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[SteveTheRed]

A masterwork large, serrated steel disc went from newly made to disintegrating from wear after slicing up one undead.

That seems excessive.  Am I doing something wrong?  I'd ask if I was just unlucky, but another squad of undead broke 10 more large, serrated steel discs.

Is there something I can do to make these things more durable?  I'm open to fiddling with raws...

[pamelrabo]

Yeah, I noticed that, too. Serrated disks seem to degrade really quick when assembled into a trap.

Now that I think of it, I should use more spiked balls and menacing spikes and common weapons to see if they break as fast or not. ¿Maybe it's a deliberate design decision?

[Fleeting Frames]

I guess when Toady One fixed trap component crash he didn't actually make them more durable, so they still break just as easily. Back in the year it lasted, regular weapons were shown to be reasonable options, getting boosted durability (unlike trap components).

So I guess if you modded them into weapons instead of components, you could get the same durability, at the "cost" of becoming able to tell citizens to wield them into battle like regular weapons (unless you set minimum sizes to be larger than elephant man's).

[snow dwarf]

Considering how cool weapon traps are, I find it fair that they need to be replaced every now and then.

[Atarlost]

This is going to depend on how you do your traps. 

Elf Weapon traps next to an abyss decay very quickly when they hit, but almost never hit if you use low quality mechanisms.  I wore one grown wooden longsword by one step in several sieges before my marksdwarves got skilled enough to not need them and I pulled most of them. 

Steel traps (mixed disc and ball) don't seem to wear.  I think wear is only applied to the lesser material between the weapon and armor or perhaps in ties and no enemies use steel.  You could get a Titan or FB made of steel, but it would have trapavoid so it wouldn't matter.  I've only been doing this with artifact mechanisms due to concerns about jamming if that has an effect and they're not in the highest traffic part of my trap setup. 

Raising spikes (green glass) don't seem to wear, and I'm pretty sure they should by material properties if they were tracked.  They'd be unusable if they did, though, until it becomes possible to change out weapons without deconstructing a trap because you can't recover orphaned mechanisms from a lever or pressure plate without redoing the whole system. 

Bow and crossbow traps don't wear or jam.  When there was no wear the ammo reloading requirement put them par with weapon traps once you had good trap components in production.  You get 10 shots from a bow or crossbow trap.  How often did a good weapon trap without an artifact mechanism manage to kill 10 foes without one getting jammed in it?

Considering how cool weapon traps are, I find it fair that they need to be replaced every now and then.

Cool is all they've got going for them unless Toady One removed jamming and I missed it in the changelog.  Crossbow traps are better early because you can make useful ones from bone or wood, and good ones with imported or "imported" low quality metal bolts.  Raising spikes are better once you have a serious trap component production industry because they can hit trapavoid monsters, never jam, and don't block wagons.  Cage traps are better because they don't produce unsightly corpses. 

[PatrikLundell]

I've never seen green glass spikes degrade as such, but I've had the trap destroyed and most or all spikes melted into evaporating puddles of "green glass" (can be carried, so they're not hot to the touch) when engaging fire based creatures (FBs and clowns: I haven't tried them on fire or magma men and the like).

[ibanix]

I've never seen green glass spikes degrade as such, but I've had the trap destroyed and most or all spikes melted into evaporating puddles of "green glass" (can be carried, so they're not hot to the touch) when engaging fire based creatures (FBs and clowns: I haven't tried them on fire or magma men and the like).

My green glass weapons will degrade one step for each 2-3 hits.

[PatrikLundell]

I've never seen green glass spikes degrade as such, but I've had the trap destroyed and most or all spikes melted into evaporating puddles of "green glass" (can be carried, so they're not hot to the touch) when engaging fire based creatures (FBs and clowns: I haven't tried them on fire or magma men and the like).

My green glass weapons will degrade one step for each 2-3 hits.

I was commenting on menacing spikes in menacing spike "traps" (in my case "powered" by a mine cart repeater). Regular weapon traps probably suffer degradation normally, as per ibanix' observations. Green glass spikes vs glass FBs does nothing beyond denting after several years of operation (but the spikes don't break either. I've had some gem FBs that likewise didn't get either harmed or get harm from the spikes).

[SteveTheRed]

Steel traps (mixed disc and ball) don't seem to wear.

This is not my experience.  As I said in the OP, I'm having multiple brand new steel discs disintegrate from wear in the course of one squad of undead going through a trap corridor.

...if others are not finding this, maybe it's because undead are being classified as harder than steel somehow?  I'll have to try it on goblins instead / as well.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Steel traps (mixed disc and ball) don't seem to wear.

This is not my experience.  As I said in the OP, I'm having multiple brand new steel discs disintegrate from wear in the course of one squad of undead going through a trap corridor.

...if others are not finding this, maybe it's because undead are being classified as harder than steel somehow?  I'll have to try it on goblins instead / as well.

That poster mentioned that they were using artifact trap components. Those don't wear out.

--edit
Ah, no, artifact mechanisms, sorry. Ignore.

[Loci]

I'm having multiple brand new steel discs disintegrate from wear in the course of one squad of undead going through a trap corridor.

Wear is modeled based on the material properties of the *materials* involved. "Squad of undead" is unhelpfully vague here; undead dwarves in steel armor will cause significant wear to steel trap components; undead elves wearing wooden armor will not.

Edit: According to the wiki, undead sieges are outfitted based on the necromancer's access to materials, so a dwarven necromancer may field steel-clad elves. You should be able to view the inventory of the undead to see what they're wearing.

[SteveTheRed]

Wear is modeled based on the material properties of the *materials* involved. "Squad of undead" is unhelpfully vague here; undead dwarves in steel armor will cause significant wear to steel trap components; undead elves wearing wooden armor will not.

Edit: According to the wiki, undead sieges are outfitted based on the necromancer's access to materials, so a dwarven necromancer may field steel-clad elves. You should be able to view the inventory of the undead to see what they're wearing.

Ah.  I'd looked briefly at the logs and most of their weapons seemed to be silver or iron, but looking at the loot from the remains there are some steel items there, despite the undead being elven and human corpses.

Even so wear rates still seem rather high.

How does one check the inventory of a caged guest?

[Fleeting Frames]

Hm. You could d-b-d or d-b-h over the cage, then check your stocks menu for what is hidden or marked for dumping. Then undo that, unless you want them to lose their weapons and armour.