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[Centigrade]

Is silk better than leather for clothing for uniforms, Centigrade?

Leather clothing shows evidence of doing a slightly better job as armour per say than silk cloth, but also weighs more and is only negligibly better when considered as an under-layer. Once you get to stacking multiple layers on the same body slot, the minor advantage of leather effectively disappears and we are left only with its minor weight penalty compared to silk. And as you likely already know, silk is unambiguously the best clothing material.

[Centigrade]

Really the biggest takeaway from my study was that unless your enemies are somehow also armed with or made of adamantine or steel armour and piercing or slashing weapons, then steel is the best armour material for your dwarves rigid armour pieces. Only for the mail shirt and other flexible bits your civilization might have access to should adamantine be considered optimal as armour. This is due to the density of the two metals. Adamantine is straight up better than steel at defending against piercing and slashing attacks, but steel is "good enough" to defeat bronze and iron weapons and below. The reason you opt for steel instead of adamantine for most of the armour is because adamantine is absolutely terrible at defending against bludgeoning/crushing attacks due to its density. This is a concern not only for attacks using blunt implements, but also due to the fact that edged attacks that fail to penetrate an armour layer are converted to bludgeoning damage; thus, an adamantine breastplate would do a slightly better job of deflecting an iron battleaxe than would a steel breastplate of the same quality, but the overflow damage to the layers beneath it would be greater than for the steel.

[StarWars1981]

Goatmaan ;

If you're using candy for armor/weaponry, of any sort, just create a Heroes Squad. Their only job is to train, train, and train, and they are NEVER deployed to standard combat with your average sieges/Minotaurs/weaker things. Unless you want to rearmor them for the occasion to save wear on candy. I'd say just establish that squad of Greats and up; pick ones useful against things like dragons and colossi: spears for penetration, hammers for when down, and if you want it, axes to disarm opponents. Literally. Assuming, of course, it's something with a skull and brain that hammers can make use of. I'd go 3-3-4, spear-hammer-axe; gives you more of the middle ground, with part-blunt, part-edged attacks from the axe. Also, cutting limbs is an advantage, especially should you be visited by a necromancer, or thralling/husking clouds ... or just live in a reanimating biome that may have access to large, deadly creatures (i.e. dragon corpses ... now wouldn't that be fun? And how about a colossus?).

[Fleeting Frames]

Hm. You say mass is good for stopping blunt weapons, Centigrade?

In that case, one thing that springs to mind is smithing armor 1/7 larger than dwarves - so they can wield it, but it is heavier.

[Goatmaan]

I'm just wondering about the wear.
When you send the heroes against the collosuss, they might get hit, and it'll be a *HIT* not some sissy kobold -tap-, the more they fight, the more wear, right?

  Goatmaan

[StarWars1981]

Yeah, Goatmaan, no reason to think it won't wear down. But if you restrict them to combat against tough opponents, they won't take random hits without purpose and so it'll last longer.
Idk, check the wiki. It might have something on it. Something.

[darkflagrance]

I'm just wondering about the wear.
When you send the heroes against the collosuss, they might get hit, and it'll be a *HIT* not some sissy kobold -tap-, the more they fight, the more wear, right?

  Goatmaan

I can say that poorly outfitted enemies who face my masterwork steel swords end up dead with XXarmorXX.

My dwarves who get killed by blunt strikes that break through their own masterwork steel armor usually get xhelmetsx or xgreavesx.

So armor that takes a hit and fails might end up anywhere on the spectrum, but probably towards the latter end if it is good quality. The dwarf might fail before the armor does due to taking damage from the force of the strikes.

[Goatmaan]

I'm still playing a peaceful 40.19 fort, but when I upgrade I'll be doing high combat forts.
Thanks for helping me get a handle on this new mechanic.

  Goatmaan

[Fleeting Frames]

Ran some tests myself, Centigrade, embarking with 3/3/1/1/1/1 Crossbow/Axe/Shield/Armor/Dodge/Discipline

Producing and then assigning leather shield, copper crossbow, bronze battle axe over clothes resulted in the axe being strapped to upper body and never used. Replaced crossbow and shields with wooden ones, since the combat log was kinda short, equipping everything at once...and the dwarf didn't shoot, with different wield order, due presumably picking things up in wrong order.

However, removed and added shield got it strapped to upper body, even in combat, and had the military dwarf always shoot, and most of the time hack with axe (there were some wooden lovetaps, though less than axe slashes). No shield blocks in 3 pages after that, but there were only 2 in 9 pages before, so that's not saying much.

Did the individual, sequential pickup again with leather/wood/bronze shield/crossbow/axe, with now changing to exact matches (always used specific shield/weapon/weapon)...And same initial result of not using axe once in 20 pages. By now, Hammerman was at 5, Crossbowman at 8, and axe still at 3, surely owing to the fact that being hacked in the head with a bronze axe kills training targets (still, quiverful of bolts sure lets dwarf catch animal sooner).

Remove leather shield and axe, then added bronze pick (with no mining skill) then leather shield in that order, waiting for pickup, since the thread mentioned axes in particular being preferred (and was in 31.25, I think?)...Eh, pick got used most of the time too.

Since I saw almost no retaliatory attacks by wildlife, put 3 training spears on repeat (42.06, so safe). No shield user experience, but....2,5k mining despite never batting a spear aside with pick? Slightly lower hammerman, I think.

Confirming that your dwarves are blocking, hacking and shooting?

Still, I suppose an edged weapon is improvement over shield in close combat for the marksdwarf. Melee combat, not sure how important a shield is, but against non-flying/non-AoE enemies I'm doubtful it is less important than shield.

[Dorsidwarf]

I noticed a lot of candy listed, is there any news on the wear mechanic of candy?
That being a limited supply, and if you're using it you're ready for a serious fight,  wont you have to melt it?

  Goatmaan

If you have a lot of pre-mood peasants, give them a little Clothier training so IT becomes their mood skill, then store adamant one cloth under all the clothier shops. Roomcarnage uses this to get artefact adamantine clothing, which is basically impenetrable by edged attacks.

[StarWars1981]

I would say try to avoid sending any soldiers in (melee-only soldiers) who don't have high Shield User skill. Because they can't do a thing when even a goblin gets a lucky shot in. I had an Expert macedwarf lose his weapon hand because he couldn't parry or block a single goblin's axe ... and he died before the others could reach him. But I don't know his shield user skill, so I can't tell you if he would've been capable of defending against, say, a Competent axe-goblin, if it was that high, considering that his weapon is heavy and he was probably recovering from a failed first blow. I didn't read too closely, just watched him get dismembered.
Next up was a Master Axedwarf. Goblin was dismembered in about three blows. Created an additional hauling job for his head.
Maces aren't much use against goblins in hard armor (copper and rarely iron as it may be), given their weight and propensity for breaking bones and then leaving the dang goblins standing. I'd suggest spears or axes, weapons that penetrate well (axe has weight and an edge, spears have small contact area); short swords work against goblins but they don't slash as well or stab as well as the other two weapons, despite being faster than an axe almost for sure. It's only because goblins have poor-quality armor that they can do that, if any hostiles wore tougher armor swords would have some disadvantages. Although they are good weapons anyways, the disadvantage is slight and still vulnerable to the RNG (Numbers variant, not Names).

[Melting Sky]

One thing to consider with candy armor is that unless you have dwarves with high armor skill, a full suit of steel is going to considerably slow down a dwarf where as candy won't. Being slower is a tremendous penalty in battle.

A problems that occurs with axes and swords is often dwarves use their blunt attacks which will do little damage if made of normal metal and nothing if made of candy. This is one of the things that makes picks perhaps the best edged weapon a dwarf can wield. Picks do not have useless blunt attacks thrown into the mix. Picks hit with the same sort of impact energy as a battle axe but don't have any of the crappy pomel strikes diluting their usefulness when incompetent dwarves decide to use the blunt end of the weapon on the enemy. Seriously give picks a try. Although I haven't tested them in recent versions, I did extensive combat tests in older versions and picks were the king of edged weapons for dwarves. Short swords are just trash in the hands of a fortress dwarf compared to other edged options. Spears get an honorable mention for dealing with very large creatures with nice squishy vital organs to poke. Axes will only outperform picks in a few instances where you need to bisect a large enemy to kill it like with big husks.

[Arcvasti]

A problems that occurs with axes and swords is often dwarves use their blunt attacks which will do little damage if made of normal metal and nothing if made of candy.

Not so. Blunt attacks do happen, but very very rarely. My testing earlier in the thread had a ratio of one blunt weapon strike to two pages of combat.

[Goatmaan]

 Centigrade
Another thread got me to open the miltary screen for the first time in many game years, and as the end of Anvillocked nears I was thinking what a waste of crossbow dwarves when they close to melee.
Then I reread this thread.
38 xbow dwarfs are headed to the weapons stockpile.
Guess the melee only axe squads will have to wait a bit. 

   Goatmaan

Edit. A quick check of the stocks sent me scrambling to the forges, to adjust workflow *steel battle axe* numbers WAY down!!! I apparently planned ahead, then forgot. Oh well, better *100* to many, than *1* too few!!

[Melting Sky]

A problems that occurs with axes and swords is often dwarves use their blunt attacks which will do little damage if made of normal metal and nothing if made of candy.

Not so. Blunt attacks do happen, but very very rarely. My testing earlier in the thread had a ratio of one blunt weapon strike to two pages of combat.

That's cool. It looks like Toady updated that at some point since I did all that testing. It was once a serious weakness with a lot of the edged weapons. This likely means battle axes and pick axes are likely pretty on par with each other these days, although testing would have to be done to be sure.