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[Thk13421]

I've got an Artifact mace made of Brass and an artifact crossbow made of zinc. Should I or can I equip them to my dwarves?

[Guedez]

Don't know about the mace of brass, but the crossbow owns i think.

Material on crossbows only determine the melle damage, quality determines the hit and ranged damage, so it should be 3x better than the average masterwork crossbow

[NecroRebel]

Don't know about the mace of brass, but the crossbow owns i think.

Material on crossbows only determine the melle damage, quality determines the hit and ranged damage, so it should be 3x better than the average masterwork crossbow

3x better than a masterwork? No. Not even 1.5x as good, actually; masterworks double the user's skill and adds 5, while artifacts triple the user's skill and add 5. The artifact is better than a normal masterwork, surely, but not 3x as good.

The brass mace is somewhat better than a bronze mace, but worse than a copper one, since generally a blunt weapon's effectiveness is based off of density. Brass's density is middle-of-the-road at 8.55; a masterwork silver mace (or, better yet, warhammer) would probably be better.

[blue emu]

The brass mace is somewhat better than a bronze mace, but worse than a copper one, since generally a blunt weapon's effectiveness is based off of density.

Density is very important for blunt weapons, but it's not the only relevant stat. It also depends partly on the weapon's hardness vs the opponent's armor, doesn't it? Brass must be harder than Copper, even if Copper is denser.

[NecroRebel]

Yeah, brass is harder than copper, but only by about 20%. I'm not sure how much the material's hardness counts, to be honest. I do know that all the weapons-grade metals are considered more-or-less equal, except with silver somewhat stronger, so it can't count for too much; silver is far softer than steel, after all. Then again, the difference in copper's and brass's density is even less than the difference in their hardnesses. Overall, it probably doesn't matter, given how similar the two materials are.

I'll stand by my statement that a MW silver hammer would be better than an artifact brass mace, however, given that hammers are typically better than maces overall IIRC.

[blue emu]

To confuse the situation even further... it also seems to depend on what sort of armor your opponent is wearing.

For piercing or slashing weapons, Copper is better than bronze at piercing Iron armor, but vice versa (Bronze better than Copper) at piercing Bronze Armor.

For blunt weapons, Silver and Steel seem to be about tied for best... Silver because of its higher density and greater bashing ability, Steel because of its hardness and higher critical-hit chances.

[darkflagrance]

How do people even know all these things about artifacts and metals? Are they in some secluded corner of the wiki or something?

[blue emu]

How do people even know all these things about artifacts and metals?

We just make this shit up... it makes us sound like hard-core DF gamers.

Are they in some secluded corner of the wiki or something?

Yes.

[NecroRebel]

How do people even know all these things about artifacts and metals? Are they in some secluded corner of the wiki or something?

They're around, if you know where to look...

Artifact's modifier is here, while the quality-based-skill-multiplier information (from 23a, but believed to still be accurate, particularly in light of the artifact modifier information) is here, on the 40d page. The various metals' actual stats are in the raws of course, but also on their respective wiki pages, with density in particular in a handy, sortable list here. The information about the relative qualities of the various materials, however, comes from assorted science threads on the topic; this one is the authoritative one, with most of the research being rehashing of that done there.

[darkflagrance]

How do people even know all these things about artifacts and metals? Are they in some secluded corner of the wiki or something?

They're around, if you know where to look...

Artifact's modifier is here, while the quality-based-skill-multiplier information (from 23a, but believed to still be accurate, particularly in light of the artifact modifier information) is here, on the 40d page. The various metals' actual stats are in the raws of course, but also on their respective wiki pages, with density in particular in a handy, sortable list here. The information about the relative qualities of the various materials, however, comes from assorted science threads on the topic; this one is the authoritative one, with most of the research being rehashing of that done there.

Very much appreciated! I've actually seen most of these before, now that you bring them up, but it's hard to get back to the references for the specifics, and I don't even trust my memory to believe that the data was collected in the first place.

[tolkafox]

Don't know about the mace of brass, but the crossbow owns i think.

Material on crossbows only determine the melle damage, quality determines the hit and ranged damage, so it should be 3x better than the average masterwork crossbow

3x better than a masterwork? No. Not even 1.5x as good, actually; masterworks double the user's skill and adds 5, while artifacts triple the user's skill and add 5. The artifact is better than a normal masterwork, surely, but not 3x as good.

The brass mace is somewhat better than a bronze mace, but worse than a copper one, since generally a blunt weapon's effectiveness is based off of density. Brass's density is middle-of-the-road at 8.55; a masterwork silver mace (or, better yet, warhammer) would probably be better.

Wha? I won't argue that a masterwork silver warhammer or even a masterwork silver mace is better, but it should be exactly (barring decimals) 1.5x damage (excluding material differences) for blunt weapons. For sharp weapons it's a masterwork edge with a higher chance to hit but is more restricted by material differences against armor. Crossbows just increase the to-hit chance (I think, haven't tested them as hammers).

You could always try the mace against goblins and tell us how it goes

[NecroRebel]

Wha? I won't argue that a masterwork silver warhammer or even a masterwork silver mace is better, but it should be exactly (barring decimals) 1.5x damage (excluding material differences) for blunt weapons. For sharp weapons it's a masterwork edge with a higher chance to hit but is more restricted by material differences against armor. Crossbows just increase the to-hit chance (I think, haven't tested them as hammers).

Artifacts don't directly boost damage over masterworks at all, just the user's effective skill. A masterwork, based off one of Toady's statements:

The quality of any weapon, including crossbows used as launchers, affects the skill of the shooter. I think this even leads to obscene things like master crossbows + master bolts causing recruits to shoot like legends. In general, if the quality Q is from 0 to 5, the skill is modified according to

Skillnew = Skilloriginal × (1.0 + 0.2 × Q) + Q

This is pretty extreme and will probably be reduced for all weapons.

A masterwork (Q=5), thus, gives a Skillnew value equal to Skillold x (1+.2Q) + Q, or Skillold x (1+1)+5, or Skilloldx2+5. Now, from Toady's quote on this page, artifacts have a skill multiplier of 3, while masterworks are called out as having a multiplier of 2. I take that to mean that an artifact's Skillnew would be equal to Skilloldx3+5, which is not 1.5x the masterworks' Skilloldx2+5. In other words, because the multiplier is increased but the added number isn't, the accuracy increase isn't 1.5x.

[Double A]

Are artifacts represented as Q=6?

[DryBones]

Edit: NecroRebel nailed it

[tolkafox]

Skill doesn't affect damage? If not, I need to rethink some things.

Although I believe your formula is either missing something or you're using a double variable, In order for (1+.2*Q)+Q=3+Q, Q=10 which makes the bonus 1.5...ish. Although if you use (1+.2*Q)+M=S+M, where Q is the supposed quality modifier (5 for master 10 for artifact in this instance), M is the same as Q but maxed at 5, and S is the check statement for a x1, x2, or x3 modification it would work.

Of course, all of this can easily be solved by just rounding up. Helps with balancing the checkbooks, anyways.