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[Jake]

The idea is to use the giant army of low- or un-skilled marksdwarves to buy you time and some material to scavenge, not to rely on them forever.  Those first few melee waves come with metal, loot it.  Wear the stuff you think is usable, melt the stuff you don't.

That's pretty much my solution as well, only I tend to also use that period to train up my armourers in anticipation of universal conscription. A no-quality copper breastplate and helmet are enough to get by with if the marksdwarves are behind fortifications.

[Mimodo]

So heavier is better for warhammers. I have an excess of platinum, is it possible to make weapons out of that, cause that's one hell of a heavy metal

[daveralph1234]

So heavier is better for warhammers. I have an excess of platinum, is it possible to make weapons out of that, cause that's one hell of a heavy metal

Only via a mood. Without modding anyway...

[Wurgel]

So heavier is better for warhammers. I have an excess of platinum, is it possible to make weapons out of that, cause that's one hell of a heavy metal

Only via a mood. Without modding anyway...

A shame a mood can craft a warhammer out of a platinium boulder instead of the bar.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Based on 0.34.11 raw values:

Edged attack/defense (shear yield):
copper<silver<iron<bronze<steel

Blunt attack (density):
iron or steel<bronze<copper<silver

Blunt defense (impact yield):
copper<silver<iron<bronze<steel

I was surprised a bit by how silver seemed to be a better edged weapon metal than copper, so I tested it. I created a silver colossus and a copper colossus in the arena, and then tried having a dwarf grand master attack them with copper and silver swords. The silver sword can dent the copper colossus, but the copper sword is deflected off the silver colossus.

Bronze is slightly stronger than iron. The differences might be lost to randomness during testing.

[Mimodo]

What about bolts?

[Urist Da Vinci]

What about bolts?

Bolts/arrows are edged. They tend to have absurd penetration, so you might as well use the cheaper metals that you have on hand. Weight doesn't matter for bolts/arrows.

[krenshala]

What about bolts?

Bolts/arrows are edged. They tend to have absurd penetration, so you might as well use the cheaper metals that you have on hand. Weight doesn't matter for bolts/arrows.

Weight matters if something stops the bolt, because at that point it becomes blunt damage.

[Sonlirain]

Ok best substitute for Steel?
Candy.

If you don't want to use candy then it's either bronze or iron.

Shield material does NOT matter when blocking.
A wooden shield will be as good at blocking as a Steel one.
HOWEVER.
Sometimes dwarves with shields will attempt to shield bash the enemy and then the weight of the shield matters a lot so making shields out of heavier materials is not totally foolish since a artifact platinium shield can cave chests in.

[Snaake]

I've never once successfully embarked anywhere that has an ore of copper and an ore of tin on the same site...

I have.   Once.

My current embark has loads of tetrahedrite+cassiterite, can't remember noticing any other ores (sparse metals). Previous had masses and masses of magnetite, but no flux (frequent metals). My next fort will be at a volcano site with only deep metals, don't even know what yet (sparse metals again; I've genned a world and picked the site, not unpaused yet). Bought loads of ores for bronze, thankfully.

As to the OP's problem, if you have lots of iron, you're pretty safe using that. Import all the scrap you can, remember to request pig iron and all fluxes. And if you don't mind using exploits, there's several items which give more metal when melted than they take to craft.

[Jake]

Weight matters if something stops the bolt, because at that point it becomes blunt damage.

That's true up to a point, but bolts have very little actual mass, and a crossbow has an upper limit on how hard it can launch them that's far below the threshold to cause appreciable blunt-force trauma. In fact, I'm not sure if impact speed matters at all; experimenting with BLUNT damage for musket ammunition in BPFA produced some really odd results, and I got the impression that the precise damage-calculation mechanism is a bit more complicated than simply re-rolling an edged attack that fails the armour check as a blunt one.

At any rate, barring a lucky hit to the head, I wouldn't expect much from silver bolts compared to iron or even copper.

[Mimodo]

I use silver bolts anyway... I have a legendary weapon smith with nothing else to do, so instead of letting his skills go to waste, he can pour out the bolts until more weapons are needed. I can also buy out caravans fairly easily with the masterwork bolts, and use the slightly lower quality ones for combat. Seriously, at 3000 for 25 masterwork bolts, I don't need much more.

In regards to my original problem, I'm training up my armour smith on iron, to use with the lower level troops, then once he gets to a good level start producing steel armour, using only the highest quality armour for the dwarves (they've all got great weapons, since my weapon smith has been hard at work)

I did find a source of flux, so of course that problem is solved

[GreatWyrmGold]

So if i'm avoiding steel for maces etc (presumably because steel is good for cutting, not bashing), what metal is better for it? Just the bronze or iron?

Silver or copper. Same with shields.

[peskyninja]

Personally, I only use steel for axes, armor and swords; All the other stuff is made of bronze or copper.

[krenshala]

Personally, I only use steel for axes, armor and swords; All the other stuff is made of bronze or copper.

Steel spears.  You forgot spears.