Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Putnam]

...It's not a finished system. You may note the complete combat/movement overhaul in the last release? That was step 1 of the combat arc.

From the old dev page:

Core73, COMBAT OVERHAUL, (Future): This one is a bit vague, mostly because the Combat Arc consists of so many small changes rather than a few sweeping additions. Aside from obvious changes to projectiles and the wrestling interface, skills could afford to overlap, attributes need to be associated to skills properly, skills could become rusty and ultimately degrade as in Armok 1, new general combat related skills can be added, styles/techniques for weapon/weaponless fighting roughly along the path Armok 1 had started, etc. As a dev item, this'll be done when combat more or less makes sense.

[Urist Tilaturist]

Alpha is alpha, but the game has been going for 8 years now, and priorities just seem a bit weird; I would have thought that getting the basics right should come before implementing small parts like noses and ears. I am sure that Toady will eventually get round to fixing all this, but some of the easier raws changes have gone unfixed a bit too long.

[Bloax]

I was suspecting that this mod would make weapons very weak, but going as far as making previously cutting weapons bruise things is interesting to say the least.

[Sergarr]

Fun fact: Silk is about 4 times better than bronze at cutting things. (though that shouldn't matter for cloaks...)

Also, I guess your strike was not very square. (since I've just tested and bronze scimitar slashes through giant cave spider silk cloak very handily)

[Urist Tilaturist]

Spider silk should be massively resistant to cutting - it is stronger than steel of the same dimensions.

A good old dwarven war hammer should still smash through it with no problems.

[Sergarr]

Unfortunately the [STRUCTURAL_ELASTICITY_WOVEN_THREAD] tag nullifies that advantage.

Otherwise we could've actually had some very durable silk armor anti-slashing protection!

[scamtank]

Silk isn't going to stop much when it's a fluttery paper-thin cloth draped loosely around your neck.

But in a thick, heavy and tightly woven gambeson? That's a different story. Would take an awful fucking lot of spider webs, but there you go.

[Grimlocke]

Thin silk doesn't actually need to be cut through to cut flesh.

The Mongols made handy use of this by wearing a silk shirt below the rest of their clothing/armor, so that when they got shot the silk would still be wrapped around the arrowhead inside the wound, making it much easier to get it out without causing more damage.

Silk gambesons would be kinda game breaking, especially since silk is dirt cheap and very common in DF. I made them by accident once and my adventurer would randomly encounter enemies which were utterly impervious to edged damage, which is not really the point of a balance mod. They are basically kevlar vests in a medieval setting.

[Putnam]

Alpha is alpha, but the game has been going for 8 years now, and priorities just seem a bit weird; I would have thought that getting the basics right should come before implementing small parts like noses and ears.

"The basics" is an activated world, which you saw in 0.40.

[Urist Tilaturist]

I was a little harsh on the combat system. I greatly appreciate the activated world, and core mechanics like that should be Toady's focus.

If the spider silk (not silkworm silk!) clothing was very thin, then strong pressure applied by a slash could still cut the flesh, but proper aketons/gambesons woven from giant cave spider silk should be possible given how common giant cave spiders and their silk are in DF. They would not be game breaking for the following reasons:

1. They do not stop war hammers, the most dwarven of weapons.
2. The whole body cannot be covered, since spider silk over the face will leave the wearer unable to breathe or see.
3. Only those daring enough to venture into giant cave spider caverns can obtain them.

I would like to see them implemented into the game. Any world which includes elements not found in ours should take them to their logical conclusion (alchemists turning lead into gold makes gold dirt cheap, for example), and that means cave spider silk armour, though it should be rare and not often found on enemies in adventure mode, especially elves, due to their unwillingness to strike the earth. DF is not really a mediaeval setting as much as one where the technology does not go past 1400 - and that includes silk weaving.

[Grimlocke]

Silk can be bought from traders at bargain prices, cloth in DF is actually startlingly cheap as well. Rendering an entire section of the combat system inert with a couple dozen urists worth of cloth is not really my idea of interesting.

In fact I think any gameplay mechanic that renders sweeping portions of the game moot is poor design. Green glass serrated disk traps for instance turn invasions into a seasonal gore display, which can be amusing the first few times but gets boring very quickly after. Adamantine relegates the steel industry to bin making, the (recently fixed) practice spear spike trap training makes sparring and taking time to train soldiers pointless, etc.

There is a reason Toady never meant for most of those things to happen. (and in the case of adamantine, it's mostly meant as an endgame thing).

You can get an interesting game from having to make choices. Adding a single overpowered item to the mix makes a whole portion of other items not a choice. In this case, plant cloth and wool become kinda pointless and since Goblins also have silk I can forget about arming my dwarves with axes or swords, since they would likely all die from the first gaggle of crossbow gobbos.

[Sergarr]

In that case I propose removing the pain mechanic from the game, at least temporarily, by either adding [NOPAIN] to every creature or removing pain receptors from every organic tissue.

Because right now pain is the single most broken mechanic in the game that decides 99% of the fights alone.

I mean, there are even no visual indicators. You are just suddenly - bam - give in to pain - certain death.

The fights are all the same - attack each other until someone lands a lucky strike chipping bone, or enough cuts into muscles - give into pain - win.

It's fucking retarded, that's what it is. It doesn't impair your fighting ability in any way, until the hidden pain-o-meter reaches 100%, and then BAM YOU'RE UNCONSCIOUS AND CANNOT REGAIN CONSCIOUSNESS EVER AGAIN

[Putnam]

It says when you're in pain very clearly at the bottom of the screen.

Having higher willpower mitigates the "give into pain" thing.

[Grimlocke]

Having turned off pain for my testing creature I know that it causes some... weird fights. And really long fights, especially when using blunt weapons. Because the losing fighter refuses to pass out, it takes way longer for them to finally get their head smashed.

In dwarf mode it will probably result in your whole squad turning a single goblin into paste while getting murdered by missile weapons.

I would recommend at least leaving some pain in critical organs and bones.

[Putnam]

In that case I propose removing the pain mechanic from the game, at least temporarily, by either adding [NOPAIN] to every creature or removing pain receptors from every organic tissue.

Because right now pain is the single most broken mechanic in the game that decides 99% of the fights alone.

I mean, there are even no visual indicators. You are just suddenly - bam - give in to pain - certain death.

The fights are all the same - attack each other until someone lands a lucky strike chipping bone, or enough cuts into muscles - give into pain - win.

It's fucking retarded, that's what it is. It doesn't impair your fighting ability in any way, until the hidden pain-o-meter reaches 100%, and then BAM YOU'RE UNCONSCIOUS AND CANNOT REGAIN CONSCIOUSNESS EVER AGAIN

Wait, I just reread this.

It's not fucking retarded, it's how reality works. If I stabbed you in the arm and your bone chipped, you'd pass the fuck out. Bones have insane amounts of pain receptors, and just having your face nearly torn off means you may lose consciousness without adrenaline. Seriously, battle is painful as shit. Note also that most of the nerves were severed with that anecdote.