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[ldog]

"Over clothing" is dangerous, because they will almost never put on helmet, gauntlets or boots. That green checkmark in the equipment menu just means that the item is available to and claimed by them, it doesn't mean they are actually wearing it. Check DT or inspect unit.

If available civilians will all wear 1each of: robe/dress/coat, tunic/shirt/vest, cloak, cap, hood, trousers, socks, shoes, gloves, mittens.
This is also how embark and migrants arrive.

So the cap keeps them from wearing a helmet, gloves and mittens the gauntlets, socks and shoes the boots.
While it's possible to get them to wear socks and mittens with boots and gauntlets it tends to be very problematic and is best avoided.

Also clothing weight adds up. I see a lot of people say not to armor up unskilled dwarves and I disagree. Armor and shield will save your elite marksdwarves asses when they do stupid shit (and when don't they)

Helm, mail shirt, breastplate, greaves, gauntlets, high boots - preferably steel/candy. Shield. Shields for everyone! Do not bother with bucklers. Do not bother with leggings. Do not bother with leather armor, it's just about worthless. If that's the best you can do better to just give them a weapon and shield with over clothing orders.

If you want to get fancy and add hoods, cloaks, robes, trousers - That's when you should consider their armor skill or lack thereof since they add weight for little gain. Avoid socks and mittens. You'll wind up with dwarves wearing only 1 boot or gauntlet and that is the foot/hand they will get hit in I guarantee it!

[Albedo]

Armor and shield will save your elite marksdwarves asses when they do stupid shit (and when don't they)... Shields for everyone! Do not bother with bucklers.

Do marksdwarfs shoot while holding shields? I thought they needed bucklers, or they went straight into melee-mode. (Which might go far to explaining why yours do "stupid shit".)

Do not bother with leggings.

+1 (generally speaking). Note that early, a chain shirt and high boots covers the entire torso/legs, leaving only guantlets and helm to complete the set.

If all you have is leather, it's better than nothing, but only by a bit - ANY metal, even copper, is far superior (if also considerably heavier).

Note that this is one area where "some" common sense ~can~ be applicable - if you're clearing out small animals with no significant natural weapons (capybaras, macaques, even snakes), leather will help a lot. But once your opponent has a "real" weapon (horns, tusks, hooves), you want metal armour to help stop the worst of that threat.

And, of course, once you face opponents with real weapons, you want the best you have, bronze (or iron) if not steel.

[ldog]

Armor and shield will save your elite marksdwarves asses when they do stupid shit (and when don't they)... Shields for everyone! Do not bother with bucklers.

Do marksdwarfs shoot while holding shields? I thought they needed bucklers, or they went straight into melee-mode. (Which might go far to explaining why yours do "stupid shit".)

Do not bother with leggings.

+1 (generally speaking). Note that early, a chain shirt and high boots covers the entire torso/legs, leaving only guantlets and helm to complete the set.

If all you have is leather, it's better than nothing, but only by a bit - ANY metal, even copper, is far superior (if also considerably heavier).

Note that this is one area where "some" common sense ~can~ be applicable - if you're clearing out small animals with no significant natural weapons (capybaras, macaques, even snakes), leather will help a lot. But once your opponent has a "real" weapon (horns, tusks, hooves), you want metal armour to help stop the worst of that threat.

And, of course, once you face opponents with real weapons, you want the best you have, bronze (or iron) if not steel.

The stupid shit I'm referring to is climbing over the fortress walls to go toe to toe instead of standing behind them and shooting and the like. Also enemy archers can and will shoot through fortresses even from a distance, and rigid steel armor saves lives.

I haven't noticed them behaving any differently with shields vs without (and I just don't bother with bucklers...from the raws the only real difference is the base block chance is IIRC 10% less and the smaller size is more or less irrelevant...a steel shield is 3u, most woods are going to be 1u) In fact once my industry is well-established and dwarves are skilled up, I make steel shields and crossbows anyway; when they start trying to bludgeon stuff to death with them the extra weight can't hurt

An added bonus of metal shields is they are good for training armorsmith, since they melt down 1 for 1.

Exactly what you said on the common sense, the thing is in practice the normal civilian layered attire of cloth/leather seems just as effective as leather armor vs wild animals, etc. I usually go right for bronze if not steel, not bothering with copper or iron, but sometimes you have to work with what you've got. So early on weapon/shield over clothing and call it a day. Add to it as you are able, once you've got a full set of armor for a dwarf toggle over to replace clothing.

[ldog]

So while I'm in a necroing mood, any of the above changed between 40.24 and 43.03?
Can you issue military dorfs socks & boots and have them wear 2 socks and 2 boots or is that still just a pipe dream?
Are whips still the ultimate handheld weapon?
Considering other recent threads, I assume marksdorfs still will jump from the battlements to melee if not strictly controlled, making my old advice still relevant.

[Shonai_Dweller]

So while I'm in a necroing mood, any of the above changed between 40.24 and 43.03?
Can you issue military dorfs socks & boots and have them wear 2 socks and 2 boots or is that still just a pipe dream?
Are whips still the ultimate handheld weapon?
Considering other recent threads, I assume marksdorfs still will jump from the battlements to melee if not strictly controlled, making my old advice still relevant.

It's partially fixed. Possibly helmets work even if you're on 'over clothing' now. Maybe...gloves or boots still don't work? Something went wrong with the fix anyway. I forget what. Put roofs over marksdwarves and hope they don't dodge through the fortifications.

[Melting Sky]

So while I'm in a necroing mood, any of the above changed between 40.24 and 43.03?
Can you issue military dorfs socks & boots and have them wear 2 socks and 2 boots or is that still just a pipe dream?
Are whips still the ultimate handheld weapon?
Considering other recent threads, I assume marksdorfs still will jump from the battlements to melee if not strictly controlled, making my old advice still relevant.

Whips were never the ultimate handheld weapon. They were just better than average for a blunt weapon. Morning Stars were better in every way possible. Whips have also had their speed nerfed since back in the day. 

[Bumber]

Whips were never the ultimate handheld weapon. They were just better than average for a blunt weapon. Morning Stars were better in every way possible. Whips have also had their speed nerfed since back in the day.

Blatant lies. Whips have the highest velocity modifier of 5.0x and smallest contact area of 1. I'm not sure when "back in the day" was, but they've been the same speed since weapon speed existed. What changed a few years ago was the way armor penetration is modeled. This nerfed whips (lightsabers) somehow; possibly by decreasing the effect of small contact areas for blunt weapons on armor. Only ranged weapons (railguns) were actually nerfed stat-wise (penetration 2000->1000, contact area 2->5.)

[ldog]

Whips were never the ultimate handheld weapon. They were just better than average for a blunt weapon. Morning Stars were better in every way possible. Whips have also had their speed nerfed since back in the day.

Blatant lies. Whips have the highest velocity modifier of 5.0x and smallest contact area of 1. I'm not sure when "back in the day" was, but they've been the same speed since weapon speed existed. What changed a few years ago was the way armor penetration is modeled. This nerfed whips (lightsabers) somehow; possibly by decreasing the effect of small contact areas for blunt weapons on armor. Only ranged weapons (railguns) were actually nerfed stat-wise (penetration 2000->1000, contact area 2->5.)

So in other words; nothings changed on that front.

[Kirkegaard]

That seems somewhat specious to me.  I would personally like to have faceplated helmets to prevent this sort of thing.  After a certain point the camel should just fracture every bone in its leg as punishment for trying to kick a small armored vehicles worth of armor.

I don't think a helm does make any real difference if a dwarf get kicked directly in the head by a horse size creature. That is an awful lot of power hitting, and a helm while deflecting a tiny bit is not a miracle worker.

[Melting Sky]

Whips were never the ultimate handheld weapon. They were just better than average for a blunt weapon. Morning Stars were better in every way possible. Whips have also had their speed nerfed since back in the day.

Blatant lies. Whips have the highest velocity modifier of 5.0x and smallest contact area of 1. I'm not sure when "back in the day" was, but they've been the same speed since weapon speed existed. What changed a few years ago was the way armor penetration is modeled. This nerfed whips (lightsabers) somehow; possibly by decreasing the effect of small contact areas for blunt weapons on armor. Only ranged weapons (railguns) were actually nerfed stat-wise (penetration 2000->1000, contact area 2->5.)

The only thing that has been changed in vanilla DF to nerf the whip since way back in version 31.25 when the entire weapon system was overhauled into its current incarnation is that it was given a recovery speed of 4 roughly two years ago where as all other weapons were given a recovery speed of 3. The contact area, penetration, mass of the weapon, attack types and velocity modifier has remained the same since way back in 31.25.

I did countless controlled tests involving hundreds of individual combats with various weapons in vs various creatures and scenarios in the arena and averaged out the results and whips weren't even top of their class let alone best overall single handed weapon. They were terrible against anything that didn't have bones or couldn't feel pain for starters, and they consistently caused less grievous wounds than morning stars in those fights where blunt weapons normally excelled. Whips weren't even at the top of their class of "can opener" weapons for dealing with armored humanoids. People hated them because they were a common goblin weapon that cut through otherwise immortal dwarven armor like it was butter but there were plenty of other weapons that did this as well. There wasn't a single test I did where whips performed better than morning stars. Literally any test where whips performed well, morning stars performed slightly better. I even pitted whip and morning star teams against each other as well and morning stars came out on top. The only test I could even dream of where a whip could have maybe bested a morning star is if you used a small enough creature that it could wield a whip with one hand but not a morning star since it's a larger weapon. The two handed penalty of not having a shield might be enough for the whip to beat it in that instance.

So I will repeat that again. Whips were never the ultimate single handed weapon. They failed where all blunt weapons traditionally failed plus they weren't even quite the best at doing what they did best which was serving as a can opener against armored humanoid foes capable of feeling pain. They have also since received a nerf when weapon speed was added to the game and were likely the entire reason Toady chose to add this since at the time there were countless threads moaning about how OP whips were and they were the only weapon to receive a nerfed modifier. Literally every other weapon was given a recovery speed of 3.

[ldog]

Whips were never the ultimate handheld weapon. They were just better than average for a blunt weapon. Morning Stars were better in every way possible. Whips have also had their speed nerfed since back in the day.

Blatant lies. Whips have the highest velocity modifier of 5.0x and smallest contact area of 1. I'm not sure when "back in the day" was, but they've been the same speed since weapon speed existed. What changed a few years ago was the way armor penetration is modeled. This nerfed whips (lightsabers) somehow; possibly by decreasing the effect of small contact areas for blunt weapons on armor. Only ranged weapons (railguns) were actually nerfed stat-wise (penetration 2000->1000, contact area 2->5.)

The only thing that has been changed in vanilla DF to nerf the whip since way back in version 31.25 when the entire weapon system was overhauled into its current incarnation is that it was given a recovery speed of 4 roughly two years ago where as all other weapons were given a recovery speed of 3. The contact area, penetration, mass of the weapon, attack types and velocity modifier has remained the same since way back in 31.25.

I did countless controlled tests involving hundreds of individual combats with various weapons in vs various creatures and scenarios in the arena and averaged out the results and whips weren't even top of their class let alone best overall single handed weapon. They were terrible against anything that didn't have bones or couldn't feel pain for starters, and they consistently caused less grievous wounds than morning stars in those fights where blunt weapons normally excelled. Whips weren't even at the top of their class of "can opener" weapons for dealing with armored humanoids. People hated them because they were a common goblin weapon that cut through otherwise immortal dwarven armor like it was butter but there were plenty of other weapons that did this as well. There wasn't a single test I did where whips performed better than morning stars. Literally any test where whips performed well, morning stars performed slightly better. I even pitted whip and morning star teams against each other as well and morning stars came out on top. The only test I could even dream of where a whip could have maybe bested a morning star is if you used a small enough creature that it could wield a whip with one hand but not a morning star since it's a larger weapon. The two handed penalty of not having a shield might be enough for the whip to beat it in that instance.

So I will repeat that again. Whips were never the ultimate single handed weapon. They failed where all blunt weapons traditionally failed plus they weren't even quite the best at doing what they did best which was serving as a can opener against armored humanoid foes capable of feeling pain. They have also since received a nerf when weapon speed was added to the game and were likely the entire reason Toady chose to add this since at the time there were countless threads moaning about how OP whips were and they were the only weapon to receive a nerfed modifier. Literally every other weapon was given a recovery speed of 3.

Well ultimate against dwarves. I'm not buying it. Controlled lab experiments don't always translate meaningfully into gameplay. A copper morningstar does fuck all against better armor, where the whip is lethal. Granted the whip wasn't very effective against steel armor last I remember, but lashers tend to cause mass casualties if not taken out quickly.

[Melting Sky]

Whips were never the ultimate handheld weapon. They were just better than average for a blunt weapon. Morning Stars were better in every way possible. Whips have also had their speed nerfed since back in the day.

Blatant lies. Whips have the highest velocity modifier of 5.0x and smallest contact area of 1. I'm not sure when "back in the day" was, but they've been the same speed since weapon speed existed. What changed a few years ago was the way armor penetration is modeled. This nerfed whips (lightsabers) somehow; possibly by decreasing the effect of small contact areas for blunt weapons on armor. Only ranged weapons (railguns) were actually nerfed stat-wise (penetration 2000->1000, contact area 2->5.)

The only thing that has been changed in vanilla DF to nerf the whip since way back in version 31.25 when the entire weapon system was overhauled into its current incarnation is that it was given a recovery speed of 4 roughly two years ago where as all other weapons were given a recovery speed of 3. The contact area, penetration, mass of the weapon, attack types and velocity modifier has remained the same since way back in 31.25.

I did countless controlled tests involving hundreds of individual combats with various weapons in vs various creatures and scenarios in the arena and averaged out the results and whips weren't even top of their class let alone best overall single handed weapon. They were terrible against anything that didn't have bones or couldn't feel pain for starters, and they consistently caused less grievous wounds than morning stars in those fights where blunt weapons normally excelled. Whips weren't even at the top of their class of "can opener" weapons for dealing with armored humanoids. People hated them because they were a common goblin weapon that cut through otherwise immortal dwarven armor like it was butter but there were plenty of other weapons that did this as well. There wasn't a single test I did where whips performed better than morning stars. Literally any test where whips performed well, morning stars performed slightly better. I even pitted whip and morning star teams against each other as well and morning stars came out on top. The only test I could even dream of where a whip could have maybe bested a morning star is if you used a small enough creature that it could wield a whip with one hand but not a morning star since it's a larger weapon. The two handed penalty of not having a shield might be enough for the whip to beat it in that instance.

So I will repeat that again. Whips were never the ultimate single handed weapon. They failed where all blunt weapons traditionally failed plus they weren't even quite the best at doing what they did best which was serving as a can opener against armored humanoid foes capable of feeling pain. They have also since received a nerf when weapon speed was added to the game and were likely the entire reason Toady chose to add this since at the time there were countless threads moaning about how OP whips were and they were the only weapon to receive a nerfed modifier. Literally every other weapon was given a recovery speed of 3.

Well ultimate against dwarves. I'm not buying it. Controlled lab experiments don't always translate meaningfully into gameplay. A copper morningstar does fuck all against better armor, where the whip is lethal. Granted the whip wasn't very effective against steel armor last I remember, but lashers tend to cause mass casualties if not taken out quickly.

You obviously haven't even looked at one combat log involving a copper morning star. Back when I did the testing 10 equally skilled dwarves wearing full candy armor and candy battle axes consistently lost against 10 naked dwarves wielding nothing but copper morning stars. I quite extensively tested weapons against everything from Bronze Colossi to dwarves to undead and against various types of armor materials. Although Toady just very recently changed blunt trauma, I can assure you that in the past whips were not the best weapon against armor, and I doubt this is even true after all the changes although this is something that can only be determined with certainty by doing another battery of tests.

As I have mentioned repeatedly in various other threads on this subject, there is no single best weapon. The best you can do is label a weapon best in it's class for a given application and what I am saying is that the whip wasn't even the best in it's class. It was always outperformed by the morning star even at those tasks where the whip was in it's element aka against heavily armored opponents with bones and capable of feeling pain. What made weapons like whips, morning stars and hammers good against these sorts of foes is they would almost always chip or break a bone on the first hit even through armor and then the victim would collapse in pain followed by a head shot that shattered the skull and drove it through the brain. All these weapons were absolutely terrible at dealing with large creatures incapable of feeling pain.

I should add I'm also not trying to say the Morning Star was the best weapon a dwarf could wield back in the day just that it was the best of the "blunt" trauma weapons, out performing the whip in all the various conditions I tested both weapons under. And before somebody brings it up, yes I realize morning stars are technically edged weapons, but they perform most like the classic blunt weapons as far as the sort of tasks they were best at and the sort of injuries they inflicted. Basically Morning Stars had whip like bone breaking power on top of shredding arteries and nerves due to the bit of edged damage they also did. They broke bones as good as the top tier blunt weapons while still being capable of doing limited edged damage to the sort of enemies that were normally untouchable with blunt weapons.

[Bumber]

Whips were never the ultimate handheld weapon. They were just better than average for a blunt weapon. Morning Stars were better in every way possible. Whips have also had their speed nerfed since back in the day.

Blatant lies. Whips have the highest velocity modifier of 5.0x and smallest contact area of 1. I'm not sure when "back in the day" was, but they've been the same speed since weapon speed existed. What changed a few years ago was the way armor penetration is modeled. This nerfed whips (lightsabers) somehow; possibly by decreasing the effect of small contact areas for blunt weapons on armor. Only ranged weapons (railguns) were actually nerfed stat-wise (penetration 2000->1000, contact area 2->5.)

-Stuff-

I forgot about recovery speed. It's not that notable since it came after the effectiveness nerf.

I can't speak for morning stars, other than that as edged weapons they probably get stuck in wounds. Whips were better than war hammers, maces, and mauls, which made them the ultimate true blunt weapon, bane of dwarves and adventurers.

Not sure why morning stars didn't get any notoriety back in the day. Are they less common than whips? I don't really recall ever seeing very many of them in fort mode. Just lots of goblin lashers killing unconscious armored dwarves through steel helmets.

[ldog]

Yeah, I guess I should have phrased that question better.
And yeah, I guess if I actually considered them the "ultimate hand-held weapon" you'd see me equipping my own with them, and I don't (it's just undorfy to use foreign weapons).
Still, the thing I look for and make sure to eliminate first are lashers. If I don't do that I'm going to have a bad day. So I guess the question should have been "Is the lasher still the gobbo to fear?"
Just got a big migrant wave (and here I thought I was a dead civ cause I've got the king) so will start fielding some troops, and I guess I'll find out soon enough (sieges are fixed right? right???).

[Fleeting Frames]

If your civ is dead, you won't get a king. Dying civ will get both migrants and king, but no outpost liason. A civ can still be dying when it has lost all it's sites and members.