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[SirHoneyBadger]

You're right, Narmio. It's not really meant to be an end-all-be-all solution. But I feel it has strong potential, and I think it could atleast form a basis for moving forward, in a way that won't cause as many "facepalms" as the current debate has caused.

It's also nicely vague. We don't need to know exactly *why* superior armour is superior, or why it would be impenetrable to a finely-crafted sword.

It would also allow leather and maille (and other types of) armour to have their own expressed benefits/detriments, vs the various types of weaponry--rendering plate as something desireable, but not always the most practical solution to every problem.

Furthermore, if we were to break armour down into, say, solid plates, brigandine (including scale), lamellar, maille, boiled leather, layered silk, and quilt, each with it's own immunities/resistances, we could then eventually set up a system of realistic armour sets, based on the area of body covered, and the amount and type of armour worn on each bodypart. Which would allow for "gaps" in protection to "aim for", since the body would still need to move.

You could even do layering, in this manner, with the computer calculating the effects of a weapon penetrating one layer, and then having to penetrate the next.

You're also right that "immunity" might be too strong a word. Weapon materials and attacker strength/skill might come into play here, too, where there could be a tiny percentage chance of, say, a superdwarfenly strong sworddwarf with even a poorly crafted steel sword piercing a masterwork plate, as a rare "fluke". A copper sword would have even less of a chance, while a steel sword might have a small but decent potential to cleave copper plate of even the highest quality.

I think the percentages should be kept quite low, though, since one of the ideas here is that, over time, the armour breaks down, anyway, allowing more attacks to strike true.

[Leesin]

I disagree with any armour being impenetrable, low quality weapon vs high quality armour should still have a chance, albeit a low one. Also if armours are going to degrade in battle, I don't think we should have to micromanage that entire repair scenario either, much rather it happened automatically and wasn't tedious.

Otherwise, it definately would be good to mix all these things up and add a new depth to combat, but overcomplicating things will only lead to more things to be fixed. As it stands, the first thing I personally would like to see done, is a balancing of weapons/armour, other weapons need to be as lethal as axes, well infact, rather it be that axes are toned down and other weapons are tweaked. I also would like to see big body parts being cut off/apart less frequently, it would make it all that better when you see your dwarf cut a goblins arm off, rather than a limb falling off everytime a dwarf hits one with an axe lol.

There needs to be a middleground where no one is tottally undamaged by being hit with big metal weapons ( being wielded by someone decent anyway ) and where main limbs arent being cut off in every swing. Of course, everyones preference is going to differ from my own.

[Nikov]

So yeah. Swords.

A knightly arming sword, longsword, greatsword, whathaveyou is a killing instrument designed to eliminate all battlefield threats and defeat all battlefield armor through slashing, piercing, and blunt trauma. In slashing, the weapon is optimized for the draw cut. A draw cut runs along the target surface to slice into it. This is very ineffective against metal armors, but works well against cloth, leather or bare flesh. Slashing is almost entirely ineffective against mail and completely ineffective against plate. This is also the most efficient use of the weapon with the greatest stopping power, as it can remove entire limbs. In piercing, the weapon's straight form allows the user maximum force directly into the point of contact. A sword can pierce mail in capable hands. Given an impact squarely into plate mail in skilled hands, it may well penetrate, however underlying mail, leather and cloth armor layers will likely absorb momentum until the sword tip lacks enough force to continue forcing through the plate. For this reason, yes, a trained combatant would aim for weak points on a plate armored opponent, since not doing so would be a waste of effort. And given the expense of a sword, the combatants would be trained. Finally, when flipped over the pommel and crossguard become blunt instruments capable of concussive blows. A quick punch with a crossguard might throw an opponent off his stride but nto kill him, however a Mortschlag to the skill, helmet or not, would render an opponent dazed.

TLDR: So to be brief, swords suck against plate, are okay against mail when thrusting, and do best against leather and unarmored opponents (or just unarmored parts).

[CognitiveDissonance]

TLDR: So to be brief, swords suck against plate, are okay against mail when thrusting, and do best against leather and unarmored opponents (or just unarmored parts).

Yes, but most armor does not cover absolutely everything. In fiction, even dwarves eventually get overwhelmed through thick armor after some weak point is found.
As such, a skilled swordsman is adept at finding those weaknesses.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Weapons could definitely use some balancing. I'm all for that.

For one thing, we could do with some more variety:

There are six different basic types of sword used in the middle ages: The thrusting shortsword/gladius, the rapier and other thin fencing swords, the chopping cutlass/macheti/broadsword/yataghan (and weapons like the falx, which despite being a "slashing weapon" had limited armour-rending qualities), the slashing saber/tulwar/shamshir/scimitar, the double-edged viking sword/longsword, and the two-handed greatsword/flamberg/zweihander (and hand-and-half bastard sword, which could be used either as a longsword or a greatsword, and which developed into the estoc.). Each performs differently, and is used in a different manner, in combat.

For axes, there is the hatchet/handaxe/francesca, the bearded axe/battleaxe/labrys, the two-handed long axe/lochaber axe/bardiche/sparth, and the two-handed, double-bitted bipennis (basically, a weaponized version of the common woodaxe)/doloire ("wagoner's axe", which consisted of a large, triangular blade backed with a hammer, and attached to a 5 foot shaft). Again, all four perform differently, and are used differently in combat.

Hammers come in the basic bashing variety, the beaked "warhammer" variety (a hammer with some minor features of a pick, mainly for armour-piercing), and the two-handed maul.

Maces really only have three different forms, the smooth bashing warmace/calvalry mace, the spiked or bladed mace/morningstar/holy water sprinkler, and the rare two-handed great mace/plançon a picot.

Spears can be short and one-handed (and occasionally heavy and clublike, like the godendag), two-handed, or of pike length. They can also be partisaned, up to the point of being practical tridents. Tridents themselves can be one-handed or two-handed, and spears can be bladed, as well as pointed.

Flails are another common medieval weapon. They're almost unique in having movable parts, consisting of a chain, or one to several linking sections, connecting a handle to heavy wooden or metal strikers. Flails can range in size and power from the scourge/cat-o-nine-tails (basically a more viciously weaponized version of a whip), to the classic ball-and-chain, up to a two-handed variety, which may have up to three heavy spiked balls.

Knives and daggers are another very common weapon. They range in size from tiny work-knives, that would have been carried ubiquitously, up to "knives" that only differ from shortswords, or cutlasses, in the manner in which they are used. Knives could be used for slashing, chopping, and stabbing, with the latter preferred by the nobility, in the form of daggers/roundels/poignards. Knives were also commonly used along with swords, in somewhat the same way as a buckler--namely, mostly defensively, to catch the opponent's weapon, and to block blows, while still allowing the occasional vicious stab. The long thin poignard could be quite effective against plate, being used to stab through gaps in the armour or visor, once your opponent was rendered prone. Such daggers were often very expensive, because of the demand for quality of the blade, as well as the prestige associated with them.

Picks could be weaponized, and weapons like the bec de corbin/crowbill (one handed) and lucern hammer (two handed) were, basically, this. 

Polearms came in a bewildering variety, but other than the weapons already mentioned, probably the most important were the halberd (not very dissimilar from a lochaber axe, but the addition of a long piercing spike, and a picklike beak, gave the wielder more options), the corseque/ranseur (similar to the trident, but with bladed tines), the sword-staff/rhomphaia/war scythe (a sword, scythe, or falx blade on a long pole), the military fork (basically a "trident" that was as often as not a pitchfork head on a reinforced shaft), and the billhook (a heavy chopping blade that curved back into a pronounced "hook", on a reinforced shaft).

Aside from these melee weapons (and obviously, some of these could be thrown, and there are versions of these weapons I didn't list, like the harpoon, pilum, or bolas, that are intended for throwing), bows, slings, and crossbows also came in a variety of forms.

[zagibu]

I've reorganized the original post and added a spreadsheet containing all raw data for further analysis. There are some interesting things to be found there, such as helms leading to mostly glances instead of deflections, hands and feet being more often and more severly wounded than other bodyparts (probably because of fingers and toes being cut off) and the general feeling that all this work is flawed, because some of the values behave very strangely...

Someone should probably check some combat logs and try to correlate them with the extracted numerical data to make sure there are no semantic errors in the perl script, but this stuff is already coming out of my ears...

[se5a]

RE hammers and maces sucking, I've noticed that my dwarfs don't do so well againsed hammer goblins, other weapons are fine, but for some reason they tend to come away far worse off when they're fighting a squad of hammer goblins.

Maybe it's just bad luck in my fortress.

[zagibu]

No, it's not. If you look at the tables, hammers have higher hit ratios at the "worse" metals, and goblins only have copper or iron, so that explains your situation. Hammers still suck for dwarves, though, because they have better metals available.

[Geti]

Hammers still suck for dwarves, though, because they have better metals available.

fix: use poorer metals? You dont have to use steel when you've got it.

[zagibu]

It still doesn't make sense to produce hammers at all, because the best hammers (silver) still suck compared to e.g. bronze swords. If there was only silver in the whole world, hammers would rule, but there are better options atm.

This has direct implications on the hammerer noble, btw. Just give everyone copper plate armor and a mail shirt and they should be quite safe from punishings.

[Hyperturtle]

Giving everyone copper plate doesn't seem reasonable in DF2010. 

perhapps modding in a wooden hammer or a glass hammer is a good idea?  I  haven't encountered any balsa wood trees, but that would make for a great hammer... for the Hammerer.

[Rotten]

Giving everyone copper plate doesn't seem reasonable in DF2010. 

perhapps modding in a wooden hammer or a glass hammer is a good idea?  I  haven't encountered any balsa wood trees, but that would make for a great hammer... for the Hammerer.

If you have Funmetal, that is even lighter than wood, and can be made into hammers. I don't think it even takes that many wafers (2-3? Not much with the massive and multiple tubes we get these days).

[zagibu]

Doesn't the hammerer come with his own hammer, though?

[Rolan7]

Doesn't the hammerer come with his own hammer, though?

It can be replaced (:

I love the idea of Dwarven Justice being dispensed with a sacred nerf weapon.

[Doppel]

What about wood? For example training weapons being made out of Feather Tree wood (density of 100) and actual wood weapons being made out of Blood Thorn wood (density of 1250).