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[khearn]

But bismuth bronze can't be made directly from ore, so it requires a lot more time and fuel to make.

   Keith

[Quartz_Mace]

But bismuth bronze can't be made directly from ore, so it requires a lot more time and fuel to make.

   Keith

Exactly. If bronze were your final goal, bismuth bronze would be very useful to conserve tin, but in this scenario, it's only used as a temporary solution for a lack of military metal, so it will be replaced with much better gear. If you used bismuth bronze from the start, it would result in the loss of much-needed fuel because you are unlikely to have a magma smelter or forge.

[Mimodo]

Melting operations are well underway. They actually have been for a while, as every time my weapon smith turns out a low quality war hammer (as he did often as a beginner), I melted it down.

Turns out hammer dwarves with nothing but a shield and a little training aren't TOO useless. 9 of them killed 5 human cross bowmen with only one loss.

I did this to myself though. Couldn't quite make it as hard as I wanted (I've got scarce trees, not none), I'm just trying to find a way to improve my chances of survival.

For steel bars, even with a magma smelter I need refined coal (of any sort), right?

As for "training your armorsmith" that should really be a low priority. 

This is more correct than perhaps widely realized.  The impact of armor quality on performance is quite minimal, at least for protection from projectiles.

I'm assuming this ISNT the same for weapons? Either way, I might stop finding ways to train, and just up the melting industry instead.

[khearn]

For steel bars, even with a magma smelter I need refined coal (of any sort), right?

Yup. Steel and pig iron need coal for carbon. They don't need any for fuel if you have a magma smelter. So they need about half as much.

    Keith

[Quartz_Mace]

Melting operations are well underway. They actually have been for a while, as every time my weapon smith turns out a low quality war hammer (as he did often as a beginner), I melted it down.

Turns out hammer dwarves with nothing but a shield and a little training aren't TOO useless. 9 of them killed 5 human cross bowmen with only one loss.

I did this to myself though. Couldn't quite make it as hard as I wanted (I've got scarce trees, not none), I'm just trying to find a way to improve my chances of survival.

For steel bars, even with a magma smelter I need refined coal (of any sort), right?

As for "training your armorsmith" that should really be a low priority. 

This is more correct than perhaps widely realized.  The impact of armor quality on performance is quite minimal, at least for protection from projectiles.

I'm assuming this ISNT the same for weapons? Either way, I might stop finding ways to train, and just up the melting industry instead.

Yes, you will need coal or coke to make steel, even with a magma smelter. If there are no trees on the surface, and you are desperate, ready your militia, breach the caverns, send out woodcutters and haul the underground trees' wood inside your fort while under guarded protection from said militia, and seal it off. Then, make charcoal with your new wood.

[Pirate Bob]

This is more correct than perhaps widely realized.  The impact of armor quality on performance is quite minimal, at least for protection from projectiles.

I'm assuming this ISNT the same for weapons? Either way, I might stop finding ways to train, and just up the melting industry instead.

I believe that weapon quality influences chance to hit (although I am not 100% sure of this - the wiki claims that masterwork items get a x2 modifier for weapon to hit and armor deflection, but masterwork armor only increases deflection by 6%), and hence is quite important.  It definitely does influence the sharpness of edged weapons, increasing it by a factor of 2 from zero to masterwork quality.  As you can imagine, this has a significant impact on how well they cut up critters.  So, in short, yes, I believe weapon quality is very important.  I always have my weaponsmiths train by making bolts (for which quality is not so important as it doesn't impact hit chance, also masterwork bolts make for unhappy smiths when they are lost) and/or trap components, and then move them up to actual weapons.

If I can get DFHack working on my computer (I run 64-bit linux, so its nontrivial) I will see if I can run some tests of melee combat with different weapon quality, but I can't promise this will happen any time soon.

[Blue_Dwarf]

The (ch)easiest training would be to make gauntlets, since they get double exp that way.

Combine that with weaponsmith training, making large serrated disks. The disks smelt into 150% of the bars, so you'll have plenty of bars for those gauntlets.

Sell the useless masterwork gauntlets and disks, to avoid tantrums. Or melt them slowly over time, you get less penalties when they make more of the masterwork items.

[Girlinhat]

Sell the useless masterwork gauntlets and disks, to avoid tantrums. Or melt them slowly over time, you get less penalties when they make more of the masterwork items.

Specifically, a destroyed masterwork produces something like 1/x * 500 unhappy, where x is the number of masterworks produced.  In this way, if you produce 500 masterworks, then melting one will have a 1/500th effect of destruction, and leave the creator fine.

If you produce ~10 masterworks and sell them, then from then on any melted are pretty negligible.  Like, if you sell 10, and melt one, then you've got a max 1/11th unhappy effect, which is totally manageable.

[Bumber]

Sell the useless masterwork gauntlets and disks, to avoid tantrums. Or melt them slowly over time, you get less penalties when they make more of the masterwork items.

Specifically, a destroyed masterwork produces something like 1/x * 500 unhappy, where x is the number of masterworks produced.  In this way, if you produce 500 masterworks, then melting one will have a 1/500th effect of destruction, and leave the creator fine.

If you produce ~10 masterworks and sell them, then from then on any melted are pretty negligible.  Like, if you sell 10, and melt one, then you've got a max 1/11th unhappy effect, which is totally manageable.

40d:Item Quality page on the wiki says 1000/x. The information's gone missing on subsequent version pages.

[shlorf]

Sell the useless masterwork gauntlets and disks, to avoid tantrums. Or melt them slowly over time, you get less penalties when they make more of the masterwork items.

Specifically, a destroyed masterwork produces something like 1/x * 500 unhappy, where x is the number of masterworks produced.  In this way, if you produce 500 masterworks, then melting one will have a 1/500th effect of destruction, and leave the creator fine.

If you produce ~10 masterworks and sell them, then from then on any melted are pretty negligible.  Like, if you sell 10, and melt one, then you've got a max 1/11th unhappy effect, which is totally manageable.

Good to know! That explains a funny incident in my current fort, when a new migrant bowyer made one masterwork bone crossbow, which was stolen by a kea, and then he went straight into melancholy.