Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Melting Sky]

It's nice to see somebody doing actual science and backing it up with statistics. I've been meaning to do some arena testing to see how the new torsion damage to joints has changed things. Back in .34 my testing uncovered a lot of surprising urban myths people had about the efficacy of various weapons.

One of the big myths I was surprised to uncover was whips were not nearly as OP as people constantly raved about. I expected them to be the absolute best melee weapon by far and although it varies greatly dependent on variables such at materials, opponents, skill of the wielder etc. the whips were never even best in class at what they did best which was to serve as a can opener vs medium sized armored organic creatures with bones and the ability to feel pain. The whip was great against dwarf sized opponents in heavy armor which is likely why people wrongly believed they were the most OP weapon, but even in this application they weren't quite as good as Morning Stars. Against stuff like inorganic FB's the whips were miserable. Anyway, the point is simply it's nice to see somebody doing real testing.

There is an excellent combat calculator I believe was created by Urist da Vinci. It's a good tool for gathering combat damage information. I have no idea if it works with current DF, but the tool was amazing and you should check it out if you get a chance.

One thing to take into account is piercing weapons become much more effective against armor the smaller the contact area becomes and a small enough contact area can allow a stabbing weapon of lower quality material such as copper to punch through a higher quality material such as iron. This is why you will get radically different results for testing out copper daggers and copper spears against opponents in full iron armor. The dagger rips them apart where as the spear are all but completely useless.

As a general rule of thumb slashing weapons and stabbing weapon with larger contact areas are absolutely terrible, bordering on completely useless, against opponents that are clad in armor or made of a material stronger than the weapon is. With the new torsion damage system and rewrite of how creatures deal with pain I imagine all the old blunt damage testing is pretty much completely invalidated. When a starter pack comes out for the new version with torsion damage I will put some time aside and do some arena testing to see how things have changed.

[Melting Sky]

Just a friendly suggestion. Since your testing was done in order to find the best way to equip your dwarves using gear that can be forged by them, I highly recommend that if you decide to do some more testing you give pick axes a try. Back when I did my testing I found them to be the best all around dwarven weapon.

As you pointed out edged weapons are greatly dependent on material quality and quality of craftsmanship. Where as a poor quality copper battle axe will be absolutely useless against fully armored opponents, a copper hammer will still wreck. Battle axes suffer the most for poor quality and blunt weapons the least. Piercing weapons are in between. Morning Stars despite being considered edged weapons perform primarily as crushing weapons so this rule doesn't apply to them.

[fragfish]

@Fleeting Frames:

If you give the Pikemen shields, they perform even worse. Pikes require 2 hands; if they have shields, they will attacks with their fists.

@Melting Sky:

I chose the weapons because I considered them to represent their respective damage types best. I currently have my Deep Guard (those on the Cavern Entrance) armed with picks and they are absolutely murderous - one of them just recently killed a FB in a 1v1. I don't like picks from a game point of view, feels a bit too gamey for me to just switch miners into military once they reach skill level 20.

I also found whips to not nearly be as OP as one reads - though considering they completely ignored all armour, once your military is fully clad in steel or adamantine, I guess they are the only goblin weapons left that pose any sort of threat at all.

As has been said, the head attack issue has been fixed in v0.43.05. I have rerun the tests for iron and steel axes and spears, and the issue no longer occurs. In fact, iron axes have become a lot more effective, at least on par with iron spears.

[Werdna]

I also found whips to not nearly be as OP as one reads - though considering they completely ignored all armour, once your military is fully clad in steel or adamantine, I guess they are the only goblin weapons left that pose any sort of threat at all.

I have a 43.03 fort that's gotten through about 2k siegers.  So far, virtually every (highly trained) military death to gobbo's has been either from mace to the head or whip to head/spine(?).  My mil's uniform is steel helmet/breastplate/mail shirt/gauntlets/greaves/high boots and a silk cloak, exceptional quality or better.  Sadly I didn't note the mace material, but I do recall I've lost more to maces than whips.

[Sanctume]

In 42.05 release notes
(*) Neck gets same combat chance adjustment as head

I assume mace bashing head through armor, while whip hits through unprotected neck.

[Melting Sky]

I also found whips to not nearly be as OP as one reads - though considering they completely ignored all armour, once your military is fully clad in steel or adamantine, I guess they are the only goblin weapons left that pose any sort of threat at all.

Morning Stars are absolutely devastating weapons against dwarves in armor.

[Nilbert]

Hmm, I always use Mail Shirts and Breastplates on any serious military dwarves. If I use only one, I also go for mail shirts - having uncovered body parts is really not good. Maybe someone has an answer to this already? Otherwise, yes, it would be an interesting question.

I'm not sure if anyone has looked into this question.  I've been reading the forum for a few years, but I can't recall seeing this test...

[Fleeting Frames]

@fragfish:

Yeah, noticed that.

As for only putting miners to military after skilling up in soil, eh,
a) I usually don't have enough (soil) mining in a fortress to to reach 10 highly skilled miners by the time I want a military
b) weapon skill goes up fast when they spar anyway; you won't train the lagging armor user with mining however.

I think supefluous soil mining is good for quick military due embarking on a lair or something, but due b long-term going straight to fighting demonstration is better.

A bigger downside is that miners mood into +mining skill and artifact furniture.

@Nilbert: For what's it's worth, I go for mail shirt over breastplate if i have to pick as well, as to leave no uncovered areas.

[Ansgar111]

PTW because of great dorf !!science!!

[FakerFangirl]

Very well written with good analysis. Was this a school project? I will start using more spears and fewer war hammers (I already use tons of axes but it's nice to know why the copper battle axe is functioning absolutely uselessly.)

[fragfish]

Thanks all for the positive feedback! : )

I have rerun the tests vs goblins, also for a mixed squad (with mixed results), but as I'll be away over the weekend I won't get done rerunning everything until next week. Then I'll update the post and title to v0.43.05. As I've said, the helmet problem has gone away, and axes have become better at iron level as a result.

Was this a school project?

No, I finished school quite a while ago ; )

[Walkaboutout]

This is an absolutely superb thread. Fragfish, well done! I find this information incredibly useful, and any additional tests and scenarios you choose to do will be much appreciated by myself, at the least. This data is useful from a ton of perspectives within the game.

The more exotic portions of the tests are particularly fun for me; those odd things like mixed squads, etc. I'm a sword lover, and while I agree axes are likely the best dwarven slashers, I'd love to see comparative data for swords and axes, just to get an idea how disparate the differences are. I've also always been curious about long swords with appropriately strong wielders behind them.

At any rate I'm not asking you to go to the trouble here of swords, I'm just thinking out loud and expressing my own opinion on fun stuff is all, hehe.

Thank you again for this!

[Fleeting Frames]

Well, long sword slashes are pretty similar to axe ones - they have bigger max slash length, though not sure if this comes into play anywhere but very strong body slices. Not sure how useful the slower stabs are - a spear will do better at that in every way, though.

Of course, as testing shows above, iron long swords - the best you can get without mood - aren't going to be particularly good.

[muldrake]

This is an absolutely superb thread. Fragfish, well done! I find this information incredibly useful, and any additional tests and scenarios you choose to do will be much appreciated by myself, at the least. This data is useful from a ton of perspectives within the game.

This information is wonderful.  I do think it suggests serious flaws in design, though, if the results basically indicate just use axes and everything else is garbage.  Why bother even having other weapons?

[Fleeting Frames]

It's a fair bit more complicated than that, as given as every weapon listed had a circumstance where they could outperform at least one, if not both axe types.

Nonetheless, it does make two-step simple+good military with the given weapons rather easy:
1. Set regional interaction and secret number to 0 in worldgen, preventing all kinds of reanimation.
2. Make candy axes.

So yeah, reason for the rebalancing mods. Also interesting, when one considers that traditional mediaeval knight image bears a sword or pike.

I'll note that creatures large fleshy creatures like hydras weren't tested, which spears are supposed to excel against. On the flip side, hydra is just one creature, and every other FB or whatnot goes down to decapitation.