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[ninja137]

Ive been wondering, what is the best material you can make war hammers and maces out of? I always heard it was steel, but I seem to be unable to produce that currently. Despite having hundreds of Iron bars and marble all over, the smelter does not give me the option to make pig iron or steel. So, whats the next best material for blunt weapons?

[SkyRender]

The damage output equation was revamped for the 0.31.x series, so that blunt weapons appropriately do more damage with heavier materials (and are utterly ineffective with lighter ones; this makes the old formula for ideal weaponry not applicable to blunt types).  The heaviest weapons-grade material you can make war hammers and maces out of is silver.

[Jacob/Lee]

Get the heaviest material available that can be forged, I think silver is very heavy and makes good blunt weapons.

Blunt weapons get stronger the heavier the material is, and sharp weapons increase strength by material used.


EDIT: FFFF- ninja.

[Sphalerite]

Despite having hundreds of Iron bars and marble all over, the smelter does not give me the option to make pig iron or steel.

Do you have coke?  You need coke (refined coal, or charcoal from trees) to make pig iron and steel even if you're using magma furnaces.

[_DivideByZero_]

For hammers, the heavier the material, the better. Platinum hammers own everything in the testing arena. As do slade ones.
Don't use maces, hammers are better in every way.

[ninja137]

Wait, SILVER is the best for hammers? Also, I have tons of fuel. I managed to make pig iron, but I needed to use the manager screen instead of the smelter

[SkyRender]

 Welcome to the wild and wonderful world of physics.  See, when you smack something with blunt force, you're mainly trying to cause damage by way of weight combined with speed.  Steel, while heavy, isn't nearly as heavy as silver.

 As for your difficulties with pig iron, the cause of that usually can be chalked up to all pieces of a required resource being "in transit" at the time (meaning they're unavailable until they arrive at their destination unless you forbid/unforbid and quickly assign the task you're trying to do with them before someone decides it needs to be hauled).

[jei]

Welcome to the wild and wonderful world of physics.  See, when you smack something with blunt force, you're mainly trying to cause damage by way of weight combined with speed.  Steel, while heavy, isn't nearly as heavy as silver.

IRL silver is very brittle and you can easily break a pure silver spoon with your hands. Silver hammers would soon break in real life battle use.

[SkyRender]

Quite right.  And once Toady implements weapons degrading, that'll be taken into account.  Until then, silver is king.

[ninja137]

Well then. Thank you, now im happy that I was stripping my map for ore. Also, is gypsum supposed to be amazingly rare? I need it for casts because when you assign metal armor to a squad, they will apparently take WOOD instead of the nice steel or bronze things you have. Why is wood even able to be equipped when they are told to take metal?

[Organum]

I think the real question here is, where did you get wooden armor from?

[celem]

On the note of difficulties smelting pig iron/steel.  Thats a known bug where for apparently no reason it will fail to show up in the smelter menu.  It can be caused as said by items needed being tasked...but it can also be this bug.  Its actually possible to have 2 smelters where one has the option and the other doesnt.  Manager will always get you through

Better even than silver are gold and platinum (with plat being best), these will require a lucky mood however.

If you dont have silver then copper works too iirc

[dbay]

the problem you have making steel, I get that too. Here's two ways to get around it/fix it:
1)designate a stockpile for marble/whatever flux. as soon as it has some in it, you'll usually be able to order pig iron and steel to be made
2)order them done in the manager screen u->m->q->"make pig iron/steel"

also, silver is better, as others have said, unless you can somehow get your hands on a gold or platinum one.

[Argembarger]

Cotton candy warhammers are great for the Hammerer, if he shows up in the version you play.

[Vehudur]

In real life a silver war-hammer would be the most powerful melee weapon you could field in a battle...  for one swing.   As said, it's too brittle to actually work.  Mind you, it would really suck to be the guy on the wrong end of that one swing.