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Author Topic: Help With Equipment  (Read 905 times)

mrtspence

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Help With Equipment
« on: September 08, 2010, 10:54:18 pm »

Hey all, having big time trouble with my army. Got two squads of 10 all equipped with full steel armour (breastplates, chain shirts, greaves, steel shields, gauntlets, high boots, helms--the works) and wooden crossbows and Steel Warhammers (the crossbows weren't given ammo so that they could become skilled hammerdwarves through sparring in my danger room without killing eachother). The problem is, I told them all to dump their crossbows (forbade them too) but they won't--not only that, but they refuse to use their masterful hammers in combat. Just lost 8 guys to 4 goblins with copper lashes and maces because their attacks with their wooden crossbows would be deflected by the goblins' goddamned leather cloaks!

Please help, losing 7 professional Hammerdwarves to stupid goblins with shitty weaponry was immensely painful.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2010, 11:21:25 pm by mrtspence »
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mrtspence

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Re: Help With Equipment
« Reply #1 on: September 08, 2010, 11:09:55 pm »

Sorry, double.

EDIT: Make that 8 Professional Hammer Dwarves and a Hammerlord. They were surrounding and wailing on an unconscious goblin lashmaster impotently with their crossbows for about 15 minutes. The gobbo regained consciousness and killed my hammerlord with his shitty copper mace (broke his upper arms then bruised his heart through his steel plate?!). He is in the process of killing yet another of my dwarves as I speak. I can only hope that a lumber harvester or a miner comes a long and finishes this farce.


Second EDIT:

He just killed 4 more professional hammer dwarves. That brings the total to 13 dwarves. I expect to lose my entire military to this one goblin. Fuck.

THIRD EDIT: Just killed the last 7 dwarves in my army. Proceeding towards my fort. Will be caught in cage traps.

I thought this would just be a fun little training exercise--ye know, 20 incredibly well trained and equipped hammerdwarves vs 4 goblins with copper armour and weapons. Well, turns out that, due to that glitchy garbage, I just got all 20 dwarves killed. What bullcrap. Took like 5 hours to get all that armour and training. Fuck.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2010, 11:19:46 pm by mrtspence »
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m1k3y4e7

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Re: Help With Equipment
« Reply #2 on: September 08, 2010, 11:27:19 pm »

it might be because they became attatched to their stuff. I am not sure how to tell if they have, but it sounds like that is what you are seeing here.
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mrtspence

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Re: Help With Equipment
« Reply #3 on: September 08, 2010, 11:30:30 pm »

it might be because they became attatched to their stuff. I am not sure how to tell if they have, but it sounds like that is what you are seeing here.

Well, I ctr-alt-deleted my way outta that. I doubt all 20 of them would become attached to their crossbows (I know like 2 became attached to their shields). But it clearly seems like this is a frigging army-ruining glitch--I have lost 23 dwarves total to 4 goblins (20 of the aforementioned soldiers and 3 unlucky dwarves). The only reason any gobbos were killed in anything but traps is due to the human caravan that arrived with them.

I am so pissed.
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Shagomir

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Re: Help With Equipment
« Reply #4 on: September 09, 2010, 01:07:33 am »

The new materials system is leading to buggy and unbalanced combat, crossbowdwarves are still borked, and the military screens need a 300 page user manual to get through them. This is why I am playing with invasions off while I figure out how to even get dwarves to train properly. Sigh.
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brucemo

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Re: Help With Equipment
« Reply #5 on: September 09, 2010, 01:24:58 am »

Make a squad containing one or two crossbow dwarves (might have better luck with steel crossbows), a squad of axemen or something in full steel, then make a nice trap alley and use neither squad, or supplement the traps with the archers firing from behind fortifications, and use the melee guys to guard against thieves and mop up goblins that have four broken limbs and are unconscious.

If you go running out and attack a bunch of goblins you are going to take casualties.  They are extremely tough compared with things like wildlife, especially given that the time it takes to make a decent melee guy is like many years.

This game feels out of balance but it's hard to know what good balance should feel like.
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Zaik

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Re: Help With Equipment
« Reply #6 on: September 09, 2010, 08:45:40 am »

I've never had good luck with equipping multiple weapons at once.

I've heard of people equipping multiple melee weapons which use different skills and the dwarf will use them all until one gains significantly more skill than the others, however using two of the same skill, i couldn't say what would happen.

That said, the time i tried to equip multiple weapons a dwarf grabbed two shortswords, an axe, a spear, and a hammer all at once. Also had a shield as well. When he attacked he was just punching, he didn't use any of them.
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Daetrin

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Re: Help With Equipment
« Reply #7 on: September 09, 2010, 08:48:11 am »

If you train dwarves in a danger room they'll be amazing in relatively short order. That said, I haven't had great luck with crossbowdwarves overall. I go with 3:1 axe:warhammer squads of three dwarves each. So a full super-squad is 12 dwarves.
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Shoku

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Re: Help With Equipment
« Reply #8 on: September 09, 2010, 01:38:21 pm »

They wouldn't have injured themselves with straight up hammers in the first place. Sparring only even causes injuries at a very low probability now.

So maybe try making a new squad with the appropriate uniform and hammers. Undraft some of the ones with crossbows and wait till they drop their equipment. Then draft them into the new squad. If that still doesn't work I'd say this is a genuine issue.
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mrtspence

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Re: Help With Equipment
« Reply #9 on: September 09, 2010, 04:23:29 pm »

They wouldn't have injured themselves with straight up hammers in the first place. Sparring only even causes injuries at a very low probability now.

So maybe try making a new squad with the appropriate uniform and hammers. Undraft some of the ones with crossbows and wait till they drop their equipment. Then draft them into the new squad. If that still doesn't work I'd say this is a genuine issue.

Ya, I will do this, and in the meantime, just make more traps to fend off the goblin tides.

Also, what the fuck is with Lashers?! A goblin lasher with a copper scourge shattered my dwarf hammerlord's SPINE--THROUGH STEEL BREASTPLATE AND CHAIN!!! God.

Also, @people referencing danger rooms/training. They were highly trained in a danger room for several years. All were at least professional at both hammering and armour/shield wearing.

This was just ridiculous.

Also, what the fuck is with Lashers?! A goblin lasher with a copper scourge shattered my dwarf hammerlord's SPINE--THROUGH STEEL BREASTPLATE AND CHAIN!!! I tried the fight again (sent out a Hammerlord immigrant that I equipped in full steel and gave a steel hammer), and one lasher just raped him--after having both upper legs, his lower legs, and his upper arms broken, as well as losing his right true rib and a lung to steel crossbow fire. Lasher attacked first, broke his leg through the greaves then did the above. Happened in like 5 seconds. I was pissed (ctrl-alt-deleted out of that game as well).

Feels like fighting is just either really buggy or stupid-imbalanced (you're telling me a copper whip will break someone's spine through both a rigid and soft layer of armour made from a metal 3 big steps higher in the hierarchy?!). I will refrain from it as long as possible.
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Gnauga

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Re: Help With Equipment
« Reply #10 on: September 09, 2010, 05:06:22 pm »

Them lashers are really Fun. On the bright side, they're as vulnerable to traps as any other gobbo, so you could salvage the whip and train your own dwarven lashers after removing them via traps.
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mrtspence

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Re: Help With Equipment
« Reply #11 on: September 09, 2010, 05:17:20 pm »

Them lashers are really Fun. On the bright side, they're as vulnerable to traps as any other gobbo, so you could salvage the whip and train your own dwarven lashers after removing them via traps.

:P

Hopefully they will just fix the bug, cause whips are for cravens or people into bondage.

Also, I got it to work. Had to forbid and dump every crossbow I had, then remove them from their uniforms and individual equipment menus (from the military screen). Tested the hammers on macaques. The results were satisfying (those little peckers stole a goddamned artifact platinum shield! as well as some other things). Macaques are impervious to cage traps--will set up some weapons ones to keep my precious artifacts safe and keep my weaponsmiths from being bitten in the face.
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