Hello,
So, it has come to my attention that at some point in the past few updates, the combat system in DF has rather invisibly and seamlessly changed completely. Or at least the manner in which combat deals with armor, which amounts to the same most of the time. There was a time, not -too- long ago that one could deck their dwarves head to toe in plate, walk them into a room for of dozens of wooden training spears that would repeatedly fire out of the floor at them at high velocity, and be almost assured that they would never take any damage at all. This was of course silly, but it did illustrate something about the nature of how combat handled armor. If an area was fully covered, and an attack hit that area using a weak material without much of an edge, then the attack would deflect off, and that deflection could cause no damage. Cutting and piercing attack could only meaningfully damage an armor user if they overcame the armor, piecing or cutting through the protection.
This is very clearly no longer the case. If you turn your recruit into a little metal tortoise, decked out in full steel covering every inch of them, stick them in a room with 10 spears and pull the trigger, you will invariably suddenly see a spray of blood, get a scary looking combat report, and their wound screen will suddenly show several areas in the red. Upon closer inspection, one sees that all the attacks are deflected, but they are still wrenching joints and jamming bones into things. And the wound areas tend to be wrists, elbows, ankles and knees, although you will have an occasional unlucky dwarf that's spine is twisted or has a rib jammed through their heart, causing more than the normal degree of discomfort(though only very briefly).
In my mind, this change is good. Danger rooms were silly, and the new system is certainly more realistic(though it along with the new bite mechanics ends up making certain large enemies far more frightening for even a well-established fortress than they were). But I now find myself curious how this affects armor layering.
Tbh, I am uncertain exactly how armor layering handled deflections before. I only know that wearing chain beneath your plate and a cloak(or 6) on top was generally useful at reducing the odds of being skewered in most cases. More attacks deflected meant more attacks did no appreciable damage. But now there's this case where attacks that are deflected still do damage, and I find myself curious if the extra layers impact this at all. It feels like they -should-, as being smacked by a hammer if you are wearing padding under or over plate should be a more softened blow than if you just wore the metal directly against your skin(plus, it probably chafes less). But as I am uncertain how combat really works('it's complicated' seems to be an understatement) under the hood, I don't really know, and most of the existing analysis I can dig up is from older versions.
So, in summary, I am curious if anyone knows whether layering armor is even worth it any more. Whether it meaningfully adds any protection at all, particularly in the now all-too-frequent occurrence that your steel/candy armor deflects the hit but your arm is still wrenched free of it's socket. And for that matter, if it does help, how much does it help by, since marginal benefit is probably not worth it considering the disadvantage of being weighed down.
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Topic: New(ish) damage system and layering armor (Read 1405 times)