Bay 12 Games Forum

If I am underestimating it, fair enough.

Its not the nature of the materials, but the amount of them and their relative strength vs existing materials.

3 years into it, not building an alchemist shop, I have:

7 royal bronze
5 orihalcum
9 glacium
4 tempestium
4 ward iron
6 mithril

and I have not worked the caravans yet to import the high end stuff to melt yet.

On a side note, I love it when an sheathed invader in an ambush with an incindium weapon...

This is more a question about modding, and there are several mods out there for this. I am currently playing Civilization Forge.  Just stay away from the 2.2 (Alchemy) beta for now....

Incindium (metal with a fixed temp of 500f in the attempt to make flaming weapons) it burns us precious...

...the miner in the migration wave with a pick made out of this stuff burst into flames and died, causing a forest fire, into which the rest of the migrants ran into..

...it burns us precious...

... after loosing a hauler or 2 tryin to haul these ever hot bars I bought, I realize the cheeze in trade depot was melted, some food smoked.. I gav.. er.. sold them back at to the caravan...

and much fun was had.

So really Iden, we are argueing about personal choice.

The main point of that stupid simulation was to show that there is more to worry about than a weapon getting stuck.  Both sides have friends.  Many, many factors go into a successful battle.  I suppose the subject should be "The most energy efficent way to kill someone in plate armor is with a peircing weapon".

You are right, it is easier, given the same mass and area, to bend something than puncture it.

My combat experiences are such that if I was lucky enough to get a good shot in, I want it to kill every time.  The longer a fight lasts, the worse I get, regardless of the weapon I use.  That fatigue not only messes with my offense, but my defense as well , as my defense focuses on shield and footwork.  Yes, I would accept the risk of getting the weapon stuck in my opponent.  If its a one on one fight, then there are no friends to worry about.  If I am fighting in a war with my unit, my unit and I have worked out how to cover those that are attacking, and there are going to be many targets and I dont want to be swinging my weapon more than I have to (I do not do Lone Wolf stuff in wars, thats lame).  But once again, these are my views. 

That simulation is all BS.  All simulations start that way.  Was speculating on which would be more effective, hammers or the spikes.  Yes, I realize no one would fight like this, but we have to start somewhere.   

When striking with less energy than to pierce an object, the amount of area/volume that is deformed is greater than the surface area of the hammer, or when you dent metal, the concavity is larger than object striking it.  This area would cause a geometric increase based on the radius around the edge of the blunt instrument (would be roughly (Outer diameter-striking edge)^2*pi)).  How much extra material is needed to deform to make a dent deep enough to matter?  If the object is highly sloped or rounded (such as the head shot in the video) the thinest material (baring voids) is a solid shot to the flattest part.  Given 10in square gives a radius of 1.75 in... Lets be very consertive and say the extra deformation needed is roughly a .5" (total dent diameter is now 4.5", a reasonable estimate).. Total area now is 15.89insq... wait a sec.. no estimates on the energy needed were given... hrm... No volumes were as well.. hrm... Wow... the energy estimates rise rapidly with thicker armor.

The equation you gave only looked at under the hammer face itself, assumes compete structural failure.  The example you focused on time loaded stress, no on impact related which we are talking about. 

And Flesh is a great example of this.  Given a rapier and rebar of equal weight, only the rapier will kill with a 5lb thrust (been tested to penetrate skin on a pig at 4lbs, and 2" deep at 5lb with no rib, 6with (ribs didnt matter much)).  Oh you were talking about the differences in elastic deformation, plastic deformation, and ruptures.   Oops forgot the deformation which we are looking for is plastic, as elastic is non damaging (the examples).  Flesh is a horrible example for this except showing that the energy needed to deform flesh is significantly more then the energy needed to pierce it.  Really, are saying that unarmored it requires less energy to kill someone with a blunt object than a sharp one?

So, taking my imprecision aside - Can you explain why the hammer does less damage than the spike?  All joking aside, I have fought guys who looked like that specifically because they were very, very good.  They had gotten so good they didnt really try to keep in shape and most fights were over so fast it didnt matter.  He reminds me of a duke.  If the hammer were superior, the damage would have been more devistating in the video.  It does not matter that the guy is out of shape, the momentum of each were the same, so the energy would have to be as well.

Oh wow... first migrant in a wave of 23 was a miner with an incendium pick.  He lasted about 20 steps or so before bursting into flames... causing a forest fire... which killed 22 other migrants.

Saying the overweight guy was not swinging hard enough only proves my point - Its easier to kill with the spike, which is the point of this entire post. 

If it takes less energy to crush a helm than pierce it, why did it take 2 hits to crush and 1 hit to pierce (he did hit the weak spot 2 times)?  Same guy, same force.

Andeerz brought up the physics of hammering, but that has one big flaw:  Anvils.  Anvils are there so the energy cannot go anywhere but between the anvil and the hammer (the object cant move).  If the object moves, multiplying effect is negated (hammer has to be stopped quickly for all the force multiplication to be felt), and happens in all swings except downwards ones.  Think of it this way: Can you get hit by a bus going 30mph and live, yes.  Can you get hit by a bus going 30 mph that crushes into a wall, no.  The forces are the same.

But theoretically speaking, if you were to proportionally raise the amount of surface area being penetrated by the spike to be equivalent to the surface area which the hammer makes contact with, you would be looking at a great deal more energy.

Not sure what you ment by this, but the energy is not simply multiplied by having a larger contact area.  The energy is in the weapon while it is being swung.  Before contact, it does not matter if it is the spike or hammer first, the energy is the same.  Using the hammer does not give more energy.

We are not talking about 1 guy vs 30 and would the guy with the spike live vs the hammers.  We are talking about 30 guys using warhammer spikes vs 30 guys using warhammer hammers.  Lets say every kill by a spike requires 3 roudns to get the weapon out and a spike has a probable disable rate of 90%.  Lets say a hammer never gets stuck and has a 30% disable rate.  Both have a 50% hit rate.

Round 1 - Spikes hit 15, disabling 13 and 15 are stuck3, Hammers hit 15, disabling 5.
Round 2 - Spikes(5 disabled) (13 at stuck2) 6 hit, disabling 5, Hammers(13 disabled)  9 hit, disabling 3.
Round 3 - Spikes(8 disabled) (12 at stuck1) (5 at stuck2) 2 hit, disabling 1, Hammers (18 disabled) 6 hit, disabling 2.
Round 4 - Spikes(10 disabled) (11 at stuck 0) (4 at stuck1) (2 at stuck2) 2 hit, disabling 1, Hammers (19 disabled) 6 hit disabling 2.
Round 5 - Spikes(12 disabled) (3 at stuck0) (2 at stuck1) (2 at stuck2) 5 hit, disabling 4, Hammers (21 disabled) 4 hit, disabling 2.
Round 6 - Spikes(14 disabled) (2 at stuck0) (2 at stuck1) (4 at stuck2) 4 hit, disabling 3, Hammers (25 disabled) 3 hit, disabling 1.
Round 7 - Spikes(15 disabled) (2 at stuck0) (4 at stuck1) (4 at stuck2) 2 hit, disabling 2, Hammers (28 disabled) 1 hit, disabling 1.

Spikes win.  The post was what would be the most effective method to kill people in armor, not that a particular weapon could generate enough power to kill with both.

It would be awesome if we could make a fort, stop playing on that fort, then start the time and see what our changes has wrought to global history.