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[anomaly]

I just want to mention something specifically about blunt weapons.

I really don't think the material of the blunt weapon should matter.  A hammer or mace does not have an edge to hold.  Damage should be based almost exclusively on the weight of the material and the strength and skill of the holder.  Even the hardness of a material is practically irrelevant.  A sufficiently sized block of soft lead attached to a wooden stick, for instance, will be impossible to break apart or damage significantly with handheld weapons.  the same cannot be said about the shaft, but that is neither here nor there.

The same is also somewhat true with edged weapons that are large and heavy enough to deal blunt damage.  A heavy, dull axe or a 2-handed sword that has been skillfully swung will have much more kinetic energy than a light, sharp axe or sword that was swung in a similar way.  A scenario exists, for instance, where a heavy, dull bladed weapon would fail to penetrate armor but still inflict significantly more blunt force trauma than a light keen weapon of similar design that was swung with the same force and managed to penetrate the armor would do tissue damage via cutting.  Material hardness and flexibility plays a much larger role in this situation, however, because while a hammerhead would be extremely unlikely to break in two, a sword is much thinner and more likely to be broken and even a bend or serious nick would seriously harm the weapon's ability to perform.

The only weapons where weight would either be irrelevant or detrimental would be piercing melee weapons.  The weight of a spear does not factor into the amount of penetration nearly as much as in the previous examples, as spears and daggers rely on their keen edge, the ability of the point for liquid dynamics, and the raw strength of the user to achieve penetration.

As far as the change to bronze, well... bronze is categorically superior to iron in real life.  As far as I know, iron was used primarily because iron was much more readily available than tin at that time.

[Mephansteras]

Hardness should have a factor in hammers, though. A war hammer is designed to punch through metal armor by concentrating force into a small area. A harder metal should (up to a point) be better about that since it won't deform as much and will transfer more force to the target.

[Lancensis]

[ATTACK:PUNCH:BODYPART:BY_TYPE:GRASP]
      [ATTACK_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE]
      [ATTACK_VERB:punch:punches]
      [ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:150]
      [ATTACK_FLAG_WITH]
      [ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]

I beg to differ.

So your dwarves hit a guy, and then hit him again, half as much? Interesting strategy, I suppose.

[anomaly]

Hardness should have a factor in hammers, though. A war hammer is designed to punch through metal armor by concentrating force into a small area. A harder metal should (up to a point) be better about that since it won't deform as much and will transfer more force to the target.

This is true when comparing two hammers of identical mass and surface area.

Even a small modification of either figure will make the hardness of the material almost irrelevant.

In fact, when I think about it, this gives yet another advantage to heavier materials since they can increase sectional density without increasing the volume of the hammerhead.

[Meanmelter]

[ATTACK:PUNCH:BODYPART:BY_TYPE:GRASP]
      [ATTACK_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE]
      [ATTACK_VERB:punch:punches]
      [ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:150]
      [ATTACK_FLAG_WITH]
      [ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]

I beg to differ.

So your dwarves hit a guy, and then hit him again, half as much? Interesting strategy, I suppose.

What? there original attack is 100, I added 50 because I didn't want them all to become demigods at punching.

[Lancensis]

I was joking. I was just trying to conceive of how you can hit someone with more than 100% of your hand.

[Shima]

About hammers requiring weight more than material strength, I tend to agree.  The place a hammer needs material strength is in the haft and handle.  Until weapon breaking and deformation are in, that won't matter.  Plus, it'll give a higher tactical edge for people to want to make their hammers out of the heaviest (Not necessarily "strongest") metals, thus adding a bit of variety until we have structural integrity rendered ingame.

[Lancensis]

Structual integrity is rendered in game. If it'd turn into a useless blob after a couple of swings, it lacks the tags to make it into weaponry or armour. It's a basic implementation, but it's the stopgap for now.

[Kagus]

You can make gold hammers in arena mode...  And I think you can make gold swords ingame.

[Milaha]

On Crossbows and Bows:  Right now based on my testing it looks like the SHOOT_FORCE value is way too high and the SHOOT_MAXVEL is way too low.  This causes huge differences in damaged based on the mass of the projectile since all projectiles max out the MAXVEL value (while in truth this should only happen if you use an obscenely light Bolt). 

I have a bug report up for the issue but upon seeing this thread it seems like something you would like to integrate as well. (bug report is for adamantine bolts, but research and testing got to the root of the problem)

I have not tested with your new raws, but it looks like the SHOOT_MAXVEL value was not changed.

[Kagus]

On Crossbows and Bows:  Right now based on my testing it looks like the SHOOT_FORCE value is way too high and the SHOOT_MAXVEL is way too low.  This causes huge differences in damaged based on the mass of the projectile since all projectiles max out the MAXVEL value (while in truth this should only happen if you use an obscenely light Bolt). 

I have a bug report up for the issue but upon seeing this thread it seems like something you would like to integrate as well. (bug report is for adamantine bolts, but research and testing got to the root of the problem)

I have not tested with your new raws, but it looks like the SHOOT_MAXVEL value was not changed.

...

Dangit, I was just looking at the ammo entries to find ways of buffing them up...  I never even thought to look at the launchers.  Neat tags, good find.  This requires...  "Testing".

[Phoebus]

I've discovered something through a test.

15 proficient marksdwarves with steel crossbows and 100 steel bolts each
vs
15 dwarves with 5 set of copper armor, 5 set of iron armor, 5 set of steel armor

All in 1vs1 mini-arenas.

The copper and iron dwarves die quickly and at almost exactly the same time (the last iron dwarf died before the last copper dwarf).
Meanwhile, the steel dwarves are invulnerable and survive the 100 bolts.

----

I tested an increase of SHOOT_MAXVEL from 100 to 1000; the test did not show any conclusive changes in performance of the crossbow.

[Psieye]

The MAXVEL test should be done for various different bolts. I'm assuming different bolts will achieve different velocities when the MAXVEL ceiling is lifted.

[Stele007]

I really like the sound of this mod, but I wish it could have some temporary fix for undead instead of just removing them.  I kind of like how my fort is now with elephant herds roaming outside around only to get killed by undead eagles.  Removing them would be a little... disappointing.

[KaelGotDwarves]

You could apply the weapon fixes without the undead fix by moving item_weapon and item_ammo over into the object folders and leaving the rest untouched.