If the IMPACT_YIELD of the weapon is very low and the defending layer is dense/heavy, the weapon will deflect off the defending layer material. For example, wood arrows deflect off most metal armors except for adamantine.
Before I did the above linked post on the modding forum, I made this post on the DF mode forum: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=131527.0
TLDR: There is a bug in 0.34.11 related to weapon weights and momentums (i.e. swing speed) - this could make comparison testing difficult or meaningless unless the bug is patched!
So:
1.- It is important to have a minimum impact_yield (also impact_fracture?) in the material of the hammer when hitting high weights (dense or big objects). That would make lead a poor choice for war hammers (impact_yield 35). What are the minimum impact_yield/fracture values for hitting an object? is it just impact yield of the weapon against impact fracture of the target?
2.- (With the bug) the weapons with low densities can apply a higher momentum than weapons with high densities when the first decimal value of the weight is high. That would explain why iron war hammers with 4 density (1.6 weight) performed better than iron war hammer with density 5 (2 weight).
But war hammer materials tested dont have low weights with a high decimal value (which would make a real difference, since with the patch the momentum of all the materials will be just nerfed a bit almost evenly for warhammers):
Material | density | weight of the hammer |
Steel | 7.85 | 3.14 |
Iron | 7.85 | 3.14 |
Silver | 10.49 | 4.196 |
Gold | 19.32 | 7.728 |
Platinum | 21.4 | 8.56 |
After the patch platinum hammers would get a tiny advantage over gold but with or without the patch gold and platinum war hammers should get a better momentum than iron, steel or silver (which is not showing).
After the patch momentum of war hammers should be:
Platinum>=Gold>Silver>=Steel=Iron
And before the patch (with the bug) momentum of the war hammers should be about the same:
Gold>=Platinum>Silver>=Steel=Iron
The test (with the bug) shows:
Gold>=Platinum=Silver=Steel>=iron
Which means that even after the patch density wouldnt affect much the difference between tested materials because it wont affect much the difference of the momentums between war hammers made of these materials.
BTW thanks for the patch.