Bay 12 Games Forum

Will the game let you build magma forges, smelters, etc now (it won't let you build them until magma is discovered)?

Some of the goblins got injured heads, but no one I saw (dwarf or goblin) got any face injuries. 90% of the injuries were smashed fingers and smashed foots. The fighting went on for quite a while and there was blood everywhere, and for some reason some of the dwarfs and goblins lost their right or left lower backs? I would be looking around and there would be someone's left lower back lying on the ground. I don't know how that happened. The battle axes shouldn't have been able to pierce addy armor.

The problem you are having is that the AI will always choose an attack with a good chance of hitting.  Since it is always very difficult to hit the (small) facial features, it never targets them.  If you want to do this test, you will need to assume control of a creature in the arena and manually attack the facial features.

However, I can tell you with 100% certainty that masks DO NOT cover the facial features.  Their raws are identical to helms, except they give only 50% coverage (meaning they will provide protection against 50% of attacks, regardless of location on the head) and have the [STRUCTURAL_ELASTICITY_WOVEN_THREAD] tag, meaning they are nearly useless as armor, even if made from metal.

The thing that makes cloaks cover the face is the [UBSTEP:MAX] tag.  Theoretically, you should be able to adjust the [UBSTEP] and [LBSTEP] tags of headwear to make something which covers the face, but due to a bug the [LBSTEP] and [UBSTEP] tags do not behave in a logical way.  I'm pretty sure Urist da Vinci posted a complete explanation of how armor coverage works at some point, but I can't find it.

TL:DR - I am pretty sure the only way to protect facial features is to have body armor with [UBSTEP:MAX].  However I am uncertain what happens if you add [LBSTEP] and [UBSTEP] tags to helms, so you could test this.

As has been stated above, you want all the non-mail armor you can get (helm, breastplate, greaves, gauntlets and boots).  Mail armor just converts edged damage to blunt, so your dwarves will still (usually) be injured, but not as badly. 

A mail shirt is worthwhile, but there should be no added benefit to having 3 of them, as once the damage is converted to blunt (which one mail shirt does 100% of the time if it is made of material greater than or equal to the weapon, where addy>steel>iron=bronze>copper>silver), there is no further benefit.  1 Mail shirt would even convert crossbow bolts in 34.11 to blunt, even though they easily penetrated addy plate, so there is no case where you would need more than 1.

A cloak is also a good idea, but I'm not sure about stacking those.  Based on Urist da Vinci's code diving, we know that once a layer is penetrated it only reduces damage by 10% of the damage required to penetrate it.  In other words, 2 cloaks should protect from 1.1 times the damage of 1 cloak, and 5 cloaks 1.4 times damage.  However there may also be some effects due to penetration depth of bite/claw or similar attacks, so I can't say for sure there is no benefit.  Also, cloaks don't weigh very much, so there's not a lot of down side to wearing several.  However, layered cloaks are definitely far less effective than you might think based on real-world physics, and will be useless against actual weapons (i.e. swords, arrows, etc).

Based on arena testing, a full suit of iron/steel (both have about the same weight) armor (meaning breastplate, helm, 1x mail shirt, greaves, gauntlets, and low boots) doesn't slow down a dwarf at all, even with no armor skill and when also carrying an iron axe and a wood shield.  It is quite trivial to create a dwarf in the arena and give him the skills and equipment you want to use and check that he still moves at speed 1.0 when you assume control of him.  However, there is some speed reduction (to 0.859 for copper) if you use the same armor made from bronze or copper (as both are heavier).  Also, your actual dwarves will have a backpack and a waterskin (not available in the arena), but I don't think those are too heavy, and your actual dwarves will have at least some armor user skill which will make armor effectively lighter (as well as increasing damage resistance moderately). 

Most weapons also don't weigh a whole lot (the heaviest dwarven weapons are axes, which weight 6U when made of iron, compared to 22U for greaves).  However, bolts are extremely, unrealisitically heavy, weighing about 1U EACH, so a quiver of 25 bolts weights 25U, and even more if made from copper/bronze/silver.  Therefore it may not be a good idea to outfit your marksdwarves with full plate armor unless they have some armor training, or you don't care if they move a bit slower.  A dwarf in full iron plate mail (as above) with a wood crossbow and 25 copper bolts (weight 33U) moves at 0.669.

As stated above, leather or wood are the best choices for shields as they are just as effective as metal and are lighter.  Do be aware that your dwarves will prefer metal shields (as they have higher value) so you will need to specify that they use wood/leather.

Also, at least in my game high boots don't seem to be creatable in dwarf mode, and are marked as foreign, so you may have to go with low boots (they are inferior, and only cover the feet instead of the feet and lower legs, and have the same weight, however this doesn't matter much if you also have greaves).

Again, test your setup in the arena to see how much it will slow your dwarves.  It should take no more than 10 minutes to do.  Also, you can easily view items in the arena to determine their weight.

One final note - the amount a dwarf can carry is based on their size and strength, which vary somewhat, in both your fortress dwarves and the arena.  However, even a small amount of military training will increase strength and size to above average, so you shouldn't have to worry about this (except possibly in marksdwarves).

[FLIER] + [CREATURE:DRAGON]

Indeed.  Clearly dragons were meant to fly, as they have wings.

I've never had any problems in Dwarf Mode, aside from pissing them off by trying to sell them a wooden table.

I believe their diplomats issuing crazy restrictions on how many trees you can cut down was removed a while back.  It may have been put back in at a more reasonable level recently? 

There is a long and proud history of defying the woodcutting mandates given by the elves and then slaughtering them when they get mad and attack.  Or just killing them for fun.  Or whatever.  Killing them.  I must admit I've never done it myself, but I can remember getting annoying complaints from them in 40d, and possibly DF2010 (not sure).

When I want to have fun, I play as a dragon.  Stats and skills really don't matter in that case.

When I actually want to play I usually do the human swordman thing that seems to be popular (probably because swords and human armor are easy to find).

...
Mark all of the enemies you let live. For example, cut off the left ear of every enemy you knock out so that they walk branded to spread your legend. You could also cut off something larger and more crippling, but any universal permanent mark will do.

Geld a Demon.

So, it seems to me there is an obvious choice for how to mark your enemies that you let live.  Even more so because it's rather hard to do, and most of said enemies will die in the attempt...

Some reports say that gelding is possible with blunt attacks, so you might be able to get a decent survival rate by punching/kicking the appropriate area.

Yes, I realize this rules out a decent fraction of enemies lacking the appropriate tags in the raws, but you could let the women go with just a beating, or kill them, depending on just how evil you are.