@Cathar:
I personally never set up/send melee dwarves into battle without armour. Sure, leather/bone armour will get armor user experience, which I do use for that, but between 7 partially-armored meleers and 2 completely covered meleers and 5 rangers (due lack of embark points) I've always chosen the latter so far. Don't need adamantium to mostly ignore copper and iron bolts, either, standard bronze gear from cassiterite/malachite embark will do. Do you set up your military differently, i.e. sending in lot of unarmored dwarves with just an axe / shield instead of lesser number of fully covered dwarves?
Agreed on relying legendary weapon skill to parry, though by the time you get a legendary mining/axing your shield users from zero are what, Proficent? Won't be there for first summer (undead) siege, in any case.
Still, as to not handwave the projectiles away...
I wonder. Will a dwarf trance if projectile users are behind Fortifications, facing just 1 goblin in melee?
*tests*
Yep. Alas. Though OTOH, it's a way to keep trances present
without snowball effect.
(Say you have two squads of 10 proficent/competent skills dwarves. Dwarf 1 trances first, and kills their opponent first, then goes and finishes off 2 more with the trance bonus before opposite squad can get a trance going. Then you have 10 dwarves versus 7 dwarves, leading to to 3 smaller squad's dwarves getting teamed up on, which can dodge-stun-lock them. Assuming other 4 fight as normal, you have end result of 8 dwarves of squad 1 winning with 2 dying, a result that looks lopsided in favour of squad 1 but actually is just a coin flip.)
Thus, I use goblins in multi-squad tests - their attributes are somewhat similar to dwarves, more than elves anyway, and they don't trance. You're testing weapon and shield versus weapon and weapon, not dwarves, after all. The snowball effect is still present, but it's not as big.
If you can block a bite, the rocs I used are fine. Mite more deadly than normal, but don't have a materially different attack profile.
LD50 is an interesting idea, but due snowball effect I would not check for LD50 of a members of a squad but 50% of squad winning or dying when using hundreds of tests. As you saw yourself, you have dwarves often either dead or fine.
It's also harder to macro setting up and counting 200 squads. Hm, lets see....You could set up squads in 98 25-tile spaces in arena, setting the macro to increment team once for each placement, and then place first member of a squad, then go back to start, reset number, place second members of a squad, etc...Using numbers 1-98 for one side, and all 99 for the other side, then just count how many squads of the 1-98 you had survive.
Ideally with a script, ugh.
Might want to edit macro so you can set it up in one go with 99 and go make tea. Hm, don't really have any squads I want to blow a hour or two on right now, though. With inability to properly set up archers in arena, I guess the only tests I should run is the ones I did on last page with proper skill setups from an actual fort, and perhaps ones with full bronze versus full bronze, to simulate embarks where starter military don't get steel weapons.
@mikekchar:
What material weapons, copper? In that case I'd expect the hammer+shield users to dominate (which I also had perform the closest to dual weapon - unlike morningstar users. Might be due preferring edged damage/pommel smash being bad, though.)
Amount of archers in goblin sieges...Hm, of the 19 military weapons goblins have, 2 are ranged: crossbow and arrows. Alternatively, 2 ranged skills out of 10 different melee skills.
And yes, crossbows use hammerdwarf skill to parry and bash with (as shown by parrying with them in danger rooms draining hammerdwarf*). In close range, a silver crossbow would mean getting through armour where cutting weapon would fail once the enemy falls unconsicious, but otherwise inferior as backup melee weapon to second steel sword (also, skill splitting).
*Hm.
That's a neat way to find how much dwarf uses secondary weapon versus primary weapon to parry, ain't it?
Hm, there's three cases here: same weapon for both, 1 edged and 1 blunt weapon, two different edged weapons (and fourth shield + weapon).
Ah fuck it, imma do all four.
Testing:
Kol Zuglarbal, starting with 3 exp in dodging and 31 in striking/fighting, as well as 1362 in Observer (for Adequate skill level). Equipped with steel high boots, mail shirt, helm, gauntlets and a llama wool cloak. 43.03, so the steel is unnecessary, but helpful for finding armor user exp and tiredness.
Testing ground: 2 squares of 3 training spears linked to a lever in a temple ( so dwarf doesn't walk away after pulling lever put keeps pulling. Not as good as minecart setup, but this is on the quick. ).
Weapon setup 1: Candlenut training axe and candlenut training sword, equipped in that order. Both superior
Result after a month:
Great Axedwarf (4%)
Great Swordsdwarf (2%)
Competent Armor user (81,9%)
Adequate Dodger (29,7%)
Conclusion: Given equal-ish skill, dwarves use both weapons equally when parrying. Call it 11,05k for the weapon skills.
Second try, with axe and no-quality crossbow:
Great Axeman (25%)
Great Hammerman (15%)
Competent Armor user (84,8%)
Adequate Dodger (40%)
Realized training weapons are blunt. Redid test with no-quality copper battle axe and crossbow:
Great Hammerman (10%)
Great Axeman (0%)
Competent Armor User (88,4%)
Adequate Dodger (32,3%)
Few % variance. Conclusion: Dwarves will parry equally with blunt and sharp weapons. Also, seems that quality has almost no effect, at least versus spears.
Third try, with axe and superior candlenut shield (old science shows this doesn't affect block chance, though):
Professional (9) Axeman (27,9%)
Great Shield User (71,9%)
Competent Armor User (45%)
Adequate Dodger (16,9%)
Conclusion: Overall obtained experience is lower? Also, dwarf obtained ~44% more exp with shield than with primary weapon.
Note that the artificial training herein doesn't raise fighter or observer, which might be important.
Fourth try: copper and training axe.
Legendary Axeman (91,5%)
Competent Armor user (31,5%)
Adequate Dodger (38,7%)
Brief interruption by giant fireflies (thx exterminate). The overall skill gained is lower than two different weapons but highe than weapon and shield. Also, lowest armor user experience gained so far - the first setup with 40% dodger had 17% more armor user experience.
Overall:
Defensive blows dodged/being hit by were about the same for all options, with best option being two of same weapon. Shield was in-beween the two and two different weapons were worst, with about 21% more hits on armour for two different weapons over two of same weapon. Curious that with shield the weapon got 70% of the experience of other cases.
These results mean that overall, the advantage of two weapons versus 1 + shield that I got on last page is at least halfway due having second weapon to attack with - either as backup or as multiattack.
Mind the non-trained fighter and only adequate observer here - those could affect things.