v1.4 ReleasedNotice: I've decided to post an update before the inevitable armor rework that is coming with the next release of DF Revised and its body changes. "Internalized" facial features (to reduce bodypart clutter) will also arive with it.
The most important change here is the weapon speed rebalance, and I would really like to get some feedback on it before progressing further. Testing this new system on both modded and purely vanilla set ups showed no problems in arena mode, but any actual gameplay reports and personal opinions will be appreciated.
Major changes:* Weapon speed rebalance!
(1) All not-too-long weapons are now much slower. The reasoning and the goals for this are as follows:
- A walking step in DF is roughly 9 ticks. A sprinting human step is about 6-7 ticks. Realistically, landing a full swing would take about the same amount of time as a running step does, and recover would take about half a step. Thus, the average swing now has 7:4 for prepare:recover time.
- This makes movement speed more important in combat overall. As the combat is now slower-paced in general and wall-to-wall combat specifically is less deadly (easier blocking), active tactics and squad microing become much more fun and fruitful than with vanilla attack speeds. Over time effects, such as bleeding, will also be more important, and so will be any other background event that can happen during the longer attack delays.
- This system allows for much more diversified weapon speeds and, thus, better reach simulation. Pikes now have a very meaningful advantage over, say, an axe, even at higher skill levels.
- Skills now matter more too. I don't know how the exact speed bonus is calculated, but in vanilla there were basically only 3 levels of combat speed: "no skill" (3:3), "average skill" (2:2) and "as fast as mechanically possible" (1:1). The new system should give a much better feel of progression.
(2) Special attacks got more sensible speed distribution. Also, readjusted the bonuses given to long weapons: now it's their RECOVER time that benefits the most, rather than PREPARE. The reason is, weapons with low PREPARE are harder to defend against, while weapons with low RECOVER are harder to counter-attack against. Long weapons, realistically speaking, are harder to close in and attack against - defending against them is usually not that much different. Thus, a bonus to PREPARE was given mainly to hooked, chained, hard-hitting and exceptionally long weapons, such as spears and pikes.
(3) 'Stab', 'strike' (with fluke) and similar attacks have been made proportionally slower. Stabs, in particular, are now more on par with swinging attacks. The reason for this is both a balancing one and a realism one: stabbing attacks are narrow and piercing, but require more aiming than a swing and are easier to predict. As a counterbalance, most stabbing weapons have been given a new 'jab' attack, which is a faster, yet weaker variation (will still cause bleeding in poorly armored targets).
* Ranged weapons rebalance! Nothing to be too excited about yet, but the framework for future updates is created: bows are best suited for iron/steel ammo, crossbows gain power as the ammo weight rises, while slings and atlatls are kinda all over the place (but less op than they were). Also, armor-piercing capabilities of ammo were seriously nerfed.
* New types of steel! Idea credit to
Jazzpirat!.
(1) Mild steel is somewhat worse than vanilla steel, but better than iron, and can be used for all the usual purposes. Goblins can produce it, hence, iron can no longer fully suffice for the player fort's equipment. Mild steel is made the same way as pig iron and can be used as its replacement for making regular steel.
(2) Tempered steel is much better for weapons than vanilla steel, but is a bit weaker as armor against blunt weapons and cannot be forged into ammunition. Humans now have access to all steels up to tempered, so they'll be much more serious opponents, should you piss them off. Tempered steel is made from regular steel, flux and coal.
(3) Dwarven steel is the best renewable metal in the mod, beating vanilla steel on all fronts, but it can only be used for armor. Obviously, it is only available to dwarves. Dwarven steel is made from a bar of each three lesser steels (mild steel, steel, tempered steel), flux and coal; unlike other reactions, it only returns one bar for the three bars used.
New steels are
optional, but recommended and, thus, included by default. If you don't like this feature, you can simply delete all the =SVER_STEELS= marked lines from your
entity_default.txt.
* Stone weapons for subterranean tribes! Well, not really stone, but made with a workaround as "fake" metals. Flint, obsidian and malachite weapons have replaced the wood ones for subterranean animal peoples, so as to make them a bit more capable in combat. Their arsenal was also expanded to include some axes.
This is
optional, but recommended and, thus, included by default. If you don't like this feature, you can simply delete all the =SVER_ROCKWEAPONS= marked lines from your
entity_default.txt and add back the [WOOD_WEAPONS] tag.
*
Legwear rework, to account for the
Bug 10784. "Belt" is now legwear instead of bodywear and can be made of cloth. All non-metal pants were removed from my entity lists;
skirts were left as they were, but you can remove them, if you want. "Shirt" and "warm coat" have been replaced in my entity lists by the new "clothes" and "warm clothes" bodywear types. "Padded armor" now also covers legs. No items were deleted (aside from the bodywear belt), so you can still get artifact thongs sometimes.
* Added new weapons: dagger-axe and parrying dagger. The former is a pole weapon (pike) best used against weak armor and humanoid limbs. The latter is mostly for adventurers - an offhand weapon very well suited for multi-attacks.
* Added a new elven weapon: enchanted lance. It uses the pikeman skill and is essentially a pike on steroids.
* Added new types of ammo: ballista balls and sling boulders. Similar to each other, these are heavy projectiles, which mostly deliver blunt trauma or shallow abrasions.
* Removed the broad spear all together, as the stabbing attack changes made it obsolete. "Boar spear" optional tool now resembles short spear.
* Stakesman arms now use maul instead of mallet.
* Increased the material requirement for all weapon sets by exactly one bar (except for the dagger ones). It's a balancing measure to make the all-capable troops a bit more expensive to set up. From roleplaying perspective, it's for the weapon-holding equipment. You can still make them from one piece of wood, if needed.
* Readjusted the weight of all bolts, arrows and sling bullets for more realistic values. Arrows are now heavier than bolts, except for the hammerhead.
* Readjusted the area and penetration of most 'stab' and 'thrust' attacks to account for the new 'jab' attack. All areas are now capped at 17 to prevent limbs from being cut off by stabs; arming sword and bladed spear are exempted to make them more distinct, but are still capped at 20. 'Thrust' velocities are now equivalent to 'stab', but the penetration is still deeper; weapons with no extra penetration got this attack removed (except some specials). Stabs now also have lower velocity to make them less armor-piercing. Stabbing area cap credit to
Grimlocke.
* Removed 'loosely bash' attacks from war hammer and morningstar, as these weapons turned out to be fairly balanced as is.
* Applied an additional 1.5x modifier to all 'club' attack (maces) velocities. Same for all of the maul and scourge attacks.
* Reworked the (elven) club and war club. They are now more similar in terms of weight and velocity, but the war club is better at destroying armor.
* Decreased the contact areas of maul, mallet, mace and flanged mace.
* Readjusted the contact areas of morningstar - a bit worse than war hammer now. Also, increased the main velocities, minimum size and two-handed limit.
* Seriously decreased the 'slash' penetration for scimitar and war cleaver. Now they are all about swift shallow cuts rather than just being weird variations of regular swords. They are also slightly better at cutting through weak armor now.
* Tassets are no longer [SHAPED] and the layer type has been changed to COVER. They can now be worn over a lower plate for additional protection.
* Removed shin guards from all entity lists. Due to a bug, AI has issues with wearing two pairs of footwear at once, which renders this item useless.
* Removed visors from all entity lists. Too often they were worn without a helmet.
* Renamed 'bullets' to 'sling bullets' and changed the tag accordingly.
* Renamed 'large arrows' to 'ballista bolts' and changed the tag accordingly.
* Renamed 'executioner sword' to 'great cleaver' and changed the tag accordingly.
* Changed the tag for war cleaver to fit its name.
Minor changes:** Sane melting and heatdam points for fat by
thefriendlyhacker. Less melting, more burning.
** Made teeth (TOOTH_TEMPLATE) edible/stealable by vermin, so they will gradually disappear from both the ground and the stockpiles now. Idea credit to
OldGenesis.
** New type of clothing: surcoat. A COVER-layer, tunic-like bodywear, just for fun.
** Set all adjectives for elven melee weapons to 'enchanted' to justify why they are so overpowered if made into metal artifacts.
** More "gamey" material cost distribution. Increased cost: hand ballista - 12 bars (still can be made of wood though); arbalest - 5 bars; poleaxe, polehammer - 4 bars; hawk axe, headhunting axe, war hammer, flail, crossbow - 3 bars; bearded axe - 2 bars. Decreased cost: greatsword - 4 bars; two-handed sword, falx, longsword, estoc - 3 bars; arming sword, scimitar, great cleaver - 2 bars; maul, war cleaver - 1 bar.
** Decreased smelting returns for hatchet, mace, mallet, spear, bow and longbow.
** Increased the two-handed limits: glaive - 105000; headhunting axe, war hammer - 60000 (smaller dwarves will need both hands).
** Increased the layer permit of doublet to that of other padded armors.
** Simplified the goblin clothing (in
entity_default.txt and my preset) to lower the amount of post-siege clutter. Idea credit to
Essential DF.
** Equivalents of vanilla items (which are using their tags; e.g. not my new stuff) were highlighted by =VANILLA= in their respective raws and in the
full list of items.txt, for easier search by those players/modders who don't want to use new items.
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