Dwarf Fortress Wiki - User contributions [en]

v0.31 Talk:Mechanism

2010-05-31T11:19:23Z

Snus-mumrik:

==quality mech's and trap accuracy==
I have no intention of assuming that high-quality mechanisms do not help weapons traps - and perhaps others as well - until we have more evidence in. That's how it worked in the prev version, so I'll act on that until we know diff. However, I'm equally sure that citing a quote from July 2007 is not necessarily relevant to the version just released April 2010. (When was 40d released?)--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 22:54, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

==Metal==
Maybe it's just me, but I kind of wish that 'They can also be created at a forge' should get put in HUGE CAPS. Being able to make lava-proof mechanisms out of steel now? HUGE CHANGE! Plus, I almost edited the article to point it out again because I missed that the first time. Perhaps we should just change that . to a , in the first sentence. [[User:Savanik|Savanik]] 02:22, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
:Considering a great deal of other stones have become magma-safe, the ability to create metal mechanisms is less significant now. Too bad they're limited to weapons-grade metals, otherwise it'd become possible to have levers made of rose gold and lay pewter (which would permit colors otherwise not possible using stone). --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 05:09, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

:Perhaps it should be stated in the article that in a forge mechanisms are treated as trap components, not as furniture, as they are in stockpiles? --[[User:Doub|Doub]] 09:44, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
::Done, but I'd like you all to look it over as I don't think it's as simple and direct as possible. —[[User:0x517A5D|0x517A5D]] 17:28, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
:::Do metal mechanisms have any advantages over stone ones? They surely do in real life, so maybe new material system implicitly makes that difference?--[[User:Snus-mumrik|Snus-mumrik]] 17:54, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
::::There isn't a difference in time-to-activate. Differences in trap accuracy/damage are possible, but I think unlikely. (I am currently reverse-engineering trap damage and am finding it slow going.) From a role-playing standpoint, I often set the self-imposed rule that stone mechanisms may only be used as levers and in stone-fall traps. —[[User:0x517A5D|0x517A5D]] 02:18, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
:::::Thanks. By the way, do we have a page that summarizes such self-imposed rules from different users? I only saw the {{L|Challenges}} page, maybe we should add a section to it?

v0.31:Elf

2010-05-31T11:05:30Z

Snus-mumrik:

{{CreatureInfo v0.31
|name=Elf
|symbol=E
|color=3:0:0
|biome=
* Any
|butcher=no}}
{{av}}{{Quality|Exceptional}}

:''A medium-sized creature dedicated to the ruthless protection of nature''

Elves are humanoids dedicated to the protection of ''their'' concept of nature (focused on trees).

Elven caravans arrive in late spring. During {{L|trade}}, elves will '''not''' accept wood, wooden items or any goods {{L|Decoration|decorated}} with wood. This includes ''clear'' {{l|glass}} items and soap, presumably because wood-derived {{L|potash}} and {{L|pearlash}} are used in their production. Elves will, however, gladly trade you their own wooden items. They will not, however, accept their wooden items back. Be careful to not offer them your wooden bins or barrels. If the contents of bins are marked for trade individually, and are not wooden themselves, the elves will not care that you used wooden bins to haul the goods to the depot.

Offending elves by attempting to trade wooden items quickly causes them to refuse further trade this year and leave early. 
Repeatedly offending elves by attempting to trade wooden items may cause them to attack your fortress with an {{l|ambush}}.{{verify}}

Elves will generally '''accept''' items made of green glass, stone, metal, bone, shell, silk, leather and plant fiber cloth, meat, fish, totems and even plants. They will accept animals in trade, as long as their {{L|Cage|cages}} are not wooden.

They also accept ''raw'' clear glass, ''raw'' crystal glass and raw green glass. (Which are classified as gems, possibly this makes the elves ignore the {{l|pearlash}} used in the first two.)

It is currently unknown if they accept crystal glass ''items'' (a rather scarce trade good anyway).

Elves generally bring all kinds of wooden items like barrels and cages, animals, alcohol, plant fiber and its products as well as small quantities of weapons and plants. They usually bring tamed rare animals, which may be important if you want to have {{L|Giant eagle|battle eagles}} or some other beasts for your army and zoo.

{{gamedata}}
{{Creatures}}
{{Category|Humanoids}}
{{Category|Races}}

v0.31 Talk:Metal

2010-05-30T17:56:36Z

Snus-mumrik: /* Bronze is the new steel? */

== Field Observations ==

It seems true that materials can't cut anything "tougher" than them. Fights between my small iron-armoured military and Goblins last for ages, since my iron axes mostly bounce off the Goblins' iron armour and the Goblins' copper & silver weapons can't get through my iron armour. Iron pikes have penetrated iron armour, and are th weapons that most consistently do so (logical, since the highest force is being applied in one place). IRON ARMOUR IS NOW INCREDIBLY USEFUL.

Also, on a more theoretical note, the higher impact elasticity and shear elasticity of stel will be counteracted by much higher fracture toughness/strengh. Having a dent put in your breastplate that bruises you is much better than having your breastplate fractured and getting a pike in the ribs.--[[User:Nimblewright|Nimblewright]] 13:32, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

----

Despite having copper, bismuth, and tin, I can't seem to make bismuth bronze. Despite having copper, gold, and silver I can't seem to make black bronze - are these broken or merely different? --[[User:Squirrelloid|Squirrelloid]] 09:33, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
:Nevermind, my smelters were slower than i thought, and they'd only smelted 1 copper total so far. *cracks whip* get back to work you lazy bums! --[[User:Squirrelloid|Squirrelloid]] 10:01, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

----

''Impact elasticity: Used for blunt-force combat; lower is better. This is the raw value.''
:How sure are we about this? It seems to contradict: [[DF2010:Release_information|"Force from blunt weapons can transcend layers. For instance, a hammer can bruise the skin while breaking the bone underneath. As such, plate armor's benefits are generally ignored by blunt attacks, and leather armor would prove to be more effective." ]] Leather as a material has a Impact Elasticity of 5000 meaning, I think, that it is much more elastic... --[[Special:Contributions/68.117.74.40|68.117.74.40]] 14:15, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

::The Impact Elasticity number is based on the real life bulk modulus. The higher the number the greater the pressure that is needed to compress a material a given volume, that is it is the resistance to compressibility. Intuitively, we would think that we would want a higher rather than lower number for something like a war hammer or maul so they act less like a rubber mallet and more like a hammer. However, we don't know exactly how Impact Elasticity is used and unless we do we can't draw any conclusions about it. It would seem a little odd if it is a critical factor in a weapon as in real life it is rarely used except in gas equations as the effect is generally small for solids. Usually about 1% or less at yield strength for the metals in DF. EDIT: Just to be clear, impact elasticity shares an inverse like relationship with bulk modulus so lower "should be" better.--[[User:PencilinHand|PencilinHand]] 04:36, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

:::I think this is more a question of how accurate the quote from the release info page is -- which is oriented towards how effectively armor can resist/absorb blunt damage before it effects the wearer. The quote suggests that leather armor would be more effective than 'plate' (metal I suppose). Let's assume that's true. While we don't know how the actual combat calculations work we can observe values the calculations use. The impact values are said to be specific to blunt damage so it's a good bet where the value that makes leather better against blunt damage is. Comparing material templates between various armor capable metals and leather, the value that stands out the most is impact elasticity (all metals have the same impact fracture/yield >> leather, which makes sense as leather isn't as durable). Impact elasticity is 635 for iron with most other metals being in that ball park and it is actually 50000 for leather. Climbing out on the branches of the speculation tree, the hypothesis is ''greater elasticity reduces blunt damage directly or disrupts ability of blunt damage to transmit to multiple tissue layers''. Alas, a brief test of 50+ combats in the arena shows that one's dwarves might as well be naked when wearing leather against iron hammers/maces. Iron plate (and even mail as the dwarves had to wear shirts to keep their fragile, fragile upper arms in one piece) armor proved to be quite effective with almost every blow simply deflecting. So it seems that leather armor is not better than iron plate when it comes to blunt damage... at least in this specific case. --[[User:Deranged Imp|Deranged Imp]] 11:26, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

::::Unfortunately, much more testing is needed. There are four different elements of the game that are being tested. The wound system, the armor system, the weapon system, and the material system. We know that there are deficiencies in the wound system and severe imbalance in the weapon system so it stands to reason that the same is true of armor system so tests on the material system are hideously complicated. Suppose that the intent is for leather armor to act as an under-layer buffer with metal mail or plate as the over-layer, but for whatever reason the proportions in the armor raws are limiting the material effectiveness. Measuring the effectiveness of weapons in attacking and armor in defending is complicated because the only way to do that is by interpreting a wound system which doesn't always seem to reflect the extend of the damage done. Especially if the target has [NOPAIN], [NOSICK], and doesn't bleed. You can pretty much forget about it killing something if it doesn't bleed as that is seemingly the primary mode of death right now. Thankfully, arena mode makes tests like this MUCH easier to do than in prior versions. However, it still requires a lot of effort. --[[User:PencilinHand|PencilinHand]] 13:06, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

== Material Value vs. Material Multiplier ==

Is there a reason it's Value instead of [[Item_value#Material_multipliers|Material Multiplier]]?
It seems a bit inconsistent to me.
[[User:Kiraen|Kiraen]] 06:42, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
'''Bold text'''

:I think this is a terminology question that might be more appropriate in the discussion page you linked. In fact, I am sure that is what this is. --[[User:PencilinHand|PencilinHand]] 04:27, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

== Bronze is the new steel? ==

From the table, it looks like bronze is 'better' than steel for blunt weapons, and maybe almost as good for bladed ones? Am I reading this right? Can someone with more DF/Science knowledge make a chart for the rest of us that lists the metals from best to worst in terms of a) Bladed weapons, b) Blunt weapons, and c) Armor? That would be nice, because that chart now is informative, but not, er, helpful. --[[User:Zombiejustice|Zombiejustice]] 17:24, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

:Well Mr. mysteriouspersonwhoforgotto[http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Dwarf_Fortress_Wiki:Community_Portal#Z signhisnamelikezoro], that seems like a reasonable request. I will see what I can do. --[[User:PencilinHand|PencilinHand]] 17:09, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

::Whoops! Embarassing. And thank you.

:::I put a table with guidelines for what is better for what. Unfortunately, in the case of blunt attacks, there is generally very little discernible difference between one metal and another. More testing needs to be conducted for finer granularity, I am afraid. --[[User:PencilinHand|PencilinHand]] 02:57, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

::::Does anyone have an idea what materials are best for bolts now? They do piercing damage, so I suppose it is like cutting (steel rules), but the kinetic energy they have may be dependent on the density (the bigger is the mass the less is the impact of air friction and so on, he-he). --[[User:Snus-mumrik|Snus-mumrik]] 17:56, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

== grumble ==

It would be nice to have the option of making hammers or maces from rose gold, and to save a little fuel & labor by making bismuth bronze from 2 bronze + copper + bismuth. Oh, well. – [[template:unsigned|unsigned]] comment by [[User:216.27.178.205|216.27.178.205]]
:1: Sign your comments ("<nowiki>--~~~~</nowiki>"). 2: If you really want to, edit reaction_standard.txt and inorganic_metal.txt. 3: Platinum would be even better than rose gold, being denser ''and'' having much lower impact elasticity. --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 16:35, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

v0.31 Talk:Mechanism

2010-05-30T17:54:26Z

Snus-mumrik: