If there's degradation coming in the future, there needs to be a sharpener's workshop to fix em up for some time :3
Equipment Maintenance, such as sharpening, cleaning, and minor armor mending should be task for the soldier to do on their down time. Weapon and Armor smith should only come in for major repair works. Like replacing large holes in chain mail, or reforging a sundered sword.
Please tell me that artifact weapons won't degrade, at least >_<
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I'm more worried about what would happen to dwarves who break their sword/axe/spear during a fight? Will they wrestle the enemy? (That would be terrible) Will they try to run to an armory to get a new weapon? If yes, how will that work with all the arsenal dwarf bureaucracy when they can't just pick up a weapon on a whim?
An interesting solution would be to have each dwarf carry two weapons by default (determined by default uniforms... say one weapon for the "light" leather uniform, two weapons for the "heavy" metal uniform). Better yet, have backup weapons dependent on the main weapon. Macedwarfs probably don't need backups. Swordsdwarves and speardwarves, on the other hand, should carry a backup warhammer or something that doesn't break.
EDIT: This leads to the issue of being able to tell your dwarves to use certain weapons for this fight only. "It's a colossus, throw away your spears, pick up hammers"... without needing to wait for the arsenal dwarf and preferably without much micromanagement. Because without being able to specify weapons now, the realistic material system along with weapon damage would make fighting mineral beats too broken.
Dorfs should have a sense of internal judgment and urgency in this regard. They should be able to pick up the nearest weapon with the next highest skill unless its out of a circumference range (Relative to the dorf speed. The dorf should not want to abandon the battle field for long lengths of time.) with some personality bits thrown in. Like a stubborn dwarf is gonna kill ya with a sword even if you keep breaking them all. It should be able to use fallen enemies weapons.
Ultimately it'd be nice if they would make contextual judgments. Like if there are Civvies in X range, and there are no other Military Dorfs in X range to protect the civvies, and if the dorf weapon break it should decided with respect to personality, to stay their and wrestle whatever it is to protect the civvies. And there should be leeway for judgment errors.
Like for example: Dorf A is Fighting Goblin B, with Civve C&D near by. Dorf A weapon break, but there are Dorf D & E near by. Dorf A alerts Dorf D & E to fight Goblin B, as it judge the goblin ability to reach to the civies or keep up with him to be worse then the ability for for Dorf D & E to engage Goblin B.
Dorf A may know that D & E are markdwarfs but may not know they are out of ammo, and takes into account their range capability anyway to decide if Dorf A can break away safely.
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Topic: Dwarf Fortress 0.31.08 Released (Read 133873 times)