Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Headless]

So i finally found marble down in what i think is the second caver layer.  I am making steel by armok is that tedious. 
A few questions.  If i make steel chain shirts or helmets for example will the dorfs automatically upgrade, trade in there iron ones? 
How about weapons? Will they trade iron short swords they have been training with for a couple years for steel spears?  They are set individual choice melee.
I have a couple steel swords and spears available for weapon traps but not as many as i have made.  I think.
Artifact silver hammer vs master work steel one.  Which is better?

[smeeprocket]

I don't know about weapons, but they'll upgrade the armor.

Now if you have iron breastplates and make steel chain shirts... I'm not sure.

For steel production if you don't have magma, I generally have four or so wood burners going, 3 smelters, and the forge. However, you will run out of iron bars between smelting pig iron and steel, as in production won't keep up. So you could have 4 smelters running, but then you'll want to increase the number of wood furnaces. Also you have to calculate in time to grab the wood, and time to grab the ores, and time to grab the flux if you don't have a quantum stockpile of all of it.

None of this calculates in if you are also making other metals like gold etc, which, if you are, I would put on the steel smelter and rotate because that way you can keep pace with iron production.

[Aslandus]

So i finally found marble down in what i think is the second caver layer.  I am making steel by armok is that tedious. 
A few questions.  If i make steel chain shirts or helmets for example will the dorfs automatically upgrade, trade in there iron ones? 
How about weapons? Will they trade iron short swords they have been training with for a couple years for steel spears?  They are set individual choice melee.
I have a couple steel swords and spears available for weapon traps but not as many as i have made.  I think.
Artifact silver hammer vs master work steel one.  Which is better?

As far as I know, soldiers favor weapons they have skill with over raw value (I have a couple sword dwarfs with stone swords and they've never dropped them in favor of a silver war hammer), but in the case of armor I think they dump the old stuff on the ground and run off to grab more valuable pieces....

I think for war hammers, silver and steel are comparable, so the artifact would be more effective due to being an artifact... that said, if they were swords the steel would be better because silver is a terrible blade material...

Whether the upgrade between iron and steel is worthwhile depends on where you plan to go, if you plan to dive into the deep caverns or fight hundreds of goblins in sieges steel might be worthwhile, but iron is usually good enough as long as your soldiers are trained well...

[Larix]

^ soldiers definitely prefer weapons they have skill with. A dwarf with hammer skill and no axe skill will prefer a crummy copper war hammer over a fine steel battleaxe if given the choice. Exceptions are rare.
Soldiers with no skill-related weapons to pick will take the priciest one, which usually means axes.

Soldiers will always upgrade equipment to more expensive stuff, if possible/allowed. They won't switch to equipment they're not allowed to use (if you specify mail shirts, they won't spontaneously exchange one for a breastplate), they won't switch to a weapon they have no or inferior skill in, and they won't exchange an "attached" item unless you order them to let go of it (and assign them a specific new item).

Item price appears to be the main parameter in equipment choice, but at least with weapons, there are material preferences which can be seen by going through the "specific item" list - that list is sorted by preference for equipment and you can see that steel is rated significantly above other materials, and silver seems to suffer from a malus when comparing with bronze/copper - it's probably only rated at half its monetary value.

[PatrikLundell]

They definitely drop weapons the same way they drop armor, i.e. upgrading to better equipment of the same type. Also, they ignore armor (and presumably weapon) material specifications in favor of value, so your secondary squad specified to use "steel breastplate" will drop their steel breastplates and steal the adamantine breastplates intended for your élite squad given the chance unless you specify "exact match" (haven't verified that "exact match" will actually work, though, but I assume it does).

Breastplate vs Chainmail SHOULD only be an issue if your equipment specification is broad enough to cover both types, in which case I suspect they'd change to the more expensive one.

[Aranador]

Dwarves will try to equip more expensive stuff.

Generally, because steel is much more valuable than iron, that means your dwarves will happily snag the new stuff.  Occasionally, they might find something useless that they prefer.

Within the military, there is a hierarchy of importance.  The dwarf at the top of the order will get the best stuff first.  Then because his old stuff is often still pretty good, some other dwarf down the line might grab it.

It more or less works itself out, with maybe a few cases of madness that you can either try to fix, or just live with for the !!fun!!.  The only sticking point might be if a dwarf has grown attached to a crappy weapon and refuses to use that masterwork steel axe you made.

[PatrikLundell]

Are you sure there is a hierarchy? To me it seems any equipment upgrade is simply based on who happens to reach a scheduling point first after the new gear has been produced. That dorf will then allocate the gear, immediately dump the old stuff, and eventually proceed to pick up the allocted gear.
Also, since the "old" gear is dropped at whatever place the dorf happens to be when shinier stuff is detected, recycling can take forever, since I don't think the old gear will be picked up and used from the ground, but only after it has reached a stockpile, and THAT is usually a very low priority task that only seems to happen if the gear is dropped quite close to a suitable stockpile (or brought to such a location by 'd'umping an unforbidding).

[Naryar]

Yes, they should. Beware of masterwork iron armor/base quality steel armor, and decorated armor as well, though.

Dwarves will get the most expensive equipment indeed. Also they tend to choose the weapons they are more skilled with.

Overall: Yes, dwarves auto-improve equipment unless you put them as equipping a very specific piece of equipment.

[vjmdhzgr]

I've experienced that dwarves at the top of the military list get the better equipment as well, and the effects can be seen very clearly when you have a ten dwarf military and are training an armorer up from novice. As for the war hammer thing, silver is generally the material you want to use for blunt weapons anyway with steel being nearly as good so the silver artifact is both a better material and a higher quality.

[Bognor]

Just in case there's any confusion, if you've set up uniforms sensibly there shouldn't be any conflict between breastplates and chain mail - a dwarf can wear both.  If for some reason you're only using one you probably want to go with chain mail, as it covers far more body parts (see here).

[Aslandus]

I've experienced that dwarves at the top of the military list get the better equipment as well, and the effects can be seen very clearly when you have a ten dwarf military and are training an armorer up from novice. As for the war hammer thing, silver is generally the material you want to use for blunt weapons anyway with steel being nearly as good so the silver artifact is both a better material and a higher quality.

According to the wiki they are about equal in strength for blunt weapons, but silver is preferable because it's easier to make and has few other things that it is useful for...

[McCautious]

Headless, you could always just set up more specified equipment in the military screen.

E.g. create a uniform for your squad named "Steel". Here is the one I use for my heavies currently:

- exact matches + replace clothing + wear uniform when off duty
- head -> helmet; material -> steel
- head -> hood; material -> leather
- armor -> breastplate; material -> steel
- armor -> mailshirt; material -> steel
- armor -> robe; material -> leather
- legs -> greaves; material -> steel
- legs -> trousers; material -> leather
- hands -> gauntlets; material -> steel
- hands -> mittens; material -> leather
- feet -> highboots; material -> steel

Your dwarves can wear a maximum of 3 items on their legs and body. (trousers + trousers + armored leg; robe/shirt/etc. + robe/shirt/etc. + armored body)
A maximum of 2 items on their hands and feet. (gloves/mittens + armored hand; socks + armored foot)
A maximum of (I think) 3 items on their head. (underveil + overhood + armored head)

You can check the clothing types here.
Anything that has an "S" tag or is layertype "armor" is considered "armored". You can only have 1 of these at a given time per body-part and group some under- and overclothing around it according to the above maximum numbers.
(So they cannot wear gloves as underlayer, greaves as armor and mittens as overlayer because only 2 items fit on the hand. If you do assign all 3 items you will see some of them wearing leather gloves + leather mittens but not wearing the gauntlets.)

Using this method, they are still flexible enough to switch out their -steel breastplate- for a *steel breastplate* when your armorer forges it but they are always keen on finally completing the set you have assigned to them essentially forcing them to wear steel and leather only. As soon as something better is available (in terms of quality-tag) or something is available that was missing (typically leather clothing because the civilians also wear them) they will go and snatch it.
The only thing you really need to obide is having enough of each steel-item when you first assign the uniform. Otherwise they might end up partly naked or only in leather for a while.