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[wolflance]

I just lost my second legendary axelord to a goblin arrow...The arrow cut open his throat after piercing the wolf leather cloak.

My 70+ population fortress only has a handful of military dwarfs...due to the hardship of acquiring metal to make armor (It is a surface fortress, I tried dig underground, but yet to find any usable metal/ore). So I want my chosen few warriors to be armored to the teeth.

Here is my squad 1 uniform design:

HEAD: (Leather) Cap, Metal Helm, Hood, (Sometimes) Mask
Upper Body: (Leather) Cloak, Leather Armor, Mail Shirt, Breastplate, (Sometimes) Leather Robe
Lower Body: (Leather) Trousers or Leggings, Chain Leggings, Greaves
Gloves: Gauntlet
Foot: High Boots

I am not sure how Size/Permit/Layer works so I am uncertain whether above configuration is valid or not. I have an arsenal dwarf assigned and my military dwarfs will pickup the equipments...just not the full set I assign them with. They always end up not equipping breastplate, or greaves, or wearing the equipment with less desirable material (i.e. Bronze gauntlets when a Steel one is available).

So what is the best possible armor layer/layout to cover every possible body parts with best possible protection? Also, does leather types affect the protection offered by leather armor/clothings?

Another unrelated question: My first legendary dwarf...also my Captain of the Guard, has a spear lodged into her chest while fighting some goblins. She survived, but now she is bedridden for years and never truly recovered. Is this a bug? What should I do to make her 'functional' again?

(She doesn't seem to be crippled since she went to the hospital by herself after the battle.)

[Marconius]

Injured dwarves will "rest" until their wounds have recovered. Do you have a designated doctor and hospital, as well as ample stocks for it? Check in the healthcare menu, see if the captain is still waiting for a diagnosis.

As for the armor... I'm not sure, but I don't think you can put that much stuff on a single dwarf.
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/40d:Armor#Size.2C_Permit.2C_and_layering_armor
The above article (which should be more or less the same for the new version) should give you an idea as to how this stuff is supposed to work.

Personally, I'm not sure there's a point. If a sword can go through an iron chestplate, the leather undergarments are probably not gonna stop it.

[wolflance]

I think somewhere in the forum talk about leather armor under a breastplate offers a better protection against blunt weapon, chainmail covers some parts that breastplate doesn't, and hood covers the neck etc.

So what do you usually let your military dwarfs wear?

By the way, does a leather tunic offers the same level of protection as leather armor made by the same leather?

[Rapidfirewombat]

This is arguable I guess, but the best layout for armor that I've got so far is everything made of steel.  Mail shirt, breastplate, cap, helm, greaves, gauntlets, high boots, shield.  Layering is a big problem in this version (it was to a lesser extent in 40d as well), but the above layout will cover all the dwarf's vital areas.

Since it's so difficult to get dwarves to wear what you tell them to in the current (buggy) version, I don't like to mess around beyond that.  There are ongoing studies about the effectiveness of various clothing types in stopping damage as well, but if your uniform gets too complicated, every extra piece of clothing in your uniform is another chance for the AI to screw it up somehow.  Generally I just let dwarves wear whatever regular clothes they have under their armor.

The best way I've found to get dwarves wearing exactly what you want is to carefully watch each dwarf as you draft them into the military.  Once the first dwarf has put on everything you want him to have, station him in a room with a door and lock him in there.  Repeat for each subsequent dwarf as they go into the military.  This cuts down on dwarves wearing more than one mail shirt apiece, or picking up two or three shields each, etc.

If a dwarf still manages to equip something you don't want them to wear, but you need the item in question for another dwarf, you can go into their inventory and mark that item for dumping.  A civilian dwarf will chase them around until they catch up, when the civilian will grab the item for dumping and run off with it back to the stockpile before taking it to the garbage dump.  Then do the locking trick on the military dwarf, and reclaim the item from the garbage dump.

I can't say as I understand you not being able to find much ore, unless you're digging through an aquifer, but here's a tip.  When you are looking for an embark location, you want at least one rock layer that shows up as a bright white color (not dark gray, or an in-between light gray, you want a WHITE one).  You're practically guaranteed to find flux, iron ore, and coal or lignite in that layer, which means you can start cranking out steel armor in your first year.

[wolflance]

Thanks for the reply...I hope the military problems will be fixed soon then. In the mean time I will try equipping my dwarfs with whatever I can get.

[46852]

When you are looking for an embark location, you want at least one rock layer that shows up as a bright white color (not dark gray, or an in-between light gray, you want a WHITE one).  You're practically guaranteed to find flux, iron ore, and coal or lignite in that layer, which means you can start cranking out steel armor in your first year.

White (sedimentary) layers don't guarantee flux. Only chalk, dolomite and limestone can be used as flux. Limestone being the best of those three as it contains more of precious metal ore. And marble is the only metamorphic stone (colored gray on the embark screen) that can be used as flux.

[wolflance]

My fortress has a lot of marble, so flux will not be a problem. Now the only problem is to find any of the three iron ore.

I've dug about 15z levels and find a cavern...Now some troll keep popping up and chase my miner around, and I don't have enough military personnel to spare...