Bay 12 Games Forum

Cloth is the new plate armor.

I think I just figured out why this is.  Check the material_template_default raw -> thread_plant_template (near the end).  Shear_yield and shear_fracture are both set to 600,000.  These values are used in combat calculations for edged weapons, and Toady said he used tensile strength (in kPa) for them.

As comparison, metals have all these set to 520,000(yield) and 860,000(fracture) (Toady got these values from stainless steel) and wood is set to 40,000 (from pine, says the Toad).  Therefore, any plant cloth is harder to cut through than steel!  Density plays a part, but this is a very big influence (see Nimbo's research).  As teeth and claws are edged/pointed attacks for animals, these numbers affect them as well.  I would recommend changing the values something a bit higher than human skin (20,000), such as 30,000.

Silk is set to 1,150,000 and 1,200,000 (!), so I recommend toning that down as well, perhaps to 40,000 (same as wood).  I don't dispute that these are accurate tensile strengths, though I haven't looked up most of them, but their values are just not functional in the combat calculations currently in use.

EDIT: Leather has these values set to 25,000, so that may need some rebalancing as well.

But back to metal furniture, is it correct furniture costed 3 bars in pas versions?

Yes.

My understanding is that water and magma are still special cases.  This is the best reference I could find:

01/13/2009: 849. The main thing today was updating the old blood/slime/vomit/mud/snow system with a material spatter system, so that small amounts of any material can be placed in a map square (it can handle whatever state, but practically that'll mean liquids or powder coating/splatters). Moving away from the old map flags to a dynamically allocated system more like frozen liquids and constructions allowed me some more wiggle room, so it can track the precise amounts up to a point, at which an item is created. This could also allow snow/mud depth effects later on, although that might be merged with items/flows depending on how it works out. It's not a question for the next version in any case.

I remember there being a more definitive answer, but I didn't want to spend any more time searching for it.  Everything other than water and magma are materials.  They can be spatters/pools/globs/dustings, and can be tracked in water as contaminants, but cannot become a liquid level.  I think blood is also treated like an extract like milk, which is how you see barrels of it, though I don't think there is any way for you to make it yourself without customizing an animal to have blood "extracted" or "milked" from it.

The main issue now is a frequent random crash that has appeared that I'd reeeeaaaaally like to have cleaned up -- we caught one of them just now that happened when an old mayor needed to have mandates cancelled after losing an election. There still one that happens in younger forts though. Testers are on their seventeenth version overall, and I imagine it'll be that way for the rest of you as well once I get it sorted out, bandwidth permitting.

Ooooh, does this sound like one more crash fix and we can all get our grubby paws on it to anyone else?  Figures, right when I have to start crew training for census work...

I'd like to see hauling baskets for DF. Think about this, a dwarf can haul 5 items instead of one with a hauling basket.

This is currently #1 on the suggestions voting, so it will be worked on soon after the next release.

I think there is only one effective way to decide whether you should keep your women beardless or not: mod both in as separate castes, then make them fight to the death.  Whoever survives proves themselves worthy.

Found the old one! http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/imgs/arena16.png

Still, blood explosion sounds like something to read about.