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[Urist McTeellox]

On a bit of a rebalancing and bugfixing binge right now, and this moment I'm looking at armor.

* In item_armor.txt, all mail items are in the OVER layer. However in item_armor_masterwork.txt all mail items are in the ARMOR layer. Is this discrepancy intentional? (I'm *still* trying to wrap my head around how equipping armour works in DF, so it may be just fine...)

* In item_armor_masterwork.txt, lamellar armor isn't listed as being SHAPED. However regular (vanilla leather) armor *is* shpaed. Lamellar armor isn't something I would expect you could wear underneath more serious armor, so I think it should have the shaped tag as well.

* I know that gloves and boots were removed from all invaders to reduce clutter, but this also has the side-effect of making invaders *significantly* easier against fledgling militia. Strikes to hands and feet aren't all that uncommon, and they're *very* effective at disabling targets, especially with edged weapons. I keep having elves and drow arrive with their mithril and bloodsteel armors, but because they're not fully covered, they're relatively easy to kill.

* I have to double-check, but I seem to recall of all the elven ambushes and sieges I've encountered, none of them have been wearing pants. I know they're elves, and so that's thematic, but it means elves are now an easy source of mithril, rather than a serious threat.

Also adding this to my todo list for further thinking/tracking.

~ T

[dukea42]

If you wanted to go into balancing lamellar, it really should not be a type of leather, but a type of armor that could be made from leather or metal (often bronze or iron) plus thread. Lamellar waterskins would hold nothing.

Same situation with studded (brigadine) armor. Made with both small metal plates and leather. It's more of a hybrid.  Better against blunt than mail, but effectively similar.  http://mercwars.com/armtype.shtml

Question is, do we trade two leather types to add two armor types only made from certain reactions from special armory workshops. The vanilla forge and leatherworks wouldn't get them correct.

I'd like do the test changes myself. Not smart enough with raws on items yet to know if leather lamellar is truly meaningfully different than leather armor. Or will bronze brigadine be different than bronze mail?  As I know it, the only factors that changes performance of armor items is the shaped tag and coverage. The rest of the combat effectiveness depends on material.

[Putnam]

Why is lamellar a kind of material, anyway? That's like making "chain" a material.

[RandomName]

4d:

A dwarf in a mood claimed a mason's workshop and made a throne, but he became a legendary miner rather than mason.


http://i.imgur.com/LQYzlJp.png

Ok, I guess it's just a vanilla oddity rather than a bug.

I did come across something else which surely must be a bug though. I have diseases disabled, but my dogs are still getting rabies.

http://i.imgur.com/1ZtZQ1a.png

[Repseki]

Miner is a moodable profession, as is engraver. Both will use the mason's workshop.

[dukea42]

Why is lamellar a kind of material, anyway? That's like making "chain" a material.

It was done to make a deeper leather industry, with a path to upgrade material. Just when the scale/chitin/shell plate and rigid plates made the process for studded and lamellar leather seem off-balanced.

Would creating a reaction that makes lamellar as a cuirass and leggings with chosen material and thread. The coverage would be less than 100, say 90-95, so it's effectively weaker than mail, but using less metal material?  Same layering and body Ubstep/Lbstep. How's that for balance?

[Billy Jack]

On a bit of a rebalancing and bugfixing binge right now, and this moment I'm looking at armor.

* In item_armor.txt, all mail items are in the OVER layer. However in item_armor_masterwork.txt all mail items are in the ARMOR layer. Is this discrepancy intentional? (I'm *still* trying to wrap my head around how equipping armour works in DF, so it may be just fine...)

* In item_armor_masterwork.txt, lamellar armor isn't listed as being SHAPED. However regular (vanilla leather) armor *is* shpaed. Lamellar armor isn't something I would expect you could wear underneath more serious armor, so I think it should have the shaped tag as well.

The mail listed in item_armor_masterwork is only produced from a mood (and should be removed, imo).  The gauntlets, boots, hood, and shirt listed in item_armor are what all of the reactions currently produce. The greaves are appropriately included in item_pants_masterwork.

The Lamellar armor listed in item_armor_masterwork is only produced in the Boneyard workshop, which is probably renamed now.  It is made from bone and thus crappola (but you could put everyone in bone armor to stop clothing wear).  It's confusing as all hell and I asked Meph about it way back whenever but never got a response. It would actually be closer to the lamellar armor mentioned in the wiki.

Changing the names of the current studded and lamellar material is simply a name change, and the best way to make it happen is to propose the new names. "hardened" "processed" etc.

The best way to get a change into any mod is to present the problem and the solution. If all of the work is already done, it is a simple matter for the mod author to implement it. How many times does the boss say (s)he want to hear about solutions and not problems?

Armor changes are something I also plan on looking into, for example: most of the mail armor levels are 3 and also have the [METAL_ARMOR_LEVELS] tag, which (since they can only be made from metal) would mean that the armor level is 4.  4 may not be a valid number and the game disregards or it may be a valid number and the mail is now better than the plate it is under for slashing / piercing damage.  The different flavor armors that are only produced from moods or expeditions should actually have some flavor to them and not all have the same stats (different LBSTEP, COVERAGE, BLOCKCHANCE, etc.)

So before we just say that armors need to change, let's come up with what they should change into.

Edit:  @Urist, I realize that you are simply mentioning that this is something you are going to look into and not simply complaining about it not being correct/realistic/immersive.

[dukea42]

Yes. Intended to propose a solution as completed. Learning raws last night and now waiting to get off work to dive into further.

[Billy Jack]

One of the problems with trying to create a new leather based armor is that you will still need an armor definition and a material definition (if its to be better then plain leather).

Any dwarf can have a mood and make the special armor out of some other leather material and changing the material so you can't make leather waterskins from it would also mean it can't be stockpiled (less likely to be an issue since the reaction to create the special leather may take in multiple reagents with the end product being the special armor of new material that can only be created through the reaction.)

Perhaps creating an armor with no material tokens and a material with no allowed item tokens would make it so that the neither one could only be used without a reaction to specify them.

[dukea42]

My thought is that lamellar can be made from leather or metal of any kind. But the. How is it going to be different than existing suit of leather armor or chainmail.  So I was thinking make the regular leather armor weaker on coverage. Let lamellar from leather be better coverage. Lamellar from metal would then be cheaper on the metal side and maybe slightly weaker than chain mail. I'm trying to fit it between pure leather or pure metal armors that can be made of either materials class but it takes the material properties that make it.

Leather then becomes. Plain leather, tough leather, and maybe a third on the upgrade chain (maybe keep studded).

To me, if you think about it, scaleplate has to be a form of lamellar to make it armor, likely same for chitin or shell. But that goes back to how kitten leather can also make a full dwarf cloak.

[Urist McTeellox]

The mail listed in item_armor_masterwork is only produced from a mood (and should be removed, imo).  The gauntlets, boots, hood, and shirt listed in item_armor are what all of the reactions currently produce. The greaves are appropriately included in item_pants_masterwork.

It looks like if you already have one you can reproduce it at the inventor's workshop, too.

But yes, it doesn't appear to be used by invaders, nor can it be created in workshops. I've removed it from MWDF-SWP.

The rest of the mail items are all marked as OVER, so I'm happy with their consistency now. Thank you!

The Lamellar armor listed in item_armor_masterwork is only produced in the Boneyard workshop, which is probably renamed now.  It is made from bone and thus crappola (but you could put everyone in bone armor to stop clothing wear).  It's confusing as all hell and I asked Meph about it way back whenever but never got a response. It would actually be closer to the lamellar armor mentioned in the wiki.

Oh, nice spot! I was of course getting confused by 'armor' constructed from 'lamellar leather'. That would also explain why my military uniform wasn't working correctly.

Looking at the raws, it appears a few other reactions can result in lamellar, but they're all priestly things (eg 'sacrifice an armor to armok'). In theory those could return a 'steel lamellar armor', but they'd be very rare (3% of reactions). Kobolds have a similar reaction. There's also a chance of finding deep-bronze lamellar armor as part of an expedition, but it's also tiny (2%).

Since there aren't any conventional means of creating 'lamellar armor', I'm removing it as well. Armor made from 'lamellar leather' (which we all know and love) is unharmed.

With regards to the naming discussions which have come up, I believe that 'laminated leather' might be a less confusing name than 'lamellar leather' for the leather type we currently have, but I'm not going to make that change at this point.

Armor changes are something I also plan on looking into, for example: most of the mail armor levels are 3 and also have the [METAL_ARMOR_LEVELS] tag, which (since they can only be made from metal) would mean that the armor level is 4.  4 may not be a valid number and the game disregards or it may be a valid number and the mail is now better than the plate it is under for slashing / piercing damage.  The different flavor armors that are only produced from moods or expeditions should actually have some flavor to them and not all have the same stats (different LBSTEP, COVERAGE, BLOCKCHANCE, etc.)

ITEM_ARMOR_PLATEMAIL (in item_armor_masterwork.txt) has an ARMORLEVEL of 4, and it has METAL_ARMOR_LEVELS. Does that give it an effective armor level of 5?  (Ditto ARMOR_PLATEMAIL_FOSSIL). These items also have a coverage of 150.

Edit:  @Urist, I realize that you are simply mentioning that this is something you are going to look into and not simply complaining about it not being correct/realistic/immersive.

I didn't actually realise that 'lamellar leather armor' was different to LAMELLAR_ARMOR until this discussion, so the naming/realism discussion has been really useful to me!

~ T

[Urist McBeatdemtantruming]

Does anyone had a berserker migrant on MDF? On my current fort, the third migrant of the first wave went berserker the moment he stepped into the map. First time I see this happening... also, the other two that came in before the berserker one are very low on happiness... I just paused the game and saved it, for the sake of trying to revert it... Maybe using the brainwash command could "un-berserk" the poor dorf? Is it a bug or is it an intended feature, like migrants having a very tough journey from the mountainhome to my fortress? Here's some screenshots:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[BlackFlyme]

Have you made and abandoned any other forts in this world?

The migrants may be survivors from one of your previous forts, and when they arrived their thoughts were still the same as when you left them.

[Meph]

Why is lamellar a kind of material, anyway? That's like making "chain" a material.

Its a good point. I just use leather and thread to make lamellar leather, so its just a workstep to cut leather to pieces and make lamellar... just as if someone takes a metal bar, makes a metal chain, then makes the chainmail... but I thought about cutting it down a step.

[Urist McBeatdemtantruming]

Have you made and abandoned any other forts in this world?

The migrants may be survivors from one of your previous forts, and when they arrived their thoughts were still the same as when you left them.

=O Yap, I do have an abandoned fort on the very same world, that I left due a problem with the neighbors (their deads insisted on not staying dead). But i thought all the still living dwarfs would "starve to death", as it always happens... will check the legends.

Anyway, thank you. Kinda good that it's not a bug, but bad because now I don't feel comfortable in messing with that dorf... will have to accept the mess he'll do.