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[cyrohound]

So, I had a dwarf enter a mood and make me a wooden crossbow. Is it better than one made of say... iron or steel? Or are metal crossbows better? Can I check it's stats in normal gameplay somehow?

[Azated]

Yes, it is. Mostly.

The material you make a crossbow out of doesn't affect accuracy or damage when shooting a bolt; that's entirely up to the shooter and the bolt material respectively.

Instead, the material only affects what happens in melee. As the crossbow is treated as a blunt weapon, a heavier material is better for this, like silver or platinum. However, if your crossbowman are engaging in melee, you have some serious problems.

For the most part, you instead want your crossbows to be as light as possible, decreasing the weight your dorfs need to carry when running to the fortifications. Also, when the question comes to 'is artifact x better than regular y' the answer is almost always 'yes', but that's another question with plenty of answers and explanation needed.

[Skorpion]

The only thing that crossbow material affects is their damage as a melee weapon.

A wooden crossbow also has the slight disadvantage of being flammable, but that shouldn't be much of a problem. Just be aware that arifacts don't wear even when set on fire, so if it does catch fire you will need to extinguish it.

[cyrohound]

Cool! If I could get a moody person to make me a gold hammer I'd be set. That's all my current fortress seems to have are metals I can't make armor out of, and silver. So my entire militia is armed with Silver hammers and some bits I got off the traders since my fort has nothing to make armor from.

[Blue_Dwarf]

The problem is that dwarves rush into melee when their arrows/bolts run out, or if they forget to even equip some, both of which is very common. Then the artifact wooden crossbow will be artifactly useless.

[Skorpion]

Cool! If I could get a moody person to make me a gold hammer I'd be set. That's all my current fortress seems to have are metals I can't make armor out of, and silver. So my entire militia is armed with Silver hammers and some bits I got off the traders since my fort has nothing to make armor from.

If you have a militia, you have access to goblinite. It's the fourth iron ore!

[Loci]

The material you make a crossbow out of doesn't affect accuracy or damage when shooting a bolt; that's entirely up to the shooter and the bolt material respectively.

While *material* doesn't affect accuracy, *quality* does (or, at least, did back in v0.31 according to Toady), with artifacts receiving a 3x "hit roll modifier" (50% better than a masterwork's 2x multiplier). The net result is that artifact crossbows of any material are likely worth using for the accuracy boost despite any minor reductions in bashing damage or movement speed.

[cyrohound]

Sadly, my current fortress is on an island, which apparently, means I can't be sieged and can only trade with the homeland. A fact which means that I am not building any more forts on islands after this. So I do not have access to goblinite. But after a lot more digging, I found tetrahedrite and cassertite, so I can now make bronze, at least. My militia is now very, very good at killing werebeasts, forgotten beasts, and colossuses (collossi?) despite their awful armor.

But my fortress has basically every valuable metal ever, (and every non-valuable metal that can't be used to make weapons or armor) so it's not a complete loss. I bet eventually the capitol will be moved there and I'll just import armor. My dwarves have brass, silver, and gold furniture. I have zinc, lead, nickel, and a little platinum, and I've only just dug past the first cavern layer. I'm disappointed that my island means I can't get trades and such because I really wanted my dwarves to be beast tamers, and so made the most savage world the basic worldgen allows. But so far, all I've got are half-domesticated coyotes and some keas. Although I know there are cougars on my island. I'm also dissapointed that I can't tame sea lampreys. Why can't we tame/pen sea creatures? It's done in real life. Fish farms are a thing that exists and they aren't terribly complicated.

[Snafu]

I'm disappointed that my island means I can't get trades and such because I really wanted my dwarves to be beast tamers, and so made the most savage world the basic worldgen allows. But so far, all I've got are half-domesticated coyotes and some keas. Although I know there are cougars on my island. I'm also dissapointed that I can't tame sea lampreys. Why can't we tame/pen sea creatures? It's done in real life. Fish farms are a thing that exists and they aren't terribly complicated.

IRL fish farms aren't exactly 'taming' the fish, more concentrating for easy capture (hence the associated disease problems & the spiral from there); think Medieval era fishponds on a massive scale

Do you have any access to coastline in any direction? If so you might try tunnelling under the strait; alternatively hunt for a suitable cavern route & pave it over..

[Fearless Son]

Sadly, my current fortress is on an island, which apparently, means I can't be sieged and can only trade with the homeland.

[...]
But my fortress has basically every valuable metal ever, (and every non-valuable metal that can't be used to make weapons or armor) so it's not a complete loss. I bet eventually the capitol will be moved there and I'll just import armor. My dwarves have brass, silver, and gold furniture. I have zinc, lead, nickel, and a little platinum, and I've only just dug past the first cavern layer.

But does your homeland have access to iron?  If so, ask your liaison to bring as much iron ore and iron bars as they can carry.  Steel bars too, if they have them.  They will mark up the price, but with the value of the materials you are digging up and forging, affording them should not be an issue. 

Dwarf globalization.  Trade for the things you lack access to by producing the things you have ready access to.  Do this and you should be able to make all the iron and (if you have flux stone) steel armor you need. 

[vanatteveldt]

Also buy all the anvils (steel and iron) and most of the other iron and steel stuff (weapons, armor, etc), and melt it. Even if the civ doesn't have access to iron it should still have steel anvils. Every anvil consumes three bars so (I presume) you get almost 3 bars back when you melt it.

If they do have access to iron, it's also good to request all their iron ores. They are much cheaper and yield more than iron bars.

Another good option is requesting copper ores and cassetirite (and possibly bismuth) to smelt bronze, it's as good as iron (but not as good as steel)

[nuget102]

Every anvil consumes three bars so (I presume) you get almost 3 bars back when you melt it.

Actually anvils are the worst. They smelt into one bar. http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Melt_item

You can exploit the game if you wish, or you could use the above chart to decide what is best to buy from caravans. Toys are a popular choice, but leggings give you the best return. Aside from bolt splitting.