don't equip them with clothing, only armour, so you may get no injuries at all.

TLDR: Hits good, injuries bad, Skullsploder's barracks force the dwarves to take hits without taking injuries.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: oasis789 on May 08, 2015, 08:39:51 pm

Quote from: Skullsploder on May 08, 2015, 05:52:21 pm

Just the two level drop is plenty. AFAIK the size of the hit makes no difference to armour user skill gained.

How about just a 1-z drop? Or even just unchannelled out ramps so they can just walk out and get back in the spar? Would that still work to cause unblockable falls?

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Devin on May 08, 2015, 08:50:46 pm

How do the pillars make it so they can't block?

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: NullForceOmega on May 08, 2015, 08:53:47 pm

That is a pretty cool design skullsploder, it reminds me of my favored .34 design for a 'mega-training area', which combined pair sparring with a three z-level fall onto upright spear traps with training spears.  effectively fusing normal training with the 'shaft of enlightenment' and a danger room.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Skullsploder on May 09, 2015, 02:46:47 am

Quote from: oasis789 on May 08, 2015, 08:39:51 pm

Quote from: Skullsploder on May 08, 2015, 05:52:21 pm

Just the two level drop is plenty. AFAIK the size of the hit makes no difference to armour user skill gained.

How about just a 1-z drop? Or even just unchannelled out ramps so they can just walk out and get back in the spar? Would that still work to cause unblockable falls?

I originally had that as my design, with ramps everywhere, but they only took very few hits, and often fell without receiving hits at all. So I channeled out another layer to see how it would go and it went well. The fall doesn't interrupt their sparring match anyway, they run straight to that staircase on the right and resume sparring with their partner.

Quote from: Devin on May 08, 2015, 08:50:46 pm

How do the pillars make it so they can't block?

They can't block fall damage, ever. So what happens is they spar on top of the pillars, and then when they dodge, they fall down into the pit and take a harmless hit when they land.

Quote from: NullForceOmega on May 08, 2015, 08:53:47 pm

That is a pretty cool design skullsploder, it reminds me of my favored .34 design for a 'mega-training area', which combined pair sparring with a three z-level fall onto upright spear traps with training spears.  effectively fusing normal training with the 'shaft of enlightenment' and a danger room.

Yay compliments :D And I have been thinking about doing something similar at the bottom, like filling it with 4/7 water so they train swimming skill as well at the same time. In fact, you know what, I'm gonna go make a pond zone right now. I could probably put repeating spears at the bottom as well, but then I might as well make a danger room, and I think of this as a non-exploity way to train armour skill.
I am very interested in seeing what sort of results you got with that megacombo of hyper-training techniques. Just the pair sparring for me got me legendaries from raw recruits inside of two years; I imagine with your design you got legendary +17 in a few months.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: NCommander on May 09, 2015, 04:20:34 am

That's incredibly genius on handling them dodging, but won't them falling down a level cause them to stop sparring, and ultimately slow down their development?

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: TheFlame52 on May 09, 2015, 09:37:44 am

From what I've seen, dwarves gain plenty of armor user just sparring. What's the point of your design?

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Skullsploder on May 09, 2015, 05:01:03 pm

They gain armour user up to around expert, and then basically stop gaining it. Their other skills provide enough defense from other dwarves that they never receive hits once they are legendary dodgers and shield users and weapon users. So basically they initially receive loads of armour user but then less and less until it hits a rate of practically zero gain. This forces hits so they keep on gaining armour user. And now that I've filled the bottom layer with water, they've all become novice swimmers in under a year. Basically it's  a good way to get your dwarves into water deep enough to train swimming, which raises tons of attributes. Increasing the pit depth to 3 z levels resulted in a vast increase in bruises and pulped ears. This may be a good thing though because injuries increase detachment which decreases stress drastically. Also I've heard (anecdotally) that receiving injuries can affect toughness and heal rate positively.

Oh and I mentioned earlier that this doesn't interrupt the sparring session, they run back up and keep at it. They reach legendary in a matter of a couple of years in weapon, discipline,  shield user, amd dodgerr, so this is just to take away some of that xp and put it into armour user.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Zachski on May 09, 2015, 09:02:51 pm

...Once I get my Fortress up and running, I'm definitely gonna try that design out, but with wrestlers, to see if it ends up deadly for them, or if it ends up helping them even more.

I'll probably also have a clinic/shrine right next to the sparring arena so that I can gain some medical skill for my dwarves.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Insert_Gnome_Here on May 10, 2015, 03:00:06 pm

If dwarves are falling, use wooden floors. Lighter floor does less damage.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: jvj_ on May 12, 2015, 01:23:45 pm

For some reason, my dwarves seem to be falling a whole bunch, but they rarely generate hit reports when they hit the bottom. I'm also only seeing their armor skill raise when that happens - any clue what could be going on? I've got them falling 2z levels, but perhaps that's not enough?

:edit: Furthermore, out of the four dwarves training under what seems to be exactly the same circumstances (in accordance with the OP) - only two of them are generating a few hits when falling, the other two are just too bouncy, I guess?

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Eldin00 on May 12, 2015, 02:59:33 pm

Are the dwarves gaining in climbing skill? They could be catching themselves on the wall instead of hitting the bottom.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: jvj_ on May 12, 2015, 03:24:39 pm

I thought that might be a possibility, since one of the only differences I can find in the setup I've made is that my second layer isn't partly smoothed like SkullSploder's is, but I can't find any indication that they're becoming climbers.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: NullForceOmega on May 12, 2015, 04:16:07 pm

Quote from: Skullsploder on May 09, 2015, 02:46:47 am

Quote from: NullForceOmega on May 08, 2015, 08:53:47 pm

That is a pretty cool design skullsploder, it reminds me of my favored .34 design for a 'mega-training area', which combined pair sparring with a three z-level fall onto upright spear traps with training spears.  effectively fusing normal training with the 'shaft of enlightenment' and a danger room.

Yay compliments :D And I have been thinking about doing something similar at the bottom, like filling it with 4/7 water so they train swimming skill as well at the same time. In fact, you know what, I'm gonna go make a pond zone right now. I could probably put repeating spears at the bottom as well, but then I might as well make a danger room, and I think of this as a non-exploity way to train armour skill.
I am very interested in seeing what sort of results you got with that megacombo of hyper-training techniques. Just the pair sparring for me got me legendaries from raw recruits inside of two years; I imagine with your design you got legendary +17 in a few months.

More like legendary +150 in a season, and I wasn't even using repeating spikes, just deployed.  The only problem was that after my militia commander fell the first time, none of the others could ever knock him back down, so his armor user ended up much lower than the rest of the force.  Didn't matter, he was a living serrated blade trap, nothing survived.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Ravendarksky on May 13, 2015, 04:21:36 am

Dwarfs will path ~12 squares through water but not more than that. If you really want them to train swimming then make a 10 square long watery area they fall into which they have to path through to get back to the barracks.

I'm having trouble training armour skill... I'm training only strikers/kickers/biters/wrestlers (leather armour) and it just doesn't seem to generate armour training at all... Not sure how to do this or what the best way to train armour user is!

I'm also having trouble coming up with enough leather to sustain uniforms for my dwarfs. It seems to wear fairly quickly which I wasn't expecting (I didn't even realise leather armour would wear out). We embarked with 30 leather and took all the stuff from the trade caravan but that seems to have only provided enough uniforms for 10 dwarfs.

For a basic squad of 10:
- 10 leather tunics
- 10 sets of gloves
- 10 sets of boots
- 10 helms

Then there is optionally:
- 10 waterskins
- 10 backpacks
- 10 quivers

So that's 40-70 leather needed per squad. It just doesn't seem like a good idea. The wiki seems to suggest that a metal helm/chainmail shirt/metal high boots and metal gauntlets won't encumber an untrained dwarf much so I might just go with that instead.... First I will experiment with fishing and bone/shell armour as an alternative... but I can't off the top of my head remember what you can and cannot make and how much extra work it's going to be.

On the plus side I discovered that if you make the barracks super small and set training to a minimum of 1 they seem to do loads of demonstrations (counter intuitive?). By doing this I've gotten all of my starting 7 dwarfs to level 5 striking/kicking/wrestling pretty darn fast. Now if only my mayor would hold more biting demonstrations! (I embarked with each dwarf having 5 points in an unarmed combat skill, 3 points teaching, 1 point observing, 1 point discipline and 1 point armour user). I'm going to do some more research and see if small barracks size is stopping them sparring. My hypothesis is that perhaps some combat training works similarly to conversational skills and relationships in that it requires the dwarfs to be in adjacent tiles to happen.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Ravendarksky on May 19, 2015, 05:49:12 am

(http://i.imgur.com/oBpnJ43.png)

Having holes to train armour/climbing/swimming is killing my recruits even with a 1z drop onto wood / 3/7 water

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: oasis789 on May 19, 2015, 10:39:35 pm

Quote from: Ravendarksky on May 19, 2015, 05:49:12 am

(http://i.imgur.com/oBpnJ43.png)

Having holes to train armour/climbing/swimming is killing my recruits even with a 1z drop onto wood / 3/7 water

maybe leather cloaks would help?

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Nagidal on May 20, 2015, 02:49:19 am

Did anyone try to equip them with training grade weapons? E.g. a wooden training sword? Although these weapons are ridiculously bad for real fights, they may give special xp boosts while used in training. I never bothered with making any Trining weapons, much less than having a control group with real weapons, but maybe someone did already do some science with whis.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: arbarbonif on May 20, 2015, 12:01:35 pm

Quote from: Ravendarksky on May 13, 2015, 04:21:36 am

I'm also having trouble coming up with enough leather to sustain uniforms for my dwarfs. It seems to wear fairly quickly which I wasn't expecting (I didn't even realise leather armour would wear out). We embarked with 30 leather and took all the stuff from the trade caravan but that seems to have only provided enough uniforms for 10 dwarfs.

For a basic squad of 10:
- 10 leather tunics
- 10 sets of gloves
- 10 sets of boots
- 10 helms

Tunics, boots and possibly gloves are not armor.  They are clothing, which would be why they wear out.  You want leather armor, high boots and gauntlets.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Skullsploder on May 20, 2015, 12:11:03 pm

Quote from: oasis789 on May 19, 2015, 10:39:35 pm

Quote from: Ravendarksky on May 19, 2015, 05:49:12 am

(http://i.imgur.com/oBpnJ43.png)

Having holes to train armour/climbing/swimming is killing my recruits even with a 1z drop onto wood / 3/7 water

maybe leather cloaks would help?

Oh Armok. Did I not mention that you HAVE TO HAVE TO HAVE TO equip them with full armour? Mine do this only with a breastplate, mail shirt, greaves, gauntlets, high boots, and helm. I'm also working on getting the clothing industry running so they can have silk robes too. Thus equipped, the 1z drop is ineffective but the 2z works great with next to no injuries. I'm in the process of patching mine up to raise the level back up to 2 from the 3z I turned it into when I first started training swimming. Adequate swimmers after two years, so it's slow, but still it means they'll git gud one day. I have had two random bleedouts so far, and that's only after lowring it to 3z, so I can fairly confidently say that 2z is safe. BUT YOU MUST EQUIP THEM WITH METAL ARMOUR.

Anyway, dwarves are a very expendable resource. If your training isn't killing off a few in the process well then it's just not goddamned Spartan enough.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Ravendarksky on May 21, 2015, 05:08:27 am

Quote from: Skullsploder on May 20, 2015, 12:11:03 pm

Oh Armok. Did I not mention that you HAVE TO HAVE TO HAVE TO equip them with full armour? Mine do this only with a breastplate, mail shirt, greaves, gauntlets, high boots, and helm. I'm also working on getting the clothing industry running so they can have silk robes too. Thus equipped, the 1z drop is ineffective but the 2z works great with next to no injuries. I'm in the process of patching mine up to raise the level back up to 2 from the 3z I turned it into when I first started training swimming. Adequate swimmers after two years, so it's slow, but still it means they'll git gud one day. I have had two random bleedouts so far, and that's only after lowring it to 3z, so I can fairly confidently say that 2z is safe. BUT YOU MUST EQUIP THEM WITH METAL ARMOUR.

Anyway, dwarves are a very expendable resource. If your training isn't killing off a few in the process well then it's just not goddamned Spartan enough.

I think that leather armour doesn't cover as much as people think. I swapped to copper mail shirt and now they aren't having injuries anymore.

For sparring/falling armour training I'm finding that mail shirt/gauntlets/helm/high boots are enough, however the falling down to gain armour/swimming is not really giving the gains i'd have hoped for. Less than 1 level of swimming/armour user in a whole year :(. I think it's also slowing down my actual training substantially (We are wrestling training so lots of dwarfs are being thrown down the holes).

I don't want to spoil the fun just yet but I'm thinking I might make a giant cascading waterslide which flushes dwarfs down double z level drops multiple times over and over as a separate means of training swimming/armour user... not had time to play and figure it out yet though.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: jvj_ on May 25, 2015, 06:55:36 am

Quote

Oh Armok. Did I not mention that you HAVE TO HAVE TO HAVE TO equip them with full armour? Mine do this only with a breastplate, mail shirt, greaves, gauntlets, high boots, and helm. I'm also working on getting the clothing industry running so they can have silk robes too. Thus equipped, the 1z drop is ineffective but the 2z works great with next to no injuries. I'm in the process of patching mine up to raise the level back up to 2 from the 3z I turned it into when I first started training swimming. Adequate swimmers after two years, so it's slow, but still it means they'll git gud one day. I have had two random bleedouts so far, and that's only after lowring it to 3z, so I can fairly confidently say that 2z is safe. BUT YOU MUST EQUIP THEM WITH METAL ARMOUR.

Anyway, dwarves are a very expendable resource. If your training isn't killing off a few in the process well then it's just not goddamned Spartan enough.

Just to check, when you say 2z seems to be the perfect drop, you mean that they're falling from the z-level they train on, through one level that is made up of only channels, and on to the bottom level where they land and return to their training? As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been having problems getting them to take many hits when dropping them that distance. I'd reckon only one or two percent of the drops cause an actual hit, and the rest of them don't generate combat reports at all. And similar to your experience, increasing it to three levels of drop (which is to say, two levels that are channeled out, plus a top and a bottom layer) caused enough crushed ears that my prospective teachers had bled out/died to infections within a few seasons.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Skullsploder on May 25, 2015, 07:50:07 am

Quote from: jvj_ on May 25, 2015, 06:55:36 am

Quote

Oh Armok. Did I not mention that you HAVE TO HAVE TO HAVE TO equip them with full armour? Mine do this only with a breastplate, mail shirt, greaves, gauntlets, high boots, and helm. I'm also working on getting the clothing industry running so they can have silk robes too. Thus equipped, the 1z drop is ineffective but the 2z works great with next to no injuries. I'm in the process of patching mine up to raise the level back up to 2 from the 3z I turned it into when I first started training swimming. Adequate swimmers after two years, so it's slow, but still it means they'll git gud one day. I have had two random bleedouts so far, and that's only after lowring it to 3z, so I can fairly confidently say that 2z is safe. BUT YOU MUST EQUIP THEM WITH METAL ARMOUR.

Anyway, dwarves are a very expendable resource. If your training isn't killing off a few in the process well then it's just not goddamned Spartan enough.

Just to check, when you say 2z seems to be the perfect drop, you mean that they're falling from the z-level they train on, through one level that is made up of only channels, and on to the bottom level where they land and return to their training? As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been having problems getting them to take many hits when dropping them that distance. I'd reckon only one or two percent of the drops cause an actual hit, and the rest of them don't generate combat reports at all. And similar to your experience, increasing it to three levels of drop (which is to say, two levels that are channeled out, plus a top and a bottom layer) caused enough crushed ears that my prospective teachers had bled out/died to infections within a few seasons.

Yes, by 2z I mean that they fall from the level they spar on, through one level of open space, and land on a level of ramps. Crushed extremities are minor enough injuries that they may not generate a hospital job, which is probably a bug, given that our dwarves are bleeding out from them. Especially since dwarves with amputated legs don't often bleed out for me.

I quite like the waterfall flushing idea but the reason I prefer my pillar barracks is that it's incredibly simple and easy to set up -- it only needs a bit of mining; no mechanisms or anything, and a few buckets -- and doesn't drain FPS at all, unlike many other systems. Sure, it trains swimming and armour user very slowly, but it's better than them not getting trained at all. They reach novice after between a season and a year, then hit adequate a year or two after that -- and thereafter they won't drown unless stunned or over-exerted. That, to me, makes this system worth it. Also remember that when dodging there's a 50/50 chance of them falling with this barracks; they may dodge onto a pillar. So on average, less than every second attack against them causes them to fall, so this doesn't really interrupt sparring much at all. If you want armour user to go up past expert at all on your dwarves, this (or something like this) is necessary.

I have just bought an entire forests' worth of dead animal from the dwarven caravan (a couple hundred bins) so I'll report back later on the injuries sustained with leather robes covering the remaining skin. It should convert those otherwise-useless hits to the fingers into meaningful armour user gain.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Ravendarksky on May 25, 2015, 04:02:35 pm

I've now had three dwarfs die of dehydration while standing in the water (all competent swimmers). Still haven't managed to figure out why.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Skullsploder on May 25, 2015, 11:28:13 pm

Quote from: Ravendarksky on May 25, 2015, 04:02:35 pm

I've now had three dwarfs die of dehydration while standing in the water (all competent swimmers). Still haven't managed to figure out why.

Never had that. Perhaps your barracks is too wide and they can't find a path? I seem to recall that there's a limit to how far they will path through 6/7 water. Refer to my earlier post with the screenshot of my barracks design for a size that has never caused that problem. I'll post the updated version once I've raised it up a z to prevent the lethal bleedouts.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: jvj_ on May 26, 2015, 10:15:02 am

Ooh, I had removed the ramps on my bottom level. Perhaps that has something to do with my lack of success. Thanks so much for all of this.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Friti on May 26, 2015, 12:27:52 pm

Point of note:  Bucklers instead of shields when training.  Seems to level up shields slower in favor of Armor/Weapon(block/parry)/Dodge.  Unsubstantiated by Science!(TM) but I've favored it often enough for my training squads that I'm pretty sure I see a difference.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Skullsploder on May 26, 2015, 01:35:42 pm

Quote from: Friti on May 26, 2015, 12:27:52 pm

Point of note:  Bucklers instead of shields when training.  Seems to level up shields slower in favor of Armor/Weapon(block/parry)/Dodge.  Unsubstantiated by Science!(TM) but I've favored it often enough for my training squads that I'm pretty sure I see a difference.

Only potential issue with this would be them getting attached to bucklers, which are nowhere near as good as shields in normal combat. But definitely worth looking into.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Friti on May 26, 2015, 02:13:02 pm

I tend to avoid most attachment issues by having a couple squads rotate on/off duty when training up and taking off their gear when not on active-duty.  Tends to shuffle the gear around every couple months between dwarves so attachment usually isn't an issue.

Reason I bring up bucklers is I think (unconfirmed) the order of prescedence for attacks on a dwarf is:

Shield Block  >  Weapon Parry  >  Dodge  >  Armor Check  >  Fleshy/Squishy Dwarf 

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: bennerman on May 27, 2015, 07:00:21 pm

I tried to give each of my equads 2 months of training and the other 10 months off, using your system. However, everyone is training all year 'round. any idea why?

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: TheFlame52 on May 27, 2015, 07:27:08 pm

Quote from: Friti on May 26, 2015, 02:13:02 pm

I tend to avoid most attachment issues by having a couple squads rotate on/off duty when training up and taking off their gear when not on active-duty.  Tends to shuffle the gear around every couple months between dwarves so attachment usually isn't an issue.

Reason I bring up bucklers is I think (unconfirmed) the order of prescedence for attacks on a dwarf is:

Shield Block  >  Weapon Parry  >  Dodge  >  Armor Check  >  Fleshy/Squishy Dwarf 

From what I've seen, missing from dodge skill comes before any of that.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: infrequentLurker on May 30, 2015, 10:46:23 am

Thank you!  You have taken what is one of the most complex things to do in a game filled with complex tasks and broken it down to something players as incompetant at this game as I am can use.  Now to apply this and other half understood knowledge for some XX Fun XX by embarking next to 3 necromancer towers in an aquifer area.  Strike the earth!

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Yarma on May 30, 2015, 10:57:31 am

PTW, Excellent guide!

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: bennerman on June 02, 2015, 10:00:27 am

Quote from: bennerman on May 27, 2015, 07:00:21 pm

I tried to give each of my squads 2 months of training and the other 10 months off, using your system. However, everyone is training all year 'round. any idea why?

Anyone?

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Eldin00 on June 02, 2015, 12:15:46 pm

As their discipline increases, off-duty soldiers increasingly favor individual training over other jobs, which could be the cause of what you're seeing. If they're not doing individual training, then something else is up.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: TheFlame52 on June 02, 2015, 12:53:26 pm

Quote from: bennerman on May 27, 2015, 07:00:21 pm

I tried to give each of my squads 2 months of training and the other 10 months off, using your system. However, everyone is training all year 'round. any idea why?

I don't see how this is a problem.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: bennerman on June 02, 2015, 06:59:54 pm

because eventually everyone would starve? I prefer to conscript EVERY adult, but I can't have every adult training all the time. Also, they were all fresh recruits, so no discipline

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Shonai_Dweller on June 03, 2015, 06:05:55 pm

Training Dwarves won't starve themselves even when they're actually scheduled to train, unless you've found a serious bug. Your recruits probably don't have anything better to do. Haul rocks, or practise my axe swing? Hmmm...

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: bennerman on June 03, 2015, 10:31:05 pm

the problem is, if EVERYONE is training, no one is growing or fishing or hunting

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: milo christiansen on June 04, 2015, 09:58:12 am

If someone is idle they will go to the barracks and do individual training, that is (probably) what is happening in your case.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: bennerman on June 04, 2015, 03:14:37 pm

maybe. I'll check it out on my next fort

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Friti on June 09, 2015, 03:22:58 pm

Quote from: TheFlame52 on May 27, 2015, 07:27:08 pm

Quote from: Friti on May 26, 2015, 02:13:02 pm

I tend to avoid most attachment issues by having a couple squads rotate on/off duty when training up and taking off their gear when not on active-duty.  Tends to shuffle the gear around every couple months between dwarves so attachment usually isn't an issue.

Reason I bring up bucklers is I think (unconfirmed) the order of prescedence for attacks on a dwarf is:

Shield Block  >  Weapon Parry  >  Dodge  >  Armor Check  >  Fleshy/Squishy Dwarf 

From what I've seen, missing from dodge skill comes before any of that.

That wouldn't surprise me - I wrote that up pretty quick, but there definitely is an order of precedence regarding how hits are resolved.  The point I was trying to get across is that bucklers are smaller and have a potential to block attacks during training less often, forcing checks further down the priority list.  IE: Weapon Parry/Skill

I tend to like this for a couple reasons.

• A weapon parry raises the attack skill, meaning the dwarf becomes more skilled with his blade faster, and more effective quicker parrying with it.
• Bucklers I believe are smaller and weigh less than their larger shield counterparts.  Weight plays into encumbrance, which will directly affect how quickly your dwarf moves and fights.  A dwarf that's encumbered will fight and train slower.

Personally, I like dwarves that are quick, well skilled, and get in one or more devastating hits before they get attacked themselves.  Training certain skills in a weighted fashion earlier increases their ability to get that important first-strike(s) in before an enemy can respond... and their ability to dodge and close quickly minimizes the time they spend getting picked off by ranged attacks (IE: Arrows).  Otherwise using the traditional method they block with the shield alot(not so bad), they're much slower (BAD) and tend to get wailed on alot (Very Bad) more and respond with their own attacks less.  I prefer not to give those pesky elves and goblins more opportunities to hit my dwarves.  Even if they're armored up like a tank and 8 out of 10 attacks don't get through, all it takes is a bad roll for a dwarf to become skewered.  I'd rather my dwarves be a bit more nimble and able to get their attacks in on the enemy quicker for more opportunities to disable them first.  That's why I favor this method.  This mirrors the mentality 'the best defense is a good offense.'.  There are exceptions to this (titans, firebreathing, webs, etc) in which full armor/shields are preferable, but hopefully by that point your dwarves will be veterans and deserving of the better armor, and able to mitigate the consequences of the increased weight the same.

To put it into common RPG terms... I'm favoring better Initative and increased number of attacks over increased AC early on to get more effective rookie dwarves.  This ties in well with NCommander's excellent guide, just refining it a bit to further weight certain skills being trained over others early on.

To further expand, I've been training my rookie dwarves with leather/bone armor... sometimes with a Mail shirt over the leather armor for a bit more resiliency.  I don't give them a metal breastplate till they hit at least level 6 and they don't earn plate armor elsewhere till level 8 or 10 or so, usually starting with gauntlets and going from there.  This is usually as an average for a squad (Dwarf Therapist glance at all squad members) so I don't have to micromanage each dwarf individually.  They succeed and fail as a cohesive unit afterall.  ... and as a side-benefit, your medics get a bit of training on your rookies as they train and handle small stuff (hunting, minor beasts from caverns, small goblin attacks, elven caravans, etc.) so that when real trouble shows up they're world-class surgeons... assuming they're not completely drunk off their asses again.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: taptap on June 11, 2015, 01:17:15 pm

I like skullsploders idea - so I made me some pillar barracks with only a single z-level drop, wooden walls and pillars, flat floor and a single ramp to get back in the lower level and about 5 water. In this setup with the normal kind of armour I use, I had no serious injuries in several seasons, one upper lip messed up, but it healed before I noticed, and one or two bruises. In one case I had a hit against an eye deflected by the cloak - so I am not sure this will remain without injuries. It nicely spreads some swimming experience, I didn't notice any significant armour user gains and believe it slows down training by sparring (i.e. sparring stops after a drop) while giving full or slightly increased demonstration gains. (40.19)

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Ravendarksky on June 12, 2015, 05:46:15 am

Quote from: taptap on June 11, 2015, 01:17:15 pm

I like skullsploders idea - so I made me some pillar barracks with only a single z-level drop, wooden walls and pillars, flat floor and a single ramp to get back in the lower level and about 5 water. In this setup with the normal kind of armour I use, I had no serious injuries in several seasons, one upper lip messed up, but it healed before I noticed, and one or two bruises. In one case I had a hit against an eye deflected by the cloak - so I am not sure this will remain without injuries. It nicely spreads some swimming experience, I didn't notice any significant armour user gains and believe it slows down training by sparring (i.e. sparring stops after a drop) while giving full or slightly increased demonstration gains. (40.19)

I've used this a lot now and I've decided I don't like it. It really slows down sparring for negligible gains in swimming and armour. I've decided it's better to have dedicated separate set-up for these skills... UNLESS dwarfs are fully trained in weapon skills already, in which case it's a good way of improving already good warrior dwarfs.

It can definitely kill dwarfs too, I've had two fatal injuries so far (broken necks). My setup is a 5x5 checkerboard room with 2 z level drop onto featherwood floors.

Best way to train swimming is to have anyone entering the barracks dropped into a 10x1 long corridor of 5/7 depth water which they have to path through to get to the training zone. This is plenty for getting your dwarfs that first important level in swimming.

I'm experimenting with armour training still but my current idea is to have dwarfs flushed down a series of 1 z level falls in full platemail. I'll report back when I eventually get time to set it up.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Cheedows on June 13, 2015, 11:37:48 am

Just started reading this thread again, and thought it might be helpful to look at this thread I made awhile ago.

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=150749.msg6230629#msg6230629

Basically it's some very light research that shows hitting things using shields, with armour on can rapidly improve armour user skills.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Borge on June 13, 2015, 07:47:49 pm

Quote from: bennerman on June 03, 2015, 10:31:05 pm

the problem is, if EVERYONE is training, no one is growing or fishing or hunting

Set the barracks to squad training only without individual training. That way they will only train as a group. Hopefully should work.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Albedo on June 16, 2015, 12:35:15 pm

Several minor Q's -

1) Any reason to make the (tops of the) "pillars" themselves out of wood? Being knocked on your butt dangerous at all?  (if it even happens?)


2) I have ~some~ feather tree wood. A 7x7 design such as Skullsploder's would take 24 logs to floor the bottom. Is FT significantly better than, say, willow for this purpose, or is ~any~ (average) wood such a vast improvement over soil/stone (< 1/4 the density - see spoiler, below) that it's just gilding the lily?

(For reference, comparison of feather tree, willow, generic wood and "stone")

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Density : Material
_100 : Feather tree
_390 : Willow
_600 : "generic" wood
1250 : Lignite - lightest stone
1320 : Jet - lightest non-economic stone
2500-3000: "generic" stone

(And, b/c it's easy to copy/paste, a full list of "light(er) weight" woods, and heavier...)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

100 Feather tree
140 Candlenut
260 Kapok
390 Willow    
410 Alder       
430 Cacao, Chestnut, Saguaro
490 Rubber    
500 Highwood, Tunnel tube
510 Pine
520 Mango
540 Maple       
550 Nether-cap
570 Cedar
590 Larch    
~
600  (typical - everything(?) not listed)        
~
650 Birch, Black-cap          
680 Palm       
700 Oak       
830 Mangrove    
1200 Glumprong    
1250   Blood thorn

3) Does the material of a floor matter beneath water?

I've heard anecdotally that deeper water (multiple z-levels) reduces the chance of being stunned/hurt when landing after a long(er) fall, so was wondering what the "falling into water with a floor below that" mechanics were.

Quote from: Skullsploder on May 25, 2015, 07:50:07 am

I have just bought an entire forests' worth of dead animal from the dwarven caravan (a couple hundred bins) so I'll report back later on the injuries sustained with leather robes covering the remaining skin. It should convert those otherwise-useless hits to the fingers into meaningful armour user gain.

Any results worth reporting on this side-project?

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: ldog on June 17, 2015, 11:07:33 am

On the shields vs bucklers thing:
item_shield

[OBJECT:ITEM]

[ITEM_SHIELD:ITEM_SHIELD_SHIELD]
[NAME:shield:shields]
[ARMORLEVEL:2]
[BLOCKCHANCE:20]
[UPSTEP:2]
[MATERIAL_SIZE:4]

[ITEM_SHIELD:ITEM_SHIELD_BUCKLER]
[NAME:buckler:bucklers]
[ARMORLEVEL:1]
[BLOCKCHANCE:10]
[UPSTEP:1]
[MATERIAL_SIZE:2]

So a buckler is half the size (and therefore weight) but has half the base block chance and lower armor level.
A willow shield has a weight of <1, I don't have any heavier wooden shields available ATM, but I imagine they aren't going to weigh much more.
So not worth using bucklers over shields.

Also have to say not a fan of leather/no armor. Sticking even the raw recruits in full steel doesn't seem to hamper their training, and I would much rather them be gaining armor/shield skill while sparring. On a side note, and I brought this up in the marksdwarf thread, but I haven't been able to get my marksdwarves to gain any armor/shield skill. They have training sessions in between archery range but never spar. I don't seem to recall them not gaining armor skill prior to 40.24. I suppose I could equip them with hammers as well, but wondering if anyone has found any other solution.

Here's something possibly worth mentioning in this guide: Much as it seemed a good idea to give all my soldiers gold flasks (I'm swimming in gold current embark) they weigh 19 empty, as opposed to a waterskin which weighs less than 1...

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Ravendarksky on July 01, 2015, 11:08:01 am

Ideal barracks size

Are there any drawbacks/advantages to having a barracks of a certain size? Also is there any reason to not have multiple squads training in the one barracks?

Are there any drawbacks to having every single one of my squads training in a 2x1 barracks containing only a candy armour stand?

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Galena on July 01, 2015, 11:37:22 am

Advice from my last fortress: Do not put your barracks next to chasms. Dwarves can phase through walls rarely while sparring.

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: taptap on July 01, 2015, 12:48:52 pm

Quote from: Ravendarksky on July 01, 2015, 11:08:01 am

Ideal barracks size
Are there any drawbacks to having every single one of my squads training in a 2x1 barracks containing only a candy armour stand?

Do a little science and report back. I suspect that a 2x1 barracks doesn't allow for much dodging while sparring. Did anything come out of your flushing dwarves around with water project?

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: kuniqs on July 02, 2015, 06:49:15 am

You should pair FRIENDS as sparring partners. Non-friends never sparred in my forts.
Maybe grudges work, too?

Title: Re: Ulitmate Melee Dwarf Guide - Understand Sparring, Demonstration and More!
Post by: Ravendarksky on July 03, 2015, 05:43:48 am

Quote from: taptap on July 01, 2015, 12:48:52 pm

Quote from: Ravendarksky on July 01, 2015, 11:08:01 am

Ideal barracks size
Are there any drawbacks to having every single one of my squads training in a 2x1 barracks containing only a candy armour stand?

Do a little science and report back. I suspect that a 2x1 barracks doesn't allow for much dodging while sparring. Did anything come out of your flushing dwarves around with water project?

Flushing dwarves down multiple 2 tile drops onto wooden floors does indeed give gains in armour. However it also seems to lead to neck/throat injuries even when in full plate. I'm trying to figure out a more effective/efficient way to train at present. I'm thinking perhaps dropping things from above onto my sparring dwarfs might work.