Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Albedo]

Long time player, back after a break of a few versions, with one of several questions before striking the earth yet again...

Last version I played, you put your dwarves in leather armor and then added a metal breastplate over that. Similarly a metal cap w/ helmet on top of that, etc.  Now* it seems that leather is not longer the go-to, but you can add a mail shirt (or 3?) under the plate?

(* http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Armor#Size.2C_Permit.2C_and_layering_armor)

I don't want to micromanage for absoloute optimization (as one might in Adventurer mode), so what is the "standard" of good fortress armor now?

[anewaname]

Leather armor is still useful, but it competes with the breastplate for the "shaped armor" slot on the upper torso, so usually it replaces the breastplate on second-line dwarfs. The mailshirt might be the most important piece of torso armor because it helps protect the neck.

I've haven't fooled with multiple mailshirts for years because just one steel mailshirt weighs 20 and the dwarf with highboots/helm/greaves/gauntlets/mailshirt/breastplate/shield/axe, is already carrying a lot of weight. But I try to give every dwarf a mailshirt if possible because it may protect a lost hauler long enough for a squad to rescue him.

[Rusty Shackleford]

I found that the average dwarf peasant with no skill in Armor User can wear the following uniform without being slowed down and still have some margin of error for item hauling and whatnot.

Metal helm, chain shirt, Leather Armor, metal Gauntlets, chain leggings and metal low/high boots. Also a wooden shield and copper warhammer. If you have metal high boots, you can skimp out on chain leggings and substitute leather leggings, since the legs will be covered by the chainshirt and boots. Either way works and everything is still covered that way. Once you start getting into greaves, breastplates, multiple chain shirts, metal shields, they start to get slowed down without training.

With the current version, attackers (at least intelligent ones like goblin soldiers) will specifically target any body part not covered with armor 9 times outta ten. If every body part is armored, they'll aim for the lowest quality part of the armor or the thinnest. So they like to go after feet, the head and hands, and not so much like legs that have overlapping chain shirts and leggings. Also 'twisting' damage is currently overpowered and bugged, so even if the armor stops an attack, the force will transfer and can injure anyways.

Also I found leather and silk protect better than cloth. Cloaks also help protect the neck and other odd parts like the mouth. So clothing choices can help protect your dwarves too. Another thing is that Armor User helps determine the effectiveness of armor when deflecting attacks, so your armored and untrained haulers don't benefit from armor as much as a trained soldier. That doesn't change anything, but it's something to keep in mind.

[Schmaven]

I try to give every dwarf a mailshirt if possible because it may protect a lost hauler long enough for a squad to rescue him.

How do you get non-military dwarves to don(dohn?)sp?  mail shirts?

[Vilkku92]

I try to give every dwarf a mailshirt if possible because it may protect a lost hauler long enough for a squad to rescue him.

How do you get non-military dwarves to don(dohn?)sp?  mail shirts?

Recruit them into squads whose uniforms include mail shirts, but have those squads be inactive.

[Fearless Son]

The biggest thing to remember is that each body part can only have one rigid piece of armor (or "shaped" as the wiki calls it) on at a time, but can have larger amounts of flexible armor.  Armor is also put on in layers, and each body part has only so much total that can be worn on it at a time, so trying to overload on armor is probably a bad idea. 

So for example, you cannot have both leather armor and a metal breastplate on at the same time.  The leather armor is considered a shaped piece (oil-boiled leather gets rigid.)  However, you could have leather clothing (which is flexible,) a metal chain shirt (which is also flexible,) a metal breastplate (which is shaped,) and a leather cloak (which is flexible.)  Since each of these things occupies a different layer and only one of them is shaped, they should all fit comfortably. 

As others have mentioned, heavier armor slows down an untrained user more now that it used to, opponents will go for unarmored body parts first, and higher armor user skill makes a wearer more likely to safely "take it on the armor" when hit, so having good training with it is pretty essential for a professional military.