This was a report recently posted on the bug tracker by Knight Otu. I did a lot of testing and I thought you modders might be interested in the results, so I'm posting it here.
Here's the bug tracker link:
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=1821Knight Otu's original report:
Armor with [UBSTEP:MAX] and [LBSTEP:MAX] protects child bodyparts of parts it doesn't protect.
I've noticed this with a modded armor, but this behavior manifests with robes (and presumably dresses) as well. An armor that has the [UBSTEP:MAX] and [LBSTEP:MAX] tags protects eyes, noses, ears, facial features, fingers, and toes, but does not protect the head, hands, or feet of the armored character.
Steps To Reproduce Put a human in a rope reed robe into the arena, and add a few foxes allied with each other. Attacks should glance away from toes and the like, while denting hands and feet.
Shouldn't be necessary to add, but the armor with which I first noticed this behavior is the following:
[ITEM_ARMOR:ITEM_ARMOR_KO_Z_KNUCKLE_PLATE]
[NAME:knuckle plate:knuckle plates]
[ARMORLEVEL:3]
[UBSTEP:MAX]
[LBSTEP:MAX]
[SHAPED]
[LAYER:ARMOR]
[COVERAGE:100]
[LAYER_SIZE:40]
[LAYER_PERMIT:25]
[MATERIAL_SIZE:18]
[HARD]
[METAL]
Toady's comments on the subject: (fairly hard to understand Toady here)
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=18536.0My findings:
First of all, I verified the behavior you reported. I made an armor called cheats:
[ITEM_ARMOR:ITEM_ARMOR_CHEAT]
[NAME:cheat:cheats]
[ARMORLEVEL:3]
[UBSTEP:MAX]
[LBSTEP:MAX]
[SHAPED]
[LAYER:ARMOR]
[COVERAGE:100]
[LAYER_SIZE:20]
[LAYER_PERMIT:50]
[MATERIAL_SIZE:9]
[HARD]
[METAL]
I put a dwarf in an adamantine cheat against about 15 foxes. They nibbled off his feet, hands, and head without touching the toes, fingers or facial features. Then I tried some adamantine greaves.
[ITEM_PANTS:ITEM_PANTS_GREAVES]
[NAME:greaves:greaves]
[ARMORLEVEL:3]
[LBSTEP:MAX]
[SHAPED]
[LAYER:ARMOR]
[COVERAGE:100]
[LAYER_SIZE:15]
[LAYER_PERMIT:30]
[MATERIAL_SIZE:6]
[METAL]
[BARRED]
[HARD]
Notice greaves have [LBSTEP:MAX] but not the [UPSTEP:MAX]
The dwarf was riddled with fox bites on all his parts except for his lowerbody, upper legs, and lower legs. His feet and toes were also chewed to shreds. This makes sense by the rules. Since feet ARE a [STANCE] point, and not a [LIMB], they don't get protected at all by [LBSTEP:MAX], and neither do toes.
Then, I made some superpants:
[ITEM_PANTS:ITEM_PANTS_SUPERPANTS]
[NAME:superpants:superpants]
[ARMORLEVEL:3]
[LBSTEP:MAX]
[UBSTEP:MAX]
[SHAPED]
[LAYER:ARMOR]
[COVERAGE:100]
[LAYER_SIZE:15]
[LAYER_PERMIT:30]
[MATERIAL_SIZE:6]
[METAL]
[BARRED]
[HARD]
Notice the addition of [UBSTEP:MAX] to the pants.
Wearing only these pants, the wounds behaved just like they did wearing normal greaves. So no amount of UBSTEP allows pants to protect any part of the upperbody. This isn't mentioned in toady's explaination above. I was expecting something like this, but I was also expecting the toes to be protected as they were with the body armor. That was not the case, toes got chewed up just fine.
To be clear, the strange behavior reported by the OP _only_ happens when both MAX tags are present, and _only_ on body armor, that is to say ITEM_ARMOR.
Finally I tried adamantine Gauntlets and Boots and Helms both with and without MAX UBSTEP and LBSTEP. As reported in 0001060, gauntlets boots and helms do NOT protect toes, fingers, or facial features. Gauntlets with LBSTEP and boots with UBSTEP will protect arms and legs respectively, as expected. But neither will protect toes or fingers.
Conclusions:
-The only way to protect [STANCE], [GRASP], or [HEAD] parts (feet, hands and head) is with armor worn on them specifically.
-[LIMB]s are correctly protected by UBSTEP and LBSTEP
-The ONLY way to protect parts that are not [LIMB],[STANCE],[GRASP],[HEAD] or [UPPER/LOWERBODY] parts (such as facial features, toes, fingers, throat, vestigial wings, any cosmetic custom parts, etc)is by exploiting the bug reported by the OP. You need a robe, or a dress; a body armor with UBSTEP:MAX and LBSTEP:MAX.
-dwarves getting nibbled to death by many foxes is hilarious
