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[Grek]

I thought that wasn't getting done for a long time.

[Gazz]

Something I noticed on The List...

# Weapons and armor now use various "real world" attributes to calculate their effectiveness. Each material (rock, metal) uses the following:

    * Density
    * Impact/Shear Yield
    * Impact/Shear Fracture
    * Impact/Shear Elasticity
    * Edge


# Force from blunt weapons can transcend layers. For instance, a hammer can bruise the skin while breaking the bone underneath
    * As such, plate armor's benefits are generally ignored by blunt attacks, and leather armor would prove to be more effective

Plate is pretty good at distributing the force of a crushing attack over a larger area, reducing it's effectivity. (especially if the dwarven mastersmiths apply techniques such as fluting - and they would!)
Most blows are at least partially deflected and even if not, have to overcome the rigidness of the plate, either by shattering or seriously deforming it, before they can properly apply most of their bone-breaking properties.
So plate alone does a degree of dampening all by itself.
(provided the blow didn't come from a hill giant's hammer and sent you on a ballistic trajectory =)

This "distributing" property would be directly related to the size (mass, if size is impractical) of the body part hit because it's a matter of pressure. (force / area)

Of course, realistically, plate is never worn without a gambeson or similiar padding, both to cushion blunt damage and simply to attach all the metal plates or chain bits. (Chain did not always come in the classic "sleeved shirt" variety)

Gambeson (= aketon) alone was the "poor soldier's armour" but noone would wear chain or plate without a gambeson underneath.

Medieval knights did not wear plate armour because they were stupid. =)
In a suit of maximilian armour (about 16th century) a knight was the equivalent of a tank, even shrugging off most arrows and crossbow bolts.

If a dwarf can only wear one type of armour (like a "steel breastplate" item) on a location, chain and plate would have to include these "padding" properties in the armour itself.

Now with the massive upcoming changes, this may  be obsolete but the list deliberately points out a "weakness" of plate vs blunt weapons...




Threads related to weapons / damage (and material where it concerns either):  (you people are such litterbugs)
I deliberately left out those that were already included in The List, too vague for suggestions, or wished for wild/whacky/rare weapons that never saw much military use in the first place.

Weapons discussion panel, lets make this work!
Special weaknesses / strengths.
Combat Suggestions
Making Cloth Useful; Bedsheets, Dressing, and more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambeson
Cave spider silk armor
Peircing and Bashing
Knockback: Slight alteration to combat model.
Damage Type


Very minor semantics suggestion (re. "plate mail") / / /  No such thing as plate mail
While not related to the damage types, this would be no code change but a one-word fix and make the history nuts happy.
("Plate mail" is the equivalent of farting during a history discussion =)

[CobaltKobold]

Armor presently has the ability to be worn with other armor, unless it's "shaped", or unless the other piece won't fit over it.

So it's perfectly possible for you, in 40d, to make a gambeson. It just won't really have the desired padding effects on blows (nor, really, be ordered to be equipped) until next version. But it'll block some damage like any clothes.

[Mel_Vixen]

So why do we nekro a thread that is over a year old again? The theme of this thread was adressed also multiple times in FotF the devblog etc. - including the layering and the new "squad uniform" window. - so this thread is from my PoV rather obsolet.

[Footkerchief]

So why do we nekro a thread that is over a year old again? The theme of this thread was adressed also multiple times in FotF the devblog etc. - including the layering and the new "squad uniform" window. - so this thread is from my PoV rather obsolet.

Necroing threads in Suggestions (as opposed to posting new redundant ones) is a good thing, even if they're old.  Some of the ideas Gazz mentioned came up in FotF, yes, but it's hard to find stuff in that gigantic thread, and having a dedicated thread for discussing them is, again, a good thing.  Also Gazz pulled together a bunch of links to related threads -- another good thing!  Your POV is unwarranted.

To address Gazz's points:

I didn't know that the purpose of fluting was to disperse pressure.  That would be interesting, but possibly out of period (DF has a rough technology cutoff of ~1400).

Gambesons came up several times in FotF, and there's a good chance that Toady will add them.

[Gazz]

An idea / suggestion forum, that is used for anything productive, is different from a regular chatter forum in that it deals with specific items or concepts, not points of view (if these concepts are a good or bad thing to have).
If all suggestions regarding a specific item are spread across 20 different threads, most of them become useless.

But taking my own advice, I'll move on to the "about organisation" thread. =P