After realizing that some of my dwarves were carrying around 133Γ-144Γ copper shields, I realized there was a bit of a problem with my (semi-mega)beastman races for my Evil Civs mod; apparently, despite using the same (vanilla) shield design as every other race, their shields weigh more than 15x as much (closer to 16x, actually). Dwarves carrying iron shields of dwarven make are not encumbered by their 8Γ shields, but anyone carrying a beastman-made iron shield is lugging around a hunk of metal weighing in at 127Γ, and isn't gettign any extra defensive bonus out of it. I've decided that from now on my beast men will have their own, separate shield entries, rather than using the vanilla shields, because it's rather inconvenient that so many of my soldiers are encumbered so heavily and I have no simple way of getting the bloody things out of their hands, because they're considered by the game to be identical to dwarven-made shields in terms of armor assignments.
I also notice that there is some degree of variation among the lighter-weight shields. I suspect that humans and dwarves also make different-mass shields, as all of the iron shields designed by my own smiths weigh 8Γ, as do a few foreign shields that I suspect are dwarven/goblin/cobald in origin, while many other sheilds are either 10Γ (corresponding to humans/tigermen) or 127Γ (corresponding to the beastmen).
Obviously the best possible shields for your typical infantry are of dwarven make, as they are lightest by weight while probably offering the same protection in terms of combat code. Therefore, I shall from now on smelt down all foreign shields for raw materials. I think the heavier shields would likely make for one hell of a blunt weapon in melee combat, but these things are heavy to the point dwarves are moving... pretty damn slow.
Also, my fortress is nearly overflowing with dingo men/women now, and I can't figure out how to operate Dfusion/the friendship utility. Anybody got some advise? I'd like to see these SOB's help out a little.