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[zuglar]

Then the only logical conlusion is that bloodthorn (somehow) holds a better edge, or that featherwood holds a terrible edge.

Either that, or team  bloodthorn was created after team featherwood.  I've noticed in my own testing that DF's last-in-first-out turn ordering gives the late arrivals a massive advantage. This really skewed my results when I tried some bronze vs. iron axe/armor tests: bronze + first turn = massacre, bronze + second turn = barely manage to tie with iron.

What happens if you switch the order you create the teams in? Or if you create them 1 2 2 1 1 2 2 ... so it's a little more fair?

[Mageziya]

Alright, could you compare silver and copper bolts?Silver and Steel? This is because I mainly use silver bolts for my milita, but the results of this tests will confirm or falsify my belief silver bolts work better that most metals.

[VerdantSF]

AFAIK bone bolts are still bugged, only stacking up to 5.  They're noticeably more effective than wood, even had them pierce gobbo armor easily, but the dwarf carrying them will only get 5 shots off.

I've had the same problem before.  Not sure what I've done differently, but in my current fort, my marksdwarves and hunters usually arm themselves with multiple stacks of bone bolts, generally around 15-25.

[MadocComadrin]

I'm doing some testing myself, and candy bolts with candy armor versus the same is hilarious yet boring at the same time. XD

[Wrex]

Silver bolts versus steel bolts. Team A silver, Team B steel.

Test one: Team A victory. 3 casualties, 3 unconscious. Massive injuries all around, but nothing a competent bone doctor couldn't fix.
Test 2: Team B victory, 5 casualties, 4 unconscious, most of them with lower spinal injuries.  They are fucked up so bad it's unbelievable. Silver bolts cause many spinal tears consistent with a whip injury, almost. Steel Bolts almost always had to kill by headshot, throatshot, or heartshot.
Test 3. Team A Victory, 4 casualties, one unconscious.

Sides revesed, steel created first, then silver.
Test 1: Side B Victory 3 casualties. Silver won by a mile.
Test 2:Side B Victory 2 casualties.
Test 3: Side B Victory, 3 casualties.

Conclusion: Silver is better, period.

[Mageziya]

Well this is reassuring. Welp, It appears I never was wasting my time dedicating the entirety of my silver industry to bolts. I always thought silver bolts worked best due to their density, but other peeps in this threads claim otherwise. If RAWs gurus could explain why that is (As in, why silver bolts are so good.) that would be nice.

Going to go out on a whim here, but if silver is better than steel, how does it hold up to adamantite?

Adamantite vs Silver please.

[misko27]

I'm not so scientific, but I did just this test just now. And, Wow. Complete and utter devestation of both sides.
1st round: Silver squeaks through with a few injured dwarfs who resorted to hand to hand fighting. losses out of 40: 36

2nd round: Addy crushes silver. Silver barely manages to kill a fourth of them. Addy cripples maybe half with first volley. Losses out of 40: 8

3rd round: Silver, shows quie an ability here, showing definite higher killing ability over addy. It established a advantage similar to addy in the last round. However, The last few addyers were determined, and physically injured a number before passing on. Casualties were high, on both sides. However, there were a lucky few on silver who came through standing, though still with severe damage to upper body. Losses out of 40: 31.

Overall: Its a tough call, tough call indeed. However, I' going to say that the second round was a fluke. Silver Just barely beats out addy as being the Supreme Material for Killing Things from Far Away. To Addy, we award a silver medal (ironic).

[Mageziya]

So, addy and silver, so far, seem to be close in comparison. Similar functionality, BUT, extreme availability difference. Silver wins all the way around, from source, to use. 'Course now, I think addy vs silver needs a bit more testing.

[misko27]

Yes, the second round cannot be discounted. Frankly, It may just be which side hits who more. In any situation, Weight cannot be discounted, otherwise addy would've won easy.

[Fenrisson]

Are your dwarfs wear any armor during the tests?

My guess is that, since bolts pierce pretty much anything because of their small contact area, the density of silver trumps the hard sharp edge of the even steel and candy...

but how does armor effect the odds??? does a decent armor stop silver bolts at least so much to give candy and steel a better chance, since they should rip right through!!!


What are your thoughts??


PS: I once experienced a single marksdwarf defeating a whole herd of elf zombies with a singleshoot each - it was my first encounter with a necro-army, so I thought silver has special powers vs the undead - I might have been wrong....

[Buttery_Mess]

In the current version, combat move is severely reduced by carrying lots of armour and ammo. I've learnt from adventure mode that carrying around metal ammo can severely slow you down. So, in that sense, heavy ammos do fire more slowly, because they reduce combat move and therefore refire rate. Against almost all enemies, light, cheap ammo is very effective.

[MadocComadrin]

Like I said earlier, I've been doing some testing on my own, but like the others here, I've been doing Marksdwarf v Marksdwarf. Something occurred to me while watching the fights however: the side that gets the best few early volleys are more likely to win by an exceeding number, suggesting that these types of tests are somewhat flawed. I'm going to go with a team of 30 marksdwarves versus a team of weaponless, but armored dwarves and see what happens.

[Loud Whispers]

Like I said earlier, I've been doing some testing on my own, but like the others here, I've been doing Marksdwarf v Marksdwarf. Something occurred to me while watching the fights however: the side that gets the best few early volleys are more likely to win by an exceeding number, suggesting that these types of tests are somewhat flawed. I'm going to go with a team of 30 marksdwarves versus a team of weaponless, but armored dwarves and see what happens.

Perhaps use a better experiment to yield more refined results, like seeing how many bolts it takes of one material to kill something vs the other variable materials, and repeat.

[MadocComadrin]

XD

Anyway, here's what I have in mind: using DFHack, I'm going to set up 30 cells seperating 30 individual pairs (wait what? >x<) of dwarves in the arena. The marksdwarves will each have 50 bolts of the desired type and an iron crossbow, with the markdwarf skill (and only the markdwarf skill) set to Expert. The target dwarves will have a set of armor consisting of mail shirt, a breastplate (or leather armor and maybe a vest (can theygo together?), helm, leggings (unless someone posts a convincing argument for greaves [for the test, not general gameplay] within the next hour), high boots and gauntlets. They will be completely unskilled.

Each test will proceed until either all targets are dead, all ammo is spent or all markdwarves stop firing. After that, I will tally up the kills, bolts spent and if I'm feeling particularly rigorous, cause of death for each target killed (nonetheless, I will write comments for each round).

Expect ☼graphs and tables☼.

[Buttery_Mess]

It's a complicated thing to test. Armour skill, strength value, defensive skill ability, weights of equipment, all these things factor in.