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[Gamezdude]

Im struggling with what armour to equip my dwarfs with, ive looked at the wiki and my brain goes into meltdown
The most solid thing ive got nailed is make leather shields.

As for the rest...theres just toooooo many variables:-
how much of the same item you can wear
the items weight
what type of attacks the armour is good against
coverage
layers
etc

Is there any starting tips on what i should equip my first melee squad with?
the armour, material and any cloths?

[smakemupagus]

iron is fine against everything.  if you don't have iron use something else, copper or leather. upgrade to steel later.

Just make one piece of armor for each body part.  Worry about layering later when your brain isn't melting.  For good coverage, just choose things that sound like they cover better (mail greaves rather than thong, etc.)

[Gamezdude]

For good coverage, just choose things that sound like they cover better (mail greaves rather than thong, etc.)

We talking Coverage % or UBSTEP? (Coverage % I do understand, not hard)

Oh also, in terms of layers should I worry about Under, Over & Cover or just focus on Armour?

[GhostDwemer]

You are putting the cart before the horse. Make sure they have SOME armor before worrying about optimizing. Get them shields first, then helms, then breastplates. Don't worry about layering, have them wear the armor over their clothing.

You definitely want a helm, breastplate (or leather armor), shield, greaves (or leather leggings), high boots, gauntlets and a weapon in the uniform.  A cloak helps too. Everything else is really optional. Heck, just using the default "Metal Armor" or "Archer" uniforms is usually enough to start with.

Remember, a dwarf wearing a copper helm made yesterday beats the dwarf waiting for full steel armor which will be finished next week. Get them something, anything, and have them start training. Training matters a lot, a naked legendary will usually slaughter a fully armored newb.

[Blastbeard]

Here's a reference image from the wiki. So far as I can tell it's still accurate about what armor covers what body part.



It's worth noting that no metal armor covers the face/lover head and neck. Dresses and robes, both staples in dwarven fashion and commonly made of leather despite how uncomfortable that would actually be, do. Later on, you can make these out of candy and they will offer considerable protective value. I personally favor chain armor over its solid counterparts as it seems to offers better protective value, but it is slightly heavier than them and may make an unskilled armor user all the slower for it.

In the beginning, I prefer to keep my militia lightly armored so they can move faster. Starting off, their lack of armor user skill means the more you give them the slower they move, to such an extent when they finally do reach the fight they can only make one attack for every ten of the enemy's. I'd rather have a lightly armored soldier reach engage the enemy quickly before they can put a dent in my population and resources than have a heavily armored soldier take long enough for that enemy to do their damage and set me back years.

Breastplate, helmet, a leather robe, and a wooden shield are what I usually set them up with until I get the forges up and running. If everything goes as planned things go well I survive long enough, my militia brings their armor user skill up to such levels that they can move unencumbered just in time to receive a full set of high end armor.
Using wood for your shields is a big thing, constructing them on site saves you valuable embark points and they offer the same protective value as a metal one. They don't work as well when used as a smashing board, but that's what whatever killing stick you give them is for.

[Eldin00]

That image is still accurate as far as I know. Chain offers little or no protection against blunt damage, but mail shirts cover quite a lot more of the body than any other metal armor.

My usual starting kit is mail shirt, helm, leather cloak, leather dress/robe, and shield (made from any convenient material). I add gauntlets, high boots, breastplate, and greaves (in that order, usually) as the squad's armor use goes up. I'll start out with iron if I have it or copper if I don't (or leather/bone/shell supplemented by whatever metals I can get from invaders/trade if I haven't found iron or copper on my embark) with the goal of eventually getting all of the metal bits upgraded to steel.

[utunnels]

To be honest I rarely see armors in effect. My dorfs usually become good dodgers and blockers before real enemies come.
And when they die, the attacks are usually lucky shots that ignore their armor....

Anyway, my standard setting:

chain mail and/or breastplate
helm
greaves
high or low boots
gauntlets
shield

I don't like cloaks because they can wear out. Someone may say they protect your face, but my dorfs are usually fine without them.

[smakemupagus]

We talking Coverage % or UBSTEP? (Coverage % I do understand, not hard)
Oh also, in terms of layers should I worry about Under, Over & Cover or just focus on Armour?

For a newbie, literally one item per body part is fine.  Like, use the Metal Armor preset.

The first bit of complexity you can think about adding is maybe on the chest, you can put one piece of Shaped armor (breastplate), one non-shaped armor (mail), and maybe layer a cloak.

To be honest that's all you'll ever need.

[Chaosegg]

Simple "Full coverage":
shield (wood is only a tiny bit heavier than leather and far more common material; save your leather for cloak/hoods etc imo)
cloak
hood
helm
chain shirt
gauntlets
high boots

To get them to equip all of this you probably have to replace clothing.

After that stuff, I often will add:
Leather armor (good weight-to-protection-ratio, breastplate slot, items), and
maybe some socks, gloves, and/or mittens of any material, the extra protection can't hurt and is presumably light wt./unencumbering

[Gamezdude]

Ok cheers guys.

Ive done more research and I think I now understand the rest (Inc Armour Skill)

However im still puzzled as to what defines what type of clothing (Breast Plate or Chain Mail, Greaves or Leggings) has better protection than the other (Exc Coverage & UBSTEP etc)

[Bumber]

Ok cheers guys.

Ive done more research and I think I now understand the rest (Inc Armour Skill)

However im still puzzled as to what defines what type of clothing (Breast Plate or Chain Mail, Greaves or Leggings) has better protection than the other (Exc Coverage & UBSTEP etc)

Breastplates and greaves are rigid (lacking the chain elasticity tag,) and therefore better at absorbing blunt damage. They are heavier and require an extra bar of metal compared to their mail counterparts. Chain mail can convert edge damage to blunt damage, instead of deflecting the blow, and is lighter.

See: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Material_science

[Niddhoger]

You can actually go completely absurd with layering.  6+ cloaks and mutliple sets of chain mail.  This only offers marginally more protection and will reduce a dorf down to a crawl without legendary armor use. 

First and foremost- GET THAT SHIELD.  No dorf should ever lack a shield.  As stupid as it is, a wooden/leather shield will perfectly protect dorf's from the same dragonfire that melts the adamantium statue next to him.  They also are paramount in blocking arrows and any other attacks really.  Lucky one-hit-kills are a very real and common occurrence in DF.  A sword that pierces the heart/hammer that crushes the skull/axe that lops off his head can all happen in the first round of combat.  Barring that, enough damage can be caused to double your dorf over in pain leaving him vulnerable to follow up attacks.  The single best thing to do is give your dorf his shield.  Later, with dodger and enough armor user to move in a full suit of gear your dorf becomes much safer... but again that shield is the single best thing you can give him.  Also, heavier shields will definitely encumber your dorf more.  Bashing is dependent on weight, but only helps if the dorf loses his weapon.  I'd stick with wooden shields (over copper/heavy artifact shields), as even at higher armor levels it still wears the dorf down more.  More encumbrance=less attacks+ quicker exertion.  Even at proficient armor/shield user the extra weight of steel shields killed most of their users fighting an identical squad with lighter wood shields.  You might can switch to copper shields at grand master, but again this only helps when your dorf loses his weapon.  They are kinda screwed then anyway. 

After that you can have a leather tunic for training.  As someone else mentioned, you want your military dorfs training asap.  A single piece of armor is all they need to start training the skill, so if you are light on metals/don't have your metal industry set up just give your dorfs a piece of leather/shell/bone armor to get the ball rolling.  Gauntlets and boots are also very light and can be added early on if you have the materials ready.  Copper gauntlets/boots and leather tunic/bone greaves +helm + wood shield won't encumber an early dorf much while providing decent coverage.  Later you can give them a full suit of copper/bronze armor as their armor user and your metal industry allows.  It doesn't matter if your dorfs don't have full masterwork steel before your first siege- just so long as they have a full suit of armor and hte skills to use it.  As the years go by and you have a legendary smith churning out full suits of masterwork armor with access to candy, and you have full squads of legendary armor users you can start worrying about maximizing layers and coverage. 

I want to say you need at least armor user 5 to fully equip a dorf with metal armor.  I checked back on the military testing page of the wiki and a grandmaster user can handle full armor+3 chain shirts like they aren't there, but I didn't find further testing done. 

[Sanctume]

I get so bogged down in the details of uniforms that I've stuck to simple setup:
I made a macro and it helps create a uniform for every test embark I do.
I have to make some changes sometimes when my dwarf civ does not use high boots.

Basic Kit (Recruits)
Leather Armor
Leather Trouser
Leather Cloak
Leather Hood
Mittens
Metal Helm
Metal Gauntlets
Metal High Boots
no shield
no weapon

This is set as Over Clothing as to just begin the recruits training.
I don't give them shields (yet) because I want them to get as much Armor User skills first.
And since this is a macro, I can create a new one based from it, and save it for specific weapon use; i.e. Basic Kit Axe.

[Uzu Bash]

If you're talking about starter armor, shell with leather is best for Recruit to low Wrestler ranks, even if better materials are available. It adds layers leather doesn't, and it improves the rate of armor use gain without adding too much burden. When they're high enough to specialize in a weapon, they should have the Strength and Armor Use to manage metal armors. I don't think copper is a good choice even if they have to deploy to real battle at that point; with armor use that low copper won't protect them much better, and with strength that low the encumbrance will leave them even more vulnerable.

[ragincajun]

Hopefully this isn't a hijack as it's in the same query vein:

Do you still have to have them remove clothing to accurately equip armor or has that been fixed?