40d Talk:Armor token

i think the SOFT and HARD tokkens are if the item can be worn out with the x-X-XX tags, i often saw this on clothes with the soft tokken, but never on one with the hard ones. --Rhenaya 09:48, 4 October 2008 (EDT)

My guts are telling me, that SHAPED tag affects if the item produced by narrow or large race will be narrow or large. --Dorten 02:38, 24 November 2008 (EST)

This is what I've inferred from the default raw files in DF: Some things are clearly clothing, whether they be made of cloth or leather. They always rot, and are worn by people who aren't in the military. Examples:

• Armor: platemail, chainmail, leather
• Pants: greaves, leggings
• Helm: helm
• Gloves: gauntlet
• Shoes: high boot, low boot.

Some things are clearly armor, also whether they be made of leather or metal. They never rot. They are worn only by drafted people. Examples:

• Armor: shirt
• Pants: pants
• Helm: hood
• Gloves: gloves, mittens
• Shoes: shoes

Other things are either clothing, when made of cloth or leather, or armor when made of metal. These IMO show us which tags are important for armor and/or wear & tear. Only the cap appears to do this, so I think this is important... these are the tags for the "cap", and what I think each does (which sometimes differs from this wiki page):

(I've removed tags that are mostly text or a number, such as material use and weight)

• [METAL_ARMOR_LEVELS]
• [LAYER:OVER]
• [SOFT]
• [LEATHER]
• [HARD]
• [METAL]

What determines if this is armor or not? I don't think it's the SOFT or HARD tags. SOFT apparently only means this can be crafted from cloth. HARD is maybe used for some formula but it's probably not very important, and it can coexist with SOFT. Note the lack of an ARMORLEVEL tag, that means this is normally civilian clothing. The METAL_ARMOR_LEVELS raises the effective ARMORLEVEL to 1, so this becomes part of a leather "set" (so a metal cap is "leather" for equipping purposes). The LAYER tag is used to mix and match many clothes, I think, so you can wear UNDER, with OVER and then COVER on top: I also think that once this becomes ARMOR, the layer stops mattering - unless dwarves use multiple layers of armor which I believe they don't? They however will take civilian clothes off if they're using up valuable armor layers when drafted.

So in conclusion, only the ARMORLEVEL determines who will wear it (soldiers vs civilians), and if it will rot. METAL_ARMOR_LEVELS generally is used to separate one armor type from another: for instance, high boots are always armor, but if made of leather, they're leather armor, and if made of metal, they're chain armor. However, in this rare case, it changes the ARMORLEVEL from nil to 1, making metal Caps unwearable by civilians plus not rotting. SOFT, HARD have nothing to do with this. Sergius 13:56, 3 December 2008 (EST)