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Author Topic: Equipping Armor Efficiently  (Read 14534 times)

Leonidas

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Equipping Armor Efficiently
« on: September 03, 2011, 01:06:08 pm »

I want to get all my dwarves fully armored and trained so that I can party with the circus. When I assign a uniform, some dwarves can't seem to get all their armor pieces, and this leads to Fun in the danger room. The only way I've found to avoid these accidents is to check each dwarf's inventory, which is a real pain for large numbers of dwarves.

Is there a better way? Is there some more efficient way to get all the dwarves in a squad armored and ready for the danger room?
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Spaghetti

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Re: Equipping Armor Efficiently
« Reply #1 on: September 04, 2011, 08:24:31 am »

what did you give them in the uniform screen?

Do they have access to the items you issued them?

Did you give them time to grab it or did you instantly set them to alert?
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Buttery_Mess

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Re: Equipping Armor Efficiently
« Reply #2 on: September 04, 2011, 08:56:52 am »

The best way to equip dwarves is to assign them a uniform.

The optimum arrangement is;

metal mail shirt
metal mail shirt
metal mail shirt
metal breastplate
leather cloak
leather cloak
leather cloak
leather cloak
leather cloak
leather cloak
leather trousers
leather trousers
metal greaves
metal gauntlets
leather mittens
socks
metal high boots
metal cap
metal cap
metal helm
leather hood
leather hood
leather hood
leather hood
leather hood
leather hood
metal shield
weapon (ranged or melee)

and they will also pick up waterskins, backpacks, and quivers as they need them.

Remember to set on the uniform screen to replace clothing, set exact matches, and on the military screen (I think it's in the schedule section) to set it so that dwarves are uniformed off duty. However, if you put it to these settings, dwarves will immediately cast off their clothes to conform to the rules. If they can't find the armour assigned to them, they will wander about naked (at least partially). Also bear in mind that if you continue making new armour and weapons, military dwarves will spend all their time picking up equipment. As far as I can tell dwarves won't obey any orders until they are equipped, so my guess is that the correct armour isn't there for them to wear. However, if dwarves are casting off their civilian duds, that may cause danger room problems because even clothes provide suitable protection against noquality training spears; so, in this instance, you could set the uniform to partial match over clothing, so that dwarves won't cast off their civvies immediately. However if you do this I don't think they'll put them on, just not take them off in the first place. I don't know, I don't pay much attention to clothes.
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Erkki

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Re: Equipping Armor Efficiently
« Reply #3 on: September 04, 2011, 09:05:47 am »

Related question, do leather pieces of armor and clothing suffer wear, like clothing? Those leather mittens and robes mostly. I havent fiddled with 100% complete protection yet, could try it in this fortress(where I'm in peace with everyone, but they all have also diplomats that I can kill...).
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Buttery_Mess

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Re: Equipping Armor Efficiently
« Reply #4 on: September 04, 2011, 10:19:41 am »

A quick scroll down my stock screen reveals the presence of x(chicken leather cloak)x and such nonsense. So yes, leather clothes, which function as armour, do wear out. Worn out clothing/armour has a lower value than normal or new armour, so in theory dwarves will discard the clothing they're wearing when it wears out and pick up new stuff.
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But .... It's so small!
It's not the size of the pick that counts... it's the size of the man with the pick.
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Erkki

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Re: Equipping Armor Efficiently
« Reply #5 on: September 04, 2011, 10:34:05 am »

A quick scroll down my stock screen reveals the presence of x(chicken leather cloak)x and such nonsense. So yes, leather clothes, which function as armour, do wear out. Worn out clothing/armour has a lower value than normal or new armour, so in theory dwarves will discard the clothing they're wearing when it wears out and pick up new stuff.

Crap, that means the only solution is to... train every migrant past population 200 in the art of leatherworking and hope to be able to get artifact leather mittens for at least commander and his adjutant.  :P
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Fredd

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Re: Equipping Armor Efficiently
« Reply #6 on: September 04, 2011, 01:16:02 pm »

To start out, having the uniform replace clothing will cut down on some of the confusion. Some of their civvy clothing causes problems when a uniform is assigned, especially gloves.
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Leonidas

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Re: Equipping Armor Efficiently
« Reply #7 on: September 04, 2011, 01:49:04 pm »

Did you give them time to grab it or did you instantly set them to alert?
Maybe this was my mistake. Are you saying that soldiers will grab armor more readily if they're inactive?
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Erkki

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Re: Equipping Armor Efficiently
« Reply #8 on: September 04, 2011, 01:53:15 pm »

Did you give them time to grab it or did you instantly set them to alert?
Maybe this was my mistake. Are you saying that soldiers will grab armor more readily if they're inactive?

In my experience they'll haul their own stuff replaced by the uniform to their rooms and cabinet if they are inactive. Otherwise they'll just leave it where they happen to stand the moment they get drafted. However if the squad isnt given a move or kill order right away they do pick up all their equipment, although it might take some time and every now and then they go to the first training session without a piece of armor or 2. Or a weapon.
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Blue_Dwarf

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Re: Equipping Armor Efficiently
« Reply #9 on: October 09, 2011, 08:41:22 pm »

The optimum arrangement is;

metal mail shirt
metal mail shirt
metal mail shirt
metal breastplate
leather cloak
leather cloak
leather cloak
leather cloak
leather cloak
leather cloak
leather trousers
leather trousers
metal greaves
metal gauntlets
leather mittens
socks
metal high boots
metal cap
metal cap
metal helm
leather hood
leather hood
leather hood
leather hood
leather hood
leather hood
metal shield
weapon (ranged or melee)
No metal leggings to go with the greaves?

Also, does the uniform list have to be exactly in that order?
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zwei

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Re: Equipping Armor Efficiently
« Reply #10 on: October 10, 2011, 12:47:18 am »

The best way to equip dwarves is to assign them a uniform.

The optimum arrangement is;

metal mail shirt
metal mail shirt
metal mail shirt
metal breastplate
leather cloak
leather cloak
leather cloak
leather cloak
leather cloak
leather cloak
leather trousers
leather trousers
metal greaves
metal gauntlets
leather mittens
socks
metal high boots
metal cap
metal cap
metal helm
leather hood
leather hood
leather hood
leather hood
leather hood
leather hood
metal shield
weapon (ranged or melee)

and they will also pick up waterskins, backpacks, and quivers as they need them.

Remember that quivers and backpacks are worn and take one cloak slot, so you want to give your ranged dwarves only five cloaks or else they will get stuck on sixth one (or quiver) and stop updating their equipment.

Also, remember that dwarves can not layer - if they wear cloak/breastplate before mail, they will not know to how put on mail shirts.

It is not bad idea to remove cloaks and hoods from "perfect" uniform.

SpiralDimentia

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Re: Equipping Armor Efficiently
« Reply #11 on: October 10, 2011, 01:09:24 am »

See that just seems like a ridiculous amount of armor. It also looks extremely silly when I try o imagine it. My dwarves seem to do just fine with

Mail shirt
Breastplate
Greaves
high boots[or low]
gauntlets
Helm
cloak
shield
weapon.

And it takes a lot less longer to make it all, too, than 30 mail shirts per dwarf.
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Re: Equipping Armor Efficiently
« Reply #12 on: October 10, 2011, 03:48:18 am »

The best way to equip dwarves is to assign them a uniform.

The optimum arrangement is;

metal mail shirt
metal mail shirt
metal mail shirt
metal breastplate
leather cloak
leather cloak
leather cloak
leather cloak
leather cloak
leather cloak
leather trousers
leather trousers
metal greaves
metal gauntlets
leather mittens
socks
metal high boots
metal cap
metal cap
metal helm
leather hood
leather hood
leather hood
leather hood
leather hood
leather hood
metal shield
weapon (ranged or melee)

and they will also pick up waterskins, backpacks, and quivers as they need them.

Remember to set on the uniform screen to replace clothing, set exact matches, and on the military screen (I think it's in the schedule section) to set it so that dwarves are uniformed off duty. However, if you put it to these settings, dwarves will immediately cast off their clothes to conform to the rules. If they can't find the armour assigned to them, they will wander about naked (at least partially). Also bear in mind that if you continue making new armour and weapons, military dwarves will spend all their time picking up equipment. As far as I can tell dwarves won't obey any orders until they are equipped, so my guess is that the correct armour isn't there for them to wear. However, if dwarves are casting off their civilian duds, that may cause danger room problems because even clothes provide suitable protection against noquality training spears; so, in this instance, you could set the uniform to partial match over clothing, so that dwarves won't cast off their civvies immediately. However if you do this I don't think they'll put them on, just not take them off in the first place. I don't know, I don't pay much attention to clothes.

Somehow, my foolish dwarfs fail to wear it all- they keep getting stuck wearing cloaks and sometimes mail shirt, but no breastplate, caps and hoods but no helm, even when plenty of those are available. No problem with trousers and greaves, interestingly.
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Grumbledwarfskin

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Re: Equipping Armor Efficiently
« Reply #13 on: October 10, 2011, 08:59:05 am »

Do the order-of-equipping bugs still exist? I've never run into them myself. But then, I've never asked dwarves to wear three chainmails or six cloaks.

If you're going to go for the ultimate layering uniform, and stacking is an issue, it might work better to make several intermediate "put on this first" uniforms, and transition your dwarves to the next more complete uniform once they're wearing everything in the current layer.

So, for example, you'd have them put on their mail shirts first, then add a breastplate to the uniform, then add cloaks once they're wearing the breastplate. (Note that you have to check their inventory to see what they're wearing, green checks in the (m)->(e) screen just means it's been assigned.)

I'm not sure whether you can completely change them from one pre-defined uniform to another without them dumping everything they're currently wearing and equipping different but equivalent items, but you can certainly manually add items to their current gear, regardless.
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JoeyS7

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Re: Equipping Armor Efficiently
« Reply #14 on: October 10, 2011, 11:00:39 am »

What about the use of candy?  I hear that it's best turning them into robes, because they offer the most protection.  True or false?
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