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[DrCyano]

Hi everyone!

I’ve been wondering: what is the combined material cost of providing a dwarf with full armor coverage, plus a shield and a weapon (war hammer, short sword, or spear). I tried looking through the wiki but it wasn’t clear to me what the most economical combination of armor was, or how much various weapons cost to make.

[delphonso]

I've found the Melting page to be most useful:
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Melt_item

Weapons all cost one bar, and people debate over what is the 'best' armor set up.

The easiest is to just take the Metal Armor uniform as an example:
Any melee weapon is 1 bar plus shield is another
Breastplate is 3
Greaves are 2
Helm, gauntlets, boots are one each (one bar for two boots/gauntlets)

So a whole set is 10 bars.
12 if you add a chain shirt underneath, and 13 if you add leggings too.

[anewaname]

The mail shirt is always worth adding (see the wiki's armor page, to see the greater coverage), so I spend the 12 bars. The wiki's armor page shows how costs are calculated, you divide size by 3 and round up.

[doublestrafe]

12 if you add a chain shirt underneath, and 13 if you add leggings too.

Leggings and greaves are mutually exclusive, so you're back to 12.

[delphonso]

12 if you add a chain shirt underneath, and 13 if you add leggings too.

Leggings and greaves are mutually exclusive, so you're back to 12.

Good catch, thanks!

[HMD Majesty]

We find the cost in Metal Bars depends, at least in part, on what one is willing to buy from Caravans, what captured Equipment one is able to use, and how much one cares about whether the Dwarfs are wearing enemy Insignia. 

For Our part, We have often found it easier to loot Equipment then make or buy it, so We've decided We don't really care if Our Dwarfs are all bearing the Symbols of the nearest Goblin Empire.

[Alastar]

The most important part is having full metal coverage, which you can get with 5 bars, 1 more for a metal weapon: Helm (1), boots (2x1/2), gauntlets (2*1/2), mail shirt (2).
Metal shields may be worth an additional bar - wooden ones protect just as well, but they break easily if dwarves attack with them.

Greaves (2) and breastplates (3) take a fair bit of metal and are quite heavy - those two items weigh more than the full-coverage uniform above.
However, they have the advantage of stopping hits entirely; flexible armour like mail shirts and leggings just convert edged hits to blunt.
Leggings (1) are mutually exlusive with greaves, and add little if you have a mail shirt and high boots.
I usually arm auxiliaries before I get additional armour layers for my career soldiers.

[delphonso]

Interesting, Alastar. I'm actually thinking about making a more combat focused fort, and might just give this a whirl. Roughly half the resources to give each unit some survivability works well when you've got a lot of units.

[GiglameshDespair]

How much effect would leather armour add if worn over the mail instead of spending metal on a breastplate? I know it isn't as good as metal, obviously, but how much would it assist over bare mail?

[delphonso]

Generally, leather is only useful against natural attacks like small animal scratches. Even a tiger can shred it, let alone a weapon made of metal (or even bone bolts). It might offer additional protection if you're facing blunt attacks, though. Worth testing, but by the time you have the leather for that sort of thing, you could probably have enough copper for breastplates.

[DrCyano]

The most important part is having full metal coverage, which you can get with 5 bars, 1 more for a metal weapon: Helm (1), boots (2x1/2), gauntlets (2*1/2), mail shirt (2).
Metal shields may be worth an additional bar - wooden ones protect just as well, but they break easily if dwarves attack with them.

Greaves (2) and breastplates (3) take a fair bit of metal and are quite heavy - those two items weigh more than the full-coverage uniform above.
However, they have the advantage of stopping hits entirely; flexible armour like mail shirts and leggings just convert edged hits to blunt.
Leggings (1) are mutually exlusive with greaves, and add little if you have a mail shirt and high boots.
I usually arm auxiliaries before I get additional armour layers for my career soldiers.

Thanks for the analysis! My current fortress has no metal at all and the neighboring gobbo civ sends demons with small numbers of goboos instead of large numbers of gobbos, so I really need to be thrifty with my metal bars.

[Hyperlynx]

The most important part is having full metal coverage, which you can get with 5 bars, 1 more for a metal weapon: Helm (1), boots (2x1/2), gauntlets (2*1/2), mail shirt (2).
Metal shields may be worth an additional bar - wooden ones protect just as well, but they break easily if dwarves attack with them.

Greaves (2) and breastplates (3) take a fair bit of metal and are quite heavy - those two items weigh more than the full-coverage uniform above.
However, they have the advantage of stopping hits entirely; flexible armour like mail shirts and leggings just convert edged hits to blunt.
Leggings (1) are mutually exlusive with greaves, and add little if you have a mail shirt and high boots.
I usually arm auxiliaries before I get additional armour layers for my career soldiers.

Thanks for the analysis! My current fortress has no metal at all and the neighboring gobbo civ sends demons with small numbers of goboos instead of large numbers of gobbos, so I really need to be thrifty with my metal bars.

I've just started in a place that I thought would have steel, but has only tetrahedrite. I've been able to trade for steel bars and items with caravans, though, which at least let me issue steel short swords.

In the recent goblin siege, it turned out that none of my (copper clad) soldiers actually got hit. Their dodging was apparently good enough. So it worked out that the silver warhammers and steel swords were of good quality metal, and it didn't matter so much that the armour was only copper.

[delphonso]

Hyperlynx, yeah it's all contextual. If you're up against elves and you have piercing or bladed weapons, you can usually slice them up and their animals before they ever get a hit on you. Against simple undead, copper is often enough to take the punches, kicks and scratches, but if they're armed, you need equipment to match their weapons.

And yeah, ideally shield and dodge will avoid any of the trouble before it even happens.

[WereDragon]

An additional thing to note is that if a unit isn’t very well trained in armor user, more armor slows them down to the point where they’re less effective as soldiers. A fully equipped dwarf in steel armor can actually lose to a similarly equipped but unarmored dwarf. Armor slows you down a LOT more than you’d expect. Having a lighter armor set helps.

[Alastar]

Regarding leather above metal: It doesn't do much, but every layer that fails completely lowers momentum a little. I like bone greaves and leather armour on top just because they're light and maintenance-free. If you want to go beyond that, priority seems to be cloaks on top before clothes under armour.
According to the wiki, multiple layers of mail may do less than that: if armour is strong enough to stop a hit but flexible, momentum is unchanged.

Leather alone is not very protective, even bone mostly makes a difference against natural attacks rather than metal weapons. Leather armour and boots is a durable option to keep your dwarves clothed, little more. Bone helm/greaves/gauntlets complete a full lightweight set to let your dwarves train armour user without slowing them down in the meantime. In actual fights, it will matter less than the break points of "has a weapon" and "has full metal coverage". If metal is scarce, a large armed militia can be very effective in the field even if it's barely armoured. A small core of fully equiped soldiers is better at holding choke points though. And then there's considerations of "for quantiy, I could just toss war animals into the fray"... lots of interesting considerations.