Print

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

[sdrawkcabcM tsirU]

I embarked to a location with a convenient layer of obsidian, chopped some wood and proceeded to have my stonecrafter create a few dozen obsidian shortswords, making sure to limit stone use to obsidian only in the stone Z-menu. Then I abandoned the location and got a new adventurer out there to scavenge up some of the loot and test the swords. Every one that I tested seemed to act more like very weak blunt weapons (bruises, glancing blows) against critters and other humanoids. They also seemed to be very light for swords supposedly made of obsidian (1 as opposed to the 4 or 5 for normal bronze/iron swords).

I've run this test for the last couple releases, and I'm not satisfied that obsidian shortswords have combat stats any different than the wooden training swords that "rock" short swords were creating a few releases ago. Is this bug confined to OSSs used in adventure mode or are they still bugged in dwarf fortress mode as well? I checked in Arena mode and they aren't available for easy testing.

[Quietust]

They also seemed to be very light for swords supposedly made of obsidian (1 as opposed to the 4 or 5 for normal bronze/iron swords).

Obsidian has the default stone density of 2670, which is only about 1/3 that of iron/bronze, so it's completely normal for them to be lightweight by comparison.

[ghosteh]

obsidian is supposedly on par with steel, however I never see fit to make anything with it as wherever theres obsidian theres usually magma, and wherever magma is, I make steel.

[GuudeSpelur]

Obsidian shortswords, if they're of high quality, are very cheap to produce and incredibly effective against unarmored targets.  Against armored targets, you'd be better off using your fists (at least then you could hope for a skull-shattering critical hit).

[GhostDwemer]

On 31.18, I recently had occasion to make and use obsidian swords against a goblin ambush in fortress mode. The whole squad had the swords, and the goblins were lightly armored. The swords seemed effective enough at lopping things off.

[Herbiie]

My Entire Army & guards are armed with them, so I hope so