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Author Topic: Adding an armor-worthy fiber  (Read 825 times)

deepspaceprobe9

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Adding an armor-worthy fiber
« on: June 13, 2019, 12:49:21 pm »

I'm trying to add a plant that processes into a strong cloth to give my military some lightweight protection. I made the plant, and for testing I gave the thread the same material properties as adamantine, but in the arena cloaks made from the fiber are still being cut through by slashes with iron weapons, though they do seem to be a bit stronger than normal plant fiber. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

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Hyndis

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Re: Adding an armor-worthy fiber
« Reply #1 on: June 13, 2019, 01:23:59 pm »

An simpler solution might be to just let you make clothing from metal directly.

Check the inorganic_metal raws. Note the item types, such as:

Code: [Select]
[ITEMS_HARD]
[ITEMS_METAL]
[ITEMS_BARRED]
[ITEMS_SCALED]
[ITEMS_SOFT]

Items soft are clothing. Add this tag to metals and you can make bronze or steel shirts if you want.

In my case I made mithril, a strong, difficult to product but lightweight metal that can be used to make traditional metal items (shields, swords, etc) as well as clothing items. Mithril is made in a forge, though workshop reactions can let you easily produce any substance from any substance. You could make a mithril metal which is produced only by growing and processing a special plant in a workshop. You could even grow adamantine if you so desired.

Also, keep in mind that no matter how tough the material is, one blow that isn't dodged or parried can easily result in death. A single attack that breaks a hand or foot can knock the door out. A prone, unconscious dwarf is unable to defend themselves. They're easy prey. DF doesn't really let you armor tank things because once you drop in combat you're probably dead. Its not like Rimworld or Stonehearth where attackers will ignore downed pawns. In DF they'll keep attacking especially if the dwarf is downed. Minor injuries often lead to death for this reason. Combat skills such as blocking, dodging, and parrying, are vastly more important than armor.

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deepspaceprobe9

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Re: Adding an armor-worthy fiber
« Reply #2 on: June 13, 2019, 01:32:22 pm »

That would probably be simpler, but I'm kind of set on doing it with plant thread. I've already added ITEMS_SOFT to a couple of metals for this purpose, but it feels out of place to me, so I wanted to add in this plant. It's a taste thing, really. As to the armor mechanics, I'm just trying to make the dwarves a little sturdier without loading them down too much, I know that no amount of armor will make them invincible.
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Roses

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Re: Adding an armor-worthy fiber
« Reply #3 on: June 13, 2019, 01:53:44 pm »

I believe the reason it is so much weaker is that cloaks have [STRUCTURAL_ELASTICITY_WOVEN_THREAD] and the THREAD_PLANT_TEMPLATE has [THREAD_PLANT]. This means the material properties for a cloak made out of the plant thread is altered. Try making a new material template without the [THREAD_PLANT] or a version of the cloak without the [STRUCTURAL_ELASTICITY_WOVEN_THREAD]
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deepspaceprobe9

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Re: Adding an armor-worthy fiber
« Reply #4 on: June 13, 2019, 02:04:47 pm »

This whole time I was focusing on the materials and the plant stuff and it never even occurred to me that the problem could be in the clothing definition! I think this should fix it, I'm going to try it out and report back.
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deepspaceprobe9

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Re: Adding an armor-worthy fiber
« Reply #5 on: June 13, 2019, 02:17:15 pm »

This did the trick, thanks for the help!
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