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[Girlinhat]

"Magic" is "a wizard did it" in hand-waving terms.  In fact...
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AWizardDidIt

[GreatWyrmGold]

It.
Was.
A.
JOKE.

Which is why I thereafter included the dense scientific jargon. That, and I like showing off my sesquipedalian loquaciousness.

[Anathema]

mining picks supposedly beating axes/swords/any other conventional melee weapon

This is less a bug and more a consequence of the fact that using a pick as a weapon uses the mining skill, and mining is far, far easier to train (indeed, pretty much trivial) than any sort of melee weapon skill. The weapon itself isn't actually as good in terms of combat effectiveness, it's the skill of the wielder. Take, for example, an axedwarf and a miner; theoretically, the axedwarf should be the superior combatant. However, you're far more likely to have a superlegendary miner than a superlegendary axe lord. A legendary +5 axe lord will probably beat a legendary +5 miner, and also outperform them in combat. However, miners make a very good stopgap in case of a sudden need for a military force. There's also the fact that miners probably have trained their strength attribute rather high, once again from mining.

Realistically, of course, I expect swinging a pick to chip away at rock requires rather different types of coordination than swinging a pick at a goblin's head.

While all that is true, i.e. picks have an advantage over other melee weapons because they rely on the common and easily trained mining skill, it's not actually what I meant. The problem is that arena tests have shown* equally skilled pickdwarves actually beating axedwarves, swordsdwarves, etc; it seems that the pick is a superior weapon against an armored target, even before you consider the skill advantage.

*That is, other people's limited testing has shown this. I don't mean to pass it on as absolute fact without confirming it myself, with a more statistically significant number of trials, hence "supposedly."

[FallingWhale]

A pickaxe in game is a war hammer in real life. The Luminous Leader Toad has just not put in the unwieldiness of using a pickaxe like a war hammer.

[Girlinhat]

This will likely be added with the change to combat and movement speed.  Picks will get a very low combat speed modifier, while axes get a relatively quick one.  Even though the pick may be better, it will be slower/cumbersome.  Until then, enjoy your miner army.

[MrShovelFace]

well this lame combat system goes on the assumtion that weight only effects slashing attacks when they are blunt

and the pick was a legitamate medieval weapon, in fact it is many time better at piercing plate mail than that of spears

[Girlinhat]

A "battle pick" is much different from a "mining pick" though.  While both can be used for either purpose, they do so rather poorly.

[Casp]

That's the point we were trying to make dude Candy is useless for blunt weapons.

It's about as dense as Styrofoam. Let that sink in.

[Urist Da Vinci]

... it seems that the pick is a superior weapon against an armored target, even before you consider the skill advantage.
...

The words "can opener" come to mind.

[FallingWhale]

That's the point we were trying to make dude Candy is useless for blunt weapons.

It's about as dense as Styrofoam. Let that sink in.

It can be made so sharp that it will sink into stone under its own weight. Let that sink in.

[ImBocaire]

Who says it's even metal in the conventional sense of the term? Shit comes in strands, after all. Maybe it's some kind of polymer, with vastly differing properties depending on how you treat it (I.E. heating it causes the strands to fuse into a rigid mass, spinning it into thread yields something like carbon nanotube fiber, etc.) It would be interesting if in future installments adamantine had even more uses besides what it can do now, including potentially filling entirely new niches. Monofilament tripwires, anyone?

[IT 000]

Monofilament tripwires, anyone?

Adamantine Trip Wire

In Dwarf Fortress trip wire breaks you!

[Alastar]

One look at the RAWs and one shouldn't be surprised that picks are very, very good.

Pick strikes are very wide stabs (contact area of 100; short sword stabs are 50, dagger slashes are 1000). This is enough to have frequent amputations when hitting limbs, but will dig through armour or thick bones far more easily than slashes.

Picks put a lot of energy behind the blows - decent size (500) and an unusually high velocity multiplier (2.0) for an edged weapon. Pick strikes hit more than twice as hard as stabs of other dwarven weapons, so penetration remains good despite the larger contact area.

Picks have enough maximum penetration depth (4000) to get to the juicy bits of most things. Not quite in the league of spears, but twice as much as short sword stabs.

[Pan]

Well, their good in-game, but isn't it the actual case in real life? In real life, a pick would do better against armor than swords or spears, and better than hammers against helmets and skulls. So maybe picks are meant to be like this, as opposed to being an overpowered, bugged weapon (like whips)? And they do have disadvantages, such as how swords are faster.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm quite unlearned on these things.

[Alastar]

Yes.

They aren't bugged. They are simulated somewhat crudely:

...

Weapons of the same weight all handle the same. A weapon balanced towards the tip may benefit from a higher velocity multiplier, but it won't be harder to handle (chance to parry, recovery speed).

The game just simulates individual impacts, and individual hits of pick strikes should measure up well compared to real weapons. One thing I neglected to mention the last time: AFAIK the game also neglects to track how exhausting it is to fight with a given weapon (most serious weapons were surprisingly light, but 20-kg-monstrosities existed).