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[sektor666]

Does the material of an item affect its damage/armor class in any way?
I've been playing around with the df code recently and stumbled into the material list...
00 wood
01 rock
02 light stone
03 dark stone
04 gold
05 iron
06 silver
07 copper
08 ornamental stone
09 semi-precious gems
0a precious gems
0b rare gems
0c bone
0d ivory
0e jade
0f horn
10 amber
11 coral
12 pearl
13 shell
14 leather
15 adamantine
16 silk
17 plant fiber
18 green glass
19 clear glass
1a crystal glass
1b sand
1c water
1d zinc
1e tin
1f coal
20 bronze
21 brass
22 steel
23 pig iron
24 platinum
25 electrum
26 potash
27 ash
28 pearlash
29 lye
2a tallow
2b tallow soap
2c fat
2d mud
2e vomit
2f blood
30 slime

...which allowed me to soon be running around (in adventurer mode, ofc) with a Slime Two-handed Sword, which seemed to be doing the same amount of damage an iron sword normally would.
so is an item's material a purely cosmetical thing or does it actually affect something?

[Captain Mayday]

Wouldn't you have just changed the name of the thing?

[sektor666]

Nope, I'm positive I changed the MATERIAL of the item. Item amount byte + 0c = material parameter 1, item amount byte + 0e = material parameter 2 (parameter 2 being the 'origin' of the 1st parameter, eg. HORSE leather).

[gimlet]

Well, iron is 100%, so my guess would be the game only has damage modifiers set for materials that are likely to be used as weapons, and the rest probably default to no difference, i.e. 100%.

[sektor666]

sounds reasonable. so which of the materials i mentioned are weapon materials? i never encountered adamantine or electrum in fortress mode....

[FunkyWaltDogg]

Electrum is an alloy you can't make until you acquire a certain noble.  I don't know about adamantine, though.

[sektor666]

great, but can you make anything out of electrum? weapons as well as armor?

i experimented a bit with adamantine and apparently it's almost weightless and hella sharp - i cut 3 dwarven axe masters in half in a succession with an adamantine sho

[sektor666]

*short sword
no idea why the previous reply got cut after sho

[Quiller]

Electrum is a combination of gold and silver, so it should be usable in weapons you can make with those, but not like I've ever seen it.  (First coins ever made were electrum coins)

Of course, in all honesty, while a silver mace should be effective enough, a silver axe would probably be pretty abyssmal.

[Aquillion]

All the legends talk about demons sealed in adamantine.  So yeah.

I remember waaay back in the old Dwarf Fortress thread before the game was released we were discussing whether we could get away with calling it mithril or not.  I guess the answer was no.

...and actually, that's a good point about silver maces working.  When you think about it, material shouldn't matter so much for a mace or blunt weapon...  it makes a big difference for a sword or axe, since it affects its ability to hold an edge, or for a spear when considering their ability to hold a point, but it wouldn't really matter for a mace...  a lead mace would work as well as a steel one in terms of damage, although it might get beaten out of shape pretty fast.

Hrm.  We should be able to make obsidian-pointed spears...  maybe even flint-pointed spears...  it's really a lot easier to make a spearhead out of obsidian than it is to make a sword-edge...

And even a wooden spear wouldn't be that far behind a steel one in terms of damage.  It might even be better if they're both well-made, on account of being lighter, although obviously the wooden one would break more easily.  Ditto for arrows...

And bone spears are another fantasy staple for some reason.

[ August 25, 2006: Message edited by: Aquillion ]

[sektor666]

You charge at The Spearmaster!
You strike at The Spearmaster but the shot is blocked!
You collide with The Spearmaster!
The Spearmaster is knocked over and tumbles backward!
You hack at The Spearmaster in the lower body with your adamantine battle axe!
The lower body flies off in a bloody arc!
Olin Athelducim, Spearmaster has been struck down.
You charge at The Spearmaster!
You hack at The Spearmaster in the head with your adamantine battle axe!
The Spearmaster loses hold of the ®*iron shield*Ż.
The Spearmaster loses hold of the -iron spear-.
The head flies off in a bloody arc!
You collide with The Spearmaster!
The Spearmaster is knocked over and tumbles backward!
Doren Astisducim, Spearmaster has been struck down.
You hack at The Mace Lord in the upper body with your adamantine battle axe!
It is cloven asunder!
The Mace Lord is propelled away by the force of the blow!
The Mace Lord loses hold of the -iron shield-.
The Mace Lord loses hold of the iron mace.
The Mace Lord slams into an obstacle and blows apart!
Fikod Reganriz, Mace Lord has been struck down.

Oddly enough, sometimes they actually manage to parry, and sometimes my attacks bounce off their armor (so I guess the material isn't the deciding factor when it comes to piercing armor).
I also noticed there are 3 parameters that define a weapon's 'magical' atribute; I'm not entirely sure how those work. Now I'm gonna try adamantine out on a dragon or a tentacle demon. Seeing how some of the 'ordinary' enemies managed to deflect my blows, I guess a dragon would still stand a fighting chance here

[Quiller]

Considering that mithril is used in D&D and Tolkein I'm not sure why it would be a problem to use it in a free game.

[Toady One]

It's not just a copyright issue.  Since the demon encasement is a bit more stylized, we opted for something a little more Miltony.  Of course the game is heavily Tolkienesque at this point, but Armok wasn't, and this one's going to drift further and further away from Tolkien over time as things become more randomized/customizable.  At the same time, materials just haven't made it to the text files yet.  Later people should be able to change names to whatever, as they can with many other things already.

[Gakidou]

Hmm, vomit-forged weapons...

[sektor666]

Is adamantine a normally accessible material though? I've been playing for quite a while in adventure mode now and I haven't seen a single magical or adamantine-forged weapon or armor (apart from my own that is )