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[Sean Mirrsen]

A suit of full plate armor would encompass the entire body, or at least the entire upper body. As per the raws, the "Plate mail" only covers the upper body, upper arms, and the lower body. It's also only got 70% main block factor, while a full-plate would have no means for a hit to go through the upper body part of the suit unhindered. Therefore, I have to assume the "plate mail" is in fact correct, and the game is simply missing the "full plate armor" that would offer supreme protection.

[Cosmonot]

quote:Originally posted by Sean Mirrsen:
<STRONG>A suit of full plate armor would encompass the entire body, or at least the entire upper body. As per the raws, the "Plate mail" only covers the upper body, upper arms, and the lower body. It's also only got 70% main block factor, while a full-plate would have no means for a hit to go through the upper body part of the suit unhindered. Therefore, I have to assume the "plate mail" is in fact correct, and the game is simply missing the "full plate armor" that would offer supreme protection.</STRONG>

Mechanical behavior is a poor basis for claiming that your interpretation is correct. Crossbows in dwarf fortress do not behave like real crossbows, but they are surely intended to represent them.

In any case, your evidence is flawed. Plate mail covers the entire body when you include the gauntlets, greaves, metal boots, and helm that dwarves pick up when ordered to wear it. The Block factor is an extremely abstract quality which only reflects how much damage the armor absorbs; there's a separate tag for coverage used by smaller garments/armor like caps and vests.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Alright. You can defend the "plate" in platemail as much as you want. I still think the "mail" is the key here. Just from comparing "pure" chainmail to platemail in DF, I think the "platemail" cannot be all-plate, since the performance difference is less than you'd expect - same coverage, roughly 55% more cost, ARMORLEVEL 3 vs 2, 50% higher "block" rates, same layer type and layer permit range. Even the double weight of the platemail is, in my non-expert opinion, too little for the stereotypical suit of full plates with no base material.

Therefore, since it is, after all, mostly a matter of preference and modding, I just went ahead and renamed plate mail to plated mail in my mod, and added a separate "suit of full plate armor" that encompasses the entire body much like an exoskeleton.  :p "Heavy plate armor" might be more fitting, but I don't want to call it heavy, even though it is.

Side note - I can't understand how a platemail that takes 9 material units to make weighs two times more than a chainmail that takes 6...

[Earthquake Damage]

quote:Originally posted by Eagle of Fire:
<STRONG>Studded armor is called a brigantine in real life...</STRONG>

Well, that explains that.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Except it's brigandine.

I wouldn't mind brigantine armor, but it would be a tad too heavy to lug around, methinks.  

[Eagle of Fire]

Yes, sorry. That's a typo, the real name is really brigandine like the wiki article says.  

As for plate mail wearing much, much more than chainmail: chain mails are crafted in such a way that, if done well, the weight of the whole shirt is almost nonexistant because it rests on the shoulders.

Real plate armor is made of several small pieces of plated armor which are usually strapped on somehow on the body. The weight can't be positioned in such a way the shoulders or any other specific part of the body can take the brunt of the weight, so it's normal that it weight more. Way more.

Actually, I'm surprised it's not weighing more than only 1/3 more than a chainmail armor.

[Sean Mirrsen]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_plate_armor

I don't see how this qualifies as "small plates strapped to the body". It's more like an unpowered exoskeleton.   The armor itself is usually relatively thin, so as to limit weight, but we're talking DF here.  :p

[sorbius]

you're talking about the human history of armor naming on planet earth.  so everything you say about it being misnamed in DF is wrong anyway.  If you mean it doesn't use the historical english word for the item, that would be correct.  But who cares, it's DF.  If you really feel that strongly about go mod it.

[Zonk]

quote:In any case, your evidence is flawed. Plate mail covers the entire body when you include the gauntlets, greaves, metal boots, and helm that dwarves pick up when ordered to wear it  

However, when you forge a "plate mail", you only get the piece that protects the chest and upper arms(I'm not so sure about that). So, it would be simpler to just call that breastplate, or cuirass - which was how the "chest piece"of the armor was called, although I think it did not usually protect the arms and shoulders.

[ February 12, 2008: Message edited by: Zonk ]

[Kagus]

Mmm....  Breast....

...

Okay, that was uncalled for.  G'night.

[DJ]

quote:As for plate mail wearing much, much more than chainmail: chain mails are crafted in such a way that, if done well, the weight of the whole shirt is almost nonexistant because it rests on the shoulders.

Real plate armor is made of several small pieces of plated armor which are usually strapped on somehow on the body. The weight can't be positioned in such a way the shoulders or any other specific part of the body can take the brunt of the weight, so it's normal that it weight more. Way more.

You got that backwards. Maille is a much clumsier armour exactly because the whole weight is on your shoulders. This puts more strain on arms (which will do a lot of movement in combat) and leads to faster arm muscle fatigue. Plate, on the other hand, distributes it's weight evenly, which means that your arms won't get tired before the rest of your body does. Maille also puts more pressure on your spine via shoulders, which leads to clumsier movement.

And plate doesn't weigh nearly as much as movies would have you imagine. Knights in plate armour could not only mount their horses on their own, but also do minor acrobatic tricks like hand-walking and cartwheels.This couldn't be done in maille because it's center of weight would move quite unpredictably.

[Eagle of Fire]

I am at this moment making my own chain mail for a live event... I think I know what I'm talking about when I say that if it's done right, it's almost weightless... If you do it right.

There is a technique which make the whole mail shirt support itself. From there, all you need to do is to support it from your shoulders and it's pretty much like wearing a metal t-shirt... Not really cumbersome. And far less that what a real full plate would be.

The whole point here is that, if you go to the wiki link posted above, the full plate could be as light as only 20 kg (45 pounds) if well made of tempered steel. There is two key words here: well made and tempered steel. And while I am pleased to read about the exploits of reenacters, I seriously doubt that such an end result was common place in medieval time.

Competent armorsmith were extremely rare, and steel, even though the recipe was known, was so hard to produce due to availability that it was extremely rare to see. Thus, I really don't think "normal" full plates were made in majority with such a material, which would make them way heavier than 20kg.

Chain mails are made of rings of metal which absorb the hits because all the links are free and they move together when they get hit. Chain mails are also particularly usefull against arrows, as long as the bow is not strong enough to cut thru the rings (some longbows and pulleys). Not only is it way lighter than a full plate because the whole shirt consist of hollow rings but you don't need the same thickness for the mail to be effective.

quote:I don't see how this qualifies as "small plates strapped to the body". It's more like an unpowered exoskeleton.

Please read again the very link you posted:

quote:Plate armour could have consisted of a helmet, a gorget (or bevor), pauldrons (or spaulders), couters, vambraces, gauntlets, a cuirass (back and breastplate) with a fauld, tassets and a culet, a chain mail skirt, cuisses, poleyns, greaves, and sabatons.

That's quite a lot of pieces, don't you think?  

[Sean Mirrsen]

No. While in fact, it is a lot of pieces, they simply make up the full suit. They are large, usually full limb-size shaped pieces of metal, not individual "armor shards", and their composition like this was only because there was no other way to put the armor on but to assemble it on yourself piece by piece.

[sorbius]

I love it when people post mod suggestions in the suggestions forum and then argue about it like it's actually going to be implemented...

I also love arguements about 'historical accuracy' especially since who the hell cares, it's a game, not a History Channel special...

A suggestion is a way to improve(not complicate) game play or the UI or if you're a coder the framerate.  
Adding your personal micromanagement fetish of choice to the game would be a mod.
Please do not confuse the two.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I, personally, just have no other interesting place to look at currently. Since we're "mostly" on topic, I see no reason to stop arguing.