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Author Topic: Does armor defence stack?  (Read 1889 times)

ikacer

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Does armor defence stack?
« on: July 19, 2010, 03:10:08 pm »

I have a dwarf right now in my army who is wearing a breastplate on top of chainmail, and has 2 shields and 2 battle axes, one in each hand. Do the benefits of these items stack, or am I just wasting my precious military equipment?
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Aravin

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Re: Does armor defence stack?
« Reply #1 on: July 19, 2010, 03:13:35 pm »

Remove extra shield and axe. Breastplate over chain mail IS fine (Maybe it's a bit hardcore for human, but actually i CAN imagine a dwarf wearing chainmail under his breastplate - hell i am sure that i've seen such outfit somewhere in movie or some history show). I mean - breastplate may be just a piece of metal, covering only the upper part of body. So you should have a chain mail underneath to protect upper arms, shoulders, groin and upper part of legs.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2010, 03:16:24 pm by Aravin »
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Orkel

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Re: Does armor defence stack?
« Reply #2 on: July 19, 2010, 03:24:28 pm »

Breastplate only protects upper body. Mail shirt is the only thing that protects the upper arms in addition to the chest.

If you use only mail shirt, you'll get slightly less protection at your chest due to the lack of a breastplate.

If you use only breastplate and no mail shirt, your upper arms will be unprotected but the breastplate will protect the chest.

I always use both. Recommended.
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Aravin

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Re: Does armor defence stack?
« Reply #3 on: July 19, 2010, 03:35:39 pm »

It's pretty difficult to make the soldiers wear exactly what you want them to equip, so it's better to have dwarf wearing two breasplates and 3 chain mails then nothing at all. Just make sure, that they don't carrt extra weapons and shields, cause (i dont know for sure) it can make items useless (well can you imagine soldier fighting with 2 axe in one hand? Or how they repel attack with 3 shields in left hand?).
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Bronzebeard

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Re: Does armor defence stack?
« Reply #4 on: July 19, 2010, 03:55:47 pm »

I should add here that dwarves can have up to 3 or 5 pieces of interchangeable armor on them at the same time (e.g., 3 mail shirts). This is a bug rather than a feature, so I'd be on the fence in saying that the defense "stacks", though it'd taste like bad judgment to assume that the chances for an enemy's strike to be deflected by one of the many mail shirts isn't obviously increased given there's more than one to do the deflecting. This is also the case with shields and weapons, for the moment; one dwarf can have multiple weapons and shields in a single hand. Again, I don't know if dwarves can attack with more than one weapon per turn simply because they have more than one in the current hand, but I seriously doubt it, so while defense may stack I can say with some reasonable assurance that attack wouldn't.

Either way, this will be fixed in the upcoming versions and dwarves would only have one weapon, shield or piece of armor as proper--not to say that they wouldn't be able to wear breast plates over mail shirts (and that combination does, indeed, "stack" because the two are not synonymous with one another and play different roles in protecting the body).
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ikacer

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Re: Does armor defence stack?
« Reply #5 on: July 19, 2010, 03:57:36 pm »

I've just noticed that one dwarf who has both a sword and a hammer is gaining experience as both a swordsdwarf and a hammerdwarf. So, maybe multiple weapons do have their weapon effects stack? I'm going to leave my dwarves like this to observe.
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Bronzebeard

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Re: Does armor defence stack?
« Reply #6 on: July 19, 2010, 04:03:42 pm »

I've just noticed that one dwarf who has both a sword and a hammer is gaining experience as both a swordsdwarf and a hammerdwarf. So, maybe multiple weapons do have their weapon effects stack? I'm going to leave my dwarves like this to observe.

Presumably, said dwarf would attack with both his sword and his hammer, so he would gain skills in both weapons (albeit more slowly than he would in, say, hammering, if all he used were the hammer). Keep in mind, though, he will only attack with one weapon at a time, so it's more the equivalent of switching weapons mid-battle and hitting with another one every so often rather than hitting with two weapons at once, as wishful thinking would suggest. :P
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gtmattz

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Re: Does armor defence stack?
« Reply #7 on: July 19, 2010, 11:08:15 pm »

Breastplate over chain mail IS fine (Maybe it's a bit hardcore for human, but actually i CAN imagine a dwarf wearing chainmail under his breastplate - hell i am sure that i've seen such outfit somewhere in movie or some history show).

Medieval plate armor was intended to be worn with a chain shirt underneath, and a padded tunic under the chain shirt.
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