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[nick56x]

What's the ideal armour setup? As in, not the material. But what pieces?

For the body, I am thinking:

• Breastplate
• Chainmail

For the legs:

• Greaves
• Leggings

For the feet:

• Highboots

For the hands:

• Gauntlets

And for the head, just a helm.


Is this decent? What's your ideal armour setup? I'm curious, haha.

[Baffler]

I don't usually bother with gauntlets or greaves, leggings tend to be enough protection for the legs. I don't really have a good reason to skip the gauntlets though, other than saving resources. If you consider a shield as armor though, I would definitely include one.

[nick56x]

Hm, do you know whether or not Dwarves ditch their current armour for better armour? I just witnessed one of my Dwarves wearing a breastplate pick up a mailshirt, and.. the brestplate vanished.

[nick56x]

I take that back. The breastplate didn't vanish, it just occupied the space where the mailshirt was. Though, my question still applies. Do Dwarves ditch their armour for better armour? Surely a mailshirt isn't better than a damned breastplate.

[crossmr]

it depends how you have their uniform set up. I tend to set up specific exact match uniforms and make those.

If you just have them set up for "breastplate" with no material indicated, then they'll try and pick the best one.

[Chevaleresse]

A dwarf should be able to wear a breastplate over a mail shirt.

[nick56x]

Weird. All three of my Dwarves (I only have 15 Dwarves at the moment) in my squad dropped their breastplate and wore mailshirts.

[BlackFlyme]

Mail shirts have a higher base value than breastplates. Militia will grab the most valuable equipment they can when they outfit themselves.

[Mimodo]

I create a new uniform for all dwarf squads which includes

Metal Breastplate
Metal Mailshirt
Metal Helm
Metal Greaves
Metal Gauntlets
Metal High Boots
Leather Cloak
Shield

Which metal depends on what's going at the moment, but when I choose replace clothing, they wear it all perfectly. They won't change armour for better pieces unless you specifically direct them to do so either.

I haven't actually seen it myself, but apparently cloaks are almost essential to any military armour set

[crossmr]

You have no helm why?

[Mimodo]

You have no helm why?

Because I forgot to write it :p I include a helmet for sure

[Saiko Kila]

You have no helm why?

There's no social equipment slot in DF yet, so you must actually remove the helmet to show your face.

[Nasty]

Yeah Helm is a must considering headshots are a priority when a dwarf is down. If using metal armor I skip breastplates because they are so heavy if the dwarf isn't a skilled armor user. Set uniforms to replace if you are sure you have all of the gear to ensure the dwarf actually wears everything he has assigned rather than just a helm and vest.

I generally go mail shirt, gauntlet, greaves, helm, high boot, wood shield for my melee dwarves. Mail shirt wont stop bruising or blunt attacks very well, but if a dwarf is encumbered he will be attacking and dodging far less and will be hit much more and will be far less effective. I think my setup is actually on the heavy side and might be slowing them down a fair bit and only the chest is vulnerable to blunt attack, but they seem to dodge alright a lot of the time. I refuse to use danger rooms to boost armor user, if you're doing that they'll probably be alright with a mail shirt/breastplate combo. Steel is a short term priority upon embark, and my metalworking industry and mining are all focused on getting a few suits of it out as soon as space has been cleared for the necessary farms, stockpiles and workshops. Half the fun is trying to streamline the embark to get a fully armored squad out behind a moat and stockade in personal record time.

My archers and justice dwarves just get leather (the fortress guard might need chase a mischievous dwarf or two down and need to travel light). So thats leather armor, leggings, helm, high boot, wood shield, any crossbow. Not really bothered with anything else at it doesn't provide armor and will only make the dwarves run around trying to scab new higher quality socks and whathaveyou if any are produced rather than patrolling the ramparts and practicing.

[Mimodo]

So you'd recommend ditching the breastplate altogether? That'd save me a bit of stieel! I only just got to flux stone, so they're all geared up in iron at the moment.

For archers I just use the default archer uniform, which generally works out alright. None of my dwarves are yet battle tested though, so I have a feeling they'll end up a goblin pincushion very quickly still

[Nasty]

Definitely until they have a few ranks in armor user at least. Some even recommend ditching the greaves for leggings, but I am quite paranoid about this because leg injuries are quite common and can be fatal in a big melee when everyone is too preoccupied with their own combats to come to the rescue of a downed dwarf.