-indv choice melee weapon
- metal helmet
-metal breastplate
-metal mailshirt
-copper shield
-metal high boots
-metal greaves
-metal leggings
-metal gauntlets
this works well enough. You can even remove leggings without trouble if you wish
Aren't legging and greaves mutually exclusive? I'm pretty sure dwarves can't wear both at the same time, so this setup would cause them to keep flipping back and forth all the time.
I'd also suggest adding at least one leather cloak to this setup as even a full head-to-toe metal armor setup has a few coverage holes (like the throat area if I remember correctly) that Elite Goblin Archers *love* to shoot arrows through.
Also note that you can't specify "metal" when making custom uniforms as the option is only there on the pre-made "Metal Armor" template. If you're doing it yourself you'll need to choose a specific material like "Steel" and select "Partial matches" rather than "Exact matches" so the dwarves will try to get the closest thing to Steel they can, but will substitute with a lesser metal if steel isn't available.
Also: be sure to choose the
Replace Clothing option, otherwise your dwarves will try to put on your uniform in addition to whatever random civilian clothing they were wearing, and frequently this results in shape/size conflicts that cause them to go into loops taking things on and off trying to get it all to fit.
I'll see if I can take a screenshot of my usual custom armor setup and post it in a bit.
--nomad_delta