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[martinuzz]

I noticed that my marksdwarf, with a exceptional steel crossbow, does a much better job at bashing enemies than his comrade the hammerdwarf, who is wielding an also exceptional steel war hammer.
They are both only adequate hammerdwarves.

In the combat reports, the crossbow does much more tearing of tissue and fracturing of bones than the hammer (which mostly only bruises).
They are fighting naked goblin prisoners, btw.

With some further testing:
5 hammerdwarves training on some naked prisoners can go on for quite a while without killing their targets, while a single crossbow-wielding, ammo-less dwarf makes short work of them (they get their skulls bashed, but mostly, bleed to death)

Now, I am not really a proficient rawdigger, but my guess is that the crossbow has a smaller contact area than the war hammer.
I'm going to equip all my hammerdwarves with crossbows (and no ammo) from now on, I think.

[Max White]

Somebody call for a raw digger?

Cross bows

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[ITEM_WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_CROSSBOW]
[NAME:crossbow:crossbows]
[SIZE:400]
[SKILL:HAMMER]
[RANGED:CROSSBOW:BOLT]
[SHOOT_FORCE:1000]
[SHOOT_MAXVEL:1000]
[TWO_HANDED:0]
[MINIMUM_SIZE:15000]
[MATERIAL_SIZE:3]
[ATTACK:BLUNT:10000:4000:bash:bashes:NO_SUB:1250]

War hammer

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[ITEM_WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_HAMMER_WAR]
[NAME:war hammer:war hammers]
[SIZE:400]
[SKILL:HAMMER]
[TWO_HANDED:37500]
[MINIMUM_SIZE:32500]
[MATERIAL_SIZE:3]
[ATTACK:BLUNT:10:200:bash:bashes:NO_SUB:2000]

Attacks follow the following format: [ATTACK:attack type (EDGE/BLUNT):contact area:penetration value:2nd person verb:3rd person verb:weapon part:velocity multiplyer]
From this, we can see that the war hammer has much less surface area. It also has a higher speed multiplyer, so for these two values, it should be a better weapon. Where the cross bow comes into its own (And I thank you for bringing this into light, because I now plan to change this in my raws) is that is has a much higher penitrating power.

For all of you at home who want a harder game where cross bows make useless hand to hand weapons, try replacing the vanilla cross bows with the following.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[ITEM_WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_CROSSBOW]
[NAME:crossbow:crossbows]
[SIZE:400]
[SKILL:MISC_WEAPON]
[RANGED:CROSSBOW:BOLT]
[SHOOT_FORCE:1000]
[SHOOT_MAXVEL:1000]
[TWO_HANDED:0]
[MINIMUM_SIZE:15000]
[MATERIAL_SIZE:3]
[ATTACK:BLUNT:10000:200:bash:bashes:NO_SUB:1250]

If you want to take the other rout and make hammers more useful, then I guess the following would help.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[ITEM_WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_HAMMER_WAR]
[NAME:super-sonic hammer:super-sonic hammers]
[SIZE:400]
[SKILL:HAMMER]
[TWO_HANDED:37500]
[MINIMUM_SIZE:32500]
[MATERIAL_SIZE:3]
[ATTACK:BLUNT:1:6000:bash:bashes:NO_SUB:9001]

[rephikul]

4000*1.25/10000 = 0.5
200*2/10 = 40

war hammer took the cake and ate it

[Max White]

Is that a reliable formular for finding damage?

Yay, now I have a method of making sure one weapon is better then another in my own modding, before I was just looking at other weapons and estimating a deviation.

[Mechanist]

Why do you use steel warhammers in the first place?

[martinuzz]

For training on naked prisoners. And I've found remarkably little silver so far.

[Untelligent]

From this, we can see that the war hammer has much less surface area. It also has a higher speed multiplyer, so for these two values, it should be a better weapon. Where the cross bow comes into its own (And I thank you for bringing this into light, because I now plan to change this in my raws) is that is has a much higher penitrating power.]

Doesn't it say somewhere in the raws that penetration doesn't have any effect on blunt weapons?

[Max White]

Doesn't it say somewhere in the raws that penetration doesn't have any effect on blunt weapons?

*Tap tap tap*

Penetration size currently only matters for edged attacks.

Why it would seem you are correct. Back to the drawing board for me!

[Igfig]

I think it's actually a question of contact area.  See, hammers are really good against armour, but not nearly as good (relatively speaking) against bare flesh.  This is because a small contact area with a lot of weight behind it focuses a ton of force onto a single point, which is important if you're dealing with something really hard.  The tradeoff, though, is that you're less likely to hit a vital area.  The bigger your contact area, the more chances you have to hit something interesting.  It's better to hit something unimportant and actually damage it than to hit something vital and have your attack glance away... but if you're strong and skilled enough to do full damage with every hit, large surface areas are best.

[rephikul]

I think it's actually a question of contact area.  See, hammers are really good against armour, but not nearly as good (relatively speaking) against bare flesh.  This is because a small contact area with a lot of weight behind it focuses a ton of force onto a single point, which is important if you're dealing with something really hard.  The tradeoff, though, is that you're less likely to hit a vital area.  The bigger your contact area, the more chances you have to hit something interesting.  It's better to hit something unimportant and actually damage it than to hit something vital and have your attack glance away... but if you're strong and skilled enough to do full damage with every hit, large surface areas are best.

And that's what the mace is for.
EDIT: oh you are implying about crossbows. Nvm, I've always found them utterly useless in melee but maybe i'd take a look at that later.
If you think they are good, do some arena matches vs hammer.

[Assassinfox]

Ran some tests in the arena.  Spawned two grandmaster hammerdwarves.  One with a silver crossbow, the other with a silver warhammer.  Every time one was struck down, I'd spawn a new one with that weapon.  It literally just kept alternating between crossbow and hammer kills, and the winners weren't coming out with any serious injuries.

Edit:  Strike that.  Crossbowdwarf eventually went into a killing spree before being struck down by his sixth hammerdwarf.  I don't think it's very conclusive evidence, though.

[Knigel]

I think it's actually a question of contact area.  See, hammers are really good against armour, but not nearly as good (relatively speaking) against bare flesh.  This is because a small contact area with a lot of weight behind it focuses a ton of force onto a single point, which is important if you're dealing with something really hard.  The tradeoff, though, is that you're less likely to hit a vital area.  The bigger your contact area, the more chances you have to hit something interesting.  It's better to hit something unimportant and actually damage it than to hit something vital and have your attack glance away... but if you're strong and skilled enough to do full damage with every hit, large surface areas are best.

If that's true then mauls should be pretty good against unarmed opponents as well. It's still a lot less than a crossbow (100 instead of 10,000) but the huge size might make up for it.

Also, how does velocity comes into this equation?

[Tenth Speed Writer]

I think this could actually be rationalized. It seems very fitting for a crossbow of dwarven make to not only be sturdy enough to endure the rigors of combat, but to also be reinforced and weighted in such a way as to form a suitable (if not slightly awkward) weapon in hand-to-hand fighting.

That said, it seems like crossbows in melee would be better deserving of the speardwarf skill and a piercing damage type; that is, one could more easily imagine a bayonet-fixed crossbow-type weapon than one rigged for skull-bashing.

[Max White]

That said, it seems like crossbows in melee would be better deserving of the speardwarf skill and a piercing damage type; that is, one could more easily imagine a bayonet-fixed crossbow-type weapon than one rigged for skull-bashing.

There is a mod for that. Give me a second, and I shall see if I can hunt it down.

EDIT: This has crossbow bayonets.

[Cyroth]

That said, it seems like crossbows in melee would be better deserving of the speardwarf skill and a piercing damage type; that is, one could more easily imagine a bayonet-fixed crossbow-type weapon than one rigged for skull-bashing.

I can easiely imagine someone bashing some heads with one.
A friend of mine (who has an awesome collection of about 30 medieval weapons) owns a "light" crossbow, one that can be reloaded without standing on, and even that one looks totally capable to bash some heads. Some dwarfeneering and it could damage someone in light or medium armor.

Crossbows as clubs are totally reasonable, but bayonettes would be cool, too.