Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Mechanoid]

Just now, out of nowhere (so no save, sorry) a macedwarf died while sparring with another soldier. However, said soldier had FULL leather/bone armor (all soldiers were at "Plate" level with bone helmets, gaunts, greaves, and leather armor, averaging - and + quality) and the only possible weapons that were used against him was a basic iron mace or hammer; not even a - quality.

The ONLY reason why i'm posting this is that this sparring "accident" happened MOMENTS after i put them on-duty. What i think happened was that putting them into on-duty mode made them turn off their "Oh, it's just a sparring contest..." code and turn on their "Time to fuck shit up! RAWR!" code... Failing to trigger the "Stop the fight, you're on duty!" code.

There goes a hour of play. >.>

[Turgid Bolk]

I think most likely they just hadn't finished sparring yet (sometimes they don't follow orders immediately), and one of 'em got a lucky hit. It's uncommon with armor, but still possible, especially if the other guy is inept.

Bone and leather only give 50% protection, where iron weapons give 100% damage, leading to more injuries.

[Savok]

-Bone- and -Leather-, however, give 60% quality.
+Bone+ and +Leather+ give 70% quality.
Therefore, their armor was around Copper quality, not Leather quality.

[Shzar]

Still, it's quite possible. This sort of thing has happend to me before even when the victim was wearing bronze chain mail. One lucky shot and a dwarf is bleeding / suffocating helplessly.

[Mechanoid]

Also, all 5 of my military dwarves are professional armor users, so that bumps up the armor quality even further.

Oh well. Lesson learnt. Time to forge some bronze armor.

[Devastator]

I didn't think armour user added to the protection.  I thought it only reduced apparent weight.

[Pacho]

Think of it this way:  It makes them less burdened when in armor, resulting in more movements by that dwarfs in the same amount of time.  Instead of getting hit three times before chopping off an arm from that goblin, your dwarf only gets hit once.

[Rakoth]

Dwarves can and will (and probably repeatedly) kill each other while sparring.  In my largest fort EVAR, I had about 30 military Dwarves not counting Fortress Guards; Most used swords, hammers, and crossbows, but I had a few spear-users as well.  I can't recall off-hand just how many times "So and so has fallen, this and that squad has been abolished!"  Then there's all the injuries...  I've never seen so many injured organs, frankly, and that fort survived a god-awful number of troll attacks.

I eventually had to disband the spear squad and scale back the military garrison to keep the injuries/deaths down.

[Turgid Bolk]

I'm sure it's been suggested, but we need some practice weapons. Unsharpened wood swords, or plain metal poles could substitute for dangerous sharp things. At least for beginners.

[Lightning4]

I don't know what I did, but in my most recent fortress I've had practically zero sparring casualties. I think I did have one or two... but the majority just got injured. Though pretty much every single dwarf has grey to moderate wounds to brain, neck, upper spine, or lower spine now...

Though I haven't equipped anyone with high quality weaponry yet, the armor and the weaponry are both standard iron level, with some slightly higher quality plate as of recently.

I also didn't bother with too many speardwarves.

[Turgid Bolk]

Come to think of it, in the current version you can just use marksdwarves exclusively, sinceg they're so deadly. No sparring accidents then, it's just a matter of making bolts.

[Jifodus]

In my current fortress, my standing military are all hunters.  They hunt with whatever weapon and armor I assign them.  Then I don't care if they get hurt, and they can train whatever skill necessary.

[Pacho]

I usually train my recruits to the level of "Wrestler" before I give them armor above leather and actual weaponry.  Lets them avoid getting hit more often.

[Tormy]

Sparring is VERY annoying as it is now, something should be done with it. What is the point in sparring if we loose dwarves or they get some serious injuries???   :mad:

[Lightning4]

quote:Originally posted by Tormy:
<STRONG>Sparring is VERY annoying as it is now, something should be done with it. What is the point in sparring if we loose dwarves or they get some serious injuries???     :mad:</STRONG>

It stays true to life. Two people messing with sharp objects doesn't always end well.

Higher skilled dwarves run a far lower risk of being a casualty or making one than lower skilled dwarves. I think this is possible with multiple factors. First are obvious, wrestling, armor, and shield user skills are increased so the damage is either entirely avoided or well mitigated. Secondly, I've heard higher weapon skill decreases the chance an accidental injury happens, and decreases the damage dealt if it does happen.
And of course the third obvious factor, weapon quality and armor quality.

An additional point, I don't think filling them out with full plate is the best idea either.* Low skill dwarves will have thier movements ridiculously slowed by full plate armor... they'll train slower, fight slower, and probably die just about as fast since they'll get hit like five times for each turn they do. I typically outfit them with chain until they're weaponmaster level, then they're upgraded to plate.

So if you're letting novices run around with masterpiece steel swords and no quality leather armor... well, that's like letting children run around with scissors. Large, booze guzzling children...

*I actually had a low skill swordsdwarf in full plate die of starvation because he couldn't get to a stockpile fast enough, that's one factor in my logic.

[ September 19, 2007: Message edited by: Lightning4 ]