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Author Topic: Good equipment without fortress mode?  (Read 3558 times)

Couchmonster

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Good equipment without fortress mode?
« on: March 15, 2012, 07:10:53 am »

Is it possible to get masterwork adamantine armor in adv mode without building it yourself in df mode before?

TheLinguist

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Re: Good equipment without fortress mode?
« Reply #1 on: March 15, 2012, 08:15:53 am »

Nope, not in vanilla. The best you can hope for is human gear from keeps, which maxes out at iron, and only rarely masterwork (+finely-crafted+ or sometimes *superior* is a more typical max), or if you're lucky, loot off of a major historical warlord (which can be masterwork, but never uses materials the race doesn't have normal access to).

But, adamantine? I presume you were thinking of some sort of quest (which would be pretty sweet), rather than just lying around in some shop, right?
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robertheinrich

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Re: Good equipment without fortress mode?
« Reply #2 on: March 15, 2012, 08:51:48 am »

Iron? I´m finding lots of bronze stuff. And according to the wiki bronze > iron, at least for armor. And in one tomb I think I saw masterwork bronze armor, but a mummy raped my group and punched me into the brain with it´s severed resurrected hand before I could loot it.
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Absentia

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Re: Good equipment without fortress mode?
« Reply #3 on: March 15, 2012, 08:56:27 am »

Actually, there IS a (spoilerific) way to get a masterwork adamantine sword in vanilla. Good luck finding it and surviving, though.
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Couchmonster

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Re: Good equipment without fortress mode?
« Reply #4 on: March 15, 2012, 09:33:14 am »

That I know. But I wanted to know if I can gen a new world and play adventure mode and be cool without playing fortress mode.
Seems you have to play a decent fort before.

Absentia

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Re: Good equipment without fortress mode?
« Reply #5 on: March 15, 2012, 10:05:29 am »

Well, theoretically if you poke around in the caverns long enough you'll find it without having to dig down to it. But that would be an impressive feat of patience or good luck.
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acetech09

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Re: Good equipment without fortress mode?
« Reply #6 on: March 15, 2012, 12:02:52 pm »

Iron? I´m finding lots of bronze stuff. And according to the wiki bronze > iron, at least for armor.

I just checked the wiki, and I find that extremely hard to believe that bronze is better than iron. Looking at the raws, that also appears to be true.
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Melagius

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Re: Good equipment without fortress mode?
« Reply #7 on: March 15, 2012, 12:23:54 pm »

Well, theoretically if you poke around in the caverns long enough you'll find it without having to dig down to it. But that would be an impressive feat of patience or good luck.

I've done it before... don't know how. And I never came back. But I did it.
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Hotaru

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Re: Good equipment without fortress mode?
« Reply #8 on: March 15, 2012, 12:28:02 pm »

Iron? I´m finding lots of bronze stuff. And according to the wiki bronze > iron, at least for armor.

I just checked the wiki, and I find that extremely hard to believe that bronze is better than iron. Looking at the raws, that also appears to be true.

Who writes these wiki things anyway? It's not really hard to test. I pitted 10 ironclad warriors against 10 bronze-wearing warriors in arena. All skills were grand master and all had iron swords. The iron team won by sizeable amount of dwarves 3/3 times so if bronze is better, it can't be by much.
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It is said knowledge is like a foul-smelling herb. It must be cooked well and thoroughly with experience to make it palatable. A young scholar's knowledge is therefore not only worthless but disgusting. -- In Dwarf Fortress you have another paradigm. Gather as much of that smelly herb as you can and toss it at your enemy, fracturing his skull through the +capybara man leather cap+.

acetech09

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Re: Good equipment without fortress mode?
« Reply #9 on: March 15, 2012, 02:31:17 pm »

Iron? I´m finding lots of bronze stuff. And according to the wiki bronze > iron, at least for armor.

I just checked the wiki, and I find that extremely hard to believe that bronze is better than iron. Looking at the raws, that also appears to be true.

Who writes these wiki things anyway? It's not really hard to test. I pitted 10 ironclad warriors against 10 bronze-wearing warriors in arena. All skills were grand master and all had iron swords. The iron team won by sizeable amount of dwarves 3/3 times so if bronze is better, it can't be by much.

'Twas probably a typo - yeah. If bronze was better than iron, I would've been playing for 4 years thinking the opposite, as well as 99.9% of people on these forums. I'll change it.
EDIT: Somebody on the wiki did a test and received the opposite. Investigating more.
« Last Edit: March 15, 2012, 02:37:27 pm by acetech09 »
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robertheinrich

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Re: Good equipment without fortress mode?
« Reply #10 on: March 15, 2012, 02:43:00 pm »

Umm, another article on weapon testing in the wiki also suggests that bronze might be better for longer battles (bronze armor, they all had iron weapons).
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Military_testing#Bronze_vs._Iron

Personally, I get most of my "knowledge" from the wiki and just assume that the articles are mostly right because they were written by experienced players. But with a game as complex as DF which is changing all the time I guess everything has to be taken with a bit of salt.

But... I don´t care much about that. In fortress mode I try to go for steel because it´s obviously superior. In adventure mode (which is currently a joke anyways and only good for distracting you for a while from your last unsuccessful fort) you pick up what you get, sooner or later you will die anyways in a ridiculous way due to an unexpected event bringing your hero career to a sudden halt.
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acetech09

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robertheinrich

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Re: Good equipment without fortress mode?
« Reply #12 on: March 15, 2012, 02:52:17 pm »

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Hotaru

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Re: Good equipment without fortress mode?
« Reply #13 on: March 15, 2012, 03:01:15 pm »

All tests should have
- noted which weapon was used, and the material
- noted the skill level(s)
- noted the species (I failed to do this myself, being a little slow, it was dwarf)
- noted what the armor was composed of (likewise - helmet, cap, breastplate, mail, greaves, high boots, gauntlets)

else they're completely worthless for comparison.

With all respect for all, as for me, the amount of assumption and repeat questions I've seen on this forum have made me suspect the wiki is great for getting ideas, but not too good for facts. I'll trust testing it myself and reading from the raws more.

However, I think we can agree that if there's mixed results, no one material is clearly better. So it becomes more a question of what is available and economical. Most likely if you have both you would like to save iron for steel and use bronze in the meantime.
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robertheinrich

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Re: Good equipment without fortress mode?
« Reply #14 on: March 15, 2012, 03:14:55 pm »

Maybe the testing should move to rather unexperienced dwarves. A group of retards fighting other retards might show better results which armor type is actually better. They won´t have armor skills etc so they are only protected by the material itself. Just an idea, dunno how it plays out.
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