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[Ftor]

After reading the wiki and trying to find info here, I still dont understand few things about non weapon-grade metal artifact weapons.

One of my dwarfs produced a tin war hammer, and I have few silver and steel masterwork warhammers. Is there any sence in using it? As far as I understand, attack rolls with artifact weapons will be better, and tin is almost as dence as iron, but too soft to effectively punch through weapon-grade plate armour?

Another dwarf crafted an artifact bronze short sword, is it any good compared to masterwork steel sword? Will it fail against steel plate armor, despite being artifact quality weapon?

What about other non-weapongrade, but dence metals? Bladed weapons will not work well, but what about blunt ones?

I understand that aluminum is too light and soft for any kind of weapon, but what about crossbows, bows, blowguns?

Sorry if this topic was discussed earlier, but I failed to find anything but incomplete bits of info here and there in the sea of topics and posts. Wiki info is old and incomplete.

[Buttery_Mess]

Artifact weapons do punch above their weight and won't break, but you're right that they may not be able to take as keen an edge to penetrate certain kinds of armour. For blunt weapons, this is less of a problem. Weapons made from sub-optimal materials can actually be quite useful- a bone warhammer is one of the best, because they're like wiffle bats, and you can give it to your hammerer. Then your hammerer won't kill your citizens with it, they'll just bruise them, and it still satisfies the sensitivities to dwarven 'justice'.

Artifact armour is much better than artifact weapons, since it buffs durability and they won't break (armour can otherwise be broken). However dwarves will invariably make it out of copper or some other shit-tier metals, instead of your steel pile. They're still cool though and better kept as decoration than put on a dwarf. A well trained soldier trumps a well equipped one every time, they will usually be able to deflect everything with their shield anyway and shields don't bust even when 'hit'.

[Ftor]

Thanks for answering, but, as you can see, I understand how armour and weapons work generally, wiki gives enough info for that. Also I understand that skills are more important in actual fights compared to high quality gear.

What I want to find out is how non weapon grade  artifact blunt weapons work against steel armour compared to steel and silver masterwork counterparts. It is stated many times that platinum blunt weapons are the best due to high density of the metal, but nothing more. Is it still true in current version?
Tons of options are possible and no information whatsoever, except some formulas, I to be honest, did not understand.

Another question is about artifact bronze and iron weapons. They are one step lower compared to steel in their usual form, but, maybe, being artifact quality covers that step?

In the end the question is - are those fancy weapons good enough to be in the hands of my legendary dorfs, or they are better as mere display items in my weaponsmith guild? Role-playing aside, ofc.

[Mobbstar]

In the end the question is - are those fancy weapons good enough to be in the hands of my legendary dorfs, or they are better as mere display items in my weaponsmith guild? Role-playing aside, ofc.

You can run tests in the Object Testing Arena, and spawn combatants with specific skills and unusual weapons.  For adding artifact quality to those weapons, DFHack has to be used.  For tin hammer vs steel hammer, with armour, I had 4 vs 4 wins in the arena, which may be due to...

What I want to find out is how non weapon grade  artifact blunt weapons work against steel armour compared to steel and silver masterwork counterparts. It is stated many times that platinum blunt weapons are the best due to high density of the metal, but nothing more. Is it still true in current version?

I recall reading that the effect of material density is hampered by the loss of velocity.  If a very strong dwarf uses the platinum hammer, it is slightly better than a steel one.  However, blunt weapons are generally bad.^[1][2]

[Ftor]

Yes, I just forgot to mention arena tests in previous post.
Few problems with them - to get some representative information, you have to run quite a few tests, but finding tin warhammer, then a steel one is tedious, and i dont know any other way but to scroll through that looooooong list of weapons. As far as I know, arena does not allow to save uniforms.
Also it does not allow to despawn creatures, so I had to create a tile of magma  under unfortunate winners.
And last, but not least, arena doesn't allow to change the quality of items, so only common quality items can be tested.
I would be glad to hear that I just don't know some shortcuts and everything above is not true, but at least the graphical interface does not allow to solve those problems.
Still, after 10 tests 1 tin vs1 steel, and 3 tests 15 vs 15 I couldn't find a clear "winner". Steel warhammers won 7 out of 10, but in group battles tin warhammers won 3 out of 3, once with 5 "tin" dorfs staying alive.

[Ftor]

Also, thanks a lot for the links, really helpful and interesting!

[Shonai_Dweller]

Raise temperature to Dragonfire to quickly clear the arena. 

[Urist Mchateselves]

I know that I’m necroing this topic, but just for those who run into this in the future, it literally doesn’t matter what metal you use for your blunt weapon. As long as it’s non-adamantine, it’ll break bones and pierce armour just fine. They all behave the exact same and silver/platinum aren’t better than the rest. Non-metals are usually inadequate though.

[Urist Mchateselves]

Necroing again, but for edged weapons, the weapon grade materials are the only ones worth using. Everything else is ok at best, horrible at worst. If the artifact weapon isn’t steel or adamantine, put it on a pedestal and call it a day.