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[Cresilia]

So my already legendary armourer decided to have a strange mood and managed to make an artifact zinc breastplate? Did I luck out or is zinc a poor material for armour?

On another note it appears the king of my civ is a vampire..

[itg]

Unfortunately, artifactyness does not make up for poor material properties, and zinc is not a good material for armor.

[Crazy Cow]

Item usefulness is a hierarchy, really. The fist thing you look for is material: after that, quality. In this case, even the masterwork bonus won't be enough to make your breastplate much more than a novelty; you'd be better having your blacksmith churn out some iron or bronze instead.

[IcyTea31]

"Useful" is subjective. While it makes poor armour you could appoint a noble to a single-dwarf squad with that breastplate as the uniform; the noble will get a massive happiness boost.

This does assume, of course, that you care about your nobles' happiness.

[Button]

There's no reason to wear armor made out of anything but steel or adamantine, even if it's an artifact. Sorry.

[BoredVirulence]

Nonsense. If your soldiers are skilled enough, a cloak is all they need. Of course armor, and effective armor, is better, but who can resist arming your most legendary warrior in artifacts?

Then again, take this with a grain of salt, for I am one of the few who believe bronze is more dwarfy than steel.

[Quietust]

you could appoint a noble to a single-dwarf squad with that breastplate as the uniform; the noble will get a massive happiness boost.

I don't remember there being a thought about wearing nice equipment, and if there's no thought for something then it cannot possibly affect happiness...

[smjjames]

you could appoint a noble to a single-dwarf squad with that breastplate as the uniform; the noble will get a massive happiness boost.

I don't remember there being a thought about wearing nice equipment, and if there's no thought for something then it cannot possibly affect happiness...

Of course though, having them wear the armor will prevent them from needing to replace the upper body clothing.

Also, what about aluminum? I got an aluminum buckler once. I know aluminum is lightweight but it doesn't really have the same strength as iron.

Edit: Nm, pretty much answered that myself in arena testing, iron short swords easily go through aluminum.

Edit2: Lol, in using one dwarf with iron and the other with aluminum armor, both our swords got stuck into each other at the same time. Same bodypart even.

[BoredVirulence]

Also, what about aluminum? I got an aluminum buckler once. I know aluminum is lightweight but it doesn't really have the same strength as iron.

Shields are different. A legendary aluminum shield sounds awesome, if only it were a shield and not a buckler...
Material doesn't matter with shields, they either block or not. Even feather wood shields can block dragonfire and bronze colossus kicks.

[Crazy Cow]

Shields are different. A legendary aluminum shield sounds awesome, if only it were a shield and not a buckler...
Material doesn't matter with shields, they either block or not. Even feather wood shields can block dragonfire and bronze colossus kicks.

While you're mostly right, I was under the impression that you needed fireproof shields to block fire; otherwise the shield melts or bursts into flames in your hand. Other than that material won't affect shield usage at all, and masterwork ones are absolutely amazing.

[Sutremaine]

There's no reason to wear armor made out of anything but steel or adamantine, even if it's an artifact. Sorry.

Iron's enough for vanilla. Bronze and iron weapons can't get through iron armour, and no enemies in vanilla carry steel.

Quick edit: In the hierarchy of weapon material vs. armour material, iron is above both bronze and iron. But there are other factors that make injuries possible.

[duckman]

Shields are different. A legendary aluminum shield sounds awesome, if only it were a shield and not a buckler...
Material doesn't matter with shields, they either block or not. Even feather wood shields can block dragonfire and bronze colossus kicks.

While you're mostly right, I was under the impression that you needed fireproof shields to block fire; otherwise the shield melts or bursts into flames in your hand. Other than that material won't affect shield usage at all, and masterwork ones are absolutely amazing.

Material makes no difference for shields blocking at all. Shields will, however, melt or combust if the tile the wielder is standing on is either on fire or submerged in magma if they aren't fire or magma safe.

By on fire, I don't mean a cloud of flames being emitted either, there has to be something actively burning.

[NAV]

Wear the breastplate over some chainmail. The chainmail for defence, and the breastplate for bling. Shouldn't slow down a dwarf too much as long as they have decent armour skill.

[sirdave79]

Next time you get an armoursmith mood, forbid all metal, then unforbid the best weapons grade material you possess. As long as the dwarf doessnt have a preference for a bar youve smelted from ore then hell use the metal youve unforbidded.

You can melt copper goblinite and a dwarf with a prefeerence for copper will still use steel in this way. If you smelt a tetrahedrite boulder hell demmand copper.The last fort I played I had 80 artifacts and about 50 of em were weapons and armour, as well as 5 platinum warhammers and 5 nethercap crossbows.

[Mohreb el Yasim]

i think i read somewhere that dwarf would only use metal that has been, at least once smelted in the fortress, so if you can only smelt steel (and not even pig iron) you migth be safe ... well it is to confirm but that migth work.