| silver armor | copper armor | iron armor | bronze armor | steel armor | adamantine armor | |
| silver hammer | 100% 0% 100% 0% | 100% 1% 99% 0% | 100% 5% 95% 0% | 100% 1% 78% 21% | 93% 6% 94% 0% | 87% 2% 90% 7% |
| copper hammer | 100% 3% 97% 0% | 100% 7% 88% 5% | 100% 4% 96% 0% | 100% 7% 93% 0% | 97% 6% 94% 0% | 86% 2% 98% 0% |
| iron hammer | 100% 1% 99% 0% | 100% 8% 92% 0% | 100% 5% 85% 10% | 100% 0% 100% 0% | 89% 11% 84% 5% | 73% 5% 93% 2% |
| bronze hammer | 100% 3% 97% 0% | 100% 2% 93% 5% | 100% 8% 92% 0% | 100% 0% 100% 0% | 94% 9% 85% 6% | 86% 2% 96% 2% |
| steel hammer | 100% 7% 82% 11% | 100% 0% 100% 0% | 100% 6% 90% 5% | 100% 2% 98% 0% | 97% 2% 86% 11% | 82% 3% 95% 2% |
| adamantine hammer | 48% 96% 3% 1% | 21% 94% 4% 2% | 14% 97% 2% 1% | 38% 95% 3% 2% | 12% 94% 3% 3% | 9% 97% 3% 1% |
| silver armor | copper armor | iron armor | bronze armor | steel armor | adamantine armor | |
| silver mace | 100% 6% 94% 0% | 99% 7% 93% 0% | 93% 6% 89% 5% | 99% 15% 85% 0% | 56% 17% 82% 1% | 20% 15% 83% 2% |
| copper mace | 100% 4% 96% 0% | 94% 16% 80% 4% | 92% 2% 88% 10% | 100% 7% 93% 0% | 52% 26% 72% 2% | 20% 14% 84% 2% |
| iron mace | 100% 7% 93% 0% | 95% 6% 94% 0% | 97% 1% 99% 0% | 100% 12% 88% 0% | 53% 25% 74% 1% | 19% 15% 83% 2% |
| bronze mace | 100% 1% 99% 0% | 100% 5% 95% 0% | 97% 5% 95% 0% | 100% 0% 100% 0% | 62% 14% 84% 2% | 21% 12% 86% 2% |
| steel mace | 100% 6% 90% 4% | 98% 8% 92% 0% | 91% 5% 95% 0% | 100% 18% 78% 4% | 53% 20% 75% 4% | 21% 12% 86% 2% |
| adamantine mace | 35% 85% 11% 4% | 32% 78% 20% 2% | 15% 82% 16% 2% | 34% 79% 19% 2% | 21% 77% 21% 2% | 9% 81% 17% 2% |
| silver armor | copper armor | iron armor | bronze armor | steel armor | adamantine armor | |
| silver spear | 68% 9% 74% 17% | 45% 16% 62% 22% | 24% 35% 32% 33% | 63% 6% 74% 20% | 14% 81% 7% 11% | 9% 89% 3% 8% |
| copper spear | 94% 0% 66% 34% | 61% 10% 64% 26% | 42% 21% 53% 26% | 66% 4% 86% 10% | 15% 87% 1% 12% | 10% 78% 7% 15% |
| iron spear | 100% 0% 4% 96% | 99% 0% 13% 87% | 25% 59% 13% 28% | 66% 20% 23% 57% | 15% 89% 1% 9% | 8% 96% 0% 4% |
| bronze spear | 100% 0% 68% 32% | 100% 0% 42% 58% | 29% 42% 13% 45% | 70% 14% 35% 52% | 17% 86% 4% 11% | 8% 76% 15% 8% |
| steel spear | 97% 0% 64% 36% | 100% 0% 49% 51% | 100% 0% 22% 78% | 100% 0% 59% 41% | 16% 77% 5% 18% | 8% 90% 4% 6% |
| adamantine spear | 98% 0% 22% 78% | 100% 0% 21% 79% | 100% 0% 13% 87% | 98% 0% 31% 69% | 100% 0% 23% 77% | 2% 80% 10% 10% |
| silver armor | copper armor | iron armor | bronze armor | steel armor | adamantine armor | |
| silver sword | 11% 40% 17% 42% | 6% 65% 0% 35% | 5% 86% 6% 8% | 9% 62% 12% 26% | 6% 68% 4% 28% | 3% 58% 8% 33% |
| copper sword | 13% 57% 10% 32% | 7% 43% 6% 51% | 6% 60% 6% 34% | 9% 57% 7% 36% | 6% 79% 2% 19% | 3% 65% 2% 33% |
| iron sword | 80% 0% 0% 100% | 59% 0% 4% 96% | 7% 61% 3% 36% | 10% 66% 9% 24% | 6% 62% 8% 30% | 3% 43% 11% 45% |
| bronze sword | 65% 0% 0% 100% | 50% 0% 9% 91% | 6% 45% 14% 42% | 11% 66% 5% 29% | 4% 56% 2% 42% | 3% 50% 11% 39% |
| steel sword | 98% 0% 7% 93% | 97% 0% 0% 100% | 85% 0% 6% 94% | 98% 0% 0% 100% | 5% 73% 5% 22% | 3% 57% 15% 27% |
| adamantine sword | 98% 0% 0% 100% | 100% 0% 0% 100% | 100% 0% 0% 100% | 100% 0% 0% 100% | 100% 0% 0% 100% | 1% 19% 5% 76% |
| silver armor | copper armor | iron armor | bronze armor | steel armor | adamantine armor | |
| silver axe | 4% 49% 11% 40% | 1% 0% 0% 100% | 2% 12% 4% 85% | 5% 41% 5% 54% | 2% 4% 0% 96% | 2% 0% 0% 100% |
| copper axe | 3% 64% 2% 33% | 2% 0% 7% 93% | 2% 0% 0% 100% | 3% 37% 0% 62% | 1% 0% 0% 100% | 2% 0% 0% 100% |
| iron axe | 41% 0% 3% 97% | 18% 0% 0% 100% | 2% 28% 0% 72% | 4% 33% 2% 64% | 2% 0% 0% 100% | 2% 0% 0% 100% |
| bronze axe | 19% 0% 0% 100% | 18% 0% 0% 100% | 1% 21% 7% 71% | 4% 53% 0% 47% | 2% 5% 0% 95% | 2% 0% 0% 100% |
| steel axe | 84% 0% 0% 100% | 100% 0% 0% 100% | 83% 0% 0% 100% | 77% 0% 0% 100% | 4% 44% 2% 55% | 1% 0% 0% 100% |
| adamantine axe | 97% 0% 0% 100% | 100% 0% 0% 100% | 97% 0% 0% 100% | 94% 0% 0% 100% | 96% 0% 0% 100% | 2% 0% 6% 94% |
| silver armor | copper armor | iron armor | bronze armor | steel armor | adamantine armor | |
| silver hammer | 21% 66% 31% 3% | 20% 58% 41% 1% | 17% 69% 30% 1% | 14% 68% 31% 1% | 18% 61% 37% 2% | 5% 82% 18% 0% |
| copper hammer | 17% 66% 32% 2% | 17% 65% 32% 3% | 15% 65% 33% 2% | 16% 60% 39% 1% | 15% 71% 28% 1% | 4% 95% 4% 1% |
| iron hammer | 17% 69% 29% 2% | 11% 76% 22% 2% | 13% 73% 25% 2% | 13% 67% 31% 2% | 13% 70% 28% 2% | 4% 95% 5% 0% |
| bronze hammer | 19% 67% 31% 2% | 16% 66% 32% 2% | 14% 70% 29% 1% | 12% 76% 22% 2% | 13% 74% 25% 1% | 4% 90% 8% 2% |
| steel hammer | 17% 71% 28% 1% | 14% 65% 35% 0% | 13% 71% 28% 1% | 12% 74% 25% 1% | 13% 68% 31% 1% | 3% 94% 5% 1% |
| adamantine hammer | 1% 99% 0% 1% | 1% 100% 0% 0% | 1% 99% 0% 1% | 1% 99% 0% 1% | 1% 100% 0% 0% | 1% 98% 0% 2% |
| silver armor | copper armor | iron armor | bronze armor | steel armor | adamantine armor | |
| silver mace | 18% 73% 25% 2% | 16% 76% 22% 2% | 13% 75% 23% 2% | 12% 82% 16% 2% | 15% 72% 26% 2% | 6% 83% 16% 1% |
| copper mace | 14% 84% 14% 2% | 12% 75% 22% 3% | 13% 73% 25% 2% | 11% 77% 22% 1% | 12% 79% 19% 2% | 5% 83% 16% 1% |
| iron mace | 16% 76% 23% 1% | 12% 80% 19% 1% | 11% 83% 15% 2% | 10% 78% 20% 2% | 12% 76% 23% 1% | 4% 83% 16% 1% |
| bronze mace | 17% 70% 29% 1% | 12% 83% 15% 2% | 12% 77% 22% 1% | 12% 74% 25% 1% | 11% 81% 18% 1% | 6% 79% 20% 1% |
| steel mace | 15% 81% 18% 1% | 12% 76% 23% 1% | 11% 78% 19% 3% | 10% 85% 14% 1% | 11% 82% 16% 2% | 4% 85% 14% 1% |
| adamantine mace | 1% 99% 0% 1% | 1% 99% 0% 1% | 1% 97% 0% 3% | 1% 100% 0% 0% | 1% 99% 0% 1% | 1% 100% 0% 0% |
| silver armor | copper armor | iron armor | bronze armor | steel armor | adamantine armor | |
| silver spear | 13% 67% 31% 2% | 10% 65% 33% 2% | 8% 72% 26% 2% | 8% 73% 25% 2% | 8% 70% 29% 1% | 2% 74% 25% 1% |
| copper spear | 8% 78% 21% 1% | 8% 75% 24% 1% | 7% 85% 14% 1% | 7% 86% 13% 1% | 7% 78% 20% 2% | 2% 74% 22% 4% |
| iron spear | 98% 0% 94% 6% | 9% 63% 34% 3% | 8% 72% 26% 2% | 6% 83% 14% 3% | 6% 86% 13% 1% | 1% 77% 21% 2% |
| bronze spear | 99% 0% 100% 0% | 98% 0% 100% 0% | 99% 0% 100% 0% | 7% 74% 25% 1% | 6% 85% 13% 2% | 2% 68% 32% 0% |
| steel spear | 99% 0% 90% 10% | 99% 0% 100% 0% | 99% 0% 100% 0% | 99% 0% 100% 0% | 8% 76% 23% 1% | 2% 71% 27% 2% |
| adamantine spear | 99% 1% 99% 0% | 99% 0% 100% 0% | 99% 0% 100% 0% | 99% 0% 100% 0% | 99% 0% 100% 0% | 1% 71% 26% 3% |
| silver armor | copper armor | iron armor | bronze armor | steel armor | adamantine armor | |
| silver sword | 3% 59% 23% 18% | 9% 74% 17% 9% | 3% 65% 19% 16% | 3% 70% 17% 13% | 3% 55% 27% 18% | 1% 32% 46% 22% |
| copper sword | 3% 65% 25% 10% | 3% 66% 26% 8% | 3% 66% 19% 15% | 3% 55% 31% 14% | 2% 52% 40% 8% | 1% 36% 48% 16% |
| iron sword | 98% 0% 11% 89% | 9% 79% 2% 19% | 2% 62% 3% 35% | 2% 52% 4% 44% | 2% 60% 7% 33% | 1% 45% 14% 41% |
| bronze sword | 98% 0% 17% 83% | 100% 0% 20% 80% | 99% 0% 6% 94% | 2% 65% 2% 33% | 2% 53% 6% 41% | 2% 48% 8% 44% |
| steel sword | 98% 0% 3% 97% | 100% 0% 10% 90% | 98% 4% 15% 81% | 100% 0% 2% 98% | 2% 50% 3% 47% | 1% 43% 5% 52% |
| adamantine sword | 98% 0% 16% 84% | 100% 0% 31% 69% | 98% 0% 8% 92% | 99% 0% 21% 79% | 100% 0% 5% 95% | 1% 34% 3% 63% |
| silver armor | copper armor | iron armor | bronze armor | steel armor | adamantine armor | |
| silver axe | 7% 60% 0% 40% | 14% 18% 43% 39% | 5% 51% 11% 38% | 4% 50% 2% 48% | 6% 69% 1% 30% | 1% 10% 0% 90% |
| copper axe | 5% 58% 6% 36% | 4% 63% 0% 37% | 4% 50% 2% 48% | 4% 44% 0% 56% | 4% 62% 3% 35% | 1% 11% 2% 87% |
| iron axe | 94% 0% 3% 97% | 9% 28% 36% 36% | 4% 46% 3% 51% | 3% 50% 0% 50% | 3% 42% 0% 58% | 1% 19% 0% 81% |
| bronze axe | 100% 0% 0% 100% | 100% 0% 6% 94% | 91% 0% 0% 100% | 3% 48% 1% 51% | 4% 58% 2% 40% | 2% 13% 0% 87% |
| steel axe | 97% 0% 8% 92% | 100% 0% 0% 100% | 97% 0% 0% 100% | 96% 0% 0% 100% | 4% 53% 4% 43% | 1% 6% 0% 94% |
| adamantine axe | 98% 0% 2% 98% | 100% 0% 0% 100% | 93% 15% 0% 85% | 100% 0% 0% 100% | 97% 0% 0% 100% | 2% 10% 0% 90% |
It seems to be not quite balanced yet. A bronze-clad platinum-hammer wielder wins almost every time against steel armored dwarves, no matter what weapons they have (except slade hammers, which are even better, of course). Every blow seems to break bone, even through the armor.Why is this bad?
From what I've seen so far, I'd say one of the problems is actually more AI related; units keep fighting until one side is dead.
In my (limited) experience around my fort so far:
Swords and axes give fast kills.
Hammers can incapacitate enemies quickly, but take a long time to actually kill.
Crossbows can inflict fatal wounds, but it takes a while for the victim to actually die.
Spears presumably the same, haven't really seen those in action much yet.
There isn't really any need to keep bashing or turning your target into a pincushion. It would work better if they would move on once a creature falls unconscious, is rendered harmless or has wounds that are clearly fatal.
From what I've heard, Megabeasts and undead are a separate problem.
You are right. Looking at the raws, I noticed its high density. It seems platinum does equally well in warhammers, having a similarly high density.
Combat seems fine to me as is, but it seems like I'm the only one who thinks so.
Hammers and maces break limbs like they're made of styrofoam.
Swords and axes cut the bad guys into little pieces.
Spears go straight through you and destroy your organs.
I don't get what's wrong with that. Seriously, I'd love it if someone could explain the problem there.
It seems to be not quite balanced yet. A bronze-clad platinum-hammer wielder wins almost every time against steel armored dwarves, no matter what weapons they have (except slade hammers, which are even better, of course). Every blow seems to break bone, even through the armor.Why is this bad?
A platinum hammer would have considerably more force behind it than a steel hammer, assuming one was strong enough to swing it. Bronze is arguably a much better metal for armor than iron and is probably as good as steel, or so close as to make little difference. The platinum hammer, being far denser than steel, is going to shatter armor and bones quite easily.
Seems to be alright to me.
What I want to know is does studding a hammer with a heavier metal change its damage? Adamantine warhammer studded with lead = more damage? Impossible to test in the arena as far as I know.
Sir, I think that you hit the nail on the head!
If I imagine what is going on, it looks quite absurd. Enemy got unconscious, with some severe injuries, yet my dwarfs keep bashing him, instead of focusing on that crossbowman who keeps shooting at them...
I assume real battle is not about killing, but about incapacitating the opponents, and that currently, thanks to current AI, is what makes such a difference between axes and hammers.
I'm just saying it's unbalanced. Steel warhammers are worse than copper axes, platinum warhammers are better than adamantium axes.I'm going to assume you threw that second one in there without testing it? I have just done some testing and dwarves armed with platinum axes almost always won against superior numbers of dwarves with platinum warhammers.
| silver armor | | copper armor | | iron armor | | bronze armor | | steel armor | | adamantine armor | |
| silver axe | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| copper axe | + | - | - | - | - | - |
| iron axe | + | + | - | - | - | - |
| bronze axe | + | + | + | - | - | - |
| steel axe | + | + | + | + | - | - |
| adamantine axe | + | + | + | + | + | - |
| silver armor | | copper armor | | iron armor | | bronze armor | | steel armor | | adamantine armor | |
| silver short sword | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| copper short sword | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| iron short sword | + | +/- | - | - | - | - |
| bronze short sword | + | + | + | - | - | - |
| steel short sword | + | + | + | + | - | - |
| adamantine short sword | + | + | + | + | + | - |
There seem to be several problems at work here. A creature stabbed multiple times in the body with a spear seems to not be adversely affected in the short term. Blood loss takes really quite a while unless arteries are hit (typically in the upper leg).
This is actually sort of realistic, but what is not so realistic is that the creature is usually not impaired at all until it bleeds out. Even organ hits don't cause much problem until vomiting/loss of breath etc kick in. Speardwarves regularly mortally wound an opponent then get mauled and killed by it before the wound takes effect. There should be a system of shock, pain and trauma whereby attacks and other actions performed by a seriously wounded creature are of much less potency. Otherwise the instant part-removal of hacking weapons won't really ever be balanced against the deep wounds caused by stabbing ones. Sufficiently large and tough creatures should of course be able to ignore some level of pain and continue fighting mostly unimpaired, but right now it's just silly.
A similar problem seems to occur with breaks. A shattered foot bone should make dodging, moving or even continuing to stand extremely hard. A shattered shoulder should make a shield very hard to use or a weapon held in that arm totally useless. At the moment there's a system whereby creatures can lose hold of items, but it's totally binary as far as I can tell - operating normally or useless. I think we need gradual impairment of action.
There also seems to be another issue with relative weapon/part size. It's ludicrously easy for an axe to penetrate gauntlets and sever hands, but at the same time it's nearly impossible for that axe to even scratch the paint on a breastplate. The weapon size vs body part size is having a very large effect, when you really should be able to create small wounds anywhere on the body if you can penetrate the armour - this is assuming gauntlets and breastplates are of equal thickness, which seems to be a reasonable assumption. This one may actually be a bug, because it seems the thickness or size of the part being hit is checked before the armour it's wrapped in takes effect. This contributes to another problem...
...Material hardness effectiveness. If something is harder than what you're hitting it with, nothing ever seems to happen, regardless of the strength or skill level of the attacker. This means that a copper maul wielded by a legendary-skilled male giantess has no real chance against a fully steel armoured dwarven peasant. Of course, hardness should be an important factor, but it is currently overpowering everything else: skill, strength, etc.
There would also appear to be little or no relationship between the size of an attack surface, the strength of an attacker and the depth of the wound. If we assume that a given strength means the ability to impart a given amount of force, then that force hitting over the 40000 area of a battle axe should be much lower than hitting over the 20 area of a spear. But the spear doesn't appear, to me, to be significantly better at penetrating armour or doing serious damage to an unarmoured target, although possibly its ability is being obscured by the effects described above.
There's also a few other oddities with weapon and stone traps, bare arms, bronze vs iron vs brass vs copper vs steel, the utility of leather by itself or under chain/plate, and I'm sure many other smaller things. In any case, I'm confident this awesomely complex and involved combat system can be fixed with the tweaking of a few of Toady's formulas, and possibly with the minor addition of a new shock/pain system. I'm eagerly awaiting the time when Toady gets to rebalancing things.
In the mean time, do *not* embark without flux, always use axes, don't embark where there might be undead/unalive creatures and finally mod breastplates to include pauldrons. It's a hell of a lot of fun.
To be fair, warhammers/hammers, etc are designed to shatter bone THROUGH armor. They're the preferred weapons when facing platemail.Not only that, they are also meant to dent armor, leaving the wearer in a, well, very uncomfortable position.
To be fair, warhammers/hammers, etc are designed to shatter bone THROUGH armor. They're the preferred weapons when facing platemail.Not only that, they are also meant to dent armor, leaving the wearer in a, well, very uncomfortable position.
One item people seem to be leaving out is that heavier, denser materials are often quite soft and will deform when striking harder objects.
What doesn't seem to have been taken into account is that a weapon made of a heavier material ought to be slower and more awkward to swing effectively.
Medieval war hammers and maces were historically useful against plate-armoured opponents, but there are good reasons why they were made of steel and not a denser material like lead. Beyond a certain weight they would have been too heavy to be useful as a weapon, even in the hands of a very strong wielder.
The current system also doesn't take account of the fact that a soft material like lead or gold would quickly be deformed by constant pounding on steel armour, even if it was breaking the opponent's bones at the same time.
he will use the one in his main hand, therefore the first one he picked up -no matter what his skills are. should his main hand be separated from his body, he will use his off hand weapon.'Hey, Urist, why are you carrying two axes?' 'Well, that's in case my right hand gets chopped off'
One thing I've noticed about arena mode is that if you add 'iron gauntlets' from the menu it only adds one, leaving the other hand bare. Same goes for boots.The trick is to assign them 2 handwear and 2 footwear.
Unrealistic = Badass. Especially considering that he can still kick or bite someone to death without his axe hands.
How does Bismuth Bronze figure into everything? Categorically worse than regular bronze?They are identical, stat-wise.
How does Bismuth Bronze figure into everything? Categorically worse than regular bronze?They are identical, stat-wise.
- there seems to be some kind of armor wear in the game, as after having deflected many blows, bones suddenly start to get shattered through gauntlets and high boots (seen with silver against any armor and with iron against copper)
Decided to check Axe Vs Spear. Some of the earlier posts made it sound that axe is more or less
THE weapon of choice and spear wasn't so hot. So I decided to pit them against each other
in the arena. Same stats for each dwarf. At first the Axedwarf one everyfight no contest. Then i
took away the Speardwarf's shield. Spear dwarf never lost a fight.. almost never made it back in
one piece but had always won. Kick it up to adamantine everything and the spear got nastier. (by
the way, all skills were set to Competent)
Decided to check Axe Vs Spear. Some of the earlier posts made it sound that axe is more or less
THE weapon of choice and spear wasn't so hot. So I decided to pit them against each other
in the arena. Same stats for each dwarf. At first the Axedwarf one everyfight no contest. Then i
took away the Speardwarf's shield. Spear dwarf never lost a fight.. almost never made it back in
one piece but had always won. Kick it up to adamantine everything and the spear got nastier. (by
the way, all skills were set to Competent)
Wait, so spears are better without a shield than with? Can you check to see whether the speardwarf is actually multigrasping the spear? That's very interesting.
Or am I reading that wrong?
Also, spears are actually pretty good weapons, it's just that spear-strikes don't kill immediately or even disable their victims, it takes a long while for even a totally swiss-cheesed speardwarf victim to bleed out. And in that time they can easily cut off poor speardwarf's limbs shoudl they have a weapon more blessed with instant gratification.
Interestingly, this makes spears (and menacing spikes) a great weapon trap weapon - because targets very rarely get killed instantly the traps almost never jam. The goblins take a few more steps and then bleed out. Except weapon traps are really terrible against armour now. They all have normal attack velocities (1000) and I suspect they're not getting any bonuses to that from their "strength" or anything. Goblins routinely only get bruised by my high-quality steel spikes.
Decided to check Axe Vs Spear. Some of the earlier posts made it sound that axe is more or less
THE weapon of choice and spear wasn't so hot. So I decided to pit them against each other
in the arena. Same stats for each dwarf. At first the Axedwarf one everyfight no contest. Then i
took away the Speardwarf's shield. Spear dwarf never lost a fight.. almost never made it back in
one piece but had always won. Kick it up to adamantine everything and the spear got nastier. (by
the way, all skills were set to Competent)
Wait, so spears are better without a shield than with? Can you check to see whether the speardwarf is actually multigrasping the spear? That's very interesting.
Or am I reading that wrong?
Also, spears are actually pretty good weapons, it's just that spear-strikes don't kill immediately or even disable their victims, it takes a long while for even a totally swiss-cheesed speardwarf victim to bleed out. And in that time they can easily cut off poor speardwarf's limbs shoudl they have a weapon more blessed with instant gratification.
Interestingly, this makes spears (and menacing spikes) a great weapon trap weapon - because targets very rarely get killed instantly the traps almost never jam. The goblins take a few more steps and then bleed out. Except weapon traps are really terrible against armour now. They all have normal attack velocities (1000) and I suspect they're not getting any bonuses to that from their "strength" or anything. Goblins routinely only get bruised by my high-quality steel spikes.Indeed. Giving a spearman (a two handed weapon) a sheild prevents the speardwarf from weilding the weapon. This is slightly odd because sheild/spear has been a historically classic combo. Spearmen should be able to wield a spear and shield in a more defensive style as opposed to no shield which should be an aggressive style, but currently the only option appears to be no sheild.
A dwarf can wield a spear and shield, however he is more effective with just the spear. I rechecked and indeed he does stab with the spear in only one hand and the shield in the other, but he seems to penetrate more when he has just the spear.
Further research: Adamantine everything both with shields and respective weapons. Results: Spear dwarf no longer gets injured when using adamantine set with a shield. Adamantine Spear n Shield vs Adamanite Axe n Shield: 5:0
Yet another edit:Yes the spearman will multi-grasp the spear if he has no shield. misread a read out. NO he was not multigrasping...
Yet another, another edit: Take away Mr. Axeman's shield as well and then HE always wins. makes me start to question the value of shields in melee cause at this point its a game of weight=speed. (Assuming even stats)
Yet another, another edit: Take away Mr. Axeman's shield as well and then HE always wins. makes me start to question the value of shields in melee cause at this point its a game of weight=speed. (Assuming even stats)
What about Bucklers?
As they are smaller than shields (and assumed to be strapped to one arm) a dwarf with buckler and spear/axe should theoretically be similar to one who carries just his spear/axe (and maybe even deadlier because of the added protection of the buckler).
Might be worth testing out
ABSOLUTE AWESOMENESS
For those doing armoured vs unarmoured tests and finding the unencumbered fighter the victor: Do the results change when GM armour-user is given to the tankier partner? Wearing heavy armour with no skill imposes a very large speed penalty. I believe, although would have to check, that the same is the case for holding a shield with no shield-user.
If skill levels are to be taken out of the equation, we may wish to remove the ability to gain XP from dwarves so that consistent testing can be done - current training rates asre such that an unskilled dwarf can hit legendary before his opponent dies, and that's certainly colouring results. Can you still take off the [CAN_LEARN] tag and get otherwise-normal dwarves?
Well, I wonder how widely used normal spears as a melee weapon really were,If we're talking real-life use, AFAIK spears were the peasant weapon. Easy and cheap to make, they used very little metal and a blacksmith could bank out spearheads by the dozen. Wood was generally much easier to come by. Give 100 unskilled drooling idiots sharp pointy spears and even they may get lucky and stab a knight on horseback in the right place, for far less than it cost to arm and armor said knight.
in contrast to other polearms like poleaxes (for examples Glaives, Halberds)
or polehammers (Bec de corbin, Lucern hammer etc.)
At least during the time when they didn´t see use in Phalanx formations,
I've determined that if you want blunt weapons to make more sense than they currently do, replace the placeholder raw values (in inorganic_metal file) of impact_yield and impact_fracture (all metals use extremely high values from stainless steel) with the values in shear_yield and shear_fracture.
Theoretically, the former should be compressive strength values and the latter tensile strength, but I read that for metals they are essentially the same (ref: here (http://www.grantadesign.com/resources/materials/glossary.htm#cs), here, scroll down to compression (http://www.ami.ac.uk/courses/topics/0123_mpm/index.html#2), and referring specifically to steel (http://www.steelforge.com/metaltidbits/tensilestrength.htm#Tensile%20Strength%20Of%20Steel)).
Of course real life is secondary to gameplay, but my testing found that these alterations make lead, gold, and silver less than ideal weaponry and armor, with steel-wielders consistently dominating.
I'm not sure how you are running and evaluating the tests, but would it be possible to speed up the process by having ten 1v1 matches fought in parallel instead of doing them sequentially?
With create water/lava, one can easily make segregated arenas for the duos to fight in.
is there any way to gather data on how much damage from each weapon gets through on a successfull hit, or penetrates tissues?
I would guess that hammers are less likely to be deflected, but that spears should deliver more of their dammage when they do connect.
First off, no suit of armor is uniformly thick. Design and Weight considerations demand that there be gaps, overlaps, and different thicknesses of armor in various sections. Helms tended to be the thickest and are often well rounded or angled for deflection (but require gaps for sight and breathing), Breastplates tend to be fairly thick, but are often flatter and difficult to design for deflection without adding a lot of weight. Legs and arms tend to be thinner in general, but a skilled wearer may be able to quickly angle them for excellent deflection. Etc.
I'm not so sure. I think axes/swords will breach armor equally well, but will cause more serious wounding than spears. In fortress mode, I had one woodcutter with a bronze axe, and he hacked apart some 12 goblins effortlessly.
I've seen a few people doing these kinds of tests, and being supprised at how well Bronze is performing, and assuming its just a bug in the current version. It might not be a bug as much as its a fairly accurate representation of reality.
Looking at those results, there's something immediately clear to me, is that the effectiveness drop of is way too sudden. There's almost no middle tier weapons that have anything between 90% and 30% hits against any given armor. This system needs some serious tweaking, either in material or weapon and armor stats, or in engine, so that you can have middle ground weapons vs. armor effectiveness(an armor material upgrade should go from blocking 10-20% through to blocking 90%, right not it goes from blocking 0% to blocking 95%, usually in a single step). Right now it looks like weapons either go through like a hot knife through butter, or are almost entirely ineffective vs. a given type or armor. I don't think realism is worth having a system that is so binary.
Actually, the blunt weapons effectiveness is a lot better in terms of game play design than edged, it just needs to be increased a little across the board so instead of going 20% to 5% it goes from %60 to 5%
That aside, any thought of testing vs. leather, bone and shell armor? or are those armors just too worthless to contemplate now?
But feel free to challenge the assumptions we're all making on their effectiveness.
Wait, so you could make goblin bone armor and it would even protect you from their iron whips?But feel free to challenge the assumptions we're all making on their effectiveness.The attributes that mirror the levels of effectiveness of the different armors are the four yield and four fracture statistics(excluding compressive, which is the same across all metals). Out of all the alternate armor materials, generic bone has yield values between silver and iron, and fracture values below them, but not nearly so far below as the other non-metal materials. I think that bone could be as effective as copper and silver armor.
Wait, so you could make goblin bone armor and it would even protect you from their iron whips?But feel free to challenge the assumptions we're all making on their effectiveness.The attributes that mirror the levels of effectiveness of the different armors are the four yield and four fracture statistics(excluding compressive, which is the same across all metals). Out of all the alternate armor materials, generic bone has yield values between silver and iron, and fracture values below them, but not nearly so far below as the other non-metal materials. I think that bone could be as effective as copper and silver armor.
Looking at those results, there's something immediately clear to me, is that the effectiveness drop of is way too sudden.
I doubt that a "properly designed" sword can puncture plate mail. Maybe it could, with enough impact, like if you shot it from a cannon, but not if a fighter uses it in a thrust. It would mostly be deflected, because combat plate armor has as few flat/concave parts as possible, and when it would indeed strike ideally, the impact would not even dent the plate but twist the sword from the hands of its wielder instead.
Against plate armor, you can either try to hit the gaps with a thrust of a sword or a spear, or you can use a heavy hammer or mace to disable (and eventually kill) its wearer. Plate armor also withstood arrows and bolts and even the first firearms.
I doubt that a "properly designed" sword can puncture plate mail. Maybe it could, with enough impact, like if you shot it from a cannon, but not if a fighter uses it in a thrust. It would mostly be deflected, because combat plate armor has as few flat/concave parts as possible, and when it would indeed strike ideally, the impact would not even dent the plate but twist the sword from the hands of its wielder instead.
Against plate armor, you can either try to hit the gaps with a thrust of a sword or a spear, or you can use a heavy hammer or mace to disable (and eventually kill) its wearer. Plate armor also withstood arrows and bolts and even the first firearms.
The Wikipedia article for plate armour has a rather weak section which claims plate armour is "virtually sword-proof", except against "long tapered swords" like estocs. Sounds like slashing through plate armour is impractical then.
I guess currently the combat system represents swords as always slashing. Ideally combatants would instead try to stab plate-wearing opponents. It'd also be nice if concussive force was a factor, even for slashing and piercing weapons. Getting hit in the helm with an iron sword should cause some trauma, though not as much as lead hammer would.
This reminds me of how realistic the wearing of multiple layers was, in d40: in reality you wouldn't wear plate armour over bare skin (: You put padding underneath it to absorb impacts, and probably mail too.
The entire reason that the military pick was invented was as a way to readily pierce plate armor. And, generally, a real war hammer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_hammer) tends to have a striking face on one side of the head and a pick/beak on the other side for piercing armor or catching on the enemy and pulling them off balance or down from their mount.
Hmmm...I thought the swords our dwarfs can produce are of the piercing variety? I could be wrong about that.I still don't think you can pierce through steel plate. It might be possible with extreme luck, if you used a long sword like a spear and put your whole weight behind it, but even then most such attacks would be deflected, as you'd have to hit the plate at perfectly the right angle. This article also states that in armoured combat with swords, you either use the pommel/guard of the sword as hammer, or you try to find gaps in the armor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_school_of_swordsmanship#Armoured_combat
And yes, swords absolutely can pierce through plate. Some, like the estoc, were designed for that. For that matter, a kitchen knife can puncture a steel can.
I don't have a clue what you mean about the sword "twisting from the hands of the wielder", but a lot of sword designs-and gauntlet designs-were made specifically to prevent dropping the weapon.
Slashing through plate (as opposed to piercing) was mostly impractical, but even so, this was thin steel, the quality of which is questionable, and part of the point of "slashing" at someone in plate, was to cause impact damage, and wear them out.
In any case, it was preferrable to locate a gap in the armour, and then drive a sharp object through that gap.
Hit data for projectiles?If I can find good testing parameters...
Hit data for projectiles?If I can find good testing parameters...
Try to seperate the crossbow dwarfs from the targets by trapping one group in the castle with obsidian walls, and then creating a cage using the same method to keep the other group close to the fortifcations of the castle.Hit data for projectiles?If I can find good testing parameters...
The issue is keeping them(attacker and defender) from closing to melee and just whacking each other with their assigned weapons, yes?
Are there issues with getting an attacker to shoot at an enemy they have no path to?
If so, maybe setting up the combat with the attacker to test the different ammo, a defender to get hit with the shots, and a blocker to occupy the defender's attention (and who is on the same team as the attacker) Then the only issue is the attacker running out of ammo- judging by the size of those combat logs, 100 rounds might just not cut it. Maybe several dwarfs with ranged attacks vs. the single defender- ten dwarfs with 100 bolts is 1000/accuracy data points...
How many hits do you typically get per round in the melee experiments?
This:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Cracks goblin-iron breastplates like eggshells. Try it out for yourself.
Yeah, maybe there is a small chance that a steel plate is broken, but this probably only happens when the impact vector of the blow is quite parallel to the armor's surface normal, otherwise it would just be deflected. And don't forget we're talking about dwarven armor here, which is much thicker than human armor (at least in my imagination) and of higher quality (even less gaps and cracks).
Back on topic: I've done some preliminary manual testing for marksdwarves, and it doesn't seem to be worth a full analysis, as the results were quite the same as with cc weapons (iron doesn't pierce iron ever, steel pierces iron always, steel never pierces steel, etc.). Also, giant cave spider silk clothing doesn't protect from iron bolts at all.
I can post videos of Japanese katanas cleaving through steel plate, and steel pipe. They're a little on the cheesy side, but they get the point across--pun intended.
These are cutting, but it's also been proven and demonstrated that arrows could pierce plate.
Even fired from a powerful longbow (note: not a crossbow), it should be fairly obvious from a scientific perspective, that an arrow, at range, won't strike with more power than the arm of the archer themself could produce.
I should think Western weapons and fighting styles were more effective against Western armor than Eastern weapons/styles would have been. The reason: They were developed (in tandem with those armors) specifically to defeat them.True, but you forgot that Western armor was also specifically designed to withstand those weapons... Oh no! It's a vicious circle!
True, but you forgot that Western armor was also specifically designed to withstand those weapons... Oh no! It's a vicious circle!
Even fired from a powerful longbow (note: not a crossbow), it should be fairly obvious from a scientific perspective, that an arrow, at range, won't strike with more power than the arm of the archer themself could produce.
Obviously the archer couldn't punch his arm through metal plate,
I wonder, has anyone done similar research using the trap weapons? IE, best metal for a spiked ball?
I wonder, has anyone done similar research using the trap weapons? IE, best metal for a spiked ball?
Unless the trap mechanics have been changed, traps function by making an attack with each of the weapons that is installed in it, so determining the best weapon material should apply equally to trap weapons. The same principles should apply. (ie: harder metals penetrate better with slashing/piercing, heavier metals penetrate better with bludgeoning)
We need to compare it to glass discs. Steel is too precious to waste on traps.
Steel? Precious?
...
What kinda fort are you running?
I currently have 173 steel bars, and my military is equipped entirely in masterwork steel gear. I already traded away probably 100 pieces (if not more) of lower quality steel gear that I didn't want. I have about 50 bins made of steel and many of my doors are made of steel. My trade depot is steel. All my magma pumps are made out of steel (steel block, steel pipe, steel screw). My entire dining room is made of steel chairs/tables.
I haven't even dented the amount of hematite, limonite, and magnetite that's available. All I've really mined out was two big magnetite clusters and a couple veins each of limonite/hematite. I also have 117 free dolomite sitting around waiting for more ore, with plenty more in the ground.
Steel is so abundant I don't know what to do with it all.
The only metal I see as precious is aluminum, you don't find that much of it. I trade for it in the caravans and currently have a crazy scheme of eventually replacing all the fortresses wooden barrels with aluminum barrels.
does anyone know where picks rate as weapons in 2010? i usually run a miners militia early game. wondering how efficient it is in this version.Miners are great. I've seen estimates that picks are about 70% as effective as a battleaxe of the same material. However, even with the reduction in damage, miners generally have great skill in the use of their picks, since mining *and* combat with picks give mining xp. Their usually higher weapon skill tends to lessen the damage gap until axedwarves max-out. It's not uncommon for a miner to be my top goblin killer in the early game.
does anyone know where picks rate as weapons in 2010? i usually run a miners militia early game. wondering how efficient it is in this version.Miners are great. I've seen estimates that picks are about 70% as effective as a battleaxe of the same material. However, even with the reduction in damage, miners generally have great skill in the use of their picks, since mining *and* combat with picks give mining xp. Their usually higher weapon skill tends to lessen the damage gap until axedwarves max-out. It's not uncommon for a miner to be my top goblin killer in the early game.
@pattern_wounds = ("bruising the \(fat\|skin\|muscle\|bone\)\|tearing apart the \(fat\|skin\)\|shattering the nail",
"shattering the bone\|jamming\|tearing the muscle\|tearing apart the muscle\|tendon has been torn",
"severed\|artery has been opened");
First line is light wounds, second medium and third heavy. If this is not good enough for you, feel free to use your own patterns and reprocess the information (you need the combat logs and calculate_details.pl, which you can get in the original post).Despite my earlier comments dismissing the necessity of crossbow tests, they do seem to behave differently than cc weapons. I've tested e.g. adamantine bolts, and they were pretty useless. Anyone has some insight already or should I begin to run some tests on my own?
AFAIK glass trap components already have been tested and found to be ineffectiveYeah, seems they are both too light to blunt or chop, and not enough sharp to cut.
Question: Is there ANY armor that protects the throat unmodded? In my tests, I don't see any that do. I could just be stupid though, but this might impact the results of the tests if overlooked.
Question: Is there ANY armor that protects the throat unmodded? In my tests, I don't see any that do. I could just be stupid though, but this might impact the results of the tests if overlooked.
I don't believe so, although it's possible that the UBSTEP of a mailshirt includes the neck, I don't know.
However, I've never seen a throat actually fatally cut or torn out, only ever "cut open" and "bruised". Which you'd think would be awfully serious injuries, arteries and windpipes and all, but they don't seem to be.
Consider that historic maille was often of the round-built, integrated-coif style. Face etc. protection becomes quite possible then.
Hey Zagibu, would you be willing to expand the testing range to include a few non-standard materials for the weapons/armour? I'm thinking maybe just those with more extreme densities (e.g platinum, aluminium, maybe slade)?Yeah, I think that would be interesting. I'm probably going to do ranged weapons first, though. I also kind of lost my momentum, so it might take a while until those are all done.
Question: Is there ANY armor that protects the throat unmodded? In my tests, I don't see any that do. I could just be stupid though, but this might impact the results of the tests if overlooked.
If we're going to get into realistic weapon balance, then swords (Except Cyan ones) would become more or less useless against higher level armour. There's a reason they were all but extinct in battlefield usage at the pinnacle of melee combat, the 16th century. Records of battles like Agincourt show that swords were at a tiny majority in actual combat, with the only notable sword user being King Henry himself, who apparently thought the sword was a regal weapon. Swords, especially those of the slicing variety (Falchions, scimitars and Katana belong to this category) were next to useless due to plate armours resistance to cutting.
The ultimate melee weapons were the Halberd (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halberd) and Pollaxe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollaxe_%28polearm%29). Shields fell almost entirely out of use. Hammers and the aforementioned war picks (Which were very similar weapons) were common, but flanged maces were the far more commonly used one handed weapon, due to their greater flexibility and more or less equal penetration in comparison. Traditional axes were more or less replaced due to the greater versatility of other pole arms.
Morningstars and other flails were rarer than maces due to their unpredictability (Do you want to be the one with the unreliable weapon?), but had possibly the greatest penetration ability of all, as well as being extremely scary and difficult to defend against.
However, against unarmoured opponents, like creatures, slicing weapons are by far the best. A knight dwarf might not perform as well in the role of a samurai dwarf, simply because, despite his superior armour, size and all round better weapons, his weapons aren't designed for killing unarmoured opponents. A Katana can pass through flesh and bone like it isn't there, making it ideal for quickly dispatching large numbers of enemies. A halberd can't, and isn't.
Can we please keep this on topic? If not, as mentioned before, at least can we please cite some sources?
What's the deal with hammers not sending stuff flying anymore, is there still room for that in the current system and the physics is just nerfed or is it gone for good? This is an important queston.
Noone claims plate armor should be unbreachable. Also, historical references are nice, but you have to remember that DF is a GAME set in a FANTASY UNIVERSE. Realism only applies as far as it enriches gameplay. Although Toady calls DF a fantasy world simulation, this description is actually quite misleading. I don't think he would want to tip the balance towards simulation in spite of gameplay (or if he would, I would stop "using" his simulation). And even if he would do it, what system is he abstracting? A simulation is an abstraction of a more detailed system.So then what is a good frequency for those types of blows and about how much higher should that be when a legendary weapon user it trying vs someone dabbling in all of the skills that make you maneuverable in combat while wearing plate? Right now it looks like it is 0% with a 0% boost, right?
As I've said before, and to what those claiming swords should slice plate have not yet responded: even if your claims are true, you have to hit the armor at the right angle, which is difficult in combat. The same is true for projectiles. Armor is not a plane, it is rounded, and thus the chance of a deflected blow is high. You don't need to have a background in history, come from a family of ancient swordsmiths or consult any sources to understand this, it's basic math and physics. If anyone wants to seriously dispute this, do it in a new thread. This is my thread, and it is about DF, not about the real world.What's the deal with hammers not sending stuff flying anymore, is there still room for that in the current system and the physics is just nerfed or is it gone for good? This is an important queston.
It's possible, try platinum hammers. The problem is that the raws contain lots of default values, and that the force of impact doesn't seem to be correctly calculated yet.
... Would you rather have the system go for realism even it winds up biased towards one weapon or those in armor...
Reasonably so. Lead is hard to break or breach, and artifact = massive bonus. Your military's legs should be fine.
This whole "plate is uber" issue doesn't take into account that DF uses a materials-based system. If you make plate arbitrarily and objectively that wonderful, then why not just forge a bunch of copper plate? Why develope steel at all? Or hunt for HFS metal?Good points. But who wants to make plate arbitrarily and objectively wonderful? I certainly don't. Copper plate could deflect badly aimed strikes almost as good as steel plate, but it would be easily penetrated by well aimed blows. Also, it would deform much more quickly and become useless or even harmful for the wearer.
Sorry, but this isn't accurate. By this point in time, the missle weapon--bows, crossbows, gunpowder weapons--were becoming more and more dominant, and pole weapons were more and more in use because of missle calvalry, the increasing obsolescence of knights, and advances in tactics, not because of the armour.
Once again from the top: Swords could, and did, penetrate even high quality plate. Even if you want to pretend that they didn't, such plate had gaps and weak points, which someone with enough skill could certainly pierce with a sword.
People fought duels in plate, after all. Duels were typically fought to at least the point of first blood. Someone eventually won the duel. This even happened in tournaments, where tournament armour was worn--and tournament armour was even heavier and more resistant than battlefield armour..
Polearms had reach, and required less skill to use, which is why swords were less common. Not because of the armour, but because it was a lot cheaper and easier to hand a bunch of peasants and half-trained levies polearms, than to spend years to decades, training knights--knights at that point becoming obsolete because of improvements in gunpowder and crossbow technologies.
If you really want to insist that swords can't penetrate steel, then please explain why there were any armour improvements after maille? Once you had steel maille, the theory should go, it should be impossible to cut through it with a sword, making the full chain suit impenetrable.This is both a strawman and a logical fallacy. Again, you seem to be under the mistaken impression that anyone is saying that swords cannot hurt people in plate armour. And the latter part is just silly, even ignoring why improving armour is a good thing even when the chance of penetration is small, and that maille doesn't cover as much of the body as plate does, armour wasn't designed to protect against only swords y'know.
It wasn't, and neither was plate. Plate was better for a lot of reasons, but it certainly wasn't a "cloak of invulnerability".
What's the deal with hammers not sending stuff flying anymore, is there still room for that in the current system and the physics is just nerfed or is it gone for good? This is an important queston.
It's possible, try platinum hammers. The problem is that the raws contain lots of default values, and that the force of impact doesn't seem to be correctly calculated yet.
What's the deal with hammers not sending stuff flying anymore, is there still room for that in the current system and the physics is just nerfed or is it gone for good? This is an important queston.
It's possible, try platinum hammers. The problem is that the raws contain lots of default values, and that the force of impact doesn't seem to be correctly calculated yet.
Doesn't work for me :(
Come think I haven't seen body-flinging behavior at all in the new versions so far, even dropping goblins onto traps from great height seems to pretty much leave everything neatly stacked in a square, maybe when things get really crazy a little spread into the adjacent ones.
Keep up the good work figuring this shit out though you rock. Hope some semblance of the old-style dramatic physics get restored sooner or later.
The data here is great, but I have a question... How about Pikes?
Dwarfs can't make them, but I get enough migrants that are pikedwarfs, so I have purchased pikes for their use. I expect the best metal to ever see in the game (fortress at least) without modding is the bronze for pikes, of varying quality.
They seem to be effective but it would be nice to know how they "officially" stand currently.
Yes, but dwarfs can't make pikes, and you can pretty much only get bronze pikes in trade from the humans, so that's why I stated I think bronze is the best we'd ever see.
They have the same attack size as a battle axe (800), and are edged, so I would hope the weapons are among the best.
Assuming this is up to date on the values:
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Pike_%28weapon%29
Yes, but dwarfs can't make pikes, and you can pretty much only get bronze pikes in trade from the humans, so that's why I stated I think bronze is the best we'd ever see.
They have the same attack size as a battle axe (800), and are edged, so I would hope the weapons are among the best.
Assuming this is up to date on the values:
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Pike_%28weapon%29
Read up on the German school of fencing. Deutsche Fechtschule, Johannes Liechtenauer. It's actually contemporary (1540's, anyway). It was used and was meant for the real world. That's the most clear and easy to understand source I can think of, for this purpose. There are sections on unarmoured combat, and sections on armoured combat. Both involve swords, and both are dissimilar.And why are they dissimilar? Because the section on armored combat focuses on thrusts that try to penetrate weak spots in armor. I've found not a single page indicating a slash or thrust that aims right at a plated section of the armor.
Why would you intentionally aim for the weak spots if your weapon had no problem penetrating armor anyway?
Why would you intentionally aim for the weak spots if your weapon had no problem penetrating armor anyway?
Because it'd be easier to penetrate and you'd exert less energy than hacking through the strong spots?
It's like you people have never even been in a fight in your life.
But those weak spots are much more difficult to hit. If you REALLY had a weapon that could easily penetrate plate, why would you aim for those hard to hit spots and not just hack away? I'm trying to hint at my opinion that swords could not actually penetrate steel plate armor. And no, I have never been in a swordfight against an opponent in steel plate armor.Why would you intentionally aim for the weak spots if your weapon had no problem penetrating armor anyway?
Because it'd be easier to penetrate and you'd exert less energy than hacking through the strong spots?
It's like you people have never even been in a fight in your life.
Plus, the weaker spots on armor are at the joints - where the body is weaker as well. It makes no sense to try to cut through a steel plate, a ribcage and a bunch of muscle mass to get at the lungs when your opponent has a badly protected throat.Why get at the lungs? Just lop his arms or legs off, which should be no problem with a weapon that easily penetrates steel plate. Heck, you could even to a full overhead strike and cut his head in half, since his steel helm won't be a problem for your lightsaber, will it?
Why would you intentionally aim for the weak spots if your weapon had no problem penetrating armor anyway?
Yeah, it does, which contradicts the argument that swords could penetrate plate armor easily. Also, your analogy is wrong, because it is easier to just strike at whatever bodypart is available than to try to hit the weak spots. You kind of picked my line out of context anyway, but whatever. Some people in this thread seem to love swords so much that they imbue them with mystical properties in their fantasy. I had a hard time arguing that plate armor was quite effective protection against swords. When SirHoneyBadger mentioned Lichtenauer, I just couldn't contain myself any longer, I apologize for having fed the fire again.Why would you intentionally aim for the weak spots if your weapon had no problem penetrating armor anyway?
That's like saying; "Why walk through the door when you have no problem breaking in through the window?"
It just makes sense to aim for the weak spots.
Why would you intentionally aim for the strong spots?"Hurr hurr, I'm Super Dwarvenly Strong! My sword will cut through that plate armor at the chest! Easy to hit! No problem!"
But those weak spots are much more difficult to hit. If you REALLY had a weapon that could easily penetrate plate, why would you aim for those hard to hit spots and not just hack away? I'm trying to hint at my opinion that swords could not actually penetrate steel plate armor. And no, I have never been in a swordfight against an opponent in steel plate armor.
I was thinking of a possible solution to the "armour vs swords" debate thateveryonemore than half of the people here might hopefully agree on: What if the resistance of armour plate was directly determined by quality levels?
For example: To pierce superior quality armour plate, you'd need to use a masterwork sword (2 quality levels above the armour), or an exceptional spear (1 level above), while to cut through it, you'd need an axe of equal or greater quality.
Maces would work at one quality level below the armour, and above, so superior quality maces would work fine against exceptional plate. Picks would work at 2 quality levels below, or finely-crafted, while hammers could work at 3 levels below = well-crafted.
Other weapons would have their own armour-penetrating qualities.
Halberds for instance might work at 5 levels below, making only artifact armour effective against them, while whips would probably never work against even no-quality plate.
Any lesser weapons impacting on greater armour might simply cause bruising/scratches and "fatigue damage". Ofcourse, if the weapon is being wielded by a titan, thecrushingbruising could still be quite fatal, but this would be determined more by the attacker's strength than anything.
Considering the new way that weapons are handled under .31, this might be one of the better ways to differentiate between weapon quality levels, in terms of game mechanics.
The attack could still slide or glance off, ofcourse, but this would be determined more by the weapon skill of the attacker vs the armour-use skill of the defender, than the quality of the armour.
Materials would come into play by allowing the armour to become "damaged". Better weapon materials could cause more damage to the armour--even if the attack didn't damage the dwarf inside--which would reduce the armour's effectiveness over time, allowing even a dwarf in artifact HFS plate to be swarmed and eventually slaughtered, if you don't manage to defeat the attackers first. This "damage" could be very temporary, only requiring the dwarf wearing it to either hang it on an armour stand, or visit a metalsmith (to reduce micromanagement), while still representing the rigors of drawn-out battles.
Other qualities of weapons would remain the same, and other types of armour could have their own set of "steps" per weapon type.
Critical hits might simply ignore any armour worn--you "found a gap".
TLDR: So to be brief, swords suck against plate, are okay against mail when thrusting, and do best against leather and unarmored opponents (or just unarmored parts).
Hammers still suck for dwarves, though, because they have better metals available.fix: use poorer metals? You dont have to use steel when you've got it.
Giving everyone copper plate doesn't seem reasonable in DF2010.If you have Funmetal, that is even lighter than wood, and can be made into hammers. I don't think it even takes that many wafers (2-3? Not much with the massive and multiple tubes we get these days).
perhapps modding in a wooden hammer or a glass hammer is a good idea? I haven't encountered any balsa wood trees, but that would make for a great hammer... for the Hammerer.
Doesn't the hammerer come with his own hammer, though?
Doesn't the hammerer come with his own hammer, though?
It can be replaced (:
I love the idea of Dwarven Justice being dispensed with a sacred nerf weapon.
We need to do this for traps...
There's nothing in the change log of the bugtracker justifying a re-run. On the other hand, the issues are maybe not seen as bugs...
What combination have you run? I ask because the combinations vary greatly in execution length. Copper hammer against anything takes forever, while steel axe against silver, iron, copper or bronze armor is over fairly quickly.
There's nothing in the change log of the bugtracker justifying a re-run. On the other hand, the issues are maybe not seen as bugs...
What combination have you run? I ask because the combinations vary greatly in execution length. Copper hammer against anything takes forever, while steel axe against silver, iron, copper or bronze armor is over fairly quickly.
It's been a while now, and Toady has definitely (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=1110) changed a few things since these tests were first run, so it might be worthwhile to run them again and see what pops out (I admit, I'm especially interested in the overall effectiveness of bronze armor and weapons, since it's more plentiful than iron in my current fort). Hammers and whips might be especially (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=2327) worth testing.
I run dwarves with steel armour and steel warhammers. They kick ass. 2 of em killed 8 goblins and a goblin-brainwashed elf with ease. One lost an ear. Hammers are great as they reliably do damage--they don't seem to lop off limbs for the same sort of visceral damage as other weapons, but they will also reliably bust someone up through their armour, which edged weapons don't tend to do as effectively (seems pretty good and logical to me).
Even leather whips would be excellent vs. armor since whips behave more like tiny supersonic hammers.
I don't think it even takes that many wafers (2-3? Not much with the massive and multiple tubes we get these days).
Hmmm....Everyone brings up bronze but why does poor little bismuth bronze get left out? :'(
It is exactly the same? I remember reading that adding the bismuth bumps it up a bit...:/
I'm sorry, but this would almost double the test cases. Maybe if I can automate it better, but currently, there is quite a lot of manual labor involved with publishing the results, and 320 test cases with 10 test rounds is simply too much work.
Also, last time I checked, platinum and aluminum were not forgeable into weapons. Sure it might be interesting for artifacts or mods, but I don't feel the amount of work is currently worth the result.
If I can't reduce the manual labor, I will at least publish the standard testreports, so that interested players can put those into their df_test folder and let the script automatically skip the recalculation of the standard cases.
So my (now) Legendary Armor-smith made me an artifact gold shield. How good is this thing?
And what belongs to what wound severity class?
BTW: I have posted the new hammer data in the OP.
Do blunt weapons benefit from quality multipliers? From what i have heard, those multipliers only really benefit the edged / pointy weapons. If so, then even if default hammers might be comparable to default axes now, maybe even better than them, they are no match for quality axes. Also would be interesting to know how armor quality influences defense against weapons of various quality.
My 3 militia dwarves in exceptional steel armor using similarly good quality steel axes have hacked their way through multiple ambushes by now without taking a scratch. They are not even near legendary in skills, so its not the untouchable legendary terminator syndrome. They have lvl6 axe, lvl4 armor user, lvl2 shield user, lvl8 fighter and lvl1 or 2 dodger. I do believe they picked dodging up during the last ambush that consisted of archers. :) none of them managed to fire more than two shots, as whenever a militia dorf reached them, the first thing to go was the hand holding the crossbow :) All the shots were either blocked, or failed to penetrate the armor.
It looks like bronze armor is uniquely good against hammers, too. It might be worth making bronze greaves and breastplates and steel chain underneath.
The new data shows that bronze armor is actually the second-worst armor against hammers. Are you reading the old data? The green value is percentage of penetration, not percentage of deflection.
And what belongs to what wound severity class?Thats needs more figuring out.
You can't make silver armor.Not normally no, pretty sure they're doing arena testing where you can make any material into armor/weapons.
You can't make silver armor.
In my less formal tests, there appeared to be differences in the materials for blunt weapons but no clear hierarchy. Density becomes more important as armor increases, toughness against lightly armoured or naked opponents. So a steel mace would be a general purpose weapon, a silver warhammer would be a dedicated can opener.
I've posted axe data. They, too, have been nerfed. So much, actually, that only steel and adamantine are worth anything in combat against armored targets. Seems like you should stick with hammers and spears in v.12.
I've posted axe data. They, too, have been nerfed. So much, actually, that only steel and adamantine are worth anything in combat against armored targets. Seems like you should stick with hammers and spears in v.12.
Why spears? Swords seem to inflict more heavy wounds than spears when using the better materials, especially adamantine.
Also, testing picks could be interesting. In my own tests, none of the weapons available in fortress mode took down bronze collossi as fast as picks.
Very interesting research data; provides some real, factual basis to discussion on combat mechanics and how to gear our dwarves out.
I'm really, really disappointed in bronze. There's a huge gap between iron and steel that bronze should fill, but simply doesn't. Toady should get on that.
Maces definitely seem worse than hammers straight out. I don't see what benefit a mace would have over a hammer in this data.
With regards to hammer materials, they're all pretty equal, but I'd give a slight edge to steel. Steel seems to have a slightly higher rate of red wounds across the board. All materials of hammers are equally ridiculous against all armor, however. It doesn't matter what you're wearing; if you're facing a hammer, you're in deep shit unless you have good shield skill. This really shouldn't be.
It might also interesting to analyse, how long it takes till the enemy is rendered harmlessThe length (in lines) of any single battle log might be a good indication.
(i.e. not able to put up any effective fight anymore, be it because he lost his arms and cannot wield any weapons,
or maybe because due to critical hits he constantly passes out [and/or tries to flee instead of fighting, due to the wounds sustained])
I can understand and appreciate the historical accuracy of it, yeah. I'm just miffed at how poor it is for actual gameplay. With how precious iron is on most maps I can't stand to use it for anything other than steel production and in the event that a new player embarks on a map with no iron at all (which is much more likely than you would expect) that player is completely screwed under this system. This could be solved by adding small iron deposits (limonite, perhaps) to select metamorphic and igneous intrusive stone layers; I am against all of them having it, but it needs to be more common than it currently is. Perhaps give it to some of the more boring stones like phyllite, diorite, slate and quartzite, all of which have no notable unique properties as layers at the moment.Very interesting research data; provides some real, factual basis to discussion on combat mechanics and how to gear our dwarves out.
I'm really, really disappointed in bronze. There's a huge gap between iron and steel that bronze should fill, but simply doesn't. Toady should get on that.
I think Toady set the current values (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=1110) based on some extensive research people did re: historical accuracy (see this post (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=55348.msg1199260#msg1199260)). For gameplay value it might be nice if bronze were slightly better than iron, but in historical terms, it looks like iron weapons really were better.
It might be possible to look at the values Dwarfoloid researched and choose a more "optimally balanced" set, with a slightly stronger bronze and a slightly weaker iron, but I lack the expertise to do that.
It seems like picking iron/ bronze values is essentially picking the technological era of the game. Since there's plate mail and so forth, a later middle ages setting makes sense, which would mean better iron and worse bronze. But, then again, dwarves are magical, and dwarves being the only steelcrafters shows they've got a higher level of technology than the other races. So, complex problem.
Additionally, bronze should be better when compared to copper than it currently is. It is not historically accurate to have bronze and copper be nearly identical in quality. These tests indicate that in armor bronze has a slight advantage over copper, but in weapons it frequently performs more poorly. You can't sell that as historically accurate; something is amiss here. It could definitely use to be adjusted upwards to give it a more solid position between copper and iron.
Am I reading that right? Do silver hammers actually get 80 percent hits and do mostly moderate damage against adamantine armor?
Am I reading that right? Do silver hammers actually get 80 percent hits and do mostly moderate damage against adamantine armor?
does speed play into it? ie, can they attack more frequently than the larger weapons? If so, then a swarm of steel shortswords in skilled handsThe wiki says yes.wouldcould get more hits in the same amount of time than a steel battle axe. This would make a larger difference against more heavily armored enemies where shots can be deflected.
As for armor, look back at Romes Legions.Ever wonder why they moved from bronze armor to iron?
Am I reading that right? Do silver hammers actually get 80 percent hits and do mostly moderate damage against adamantine armor?
Not necessarily.
I did a few short tests in .13 with two adamantium-clad dwarves wielding steel warhammers in the arena. (Adamantium values of 5,000,000 in the raw were all modded down to 4,000,000 because I heard that the five million ones make it unmineable. This makes the tested adamantine weaker than the unmodded one)
The difference between the fighters was that one was a grandmaster armour user, while the other was unskilled in armour use. For the grandmaster, his adamantine armour reliably deflected the steel warhammers, while for the dabbler, every hit bruised something. Thus, armour use is much more important than I thought. Also, all kills on the grandmasters were headshots. I assume they hit the area left unprotected by the helmet. Since I cannot make adamantine hoods in the arena, I cannot test that theory.
seems like everything just influences, but is not the end all.
It seems to be not quite balanced yet. A bronze-clad platinum-hammer wielder wins almost every time against steel armored dwarves, no matter what weapons they have (except slade hammers, which are even better, of course). Every blow seems to break bone, even through the armor.Why is this bad?
A platinum hammer would have considerably more force behind it than a steel hammer, assuming one was strong enough to swing it. Bronze is arguably a much better metal for armor than iron and is probably as good as steel, or so close as to make little difference. The platinum hammer, being far denser than steel, is going to shatter armor and bones quite easily.
Seems to be alright to me.
| Metal, | Shear strength, | Compression strength, | Density |
| Platinum | 61 GPa | 230 GPa | 21.5 g·cm−3 |
| Bronze | 44.8 GPa | 112 GPa | 8.96 g·cm−3 |
| Cast steel | 78 GPa | 139 GPa | 7.8 g·cm−3 |
So the ideal warhammer would have a steel shaft and a platinum cylinder with the diameter of a nickel encased by steel (to make it lighter compared to full platinum) as a head?
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The ===== would be the platinum cylinder (not to scale, just to give the idea where it would be located). My idea was to keep the platinum part as small as possible. The steel around the platinum cylinder would only be for additional weight, if the platinum cylinder alone was not heavy enough.
What i meant was something like this:Code: [Select]_________The ===== would be the platinum cylinder (not to scale, just to give the idea where it would be located). My idea was to keep the platinum part as small as possible. The steel around the platinum cylinder would only be for additional weight, if the platinum cylinder alone was not heavy enough.
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Metal, Shear strength, Compression strength, Density Platinum 61 GPa 230 GPa 21.5 g·cm−3 Bronze 44.8 GPa 112 GPa 8.96 g·cm−3 Cast steel 78 GPa 139 GPa 7.8 g·cm−3
Reference for shear strength. (http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/modulus-rigidity-d_946.html)
Reference for compression strength. (http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/bulk-modulus-metals-d_1351.html)
Hmm... Qoon, it's been suggested, but it's just not doable right now. Making items out of several metals would partially solve this, but It could be incredibly complex to make even a single item if you have to specify everything about it. Everything can be solved with menus, though :D
You misunderstand the term Dwarfy. Anything which makes good, sound sense cannot be Dwarfy.
Pumping magma up 50 levels in a nice safe pump stack? NOT dwarfy.
Dropping a massive chunk of 50z tall stone so magma splashes up into your channels? DWARFY
Only when spikes are the most obtuse way to perform an action.You misunderstand the term Dwarfy. Anything which makes good, sound sense cannot be Dwarfy.
Pumping magma up 50 levels in a nice safe pump stack? NOT dwarfy.
Dropping a massive chunk of 50z tall stone so magma splashes up into your channels? DWARFY
My apologies then, I was under the impression that an exception to this was spikes which were always and in every possible conditions of things, dwarfy.
Does anyone have any thoughts as to what materials do better for Crossbow bolts? Also, is there any benefit to using leather armor?
Hmm... Qoon, it's been suggested, but it's just not doable right now. Making items out of several metals would partially solve this, but It could be incredibly complex to make even a single item if you have to specify everything about it. Everything can be solved with menus, though :D
Yeah, I'm not suggesting that you be required to specify that the thing be /filled/ with the lead? But since weapons breaking isn't part of combat - just getting the weight of the lead bar to figure into the weight of the final weapon should do the trick. If lead is the only material you use for this, for example, the recipe isn't THAT hard: Filled Mace = Lead Bar + Coke Bar + Requested Metal?
Hmm... Qoon, it's been suggested, but it's just not doable right now. Making items out of several metals would partially solve this, but It could be incredibly complex to make even a single item if you have to specify everything about it. Everything can be solved with menus, though :D
Yeah, I'm not suggesting that you be required to specify that the thing be /filled/ with the lead? But since weapons breaking isn't part of combat - just getting the weight of the lead bar to figure into the weight of the final weapon should do the trick. If lead is the only material you use for this, for example, the recipe isn't THAT hard: Filled Mace = Lead Bar + Coke Bar + Requested Metal?
Something like this can be done. But it requires a workaround.
Create a custom reaction: 1xLead + 1xAdamantine -> 1xUtopium and give Utopium all the material properties of Adamantine except for the weight which is that of lead. And you have a reasonably good approximation of a lead-filled adamantine shell.
@XenosAdamantine is not indestructable, or entirely inflexible. It is just VERY resistant to being changed.
Well, ordinarily yes. But due to the rather special properties of adamantine, namely indestructability, complete inflexibility, negligible weight, and extreme rarity I consider the standard way of construction things out of adamantine to be wrapping it around a frame and then applying "dwarven magic" to harden it. Which would give these properties if instead of a ordinary frame you used a solid lead weight.
@XenosOh i missed the zero strain bit. ;) hahaha (I am an engineer at college atm, but not as far along as you :P)
Actually, seeing as Adamantine has a yield strength in any direction of 5,000,000,000Pa, and has zero strain at its yield point, it in fact never deforms, it would simply shatter or crack as soon as more than 5GPa of pressure is applied. So it is entirely inflexible, but not indestructible.
So basically, covering a lead war hammer with adamantine would retain the properties of adamantine on the outside, with the weight of lead. What would be the deciding factor is the thickness of the adamantine. 8)
I don't often get a chance to apply my degree to DF, thanks! (I study Materials Science at university)
The carbon nanotubes that are theoretically possible to make a space elevator out of arent as strong as adamantine... so I think I know what the first thing I am making is as soon as moving machinery comes out.
adamantine is 5,000,000, so I guessed it was 5,000MPa or 5GPa.
Though bronze is generally harder than wrought iron, with Vickers hardness of 60–258 vs. 30–80, the Bronze Age gave way to the Iron Age; this happened because iron was easier to find
Sword - High Master x Dabbling/10
1/0/0/79/0:13,3:13,17:13,18:13,19:13/steel short sword:1,steel mail:1,steel breast:1,steel helm:1,steel gaunt:2,steel high:2,steel greav:1,steel shield:1
2/0/0/79/0:0/steel short sword:1,steel mail:1,steel breast:1,steel helm:1,steel gaunt:2,steel high:2,steel greav:1,steel shield:1
Thanks, now is working properly. But where is the data stored? In the txt file is just a copy of the gamelog.I assume the second program (the "evaluator") is used to convert the text into numerical data.
Exemple:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Isn't it converted into raw numbers?
Isn't bronze better than iron IRL? Why did 31.12 change this to be otherwise?QuoteThough bronze is generally harder than wrought iron, with Vickers hardness of 60–258 vs. 30–80, the Bronze Age gave way to the Iron Age; this happened because iron was easier to find