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[greatorder]

Decided to start playing DF again, and I've run into defence-based troubles. My embark's only two weapon/trap metals are silver and copper, with no ability to make bronze. I know that silver and copper make terrible edged weapons, so I'm wondering if glass has been changed at all in regards to its effectiveness in things like giant serrated discs, since the last thread I was able to find on this was made in 2010, and said they were abysmal.

If they're still useless, I think I'll just stick to silver and copper warhammer traps.

[AbanShakehandles]

I employ a strategy I learned watching Idgarad's videos where you can use training spears as effective traps.

Have your traps on a single tile wide bridge over a pit. Gobbos and the like will dodge the trap and fall into the pit.
A stairway from the bottom back up to the start of the bridge makes for repeated falls.

This softens them up a bit so my mediocre military can finish them off.


Sorry, I know that doesn't address your original question. ...like at all.

[pisskop]

Metal > Glass

  Glass is inferior to most weapons-grade metals.  But is infinite, cheap, and can be made on-site.  If you have an abundance or like to use silver or copper traps go ahead, but glass traps are meant to be used in force.

Consider making proper spiked balls and giant saws.  Im also a fan of using pikes and halbreds.

[Orange Wizard]

A combination of serrated discs and spikes are pretty effective against armoured and unarmoured foes. Glass is kinda bad, but when used in large quantities it's devastating.

[utunnels]

Well it depends.

Enemies don't have all their body parts protected, that is to say they can be hurt by crappiest weapons.
So 10 cheap green glass discs/spears can still kill a metal clad goblin. 10 steel discs will be another story, unless you are very rich...

[pisskop]

Maybe a petition to the great Toad is in order, to get some elite shock troops who can wear a complete set of armor?  Maybe even new styles?

[Orange Wizard]

The point is that the spikes can go through armour because of their small contact area. It's not very reliable, which is why you need dozens of the darn things.
Again, though, glass is pretty much free (minus fuel, but you need that for metal as well). Metal is better, but it's not always possible to put it all into traps.

[Arcvasti]

In my experience, a hallway full of ~200 serrated glass discs either reduces the goblin who entered it into a mound of gibs or teleports him halfway across the map because of how many attacks he dodged[<-This last may have been fixed in 40.xx]. Serrated steel or adamantine discs do basically the same thing, but you need less of them and they get jammed more often.

[Thisfox]

So glass is still shitty? Gotcha.

And yeah, I tend to go for giant serrated discs. It's fun seeing limbs fly everywhere.

And then you find you have three OCD dorfs who absolutely live for putting the limbs in the limb storage area. All of the limbs. Every. Last. Finger. Plus the eyes, the teeth, and the ears.... They just want to haul body parts.

[Pirate Santa]

Don't traps always have to be used en masse?

Material only really matters when the targets are armoured, if your dealing with unarmoured targets (or elves) a hall of green glass serrated discs or even spiked wooden balls will kill anything dumb enough to walk into it.

[terko]

Maybe one day the Glass Discs will shatter ... in million pieces to be hauled aswell.

[catten]

There was a !!SCIENCE!! thread a while back about glass trap components, and IIRC the conclusion was that (a) they are dirt cheap to produce (b) devastatingly effective against creatures with internal organs (especially the menacing spikes and giant corkscrews) and (c) less likely to jam than metal (because jams come from insta-kills, which metal parts excel at, while glass is more likely to make them bleed to death a few steps away instead).

My limited experience is that a hallway lined with pointy glass toys is a very effective way to welcome an early-game siege or ambush.

Throw in a bunch of silver blunt weapons and you should actually be in extremely good shape against everything that lacks the [trapavoid] tag. Alternate normal weapon traps with glass spikes on a lever or repeater, and you should be in good shape against everything except HFS (no pain, no organs, trapavoid... tough crowd).

[Skullsploder]

The effectiveness of glass trap components against HFS, FBs, and titans is moot because they are all [TRAPAVOID]. Against goblins and undead, now... just spam glass disks if spam's the approach you are going for. 20 weapons traps each with 10 glass disks equals a total of 600 attacks against anything coming down the corridor. Even glass disks can sever limbs with a lucky hit, and with that many attacks, many lucky hits are guaranteed, not to mention the fact that with approx 200 hits from a very large weapon, your undead buddies are getting pulped. If you make the corridor wind a bit as well, then a necromancer will be unable to resurrect his forces without walking on the traps himself.

[Maolagin]

The effectiveness of glass trap components against HFS, FBs, and titans is moot because they are all [TRAPAVOID].

Not totally moot. I've finished off the occasional FB through the magic of bait furniture plus lever-operated spikes.

[megahelmet]

I use glass spike balls. They aren't as fatal as glass discs but they get jammed up less. They are very effective since glass at least has a an ok weight. They will break bones, lots, and lots of bones. They will hobble, cripple, and maim any gobbo siege. Anything that makes it through has been disarmed from having broken arms, or is too busy puking their guts out from the pain to put up a fight.

I like to combine a narrow field of traps with open pits. Pits not deep enough to kill, just enough to hurt. Then I let them walk through the traps again.

Then they meet the military for live combat training.