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[zagibu]

I'm not so sure. I think axes/swords will breach armor equally well, but will cause more serious wounding than spears. In fortress mode, I had one woodcutter with a bronze axe, and he hacked apart some 12 goblins effortlessly.

[Dwarfoloid]

Though depending on the biome, Cassiterite may be much rarer or nonexistant when compared to flux. Also, while I haven't tested it, I wouldn't be suprised if a masterwork quality iron weapon was capable of cutting through regular quality bronze with good regularity (or rather, I hope it's like that). On the other hand, I also wouldn't be suprised if quality, atm, only modified the dwarfbuck value of the weapons.

One major problem with equating impact with the strength stat is that all creatures use the same range for it, topped at 5000. It just means how strong a given creature is compared to other creatures of it's size. I'd also add that strength stat increases the weight of a creature and it's bodyparts.

Granted, increasingly large size gets more and more ineffective due to gravity (which is why you find larger creatures in supportive environment of oceans, and why very small creatures like ants are capable of comparatively huge feats of strength) but not as much as to make an ogre, a humanoid monster with the bodyweight of a tyrannosaurus, incapable of putting force into it's punches (which would be the case if the maths suggested by Vastin were implemented).

IMO, tying the force of impact to the creatures' physique via using a factor of it's weight would be the cleanest solution with the current state of the game. If it was tied to strength stat, it would still need to be tied to the creature's size. Possibly by multiplying the strength stat with the creatures weight minus excess weight from fat (or even height, width and musculature).

I'm not so sure. I think axes/swords will breach armor equally well, but will cause more serious wounding than spears. In fortress mode, I had one woodcutter with a bronze axe, and he hacked apart some 12 goblins effortlessly.

Yes, in my experience edge type weapons which are of stronger material will pierce weaker material armor with around 100% certanity. Even when I modded sword to have penetration of just 10 it was still causing penetrating hits on weaker armor most of the time. Those that failed to get through probably did so because the weapon simply did not have the physical dimensions to get through with those particular blows, not because of failure to penetrate per se.

[Paul]

Dwarves armed with steel axes are goblin blenders. They make a real mess - bits and pieces flying everywhere.

Looking at the results of my last ambush, I see: 3 lower bodies, 4 legs, 3 ears, 5 heads, 3 hands, 5 arms, 2 toes, 3 fingers, 2 teeth, and a single nose. It was 5 axe dwarves armed with masterwork steel vs two ambush groups of mostly iron wearing goblins and a thief or two who wandered into the fight. The only wound on the dwarven side was a cut open finger from a goblin arrow fired at the beginning of the fight, which was cleaned and sutured and healed before the dwarf finished his ale (the one he grabbed coming out of the hospital).

[puke]

its actually no supprise that Bronze should be superior to Iron.  according to (the always factual and completely infallable) wikipedia, the Iron Age only began because there was a shortage of Tin and people couldnt make Bronze anymore.  Iron was in most ways inferior, except that it was more plentifull.  Steel was subsequently developed to overcome Iron's shortcomings, though there were frequent raids and acts of piracy to obtain bronze items to smelt down and re-forge into weapons and armor.

I've seen a few people doing these kinds of tests, and being supprised at how well Bronze is performing, and assuming its just a bug in the current version.  It might not be a bug as much as its a fairly accurate representation of reality.

The only way to know for sure, is to recruit some dwarfs and a blacksmith and then compare the results to what the game produces.  if there arent enough little people available, maybe we can do something with children and steroids.

[Lightning4]

Should be noted that platinum is an AMAZING mace and hammer weapon. I almost hope it becomes an official weapon metal because of that. It has better impact elasticity than even steel, and is the most dense metal of all.
Its shear values are about on par with copper, but its density probably would more than make up for it. It probably wouldn't be a terrible edge weapon, but it doesn't seem like it shines as much here as it does with blunt.

[zagibu]

I've seen a few people doing these kinds of tests, and being supprised at how well Bronze is performing, and assuming its just a bug in the current version.  It might not be a bug as much as its a fairly accurate representation of reality.

Well, it wasn't like this in previous versions, so that's where the surprise comes from.

And considering platinum as weaponable material...I'm all for it. Just don't equip your hammerer noble with one of those things...

[o_O[WTFace]]

Looking at the raws, bronze has numbers somewhere between steel and iron for most of its stats, and the rest seem to be placeholders that are the same for all metals.  It is heavier then steel though, so possibly better for some items.   

[endimiao]

So... in sum... bludgeoning weapons work almost equally well, with a marginal advantage going for the more primal materials, such as silver and copper, with adamantine making lousy hammers but outstanding armor even against bashing stuff.

Slashing and piercing weapons can be divided betwen adamantine pierces steel, steel pierces bronze and bronze pierces iron. Everything else sucks as it is too brittle to pierce even copper armor. And the factor of suckyness is about the same (10%), wich i wonder if it doesnt extend to rock swords, wooden and glass weapons being similar to iron in regards to spears and "lucky" axe hits...

Similarly i wonder if stonefall traps follow the statistics of all bludgeoning weapons. It would certainly explain the loss of efectiveness of those "cheap" traps.

p.s. was watching this monty python video and thinking about the present state of dwarf fortress combat...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjEcj8KpuJw

[Dwarfoloid]

I think the comparison to the Black Knight scene has been made before. Ofc, when you see a dwarf who has lost both of his legs just getting enraged, I can certainly see where it's coming from.

On related note, that scene has relatively good bit of swordplay, if you count out the crudeness of the scene and the ludicirous dismemberments. Notice how they usually parry with the flat of the sword, for one.

[zagibu]

Hehe, yeah, I was also reminded of this scene, when I first read the combat logs.

I have observed something strange. At first I thought blows that glanced away were also somehow influenced by armor, because adamantine armor deflects everything and leads to almost no glances. But now I have seen that it's possible to have glancing blows in the face, which is unprotected by armor (no deflections ever). So...should I remove the glances from the hit ratio calculations?

And I also need some help classifying the wounds. I do string pattern matching to extract all this information, so I need to know which patterns to use for which class. So far, I suggest the following three classes of severity:
- heavy wounds (severed, jamming, tearing the muscle and) ... these are almost always fatal even in current df version
- medium wounds (shattering the bone, tearing apart the muscle) ... these might represent serious combat handicaps in later df versions
- light wounds (everything else) ... brusising the bone, tearing apart the fat, etc., mostly causing pain only

I'd be grateful if you could do some arena rounds, read the combat logs and let me know how you would classify those wounds.

[Scribble]

As others have said, I can see where Toady was going with the weapon mass thing, but ultimately I think it's very silly. If we where playing a tank game and simulating long rod penetrators, it might make sence, but we (well he) isn't. If nothing else bludgeoning weapons also attempted to deliver their force in a very concentrated area something very hard to do with soft materials such as silver or lead. I honestly think that  however abstracted the system of wood<copper<bronze/iron<steel<magic was, it was better and more realistic than the one that's replaced it.
 

[zagibu]

Ok, the sword results are out, and it seems endimiao was right, edged weapons go through armor like butter, at least those made from better metals. It's kind of interesting that even copper armor withstands iron weapons very well...might have to test this in fortress mode later.

Another thing to note is that although blunt weapons suck overall, in the lower quality metal classes, they work noticeably better against armor than edged weapons.

[Reese]

Looking at those results, there's something immediately clear to me, is that the effectiveness drop of is way too sudden.  There's almost no middle tier weapons that have anything between 90% and 30% hits against any given armor.  This system needs some serious tweaking, either in material or weapon and armor stats, or in engine, so that you can have middle ground weapons vs. armor effectiveness(an armor material upgrade should go from blocking 10-20% through to blocking 90%, right not it goes from blocking 0% to blocking 95%, usually in a single step).  Right now it looks like weapons either go through like a hot knife through butter, or are almost entirely ineffective vs. a given type or armor.  I don't think realism is worth having a system that is so binary. 

Actually, the blunt weapons effectiveness is a lot better in terms of game play design than edged, it just needs to be increased a little across the board so instead of going 20% to 5% it goes from %60 to 5%

That aside, any thought of testing vs. leather, bone and shell armor? or are those armors just too worthless to contemplate now?

[TheMirth]

Between the weaknes of low grade armor vs weapons and how plentiful ore has become, shell, bone and leather armor are probably not worth the effort to make. But feel free to challenge the assumptions we're all making on their effectiveness.

[Dwarfoloid]

Looking at those results, there's something immediately clear to me, is that the effectiveness drop of is way too sudden.  There's almost no middle tier weapons that have anything between 90% and 30% hits against any given armor.  This system needs some serious tweaking, either in material or weapon and armor stats, or in engine, so that you can have middle ground weapons vs. armor effectiveness(an armor material upgrade should go from blocking 10-20% through to blocking 90%, right not it goes from blocking 0% to blocking 95%, usually in a single step).  Right now it looks like weapons either go through like a hot knife through butter, or are almost entirely ineffective vs. a given type or armor.  I don't think realism is worth having a system that is so binary. 

Actually, the blunt weapons effectiveness is a lot better in terms of game play design than edged, it just needs to be increased a little across the board so instead of going 20% to 5% it goes from %60 to 5%

That aside, any thought of testing vs. leather, bone and shell armor? or are those armors just too worthless to contemplate now?

I did quite some testing and modding with the weapons in the first weeks and came to the same conclusion. Armor is essentially on or off. I can also pretty safely say that modding the weapon stats won't do much. As I said above, I modded sword to have near nonexistant penetration yeat it was still penetrating (in this case unskilled weapons user vs. unskilled armor user, steel vs. iron). What I didn't add is that the weapon actually had trouble penetrating the skin, even against naked dwarf.

So the stats contact area and penetration really mean at the moment; what bodyparts the weapon can sever (creature size is a factor, ofc) and how deep the weapon can penetrate to reach organs etc., if it can't sever on that blow. Oh, contact area is also important in determing how likely the weapon is to cut tendons, arteries or hit organs with torso strikes.

The velocity modifier might have some function in this, I gave artificially high value on this for blunt weapons, and at least I think I'm seeing them more effective epsecially for skilled users. Managed to get naked hammerdwarves to win 1-on-1s vs. naked swordsdwarves. But I didn't do any statistical research, so it might be just my wishful thinking.

Armor has some lines which describe what parts the armor protects etc. but it seems to lack thickness modifiers, which are pretty important for balancing them I feel. Especially leather which really is quite useless atm being paper thin and all (well, wooden blowdarts and Hoary Marmot bites are there, but...).

So in essence, materials can be modded for short term fixes, I guess. But the underlying mechanics are what really need tweaking.

On the other and, I don't feel that the curren't mechanics are ruining the game or anything, the bronze colossus and his relatives are the only serious gripe for me. The mechanics are very unfinished/work-in-progress like, but that was kinda expected for such a revolutionary change.