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[franti]

Weapon Tests:

A dwarf in full Slade is carrying ~14x his body weight.
VERY extensive, full arena testing on Slade/Adamantine/Steel/Platinum.
Slade: Predictably good in blunt, predictably poor in cutting, predictably decent in armour
Adamantine: Poor in blunt, good in cutting, good in armour
Steel: Decent in blunt, decent in cutting, good in armour
Platinum: Good in blunt, poor in cutting, poor in armour

Standard dwarf:
Male, Adept Fighter, Adept Weapon skill, Proficient Armour User, Talented Shield User, Competent Dodger.
Shield, Weapon, Mail Shirt, Breastplate, Mail Leggings, Gauntlets, Boots, Helm.

Slade VS Adamantine, Cutting
In a 5 vs 5 between Adamantine and Slade, nothing happened. Pages and pages of deflections. The worst injury, after 5 minutes, was an Adamantine Dwarf who got his hand broken by the pommel of a Slade Shortsword. Had I let it go on long enough, perhaps the Slade Dwarves would've colapsed from exhaustion and been strangled. I don't know.
Adamantine and Slade are not heavy/sharp enough to penetrate each other.
It's worth noting that rather than meeting in the middle of the room, they met ~4/5 to the bottom. Slade makes Dwarves move REALLY slowly. DO NOT give to marksdwarves.

I re-did the test with 20 vs 20, and took away all but the Helm, Shield (changed to Buckler), and Sword. It was over in about 6 seconds. Somehow, the Adamantine Dwarves lost. The Slade Dwarves had 12 left, 3 with injuries that would eventually bleed out, probably, and several more with injuries that may become infected, but ~1/4 of the Slade Dwarves were completely unharmed except for light brusing.

That led me to investigate the combat reports, and here's the conclusions I've drawn as to why Slade won:
-Slade Shortswords are terribly heavy compared to Adamantine Shortswords. Perhaps the increased weight allowed easier severing of body parts, as many Adamantine Dwarves bled out rather than got struck down. In fact, no dwarves were struck down. Striking down generally requires a head shot, and all dwarves had inpenetrable helms.
-Many Adamantine Dwarf bodies weren't holding either a sword or shield, but had both arms. Upon reading the combat reports, it would appear that spinal/nervous injuries in the Adamantine Dwarves were approximately FIVE times more prevalent than in the Slade Dwarves. This may be due to the heavier weapon materials: A Slade Buckler strike would break an arm, and in once remarkable incidence, shattered the lower arm, jammed it through the upper arm, and jammed the upper arm through the shoulder (I shit you not), whereas an Adamantine Buckler strike would bruise the skin and muscle. Same for pommel/flat-of-the-blade strikes.

Slade VS Platinum, Blunt.
I gave both sides a Helm, Breastplate, Mace, Bucker, and Gauntlets to preven weapon-dropping, but the Platinum armour wasn't tough enough to stop Slade, but Slade could stop Platium most of the time. The fight ended predictably. I re-did it with no armour or shields. The Platinium did better this time.
In a 10 VS 10, only 2 Slade Dwarves survived, and one was near dead. I did the test multiple times, and it generally comes out to a narrow Slade Victory.

Slade VS Steel, Piercing
Having trouble here. How to I get dwarves to use Bolts? There are no quivers.

[franti]

I don't know how to set up bookkeepers at all. And I don't really need an accurate head count of food. As long as it's at least 200 on my screen, it's no issue to me.

Go to nobles screen, select a bookkeeper, highlight bookkeeper, press "s", set to max accuracy. Make sure you give him an office.
And I'd do anything for more nobles (like a damn baron, they never want to come); they make the game interesting.

the baron does not immigrate in, he is appointed by the liaison.

I always say "no" to the baron option.

[ImBocaire]

Enjoy never being able to ask for specific items from the outpost liason, then XD

Also, nice read so far. Slade's kind of a mystery in terms of properties, since you're not really supposed to ever be able to interact with it; it's a surface and nothing more. It's been known that slade warhammers are absolutely staggeringly effective, but the other properties not so much.

[franti]

I've decided that smelting Slade will yield Processed Slade. Processed Slade will not be used to make armour/weapons, and will hold an edge poorly, but can still be used to make anvils and will still be super dense.

Smelting 1 Processed Slade with 1 Steel, 1 Pig Iron, and 1 Coke will yield ONE bar of a metal which I have not as of yet named. This metal will be a sharper, significantly heavier version of Steel, and will be dark red (darker than Blood Thorn Red).
It will be to Adamantine what Glumprogs are to Feather Trees. Evil VS Good, Heavy VS Light. (I believe I read somewhere that Adamantine was created by the gods to plug up holes to hell, sealing the demons off from the rest of the world).

I think I'll call it Rathesteel, from the only good MMO I've ever played (Ultima)

[franti]

Also, and this is a bit silly, but:
Smelting 2 Copper, 1 Zinc, and 1 Processed Slade will yield 4 Goblinite Bars. It will be almost as good as Iron, but heavy as Lead. (Brass, I feel, is the most evil metal). Only Goblins can smelt Goblinite, although Dwarves can use it if they pick it up.
Nevermind. Silly.

[ImBocaire]

Unfortunately, I don't think the game supports more than a certain number of colors, and blood-thorn red is the darkest red there is (it's also the color of kaolinite, bauxite, and hematite). There are no currently existing metals of that color, though, if I remember correctly.

[franti]

Unfortunately, I don't think the game supports more than a certain number of colors, and blood-thorn red is the darkest red there is (it's also the color of kaolinite, bauxite, and hematite). There are no currently existing metals of that color, though, if I remember correctly.

Alright. Blood Thorn Red it is, then.
Also, how do I mod the arena to allow quivers? I want to see Slade Bolts in action.

[dree12]

You can't AFAIK. Trash their shields, and give them some bolts in one hand.

[Powder Miner]

Spoiler the title...

[franti]

Spoiler the title...

Obligatory SPOILER YOUR TITLE Comment.

I didn't know that slade is located at hell but I do know. Adding a spoiler has just spoiled it

At least bother reading the thread.
Also, let me help you with this:
"...I think I spawned somewhere odd (spoiler) + Slade testing"

[franti]

You can't AFAIK. Trash their shields, and give them some bolts in one hand.

Thanks.
Update - Slade Bolts rule. They ARE the closest thing dwarves will have to a .50cal rifle. I put a Legendary Marksdwarf/Archer on a bridge with a Slade Crossbow, 100 Slade Bolts, and a group of Goblins. He won.

[franti]

Alright. Super update -
My testing was divided into 10 groups, each fighting seperately in a 9x9 room made by placing magma and water on top of eachother. The dwarves were either lightly or heavily armoured:
Light: Weapon, Shield
Heavy: Weaon, Helm, Cap, Breastplate, Mail Shirt, Gauntlets, Greaves, Boots, Shield

All dwarves were: Male, Adept Fighter, Adept Weapon, Talented Shield, Competent Armour, Novice Dodger

1st round: Shortswords.
- In a 1 vs 1 Lightly armoured fight, Slade won 33% of the time. Slate and Steel are both very effective against skin, but Steel is quicker and doesn't weight down Dwarves as much.
- In a 1 vs 1 Heavily armoured fight, Slade won all the time. Steel is not capable of penetrating Slade ever, but Slade will almost always go through Steel. Example:
Dwarf 1 stabs Dwarf 2 in the head with his Steel Shortsword! The attack glances off the Slade Helm!
Dwarf 2 stabs Dwarf 1 in the head with his Slade Shortsword, tearing the muscle and fracturing the skull through the Steel Helm!
- Verdict: Slade is a better armour material the Steel, and in certain cases a better weapon material.

Now, I was concerned that the Shields may have been an issue, as the dwarves may have bashed with them, so I took them out. To prevent to dwarves from picking up another sword, I gave them Halberds to multigrip and changed their skills to this to make them more elite:
Grand Master Fighter, Grand Master Weapon, Grand Master Armour, Grand Master Dodger
- A heavily armoured dwarf in Slade killed EIGHT Steel dwarves with bruising on his Upper Right Arm.
Now, that's insane, but it is how it is.

I wanted to see how good Slade was as a weapon material and as an armour material, without it being both at once.
- I put 4 Steel Dwarves up against a Steel Dwarf with a Slade Halberd. Slade Halberd Dwarf won with no damage most of the time. Weapon test: Slade wins.
- I put 6 Slade Dwarves with Steel Halberds up against a Slade Dwarf. Slade Dwarf won with no damage ~1/2 the time, and never had any major injuries. Armour test: Slade wins.  The fight would be a group of dwarves dancing (dodging) around in a circle for a very long time. Eventually one of the dwarves would land a hit, but if it was a Steel Halberd it would do nothing. However, if the Slade Halberd hit, a small, red 2 would go flying across the map. And I do mean "flying": 55 squares away, 3z up is the record. By the time the fight was over, the map looked like my screen had been shot with a red paintball. Once, the fight went on so long the Slade Dwarf passed out. He just laid there while they tried in vain to kill him. He got up on a minute or two.

Conclusion: Slade is capable of penetrating Slade easier than Steel is capable of penetrating Steel. Slade tires out dwarves quicker than Steel.

Ranged Testing:
Slade bolts are good, but Steel bolts go through Slade as easily as Slade bolts go through Steel, for some reason, and Steel is much quicker, so I give the win to Steel in this one.

[dree12]

What are the sample sizes of your tests? What appears to be strong results can be quite weak. I used to believe steel crossbows were much better than silver in melee combat, but further testing says silver gangs up better.

[franti]

Every battle had 9 others exactly like it going on in a room nearby.
Each test, comprised of 10 battles, was repeated twice more, for a total battle number of 30.
If I recall from statistics, 30(20?) is the smallest sample size you can have that can be used to draw a valid conclusion, so I consider these results legitimate.
The descriptions I provided are compressed and generalized, but the conclusions drawn from them are still 100% valid.

[franti]

Next, I will begin the Slade modding I discussed: Smelting Slade makes Processed Slade, smelting Processed Slade with Steel makes Rathesteel. Processed Slade can't hold an edge, Rathesteel is heavyer, sharper steel.
Once I've gotten it modded in, I'll post the RAWs and tell you where to put them, should you care to know.