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[Karakzon]

so:

whats the best material to make pick axes out of? how good are they as a general weapon? -my pelimenary evaluation is that their brilliant for ripping vitals like nerves or blood vessals but not as good as axes for cutting stuff off-
and whats the most awesome fight youve had involving a pickaxe weilding dwarven maniac?

I am planning in future forts that have heavy metal/magma acess to kit out my entire millatery with pickaxes/axes. as such, im wondering what their best material is since i dont know if their a bludgion or peirce weapon. i am presuming their a peirce weapon.

-sorry for my spelling, im a phonetical speller, i spell as i think it sounds-

as for amazing dwarf: i had a dual weilding one who had very high healing, who saved my fortress in an evil glacier their entire first year via butchering 5 blizzard men and 2 packs of ice wolves on her own. she now has massive scars on her leg and chest and is almost a legendary fighter with exceptional miner just through fighting.

[CapnUrist]

I believe that a pick would be something like a substandard spear; good for hitting vitals, but a spear would be far better at it, and it has none of the cutting potential a short sword has. Overall it's a pretty crappy weapon, but hey, it's pretty dwarfy.

For material, the best for a weapon would be either the magical blue stuff for its sharpness, followed by steel.

Most of my initial militia men are my best miners. They've gotten themselves and others out of many problems, including one miner who fought off four goblin ambushers and walked back to the fort for a beer.

[Sarudak]

I can't seem to get my dwarves to not drop their picks as soon as I draft them even if I have pick set as their assigned weapon.

[NecroRebel]

I can't seem to get my dwarves to not drop their picks as soon as I draft them even if I have pick set as their assigned weapon.

A known bug. Miners, woodcutters, and hunters have an invisible, hardcoded uniform assigned that gets set whenever they're civilians and removed whenever they're military. As such, when you draft them, they see that their old uniform got removed, so drop all of their uniform-related gear (including, in miners' case, the pick) and seek their new uniform stuff (which, in miners' case, means another, different pick). In short, miners, woodcutters, and hunters simply can't do both their job and a military job effectively. No longer are miners effective early-game militia for this reason.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Yes they are, you just have to disable mining first.

[Sutremaine]

I wonder if could easily be fixed by having dwarves wield picks instead of hauling them when their mining is disabled and they're taking the picks to a stockpile. Even if they were still thinking 'oh, must get this pick put away before picking up a weapon' and not 'oh hey, I'm already carrying what I should be', at least they could still hit stuff with the pick.

Actually, it would be pretty cool if all dwarves wielded weapons instead of hauling them.

[Karakzon]

i do this: pause, forbid all picks of type miner is carrying, go to miner. unforbid their picks. go into millatery equipment, assign them those picks as their the only ones unforbidden, go back to stocks and unforbid all the picks. unpause.

i have to say: for weapon it works.

and as for picks being a bad weapon: i have to disagree, the number of times ive seen my dwarfs hit vitals like nerves is astonishingly regular compared to my other millatery. after a few blows with a pick on the right spots, an apponent almost stops being able to fight back. It seems particularly impressive how it tears the spine tissue very often. wich in battle is as good as a death warrent.

[Sarudak]

I think the strength you see is because picks use the mining skill as the weapon skill. And mining trains so fast so... Try the arena with equal skill and material type pick vs spear.

[Sutremaine]

Picks are also pretty decent weapons in their own right. They go in deep to hit organs, but their contact area is such that they have a pretty good chance of taking off elf-sized limbs.

[Antonater]

i had no idea that having miner as a skill made them good at fighting with it. i thought my legendary miner stuck outside with no armour and a iron pick was screwed when a group of 8 goblins turned up.
 he ran away but they caught up with him one at a time, every time they missed on the first strike and he counter striked, every time taking of a limb. there were 8 amputee goblins in a big long line across my map an he got away unscathed

[GrueSlayer]

I had a miner take out a demon with a single pickaxe blow from severing the body, but it was also made out of cinders or snow or something.

[Lagslayer]

Picks have a small contact area of 100, but still much larger than a spear with 20. It has less penetrating power than a spear as well, being 4000 and 10000 respectively. However, a pickaxe has a 2X velocity multiplier, as opposed to a spear poke which is only 1X, which would also mean it makes a good blunt attack if it does not penetrate the armor. It is also larger than a spear, with a size of 500 vs 400. To me it seems like a cross between a battle axe, a war hammer, and a spear, and that it would be quite effective against most enemies. Someone needs to do more !!SCIENCE!! with this. As for material, Adamantine would let them penetrate armor better, certainly. However, steel is still sharp and also much heavier, so it would still make a good blunt weapon if it does not penetrate armor. But if it's made of adamantine, would it have trouble piercing armor anyways? Also, it would give you a literal army of legendary miners.

[shlorf]

From what I've read in adventure mode forum, picks are rather good (seems to have a big enough contact area to still sever limbs instead of just puncturing; never tried it myself tho).

[Karakzon]

From what I've read in adventure mode forum, picks are rather good (seems to have a big enough contact area to still sever limbs instead of just puncturing; never tried it myself tho).

i have a legendary fighter /great miner who regluarly tears goblin limbs off with her dual weild steel pick axes. so you are correct, as many, many dismemberd corpses on my fortress atest to.

[Berserkenstein]

I have used both pickaxes as weapons in both adventure mode and fortress mode.  They are highly effective and will sever limbs and tear brains on armored and unarmored foes alike.