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[StagnantSoul]

Yeah, in the world.dat thing.

[Pirate Bob]

I assume the best utility to decompress a save is Andux's save tools?  These appear to be for windoze, and while there is source code provided it's in a language I don't recognize (possibly puppet?), so I don't think I will try to compile it myself.  Unless there is a linux version of something to decompress a save I will have to give it a try from work sometime.

[Shizmoo]

Whips/scourges/etc. are the best.

[Pirate Bob]

Whips/scourges/etc. are the best.

They are certainly the best at penetrating armor (due to their ridiculously small contact area and high velocity modifier) and probably the best overall (at least against humanoids) but I am currently just testing weapons creatable in fort mode.  I will eventually look at some foreign weapons, and you make a good point that those should probably be near the top of my list.

My suspicion is that they will perform poorly against megabeasts and other large creatures (due to low penetration depth), and very badly against creatures that don't feel pain.  However I have done no testing of this and could be totally wrong.  The only thing I can say for sure is that invaders with whips are the most dangerous to a dwarven military (due to the armor penetration).

[Shizmoo]

Ya those characteristic dont just rape on penetrating armor =p. Dont invaders in fort mode drop whips sometimes? Im not sure about megabeasts, but when I spawned a dwarf with a whip to fight a dragon the dude killed the dragon in one hit.

[Pirate Bob]

Ya those characteristic dont just rape on penetrating armor =p. Dont invaders in fort mode drop whips sometimes? Im not sure about megabeasts, but when I spawned a dwarf with a whip to fight a dragon the dude killed the dragon in one hit.

I ran a quick test of lashers with steel whips and armor, and grandmaster skills, against dragons.  The lashers had 709 kills to the dragons 291, so they still did well, but not as well as the hammers or spears.  I also checked the logs and confirmed that there were numerous instances of dwarves getting one-shot kills of dragons by hitting them in the head, so you are correct about that.

I am not sure I set this up exactly the same as before (definitely the same weapons and skills, but I don't think the positioning of the creatures was the same) so I will plan to include whips + scourges in an automated test of several weapons vs. many megabeasts that I will set up this weekend (hopefully).

[Pirate Bob]

Here are the results of my testing a variety of weapons against megabeasts.  In all cases, dwarves were grandmasters in weapon, fighter, shield user, armor user and dodge and megabeasts had no (added) skills (most of them have high natural skills though).  The dwarves were given full plate armor (helm, breastplate, mail shirt, greaves, gauntlets and high boots), a weapon and a shield. This time I placed the dwaves and beasts 6 tiles apart, like so:

Code: [Select]

--------
|D++++B|
--------
Where 'D' is the dwarf and 'B' is the megabeast.  1152 Dwarves were placed first, followed by 1152 of the chosen megabeast.  I did one round where weapon and armor were both steel:

Spoiler: Steel Weapons and Armor (click to show/hide)

steel   spear   475   hydra   525
steel   sword   344   hydra   656
steel   axe   328   hydra   672
steel   whip   207   hydra   793
steel   hammer   19   hydra   981
steel   mace   0   hydra   1000
steel   scourge   0   hydra   1000

steel   spear   771   dragon   229
steel   whip   717   dragon   283
steel   sword   677   dragon   323
steel   scourge   666   dragon   334
steel   hammer   650   dragon   350
steel   axe   572   dragon   428
steel   mace   563   dragon   437

steel   sword   935   colossus   65
steel   axe   877   colossus   123
steel   spear   866   colossus   134
steel   hammer   855   colossus   145
steel   scourge   835   colossus   165
steel   whip   822   colossus   178
steel   mace   595   colossus   405

steel   spear   991   roc   9
steel   sword   968   roc   32
steel   whip   965   roc   35
steel   scourge   959   roc   41
steel   hammer   945   roc   55
steel   axe   900   roc   100
steel   mace   807   roc   193

steel   spear   996   minotaur   4
steel   scourge   995   minotaur   5
steel   sword   995   minotaur   5
steel   axe   986   minotaur   14
steel   whip   979   minotaur   21
steel   hammer   975   minotaur   25
steel   mace   879   minotaur   121

steel   spear   1000   giant   0
steel   scourge   999   giant   1
steel   sword   999   giant   1
steel   whip   999   giant   1
steel   axe   997   giant   3
steel   hammer   995   giant   5
steel   mace   982   giant   18

In this case, spears are a pretty clear overall winner.  They are the best against all creatures except bronze colossus, where they still do quite well, and they are by far the best against the hydra, which is easily the most deadly megabeast.  Axes and swords are probably tied for second.  Hammers, whips and scourges did well against most creatures, but were very poor against hydras (I think they get most kills by smashing brains, and having to do that 7 times is rather hard).  Maces are the worst against every creature tested.

In the case of adamantine weapons and armor, the slashing weapons are better:

Spoiler: Adamantine Weapons and Armor (click to show/hide)

adamantine   axe   987   hydra   13
adamantine   sword   952   hydra   48
adamantine   spear   815   hydra   185

adamantine   spear   821   dragon   179
adamantine   sword   778   dragon   222
adamantine   axe   707   dragon   293

adamantine   axe   996   colossus   4
adamantine   sword   979   colossus   21
adamantine   spear   858   colossus   142

adamantine   spear   995   roc   5
adamantine   sword   988   roc   12
adamantine   axe   978   roc   22

adamantine   sword   1000   minotaur   0
adamantine   spear   998   minotaur   2
adamantine   axe   996   minotaur   4

adamantine   spear   1000   giant   0
adamantine   sword   1000   giant   0
adamantine   axe   997   giant   3

When made out of magical metal that cuts through anything, the large contact area and penetration depth of axes and swords becomes much more beneficial.  Spears still do quite well, but all three edged weapons are fairly even overall, rather than spears have a clear advantage as is the case with steel. 

I didn't run adamantine blunt weapons or whips as they of course will work much less well when made out of adamantine.  It is also not clear how much of the benefit of adamantine comes from the armor, and how much from the weapon.  I will try to run again with steel armor and addy weapons to sort this out.

In summary, spears, axes, and swords all did very well against all creatures.  Hammers are also great weapons (especially considering they perform just as well when made of copper or silver), but if you get a hydra you will need something else. 

Whips and scourges are good, but several of the native weapons are better, so my current testing does not justify using the low-quality whips/scourges you can get off invaders.  If I get a chance, I will test whips against "goblin invaders", however I don't expect them to have a large advantage.  They clearly are the best weapon against full steel/adamantine plate armor (i.e. your dwarves) but invaders are poorly armored enough that I don't think their amazing armor penetration will matter that much.

Also, keep in mind that all tests were run with dwarves that had grandmaster in all relevant skills.  If I ran with low skilled dwarves, I'm sure they would be slaughtered by the beasts.  Given that most weapons did pretty well, this again confirms that training and good armor are much more important then which of the native weapons you choose for your dwarves.

Edit:  One other note - the dragons were much more deadly than in my previous tests.  This is because they started further from the dwarves, and had more chance to breath fire.  I confirmed that at least a large fraction of dwarven losses were due to being roasted.  This also explains why dragons are the most deadly against adamantine armored dwarves - armor doesn't protect you from fire...

[Art]

Pirate Bob you are amazing.

Question: How big were the dragons? Max size? Were the other creatures max size, if relevant?

PS -  LOL Maces so bad. I gotta fix them.

[Shizmoo]

I was going to say something about different weapons of the same type that are better like 2handed sword > short sword, but those are foreign. Been playing adventure mode too long where you can get anything you want heh. Surprised spears are king though. I read somewhere about a larger creature wearing armor makes spears crappy because the armor gets a way biggest thickness level scaling with size, dont know if it has been changed or not.

[Art]

What would be a large creature wearing armor? A human would be the biggest, I think.

[Shizmoo]

I think the guy mentioned a clown wearing armor

[Pirate Bob]

Question: How big were the dragons? Max size? Were the other creatures max size, if relevant?

PS -  LOL Maces so bad. I gotta fix them.

I'm not sure what size the arena uses.  I didn't do anything to change the creature size - just whatever is the default for the arena.  I checked a few dragon corpses, and they have mass 5000-7000U.  I don't know if that's full size or not, but I don't think it is.  In contrast, a dwarf corpse is about 80U and a hydra 10,000U.  Dwarves have size 60,000 and hydras 8,000,000, and some multiplications shows that both of these sizes are consistent with dragons being of size 4.5 million in the arena.  This is consistent with them being about 200 years old.  In other words, this is about the size of dragons that you will get in fort mode if you use the standard 250 year worldgen.  I don't know if there is any way to change this.

I was going to say something about different weapons of the same type that are better like 2handed sword > short sword, but those are foreign. Been playing adventure mode too long where you can get anything you want heh. Surprised spears are king though. I read somewhere about a larger creature wearing armor makes spears crappy because the armor gets a way biggest thickness level scaling with size, dont know if it has been changed or not.

You probably heard about spears and large creatures with armor, but got it backward.  Spears are possibly the *best* thing against such creatures, due to having the largest penetration depth of any weapon (technically pikes are the best, but those are just large spears, so...)  Whips and other blunt items with small contact area might also work, but I'm not sure.

I think the guy mentioned a clown wearing armor

Clowns that take over leadership of sites by posing as gods will wear clothing, which is stupidly thick due to their large size.  Spears would be your best bet of penetrating it, but I don't know if even they have long enough penetration depth.  Whips/hammers would be interesting to try also.

[Aranador]

In the Fortress Defence mod, from long ago in a version far far away, the author had added a titanic frost giant race as one of the 'bonus' races, they wore full steel armour and were freakin massive, I think size 10 mil.  Apparently the only weapon worth a damn against them was the war hammer, as nothing else really pushed any force past the armour layer.

Anecdotal to be sure, but may be where the idea re:spears came from.

[Quartz_Mace]

In my military experience, axes are good for chopping off limbs, but you don't need to chop an enemy in half to kill them, so this leads to diminishing returns. Really, besides being able to dismember trolls, they don't have much going for them. Swords are very good because they can sever limbs, impale enemies, and break bones occasionally. In other words, swords do a bit of everything. Spears are best against large beasts like trolls, giant Olms, Ogres, and most Mega and Semi-Megabeasts as well as armored humanoids because they punch through all armor, scales, or hide and will destroy vital organs often, unless hitting extremities, in which case they often shatter bone, or just sever the part. Their tendency to get stuck is a slight flaw, but they often incapacitate enemies anyway, making it harder for them to retaliate. As far as blunt weapons go, hammers are the best, but I don't have too much experience with them, other than having used them in adventure mode to easily knock out enemies in one shot. Note: all of this research done with steel. Other metals may vary.

Nice science by the way. I would definitely like to see some stuff on foriegn weapons as well.

Also, just wondering, you said that some Dwarves may not be able to wield a weapon with one hand. Does wieght affect this, allowing an adamantine squad to circumvent this limitation, or will they still require two hands for effective use?

[StagnantSoul]

It's based on size of the dwarf.