Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Zorbeltuss]

IRL a 7lb one handed weapon is on the very heavy side of usable for humans.  Case in point is a baseball bat at 2 lbs and 36 in length (a kilo and a meter).  We dont even attempt to use that one handed (balance is off for combat).  At my prime (10 years ago), I preferred a 4lb sword to use and I could fight hard for about 2 min at a time. 

Yes, one could make a really big/heavy weapon and swing it effectively once in the combat.  If ya hit in that one swing, great (one shots are VERY rare IRL).  If ya didnt, your opponent has plenty of time to kill you while you try to recover.  And swinging such a weapon would distort the bodies movement insuch a way as to telegraph every shot allowing the opponent to PLAN for the incoming swing.  Effective combat weaponry is more than just making a heaver weapon.

Now if we can get to compisite materials for weapons, this might be a different story.  Then this could be used to weight weapons to change balance with out changing size (and iridium tipped sword (top 1/3d of the blade) would be a VERY different weapon from an all steel one of the same volume.  Or electroplating.

I've always percieved dwarves from DF being the standard fantasy dwarf, stronger albeit smaller than a normal human... maybe this isn't so... but anyways, a short sword does not have to be that long... there has been short swords down to about 20 inches, they handle a lot differently than a 36 inch ones or even 28 inch ones...
Composites and alloys are already thought of, balance changing is an interesting proposition...

/Zorbeltuss

[nbonaparte]

I'm thinking something like making the handle of a battleaxe out of iridium, and the axe section of steel. You can make the blade larger and keep the balance. Now how to implement that in DF...

[Salabasama]

I'm thinking something like making the handle of a battleaxe out of iridium, and the axe section of steel. You can make the blade larger and keep the balance. Now how to implement that in DF...

[Grimlocke]

Hehe, comic had me chuckle.

And fragility isnt even the only problem there, the strength of an axe is that allmost all the weight is in the head, allowing for great momentum with a weapon as light as possible. Battle axes were kept as light as possible, with heads much thinner then chopping axes.

I think the [DEEP] tag was in .28 and it should be still working now.  I just cant find any info on it.

The deep tag works, but it will make the material inaccesable for all entities. It also has the sideeffect of spawning the stuff in demon forts.

As for the whole discussion about iridium-would-make-good-sword, it wouldnt. Im pretty certain medieval blacksmiths had little trouble making their weapon heavy enough, this went even for blunt weapons. In fact, they went to great lengths to keep their weapon light, flexible yet sharp with things like fullering, pattern welding and all sorts of heat treatement (chating rituals and all. Those actualy did have an influence on the hardness of a weapon due to length of the heat treatement chants). Iridium in pure form fails at all those aspects (possible the stuff can be given a good edge, but it would chip very quickly).

The only use I can think of for the stuff is to use it as the head of hammers or the points of flanged maces. The greater hardness could give a minor increase in how much the weapons energy is focused on a single point. Oh and iridium is also incredibly resistant to wear. Coating steel tools and weapon in iridium could make them very durable, too bad they dont wear at all in DF.

As for modding this all in... composite material weapons arnt in the game yet, but you could at least make some fictive iridium allow. The idea of ultra-rare metals is neat, and could excuse some magical properties.

[Vertigon]

Not sure if anyone else has said this (they probably have) but to simulate the corrosive acid, make a stone that melts at room temperature. Make the melted product acidic. Spawn this stone in the reaction. Granted, it will splash all over the floor, but dwarves aren't smart, and there should be some risk, right?

[Grimlocke]

Did you get that to work? Because I havnt. There is just a 'molten rock' item stuck in the smelter.

[Lofn]

Unfortunately, you can't produce contaminant liquids at the smelter.  The closest you can get is something that boils into a cloud of inhaled poison.

[Salabasama]

Where were you thinking of having iridium found?  Maybe make a rock/soil weird layer to imitate KT boundary?

[Zorbeltuss]

Where were you thinking of having iridium found?  Maybe make a rock/soil weird layer to imitate KT boundary?

Iridium will be found in destructive processing of other high value metals... which is how you find it in the processes I'm adding... I had a thought of making an extremely dangerous reaction between magma and Kings water, to make a higher amount of iridium... but that would be quite a hassle as I would be needing pools of Kings water...

And to everybody complaining about weight of weapons...  dwarves are usually portrayed as stronger than humans, and a smaller creature is stronger in raitio to weight than bigger ones too... if I feel that the weight s too big I will take measures but you won't convince me about it...

/Zorbeltuss

[Shade-o]

I'm emulating Iridium and other rare metals such as Vanadium by having a material called Pyrinas (Greek for 'core') which is rarely obtained by processing slag, which is obtained by smelting ores and processing cooled magma. Pyrinas is used for high-end alloying of steel and titanium, which produces the best non-demon-related metals.