Print

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

[Alastar]

I figured I’d have a look at armour weights to decide on an effective loadout that doesn’t weight down inexperienced dwarves too much… and I’d be interested in corrections or alternative takes.
Boy, is armour heavy! Weights for dwarf-sized items, iron/steel unless stated otherwise - obviously, copper or bronze will be even worse.

leggings, greaves: 22
mail shirt: 19
breastplate: 16
shield: 10
buckler: 8
helm 7
mace, battle axe: 6
pick, hammer, spear, high boot: 3
low boot, short sword: 2
gauntlet, cap, bone greaves, leather armor: 1
other bone, wood, leather pieces: <1

80Γ (and 11 metal bars) gives us a full set of metal armour without duplicates: mail shirt, breastplate, helm, greaves, low boots, gauntlets, shield. Why low boots? It shouldn’t matter much either way, but as I understand it:
High boots' additional layer on the lower leg doesn't help much, and may cause us to lose our foot protection to accumulating damage there (greaves protect the lower legs and seem less prone to breakage).
We can fit two more mail shirts if our dwarves are legendary armour users and don’t feel the weight. but at 118Γ and 15 metal bars that seems excessive – especially if we consider that 2 cloaks should do more for protection if I understand the mechanics correctly.

37Γ (and 5 metal bars) gets us most of the protection: Steel mail shirt, helm, high boots and gauntlets, leather armour, bone greaves, some lightweight shield. This offers almost full protection against immediately crippling hits, but accumulating blunt damage (no rigid metal layer on torso and legs) and item wear affect staying power.
Non-metal shields break quickly, perhaps a second weapon is attractive instead: insurance against disarming, more concentrated training or a mix of attack types, still lighter than a metal buckler. However, shields seem superior against ranged and especially firebreathing enemies.
We need high boots here - otherwise there's no metal layer on the lower legs.

5Γ or so would give us my preferred starter/civilian kit: leather armour and boots, bone greaves, helm and gauntlets, lightweight shield. Metal cap and gauntlets would be a weight-efficient upgrade if we can spare the resources; metal gauntlets and boots should also improve unarmed attacks.
I usually don’t bother.  We get better use out of our metal by fully armouring real soldiers, or arming everyone – a naked civilian with a good weapon is a threat to a fully armoured invader in melee, a somewhat experienced miner fights at an advantage.

I've always liked to armour my civilians - leather armour and boots are enough to keep their non-existing panties un-twisted from nudity concerns, and they don’t wear out. Very convenient and thematic enough: sturdy workwear seems dwarfier than flimsy fast fashion. I’ll produce some regular clothing as accessories and for misguided nobles, courtiers, elf-lovers and other delicate degenerates.
Obviously leather is not the end of it: Bone is a superior material, allowing for gauntlets, greaves and helms - a bolder fashion statement, but now we have full coverage in lightweight materials. It won’t make much difference against well-armed invaders, but it’ll help against wildlife and will train armour user skill wtihout slowing us down.

[DwarfStar]

I don’t think shields can break during combat. Here’s a thread about it:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=156586.0

TLDR; materials do matter during combat, but only because a heavier shield will deliver a heavier bash. But of course heavier shields affect walking speed more. So a feather tree shield is a great choice from a weight and metal bar perspective, and you only sacrifice offense.

[Garfunkel]

But you can't have your miners, hunters and wood cutters in squads because of the uniform bug. So armoring your civilians becomes a hassle once your fort grows big enough since you have to keep track of those three professions, especially if you want to babysit over their mental state and make sure they do crafting jobs and training occasionally without gimping fort production.

Hence why I don't bother with armoring civilians at all. Maybe in the Steam version civilians that aren't part of squads will wear leather armour and boots automatically if such things are available but until then, it's not worth the effort, IMHO.

[Splint]

I don’t think shields can break during combat. Here’s a thread about it:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=156586.0

TLDR; materials do matter during combat, but only because a heavier shield will deliver a heavier bash. But of course heavier shields affect walking speed more. So a feather tree shield is a great choice from a weight and metal bar perspective, and you only sacrifice offense.

Incorrect. Shields can and will break if used offensively (and in fort mode, they frequently will be whether we like it or not,) and bashing imparts a horrendous amount of wear on organic material shields. It takes a lot of punishment to break metal equipment, but organic ones will degrade frighteningly quickly to the point I've had soldiers go through one shield per battle - regardless of what they were fighting due to all the shield bashing - when issued wooden ones to save on material.

That said, blocking doesn't seem to cause any wear, at least that I've observed.

If weight is a concern, wood shields have better staying power than leather, but if at all possible a minimum of a copper buckler (if you need to be tight with your materials, since they're cheaper to make from metal than shields if memory serves) should be issued because it won't need to be replaced every second or third fight because Urist decided to shield bash every third attack for whatever reason. You basically trade material cost (as wood in most forts is easy to come by) and weight for a minor inconvenience in needing to semi-regularly replace the shields your dudes smash into masterwork splinters on elf and goblin faces.

TL;DR Material matters for offensive use for more than just damage calculation and weight, it matters for the piece of equipment's longevity as well. Wood shields break super easy when used to bash, metal ones take so long to wear down that way they'll probably outlast several owners or be recycled long before they show worse than low level wear.

Spoiler: A theory as to why this may be the case (click to show/hide)

A pattern I noticed with all the broken shields I have is they're always issued after my carpenters have gained respectable skill at making stuff, leading to my militia's wooden shields being of significantly higher quality than their actual weapons, which are often made by smiths of average or lower skill early on. My theory is that quality matters a lot when dealing with attack calculations, and high quality items are stated on the wiki to have higher chances to hit, leading to exceptional and masterwork wooden shields to get attack priority over superior or fine quality swords and axes.

This leads to those flimsier wooden (or god forbid, leather) shields getting smashed to bits on a depressingly frequently basis, as the attacks inflict a ton of wear on the items. In a defensive sense, leather armor also appears to suffer abnormally fast wear in combat, coming apart extremely easy even when only being faced with bites and scratches from relatively small creatures. Bone and wood don't fare that much better, but they do still tend to outlast leather armor items.

EDIT: Should clarify that my source is observation and extensive use of militias and being a cheap-ass with metal, and appears to be true more for the newer versions rather than older ones.

[Alastar]

@ DwarfStar: Nonmetal armour including shields seems subject to quite a lot of wear in fortress mode, the thread you linked to predates that (mentioning 42.05, according to the wiki armour wear is a thing since 43.04).

@ Garfunkel: I won't deny that the way job items are handled is annoying and overdue for a change... but it's not impossible to deal with. AIUI, the problem is that the job items needs to be in hand, but uniformed squad members don't usually keep their weapons there. If uniforms replace civilian clothes, they'll only do the civilian job to interrupt individual combat drills. My experience with uniforms on top of civilian clothes isn't stellar, and I don't fully understand the details.
I can understand not putting miners/woodcutters/hunters in squads to avoid a different sort of hassle, but imo it's well worth it for everyone else - maybe I'm still traumatised from a time where clothing-related unhappiness was one of my chief annoyances.

[anewaname]

I always put hunters, miners, and woodcutters in squads with an empty uniform, but I give these squads a specific name and:
- never assign them a barracks to train at
- never give them Station or Kill orders
- never set their 'm'ilitary/'a'lerts to ActiveTraining
If these things are avoided, the dwarf never drops their axe/pick/crossbow to equip their non-existent uniform. But, sometimes an unhappy dwarf needs a different job so they can spend time in the military.

Doing this makes it easier to organize all dwarfs in the military (with an over-clothing uniform of mail shirt, bone greaves, and non-metal helm/gauntlets for most dwarfs, a barracks for Individual Combat Drills, and a month of scheduled training per year). The dedicated military receives better training and armor, including a uniform that includes non-metal items to mitigate the no-new-clothing unhappiness, an under-layer of shirts, trousers, socks...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Keep the dwarfs alive
Keep the dwarfs alive
All you dwarf-ees
keep yourself alive

Wear that bronze and leather beardy
and you will survive

[Thunderforge]

Having been a re-enactor (historical, not larp!) I can testify that armour is heavy! A helmet, mail hauberk and leather gloves is about as much as I want to wear without it seriously affecting my speed and endurance.
A wooden round-shield is either heavy OR flimsy. Make a strong one and it will last, but slows you down. Or build a lighter shield and it’s far more liable to split under a powerful blow. I believe (historically) lighter shields were the norm and a warrior would have several shields nearby in case of breakages.

In game I tend to use mail, helm, breastplate, shield (usually wood) and weapon and only go for more if I’m in an ore rich environment.

[Salmeuk]

Having been a re-enactor (historical, not larp!) I can testify that armour is heavy! A helmet, mail hauberk and leather gloves is about as much as I want to wear without it seriously affecting my speed and endurance.
A wooden round-shield is either heavy OR flimsy. Make a strong one and it will last, but slows you down. Or build a lighter shield and it’s far more liable to split under a powerful blow. I believe (historically) lighter shields were the norm and a warrior would have several shields nearby in case of breakages.

In game I tend to use mail, helm, breastplate, shield (usually wood) and weapon and only go for more if I’m in an ore rich environment.

nice real-world input. this is why I didn't mind the shift to punishing low-skill armor users when equipped with heavy iron equipment - it felt like a tiny bit of balance in an otherwise imba game.

A pattern I noticed with all the broken shields I have is they're always issued after my carpenters have gained respectable skill at making stuff, leading to my militia's wooden shields being of significantly higher quality than their actual weapons, which are often made by smiths of average or lower skill early on. My theory is that quality matters a lot when dealing with attack calculations, and high quality items are stated on the wiki to have higher chances to hit, leading to exceptional and masterwork wooden shields to get attack priority over superior or fine quality swords and axes.

This is an interesting theory, I would love to hear if anyone else has seen this directly. I suspect you might be on to something, since I used exclusively wooden shields for the RP value, until I noticed most of the strikes performed were shield bashes (with the equivalent of a charcuterie serving tray for a shield).

One can dream of applying a doctrine to your military, where they would only attempt certain strikes that you allowed. "Alright, squad, we will not engage the enemy unless you can strike their third left toe with the haft of your spear. k?"

[Splint]

A pattern I noticed with all the broken shields I have is they're always issued after my carpenters have gained respectable skill at making stuff, leading to my militia's wooden shields being of significantly higher quality than their actual weapons, which are often made by smiths of average or lower skill early on. My theory is that quality matters a lot when dealing with attack calculations, and high quality items are stated on the wiki to have higher chances to hit, leading to exceptional and masterwork wooden shields to get attack priority over superior or fine quality swords and axes.

This is an interesting theory, I would love to hear if anyone else has seen this directly. I suspect you might be on to something, since I used exclusively wooden shields for the RP value, until I noticed most of the strikes performed were shield bashes (with the equivalent of a charcuterie serving tray for a shield).

I'd like to know too. It's not really something that can be tested easily in the arena without DFhack, but I keep seeing it often enough that I figure it's what's happening, or every single fort I've played in the past year is cursed with some kind of wood-shield specific weirdness.

In regards to the thread, for minimum protection, encumbrance, and material savings without using relatively flimsy organic material, one can "settle" for just using mail shirts sans breastplate, metal leggings and bucklers instead of shields. From experience I know two lumps of ore can outfit one soldier that way (including his weapon, as most weapons dwarves can make in vanilla only cost one bar,) allowing for the third that would have been needed for that single soldier's breastplate/shield to be used to furnish half the cost of outfitting a second dwarf instead.

While light, organic materials at least in my experience aren't enough to stop some larger creature bites (most importantly werebeast bites,) so I figure the added weight of metal leggings might be preferable to crippling bites to more poorly armored legs. Someone might need to do proper testing to see if the weight reduction from using bone leg protection is worth it for less skilled troops over simply trimming some heavier armor (shield and breastplate) and opting for a buckler in place of a shield. The buckler's an opportunity cost of lighter weight and less material used vs offering lesser protection basically. Course, I think wooden shields that have earned a name might be immune to breakage. Least I've never seen/noticed named wooden shields break. I've seen'em with wear they had prior to naming, but not being busted to splinters on things.

Also, as an additional note for weight - scavenged shields may sometimes weight significantly more depending on who it was looted from, particularly in modded games. I've observed shields plundered from modded races of substantial size weighing 120Γ + by themselves while still being (by thier nature as a non-sized object) useable by one's own dudes, so one may need to be careful not use shields looted or bought from humans if trying to keep the weight dragging new guys down to a minimum and mark any shields from larger modded races to be melted so as to avoid slowing your men to a crawl with shields that probably weigh more than they do.

[Salmeuk]

A pattern I noticed with all the broken shields I have is they're always issued after my carpenters have gained respectable skill at making stuff, leading to my militia's wooden shields being of significantly higher quality than their actual weapons, which are often made by smiths of average or lower skill early on. My theory is that quality matters a lot when dealing with attack calculations, and high quality items are stated on the wiki to have higher chances to hit, leading to exceptional and masterwork wooden shields to get attack priority over superior or fine quality swords and axes.

This is an interesting theory, I would love to hear if anyone else has seen this directly. I suspect you might be on to something, since I used exclusively wooden shields for the RP value, until I noticed most of the strikes performed were shield bashes (with the equivalent of a charcuterie serving tray for a shield).

I'd like to know too. It's not really something that can be tested easily in the arena without DFhack, but I keep seeing it often enough that I figure it's what's happening, or every single fort I've played in the past year is cursed with some kind of wood-shield specific weirdness.

In regards to the thread, for minimum protection, encumbrance, and material savings without using relatively flimsy organic material, one can "settle" for just using mail shirts sans breastplate, metal leggings and bucklers instead of shields. From experience I know two lumps of ore can outfit one soldier that way (including his weapon, as most weapons dwarves can make in vanilla only cost one bar,) allowing for the third that would have been needed for that single soldier's breastplate/shield to be used to furnish half the cost of outfitting a second dwarf instead.

While light, organic materials at least in my experience aren't enough to stop some larger creature bites (most importantly werebeast bites,) so I figure the added weight of metal leggings might be preferable to crippling bites to more poorly armored legs. Someone might need to do proper testing to see if the weight reduction from using bone leg protection is worth it for less skilled troops over simply trimming some heavier armor (shield and breastplate) and opting for a buckler in place of a shield. The buckler's an opportunity cost of lighter weight and less material used vs offering lesser protection basically. Course, I think wooden shields that have earned a name might be immune to breakage. Least I've never seen/noticed named wooden shields break. I've seen'em with wear they had prior to naming, but not being busted to splinters on things.

Also, as an additional note for weight - scavenged shields may sometimes weight significantly more depending on who it was looted from, particularly in modded games. I've observed shields plundered from modded races of substantial size weighing 120Γ + by themselves while still being (by thier nature as a non-sized object) useable by one's own dudes, so one may need to be careful not use shields looted or bought from humans if trying to keep the weight dragging new guys down to a minimum and mark any shields from larger modded races to be melted so as to avoid slowing your men to a crawl with shields that probably weigh more than they do.

so like, one of the recruits just shows up to sparring practice with a shield three times his height, fit for a giant or something, and no one bats an eye

[Alastar]

In regards to the thread, for minimum protection, encumbrance, and material savings without using relatively flimsy organic material, one can "settle" for just using mail shirts sans breastplate, metal leggings and bucklers instead of shields.

Leggings seem unattractive and unnecessary - just as heavy as greaves, and markedly inferior because they don't dampen blows.
Mail shirt and high boots cover everything from the torso down, and a set of boots is much lighter than leggings. That combination seems viable for starting armour: Not too heavy and enough to keep dwarves decent, so you can skip interim clothing before you complete the set.
If I understand the mechanics correctly, additional non-rigid layers are equal - on top of iron maill shirt and high boots, iron leggings should be equal to leather leggings and inferior to bone greaves.
Am I missing something?

Likewise, a metal buckler is still quite heavy... is saving 2Γ over a metal shield worth the bother? We could also save more with a wooden shield (seemingly better, especially against projectiles, until it breaks) or a second weapon (possibly attractive in melee).

[Splint]

In regards to the thread, for minimum protection, encumbrance, and material savings without using relatively flimsy organic material, one can "settle" for just using mail shirts sans breastplate, metal leggings and bucklers instead of shields.

Leggings seem unattractive and unnecessary - just as heavy as greaves, and markedly inferior because they don't dampen blows.
Mail shirt and high boots cover everything from the torso down, and a set of boots is much lighter than leggings. That combination seems viable for starting armour: Not too heavy and enough to keep dwarves decent, so you can skip interim clothing before you complete the set.
If I understand the mechanics correctly, additional non-rigid layers are equal - on top of iron maill shirt and high boots, iron leggings should be equal to leather leggings and inferior to bone greaves.
Am I missing something?

Likewise, a metal buckler is still quite heavy... is saving 2Γ over a metal shield worth the bother? We could also save more with a wooden shield (seemingly better, especially against projectiles, until it breaks) or a second weapon (possibly attractive in melee).

No organic armor is going to perform identically to metal layers, at least from what I've observed in non-arena conditions. I've had soldiers in leather leggings and bone gear lose equipment rather quickly with organic material pieces often being wrecked within one or two fights (even against minor threats like badgers) or get infected by werebeasts/ghouls while even copper leggings were able to stop the same attacks despite being the worst armor metal.

In regard to the leggings and bucklers, there's material costs at play in my reasoning as well.

Leggings cost less to produce (1 bar vs 2 for greaves,) so while they're the same weight they're cheaper to make and are far less prone to breakage/failure than organic material equivalents. Same goes for bucklers vs shields. That's an entire lump of ore saved (which can matter a lot in resource-poor embarks) for more effective, less breakage-prone leggings as an added layer of defense and still having something with a chance of blocking not entirely dependent on weapon skill. Bucklers aren't as good, certainly, but they're cheaper with a slight saving in weight as a small bonus.

Obviously if wood's a non-issue or the hassle of replacing shields isn't a bother, wood shields are the go-to for saving weight and metal and getting good defensive results overall, but not everyone is going to want to have to replace shields every other fight for half thier militia. But if resources are tight and you don't want to babysit your militia's equipment (personally I tend to issue things manually, the auto-upgrading job cancel spams annoy the shit out of me,) then a buckler is much more attractive.

But, that's sort of the whole deal with armor in this game. Compromises have to be made to minimize injury and losses at every stage or making calculated risks. Organic armor is always going to beat virtually all metal in terms of weight, but at that point you're going for the glass cannon approach and can expect moderate to heavy losses in your militia, since it only takes one or two hits to potentially knock them out of the fight. Bone greaves will rarely ever stop a metal spear.

Using metal slows down your men, potentially quite severely if they have low strength, and get worn out more quickly but even just mail over some plain clothes will make them far less likely to be killed or suffer permanent injuries (barring bullshit torsion damage to the neck.) From observations, crappy weapons will struggle against decent chain armor (and obviously weep at more expensive and heavy plate armor.)

Bucklers and leggings are considered worse overall, but they're cheaper to make so you can make more of them vs metal shields or greaves, meaning you can field more fully-armored (in the sense of "all parts covered") and armed troops for less resources.

EDIT: I know I'm repeating myself a bit, but I should add the following.

Leather and bone are fine if it's what you have or can afford. Something is better than nothing and could make the difference between just needing stitches and needing a crutch for the rest of a soldier's life, but you shouldn't use organic material more than you absolutely have to for armor aside from RP reasons or resource constraints.

[Alastar]

When evaluating metal leggings - do we take full metal coverage granted (helm, mail shirt, boots, gauntlets already)? My reasoning:

a) if not, I'd rather add pieces that get me on the way to full coverage. Helm, gauntlets, high boots together weigh less than leggings, and don't seem individually worse per metal bar expended.
b) if yes, we're already at 34Γ (more for copper or bronze) and 5 metals bars of body armour, with leggings adding 22Γ more. My concern is that leggings may not be worth their weight just for a second layer. It's much easier to justify the weight for greaves - and if I'm reluctant to expend two metal bars on greaves, spending one on leggings seems worse. Both are a luxury.
Bone greaves and leather armour may be flimsy, but they don't weigh us down, don't cost any metal, and with proper armour below we don't rely on them - it's ok if they break, and replacing them isn't urgent. I get the reluctance about wooden shields - if those break, we lose something that's actually important rather than "nice to throw in". However, I think I'd rather have a metal shield than buckler and lleggings if we're conscious about weight and metal use.

Something I can see if our troops can handle the weight and we have something like abundant iron, limited flux: Iron greaves and breastplate over steel. Full coverage in our best material, rigid and still durable layer on top, using half as much steel as a full set. Lesser metals tend to be less elastic, so in some case they may even be advantageous.

Things get interesting if resources are tight. A few fully armoured and well trained soldiers vs. a large armed militia that represents a similar investment is an interesting comparison - I've been happy with both, depending on what I needed them to do.
I guess my point is: Giving a civilian a metal weapon and a wooden shield makes them a lot more capable in combat for a very low investment. Replacing their civilian clothes with organic armour saves time and resources eventually, because it doesn't wear out. Neither slows them down.
If we go beyond this and consider partial metal armour... how much and what bits?

It seems we agree on metal greaves and breastplate as the last things to complete a full suit.
But does a mail shirt really do more for the metal/weight than helm/gauntlets/boots? I'm not convinced, and quite sure that leggings do less. Headshots are scary, limb armour improves punches and kicks - which still happen in armed combat.
Metal buckler and bone helm, or wooden shield and metal helm? If we have metal body armour already, I'd feel safer with the latter.

[anewaname]

From game-play observations...
- The non-metal "armor" items can give dwarfs happy thoughts. This was noted in 47.05 when multiple dwarfs gained "put on an exceptional item" happy thoughts and looking through their worn items, it was their bone greaves, their only non-arrival item, worn as part of an over-clothing/always-worn uniform. This doesn't apply to wood shields, someone would have noticed if it did, it does apply to leather cloaks, and I'm not sure if it applies to non-metal gauntlets or helms. I don't know if they gain an unhappy thought when those non-metal items are destroyed in combat.

A previous post worth looking at, that talks about the implications of armor density...
2015 post, so this was before joint-torsion was implemented, which may matter

[ZM5]

-snip-

I think you underestimate just how crap leather and bone are for protective purposes in-game. Leather armor isn't worth making in the slightest IMO, and bone, while it may protect from some weaker and smaller creatures, breaks very easily (even breastplates and greaves). Chain leggings and mail shirts do help definitely (particularly against edged attacks), and iron ones definitely aren't worse than bone stuff of any kind.

I'd also say wood/bone shields/bucklers aren't worth it either due to how fast they break when they get used as bludgeons (which is disappointingly often).

limb armour improves punches and kicks - which still happen in armed combat.

It doesnt. Only the creature's strength+size+body materials (and I think also whether the creature is sprinting or not) matter for unarmed combat.