Bay 12 Games Forum

Dwarf Fortress => DF Modding => Topic started by: Joben on August 26, 2012, 09:15:53 pm

Title: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Joben on August 26, 2012, 09:15:53 pm
There has been quite a bit of talk on the various subforums about how powerful projectile weapons are in DF2012. Some say they make the game, particularly Adventure Mode, annoying and arguments about whether they are realistic or not go back and forth. I've done my own research and found, somewhat to my surprise that metal armor stops arrows and bolts quite well in real life. Hence this little mod.

So here we go:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Practical effect: If you're wearing full plate you're safe vs arrows and bolts of the same or lesser material. Safe in the sense of not instantly perforated. Lucky shots can happen. Bruising is common regardless of material, and hits to even armored hands can still break fingers. That seems as it should be as it should be.

This has been tested quite a bit in the arena. But I'm not sure how it will interact with things like item quality levels.
I'd appreciate it if some of you folks would give these setting a spin and let me know what you think.



---------------------
Sept 3, 2012.
A couple tweaks for you guys to play with.

v1.1 - Edge down to 5, launch force up to 27  which seems to improve damage to chain mail without altering performance vs plate very much.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)


Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Joben on August 26, 2012, 09:29:23 pm
One thing that came up in the discussions of game balance is that trying to adjust bow/arrow stats doesn't seem to do anything. There's actually at least one report on teh Bug Tracker right now complaining about that. I thought it was a bug at first too, but this morning I figured out that it just takes a far larger alteration than anyone would reasonably expect.

My, only half-joking theory, at this point is that Toady's finger slipped and he accidentally added a couple extra zeros to their launch force.

The way I have things set now if I make bow Shoot_Force = 1, arrows bounce off dwarf skin. If i set it to 10 they penetrate leather armor, the flesh below it, and shatter the bones beneath that. What's the Vanilla setting? 1000(!)

I did some mild research to pick my performance target, doing some reading and watching videos of actual tests where available.

Expectations are worthless. For example. I was annoyed that they kept breaking bones. I thought they shouldn't do that very often then I found this. Close range broadhead blowing straight through a moose shoulder bone. Apparently bolts chipping dwarf leg bones is totally justified.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_js9YzQfyU

Here is a typical example of what happens when arrows meet a breastplate of the same material; they either dent but deflect, or they may penetrate a little. But imedietely life threatening wounds would be rare. Ignoring the fact that IRL there would be other protective garments under a breastplate, I haven't seen an arrow or bolt of any description make it more than 2 inches past an iron or steel breastplate. That will only kill a human quickly with a lucky shot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCE40J93m5c&feature=related

Arrows do a LOT better against chain mail in general, but there is lots of variations in the rings and the way they are joined, so that's a hell of a subject on it's own. I'm going to trust DF to handle the difference between plate and chain and not try to calibrate for it specifically at present.

A dwarf in clothing, with mail shirt and a plate on top should be VERY hard to wound in the abdomen, even with steel bolts.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: mastahcheese on August 27, 2012, 12:08:45 am
I really like this idea, I find it very annoying how in adventure mode, you can kill dragons and bogeymen with ease, and if two archers show up, it's all over.

I also find it annoying how an army of bowmen seem to be able to take on practically anything, you can train a dwarf for years, give him steel armor, and watch him take wooden arrows to the gut until he vomits to death, but if a wooden sword is used, it's turned away as if it's nothing.

I'm definitely going to be using this in my games.

Also, can I put a link to this in my sig? And if so, how would I get the link to work?
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Igfig on August 27, 2012, 12:17:23 am
I've been looking for the right archery rebalance for a while now. If this turns out to work as promised, could I have your permission to add it to my Modest Mod?
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Mura on August 27, 2012, 12:20:09 am
As I mentioned in another thread, check the contact area for them bolts and arrows. 2(!), as compared to a large dagger's 5. I think it is safe to say that by default, the projectiles don't use the usual flared arrowheads, but rather the smaller bodkin tips, which are much better at penetrating armor in real life (especially at the distances that DF archers engage in).

More balanced? Nolo contendre. More realistic? Maybe not.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: smirk on August 27, 2012, 12:41:51 am
Your most likely correct Mura, but Joben seems to have upped projectile edge from 2 to 10 as part of his tweaks, effectively making them broadheads. You could probably set that back to 2 and get something closer to what ye're looking for (I'd test it myself, but am currently running a different project).

Also,
 :o Odd's Bodkins!
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Joben on August 27, 2012, 10:49:46 am
Quote from: Mura on August 27, 2012, 12:20:09 am
As I mentioned in another thread, check the contact area for them bolts and arrows. 2(!), as compared to a large dagger's 5. I think it is safe to say that by default, the projectiles don't use the usual flared arrowheads, but rather the smaller bodkin tips, which are much better at penetrating armor in real life (especially at the distances that DF archers engage in).

More balanced? Nolo contendre. More realistic? Maybe not.

My thinking on it was that 2 was pretty absurd, that's only 1 more than blowdarts, which are literally wire when made of metal. I increased it, fairly arbitrarily, to 10, since it was more than 2, but much less than 20, which is what spears are set to. I think you can certainly make a case for 5, I'm not entirely sure how much difference it would make.

I calibrated this entirely on the kinda of data you're complaining I didn't acount for. I didn't even try to find out how well broadheads penetrate armor, I just assumed everyone in DF would be using bodkin type points for their military weapons.

Did you want the second video I linked to?
Those are steel bodkin points, fired from 110 pound draw bows at 20 meters. None of them even get the entire head through the steel breastplate. (Compare to vanilla DF where >90% of them would have fully penetrated) My actual nod to game balance was giving they slightly BETTER performance than shown in that video and quite a few others like it.

This mod's improved balance is a happy side effect, it's main point is reflecting the real world data I've found. If someone brings me new data I'll gleefully change the settings to as necessary.

[edit] This is interesting reading. http://www.currentmiddleages.org/artsci/docs/Champ_Bane_Archery-Testing.pdf
------------------------------------------------------


Quote from: mastahcheese on August 27, 2012, 12:08:45 am
Also, can I put a link to this in my sig? And if so, how would I get the link to work?

Sure, the link part would go like this. <url=http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=115448.0>Broken Arrow</url>
just replace all the < and > with [ and ]

Quote from: Igfig on August 27, 2012, 12:17:23 am
I've been looking for the right archery rebalance for a while now. If this turns out to work as promised, could I have your permission to add it to my Modest Mod?

By all means. Anyone who wants to use this can.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: mastahcheese on August 27, 2012, 12:47:18 pm
Thanks! I hope this mod catches on, I've already fixed my custom slings and atl-atls to meet this.

Brilliant work!
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Mephansteras on August 27, 2012, 01:10:01 pm
Hmm, interesting. I'll need to play around with this as well. Having more balanced combat is a good thing!
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on August 31, 2012, 05:36:57 pm
Quote
One thing that came up in the discussions of game balance is that trying to adjust bow/arrow stats doesn't seem to do anything. There's actually at least one report on teh Bug Tracker right now complaining about that. I thought it was a bug at first too, but this morning I figured out that it just takes a far larger alteration than anyone would reasonably expect.

Science has been done, cracking another myth of the forum.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Deon on August 31, 2012, 08:32:37 pm
It works well in combination with arrow tweaking. I've made quite weak firearms in Post-Apocalypse mod, because with right material and ammo tweaks it's needed to make power armors to deflect bullets. Otherwise if I keep stats close to the vanilla, it's really hard to tweak it because ammo travels too fast.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Drazinononda on September 01, 2012, 11:37:41 pm
Another aspect to consider is the size of the ammunition. Currently arrows and bolts both default to [SIZE:150] which is 150cc volume. My estimations are that a bolt of this volume an inch in diameter would be almost a foot long. While this may be accurate for RL bolts, with an arrowhead on the end and a shaft of wood or whatever, in DF they are considered to be made entirely of their material, so a silver bolt would weigh almost 3.5lbs. Obviously a projectile that size traveling at any sort of proper firing velocity is going to do a ton of damage.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: NRN_R_Sumo1 on September 02, 2012, 03:20:45 am
Quote from: Drazinononda on September 01, 2012, 11:37:41 pm
Another aspect to consider is the size of the ammunition. Currently arrows and bolts both default to [SIZE:150] which is 150cc volume. My estimations are that a bolt of this volume an inch in diameter would be almost a foot long. While this may be accurate for RL bolts, with an arrowhead on the end and a shaft of wood or whatever, in DF they are considered to be made entirely of their material, so a silver bolt would weigh almost 3.5lbs. Obviously a projectile that size traveling at any sort of proper firing velocity is going to do a ton of damage.

That makes a lot of sense to me.
Dwarves shooting .50 cal bolts at goblins.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Joben on September 02, 2012, 12:45:16 pm
Yeh...

Arrows are generally about 30 inches (76 cm) long. The modern target arrows I have are about 0.3 (0.76 cm) inches in diameter. That would be ~139 cubic centimeters.

So overall the dimensions seem ok, but that solid metal thing makes for some weirdness weight wise. And by extension the kinetic energy gets insane at reasonable speeds.  I donno if we can truly fix that though. Currently DF doesn't seem to support weapons or ammo made of multiple materials. So, no steel heads on a wooden shaft for us.

I suppose we could trade one inaccuracy for another, and set the SIZE so it make them a realistic weight. (How do quivers work in fortress mode, would that make them hold thousands of bolts?)


Does anyone know if the SHOOT_FORCE and SHOOT_MAXVEL numbers are supposed to corelate to any real life measurements?


Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Broken on September 02, 2012, 05:43:21 pm
Maybe bolts should be divided in two types? bolt/wood bolt with the same size as vainilla and upgraded metal bolts, made with
metal and wooden/bone bolts, with a size aproppiate for a arrowhead.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Funk on September 03, 2012, 02:13:08 pm
if we can build a armor piercing bolt / arrow that is less wounding than boardhead arrows.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Pirate Bob on September 13, 2012, 08:05:10 am
Here are the results of running my analysis decribed in this thread (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=116151.30) on Joben's second set of raws:
Spoiler: Joben's Raws (click to show/hide)

The dwarves were wearing helms, breastplates, chain mail shirt, gauntlets, low boots, and greaves:
Spoiler: Bolts vs. Full Plate + Chainmail Shirt (click to show/hide)
As you can see, these parameters render candy and steel invulnerable to all projectiles, and iron provides good protection against some, but not all, metals.  Also, there is no significant change to deadliness to unarmored targets. 

Making steel invulnerable to arrows might be swinging things a bit too far towards making projectiles too weak in dwarf mode, but this might actually be a very nice parameter set for adventure mode, where steel is extremely hard to (legitimately) find.  Just my opinion though. 

Thanks very much to Joben for working out these parameters and for alerting me to his findings - I'd be very interested to hear more about what !!SCIENCE!! he has done in testing them.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Scow2 on September 19, 2012, 05:07:02 pm
So the problem with bows and crossbows was that they were acting like Railguns?
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Pirate Bob on September 19, 2012, 05:50:37 pm
Quote from: Scow2 on September 19, 2012, 05:07:02 pm
So the problem with bows and crossbows was that they were acting like Railguns?
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.   ;)
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: thiosk on September 20, 2012, 01:35:34 am
I don't want invulnerability, but I sure am hesitant to send my dwarves to meet archers now.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Scow2 on September 20, 2012, 02:09:07 pm
I wish the game engine handled crossbows better... Then it would be possible to make bow and crossbow lethality vary with the quality of the user and weapon for bows, instead of the damn things being equal between Mighty McStrongman the Archer with the Incredible Bow of Legendary Slaughter (How do I do quality symbols on these forums?) and Wimpy McGee the Bowman and a random stick with a string attached to both ends; and quality and material of the weapon for Crossbows.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Joben on September 20, 2012, 09:52:15 pm
Quote from: thiosk on September 20, 2012, 01:35:34 am
I don't want invulnerability, but I sure am hesitant to send my dwarves to meet archers now.

For practical purposes in DF fortress mode no one is going to be invulnerable.

Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Joben on September 21, 2012, 12:14:16 am
Quote from: Pirate Bob on September 13, 2012, 08:05:10 am
Here are the results

First off thanks for running those. That's very interesting.

My numbers were basically calibrated using iron arrows vs iron armor. Then hoping the material properiets would sort the rest of it out. Some of this I hope to find supporting real world evidence for but some I probably never will (Someone must have tested bronze armor at some point for example, but who besides a medieval Lone Ranger would use silver arrowheads?)

I hadn't gotten even anecdotal results for all the possible match ups in DF yet, so that chart is great.

There are a couple things that have me scratching my head thought. Like Silver Bolts vs Iron Armor.
Am I reading your data right that all of your test projectiles made it though the armor?
I just watched a pair of iron clad humans bounce 64 silver bolts off each other with no penetration.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: mastahcheese on September 24, 2012, 01:43:57 pm
Well, I just got my internet back online, and after reading some ideas, I think I need to get back in my mod shop.

Quote from: Broken on September 02, 2012, 05:43:21 pm
Maybe bolts should be divided in two types? bolt/wood bolt with the same size as vainilla and upgraded metal bolts, made with
metal and wooden/bone bolts, with a size aproppiate for a arrowhead.
I think I know of a way to do this, and I will get on making this, however, I might have some trouble with entity members outside the fortress using them, so I would still keep the current bolts, and just add [ADJECTIVE:solid] to denote that the bolt is, for example, a "solid copper bolt" and not just the tip.

Quote from: Funk on September 03, 2012, 02:13:08 pm
if we can build a armor piercing bolt / arrow that is less wounding than boardhead arrows.
That's pretty much what a bodkin head is, it's a smaller head, so it can penatrate armor better, but, (in theory, at least) should damage flesh a bit less.
I will work on making both bodkin-tipped bolts and flared-tipped bolts, while leaving in solid metal bolts.

I'm not sure how much of this will change the tests that have been done, but hopefully we should be seeing at least some more realistic ammo by the time I'm done.

...Oh, one thing I know I'll need some help with, while I can make a reaction to make bolts shafts fairly easily out of would, what reageant token do I need to use bones for this?
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Black_Legion on September 24, 2012, 08:42:22 pm
I don't know for sure but I'd try searching for the 'bone blocks' thread, it's quite old but should be what you need. Good luck with this btw, I'm excited to see how it turns out.

Edit: found it the, token you need is BONE, use it like you would stone.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: vadia on September 24, 2012, 09:24:44 pm
I found a cool article comparing longbows to mideaval crossbows. http://www.thebeckoning.com/medieval/crossbow/cross_l_v_c.html (http://www.thebeckoning.com/medieval/crossbow/cross_l_v_c.html)

This brings up the questions, which bows are we using and are the dorfs better at crossbow making than midieval counterparts.

With regard to which bows, I'd say longbows are fine.
With regard to crossbows I'd say dorfs are a bit better at construction.

If so, the arrow may get (a force of) approx 10 while the bolt may get approx 13.

One thing to think about is that our armor may be better than the dorfs' armor.  (superior-masterwork, perhaps)

Back in the day, the archers used (as far as I know) wooden ammunition, yet managed to go through platemail with long/crossbows.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: mastahcheese on September 24, 2012, 10:19:45 pm
Quote from: Black_Legion on September 24, 2012, 08:42:22 pm
I don't know for sure but I'd try searching for the 'bone blocks' thread, it's quite old but should be what you need. Good luck with this btw, I'm excited to see how it turns out.

Edit: found it the, token you need is BONE, use it like you would stone.
Woo, thanks, this helps a lot.

An update on the editting process, I'm still in testing, having some problems with material identifiers working, and I, at first, had the bolt heads as a tool class object, had to change it to an ammo class object with a firing class of NONE just so it would stack right, so Urist McHauler isn'y hauling 25 individual bolt heads to a pile.

Also, lol, forgot to make it so that the number of arrowheads produced in a reaction is based off the number I specify, and not the actual size of the metal bar TIMES the number i specify, preliminary testing ended up with a dwarf having 9840 masterwork arrowheads, not even counting the others, after only two job orders of bolt head production. Although I must say, making a reaction that gives you aroung 30,000 ammunition and a legendary weaponsmith after only two attempts is pretty amusing.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: mastahcheese on September 24, 2012, 11:50:14 pm
OK, I found out that bone is not actually a valid item token, I tried toying around with CORPSEPIECE and the [USE_ANY_BONE] token, or whatever it's actually called, and I still have no success. Although I did end up with bolts that used nervous tissue and hooves as components.

Once I get bone bolts working, I will be officially finished with testing, and will release my results to you all to test it yourselves.

There are now a TON of reactions for this, I made both bodkin and flared tips, and because there is no reageant token to only select weapon-grade metals, I had to make a custom reaction for every single vanilla DF metal that supports ammo production, including silver, for both bodkin heads and flared heads.

Due to this large number of reactions, It cluttered up the craftshop's screen, so I made a custom building that all of the new ammo production will take place in. It needs a fire-safe build material, because arrowheads still need fuel.
However, each bar of metal will produce 4 stacks of 25 arrowheads, so 4 times as much ammo for the cost of metal and fuel, which seems fair to me because crossbows are no longer overpowering.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: daveralph1234 on September 25, 2012, 07:19:37 am
 
Quote from: vadia on September 24, 2012, 09:24:44 pm
I found a cool article comparing longbows to mideaval crossbows.
http://www.thebeckoning.com/medieval/crossbow/cross_l_v_c.html (http://www.thebeckoning.com/medieval/crossbow/cross_l_v_c.html)
I just looked through this and and thought I should mention the draw weight of the longbows mentioned is for the most part way off. It's been estimated that the draw weight of medieval longbows/warbows used in combat was on average greater than 100lbs, with the higher end going above 160lbs. This may sound extreme, but English longbowmen would have been training their entire lives, not to mention the strength gained by all the manual labor people used to perform.

Also
Quote from: vadia on September 24, 2012, 09:24:44 pm
One thing to think about is that our armor may be better than the dorfs' armor.  (superior-masterwork, perhaps)
er....What? Arn't Dwarves the ultimate experts in metalsmithing? I would say, by comparison, our best armors would have been 'well-crafted' at best. Although that's largely opinional.

I will mention though that even the lower poundage, modern English longbows can pierce steel armor at close range when equiped with traditional armor pirceing heads.

Longbows, as well as crossbows, historically, were terrifyingly powerful weapons. (Although not quite as terrifying as they are in vanilla Dwarf Fortress)
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Pirate Bob on September 25, 2012, 01:40:20 pm
Quote from: Joben on September 21, 2012, 12:14:16 am
Quote from: Pirate Bob on September 13, 2012, 08:05:10 am
Here are the results

There are a couple things that have me scratching my head thought. Like Silver Bolts vs Iron Armor.
Am I reading your data right that all of your test projectiles made it though the armor?
I just watched a pair of iron clad humans bounce 64 silver bolts off each other with no penetration.
Sorry - I just noticed this today.  It seems like the "show new replies to your posts" thing doesn't work well for me or something.  Probably I just can't read... :P

First, I used dwarves in my tests, and I have not yet checked if the creature used makes a difference.  It's possible that it does, as armor parameters are determined based on creature size.  I hope to check this carefully soon.

It also depends on what you mean by "no penetration".  I'd have to look at my logs carefully, but I suspect that most of what I was getting was chipping/fracturing/bruising things through the armor.  The bolts may not have been penetrating in the sense of cutting right through, but instead doing blunt damage through the armor.  I've found that silver bolts do a lot of blunt damage in this way, and are actually the best choice against high end armor.  In over 24,000 hits, I did not record a single "deflection" off of armor, so if you are seeing actual deflections, then something is very different.  It is possible (although somewhat unlikely based on my results) that you would see no significant damage in 64 hits. (Also are you recording hits or shots, as they might have missed a largish fraction of the time?)

If you want I can post the log of silver vs. iron for you somewhere - maybe DFFD?  I will also take a careful look at it to make sure nothing looks funny when I get home (i.e. the bolt/armor materials are correct).  Maybe I can also rerun using humans to see if anything changes.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: mastahcheese on September 25, 2012, 08:34:31 pm
WOO! I finally got my bone reactions finished, the reageant line is ridiculously long and awkward, BUT IT WORKS!

So here it is, my bolt mods.    ...Oh, by the way, turns out the ADJECTIVE token won't work on ammo, dang it, so I had to just add the descriptor to the name proper.

Ammo raws, includes both the tips used solely for the reactions, and the actually ammo itself.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Solid bolts are on top, so use it to replace normal bolts, following them are the actually ammos, then the tips for reactions.

Here are the huge amount of reactions to create all of them, for flare and bodkin, for all ammo-grade metals, as well as the finished bolts themselves.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
At the bottom you should see, BONUS! Obsidian flared tips, no fuel required, but only makes 1 stack of 25, but you'll probably be obsidian-farming, anyway.

And here is that Fletcher's shop to make all that.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Also includes a MAGMA Fletcher's shop!

And to make adding all this to the dwarf entity file a little easier,
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Just add to the dwarves, and there you have it.

Forging the arrowheads needs metalcrafting, as does making the fletcher's shops themselves, actually connecting the arrowheads to the wood or bone is weaponsmithing, and making stone flare tips is, of course, stonecrafting.

Please give me your feedback on this, I worked quite a bit on this, and haven't been able to do much in the way of actual combat testing, If I could get one of those amazing charts like the one Pirate Bob made, that would be great so I could tweak them to perfection.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Pirate Bob on September 26, 2012, 07:40:41 am
Quote from: mastahcheese on September 25, 2012, 08:34:31 pm
WOO! I finally got my bone reactions finished, the reageant line is ridiculously long and awkward, BUT IT WORKS!

So here it is, my bolt mods.    ...Oh, by the way, turns out the ADJECTIVE token won't work on ammo, dang it, so I had to just add the descriptor to the name proper.

Ammo raws, includes both the tips used solely for the reactions, and the actually ammo itself.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Solid bolts are on top, so use it to replace normal bolts, following them are the actually ammos, then the tips for reactions.

Here are the huge amount of reactions to create all of them, for flare and bodkin, for all ammo-grade metals, as well as the finished bolts themselves.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
At the bottom you should see, BONUS! Obsidian flared tips, no fuel required, but only makes 1 stack of 25, but you'll probably be obsidian-farming, anyway.

And here is that Fletcher's shop to make all that.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Also includes a MAGMA Fletcher's shop!

And to make adding all this to the dwarf entity file a little easier,
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Just add to the dwarves, and there you have it.

Forging the arrowheads needs metalcrafting, as does making the fletcher's shops themselves, actually connecting the arrowheads to the wood or bone is weaponsmithing, and making stone flare tips is, of course, stonecrafting.

Please give me your feedback on this, I worked quite a bit on this, and haven't been able to do much in the way of actual combat testing, If I could get one of those amazing charts like the one Pirate Bob made, that would be great so I could tweak them to perfection.

I should eventually be able to test this (remind me if it doesn't happen).  I'm kind of behind with my testing, as other stuff keeps distracting me.  If you want to do your own testing, I'd be happy to guide you through that as well. 

What crossbow parameters did you envision using with these?  Or do you want testing to figure out what would be good there?  If you use the standard DF Force=Velocity=1000, then a slightly differently shaped railgun pellet is still going to go right through a dwarf...
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: mastahcheese on September 26, 2012, 07:34:35 pm
I wasn't really going off of any real guidelines, mostly just for some basic placeholder stuff so I could get some preliminary testing and see if there are any differences at all, and then work on updating the findings and tweaking the arrows to see what results could be achieved to produce the most realistically functioning bolts.

Basically I just wanted to take the other comments from other posters and actually put them into a physical form, so we could see how well the ideas actually work, and possibly use them to make the whole experience worthwhile and more interesting, or at least educational.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Urist Da Vinci on October 04, 2012, 08:25:53 pm
Starting from unmodded vanilla, if you lower IMPACT_YIELD on the bolt material by two orders of magnitude, bolts will deflect off armor rather than dealing blunt damage. If the bolt penetrates the armor it deals piercing/tearing damage as usual.

See http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=116151.msg3664968#msg3664968
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: sayke on October 05, 2012, 12:53:09 pm
lowering the IMPACT_YIELD on the bolt material would have significant effects in melee combat though too, right?

what are all the variables that affect this? can we write a function describing their interactions?
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Emufarmers on October 11, 2012, 02:40:32 pm
Quote from: Pirate Bob on September 13, 2012, 08:05:10 am
As you can see, these parameters render candy and steel invulnerable to all projectiles, and iron provides good protection against some, but not all, metals.  Also, there is no significant change to deadliness to unarmored targets.
Isn't bronze supposed to be comparable to iron in strength?  In your tests, bronze seems to do no better than copper.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: sayke on October 23, 2012, 11:49:36 am
Quote from: Ari Lazarus on October 23, 2012, 04:46:00 am
Been a while since I looked at raws, so just a few quick comments - Girlinhat demonstrated (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=88114.msg2408557#msg2408557) how 'directed pressure' is calculated for blunt weapons:

Code: [Select]
(Density * Volume / 1,000,000) / Contact Area * Velocity Modifier

does this formula apply to crossbows as well? if so, what are appropriate values for crossbow bolts, without getting too hardcore about assembling them from multiple materials etc?
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: kuki on October 23, 2012, 04:41:10 pm
I don't see how that formula can apply directly to crossbow bolts; they're edge attacks, not blunt, and their performance is clearly heavily affected by changing the crossbow shoot_force, which isn't part of that formula.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: squishynoob on October 23, 2012, 05:20:57 pm
The attacks are blunted out by armor. Not that it stops them from doing grievous damage, that is.
Indeed, the quirk with ranged weapons is not a matter of penetrating armor or not, but rather having far too much blunt power behind them. The OP was quite right that it's a matter of a far too big SHOOT_FORCE; my own tests confirmed that; in vanilla, metal blow darts - not even bolts - could break a giant's bones through several layers of iron armor. Guess that Toady mostly shaped the values around wooden ammo which even in vanilla behaves properly - deflected by metal armor, but can hurt soft targets.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: pisskop on October 23, 2012, 05:25:17 pm
I must ptw.  Was lurking this for awhile and so want this to work out somehow.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Urist Da Vinci on October 23, 2012, 08:05:37 pm
We now know the relationship between SHOOT_FORCE, SHOOT_MAXVEL, bolt weight, and the bolt's velocity. See: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=116151.msg3716892#msg3716892 and the rest of the thread for more info.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Thundercraft on February 21, 2013, 03:38:27 am
Quote from: Pirate Bob on September 26, 2012, 07:40:41 am
Quote from: mastahcheese on September 25, 2012, 08:34:31 pm
WOO! I finally got my bone reactions finished, the reageant line is ridiculously long and awkward, BUT IT WORKS!

So here it is, my bolt mods.    ...Oh, by the way, turns out the ADJECTIVE token won't work on ammo, dang it, so I had to just add the descriptor to the name proper.

Ammo raws, includes both the tips used solely for the reactions, and the actually ammo itself.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Solid bolts are on top, so use it to replace normal bolts, following them are the actually ammos, then the tips for reactions.

Here are the huge amount of reactions to create all of them, for flare and bodkin, for all ammo-grade metals, as well as the finished bolts themselves.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
At the bottom you should see, BONUS! Obsidian flared tips, no fuel required, but only makes 1 stack of 25, but you'll probably be obsidian-farming, anyway.

And here is that Fletcher's shop to make all that.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Also includes a MAGMA Fletcher's shop!

And to make adding all this to the dwarf entity file a little easier,
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Just add to the dwarves, and there you have it.

Forging the arrowheads needs metalcrafting, as does making the fletcher's shops themselves, actually connecting the arrowheads to the wood or bone is weaponsmithing, and making stone flare tips is, of course, stonecrafting.

Please give me your feedback on this, I worked quite a bit on this, and haven't been able to do much in the way of actual combat testing, If I could get one of those amazing charts like the one Pirate Bob made, that would be great so I could tweak them to perfection.

I should eventually be able to test this (remind me if it doesn't happen).  I'm kind of behind with my testing, as other stuff keeps distracting me.  If you want to do your own testing, I'd be happy to guide you through that as well. 

What crossbow parameters did you envision using with these?  Or do you want testing to figure out what would be good there?  If you use the standard DF Force=Velocity=1000, then a slightly differently shaped railgun pellet is still going to go right through a dwarf...

Has anyone remembered to test this stuff? ??? It looks like mastahcheese put a lot of work into these reactions, workshops, and ammo and it'd be a shame to see it forgotten. If they are reasonably balanced, I'd be tempted to use them...
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: mastahcheese on February 21, 2013, 08:06:42 pm
Quote from: Thundercraft on February 21, 2013, 03:38:27 am
Has anyone remembered to test this stuff? ??? It looks like mastahcheese put a lot of work into these reactions, workshops, and ammo and it'd be a shame to see it forgotten. If they are reasonably balanced, I'd be tempted to use them...
Actually, I had forgotten I wrote that stuff up, that should get tested...
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Maklak on February 22, 2013, 07:57:03 am
I think you could get away with fewer reactions by using:

[REAGENT:metal:150:BAR:NONE:NONE:NONE][REACTION_CLASS:WEAPON_METAL]

instead of

[REAGENT:metal:1:BAR:NONE:INORGANIC:SILVER][DOES_NOT_DETERMINE_PRODUCT_AMOUNT]

At least this is how it works in the Fallout Equestria mod.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: mastahcheese on February 22, 2013, 10:02:27 pm
I tried that at first, it ended up with the stacks of arrowheads having multiple thousands of arrowheads, and the production of only 2 stacks would give enough experience to the crafter to promote them to legendary status.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Maklak on February 23, 2013, 03:58:17 am
That's odd, in the Fallout Equestria mod there are reactions to produce ammunition, they work correctly and accept any weapons grade metal.

[REACTION:MANUFACTURE_AMMO_SMALL_PRISM]
   [NAME:manufacture small caliber ammunition (60) (prism)]
   [BUILDING:FORGE_PRISM_MWT:CUSTOM_S]
   [REAGENT:B:150:BAR:NONE:NONE:NONE][REACTION_CLASS:WEAPON_METAL]
   [REAGENT:C:150:BAR:NONE:INORGANIC:BRASS]
   [REAGENT:gunpowder:150:POWDER_MISC:NONE:INORGANIC:GUNPOWDER]
   [REAGENT:E:1:BOX:NONE:NONE:NONE]
      [CONTAINS:gunpowder]
      [PRESERVE_REAGENT]
      [DOES_NOT_DETERMINE_PRODUCT_AMOUNT]
   [PRODUCT:100:30:AMMO:ITEM_AMMO_BULLET_SMALL:GET_MATERIAL_FROM_REAGENT:B:NONE]
   [PRODUCT:100:30:AMMO:ITEM_AMMO_BULLET_SMALL:GET_MATERIAL_FROM_REAGENT:B:NONE]
   [SKILL:METALCRAFT]

What about

[REAGENT:metal:150:BAR:NONE:NONE:NONE][REACTION_CLASS:WEAPON_METAL]
[DOES_NOT_DETERMINE_PRODUCT_AMOUNT]
// Product: bolts, get material from reagent metal.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Pirate Bob on February 23, 2013, 11:27:42 pm
Quote from: Thundercraft on February 21, 2013, 03:38:27 am
Quote from: Pirate Bob on September 26, 2012, 07:40:41 am
Quote from: mastahcheese on September 25, 2012, 08:34:31 pm
WOO! I finally got my bone reactions finished, the reageant line is ridiculously long and awkward, BUT IT WORKS!

So here it is, my bolt mods.    ...Oh, by the way, turns out the ADJECTIVE token won't work on ammo, dang it, so I had to just add the descriptor to the name proper.

Ammo raws, includes both the tips used solely for the reactions, and the actually ammo itself.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Solid bolts are on top, so use it to replace normal bolts, following them are the actually ammos, then the tips for reactions.

Here are the huge amount of reactions to create all of them, for flare and bodkin, for all ammo-grade metals, as well as the finished bolts themselves.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
At the bottom you should see, BONUS! Obsidian flared tips, no fuel required, but only makes 1 stack of 25, but you'll probably be obsidian-farming, anyway.

And here is that Fletcher's shop to make all that.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Also includes a MAGMA Fletcher's shop!

And to make adding all this to the dwarf entity file a little easier,
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Just add to the dwarves, and there you have it.

Forging the arrowheads needs metalcrafting, as does making the fletcher's shops themselves, actually connecting the arrowheads to the wood or bone is weaponsmithing, and making stone flare tips is, of course, stonecrafting.

Please give me your feedback on this, I worked quite a bit on this, and haven't been able to do much in the way of actual combat testing, If I could get one of those amazing charts like the one Pirate Bob made, that would be great so I could tweak them to perfection.

I should eventually be able to test this (remind me if it doesn't happen).  I'm kind of behind with my testing, as other stuff keeps distracting me.  If you want to do your own testing, I'd be happy to guide you through that as well. 

What crossbow parameters did you envision using with these?  Or do you want testing to figure out what would be good there?  If you use the standard DF Force=Velocity=1000, then a slightly differently shaped railgun pellet is still going to go right through a dwarf...

Has anyone remembered to test this stuff? ??? It looks like mastahcheese put a lot of work into these reactions, workshops, and ammo and it'd be a shame to see it forgotten. If they are reasonably balanced, I'd be tempted to use them...

Sorry, I forgot to do this.  It takes a long time to run the testing, and I won't be able to do it in the near future as I am too busy with work.  If someone else wants to run the tests, I would be happy to provide scripts and/or advice.

However, I can estimate what will happen using the formulas I derived from my testing (see the Material Science (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Material_science) page of the wiki).  I find that adamantine breastplates and helms (layer thickness=20) will block flared bolts quite well, steel plates/helms and other (thinner) addy armor might block some bolts a little (with the lighter bolts more likely to be blocked).  Bodkin bolts will not be blocked at all (except addy vs. addy, which happens in vanilla), and no armors lower than steel will provide any protection whatsoever.  This might not actually be too bad for dwarf mode, as I think it might allow some protection with steel armor, which you can get relatively easily.  I don't think this would make any significant difference for adventure mode unless you go to a retired fort to get armor.

I also created a mod of bolts (http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7202) which I tried to balance a based on my testing results.  I created custom materials for bolts which all have mass=600 (average for wood).  I then tweaked SHOOT_MAXVEL to get steel plate armor to block projectiles ~90% of the time and iron ~30% of the time.  I feel that this is very nice for adventure mode (and as a bonus makes bolts less crazily heavy).  It may make steel armor too good for dwarf mode, and if you think so you could dial up SHOOT_MAXVEL a bit to compensate (I think there are some instructions about how to do this included with the mod).  There is also the issue that the custom materials behave oddly in Dwarf mode.  I created reactions to use bars of normal metal and create bolts made of the corresponding light metal, but then when you melt these down you get the light metal.  It is also not possible to put custom reactions in the forge, so bolts have to be made elsewhere (I think I chose the smelter?), but reactions still show up as possible using the custom metals in the forge.  Anyway, if anyone wants to try it I'd be happy to help if you have questions/issues.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: random_odd_guy on June 07, 2013, 07:10:21 pm
THANK YOU! Dear Armok those crossbows were overpowered.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: pisskop on June 07, 2013, 07:52:38 pm
You bumped the thread.  I demand an update! Funny how the bolt v. armour thread also got a new post today too.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: mastahcheese on June 07, 2013, 11:03:10 pm
Quote from: random_odd_guy on June 07, 2013, 07:10:21 pm
THANK YOU! Dear Armok those crossbows were overpowered.
I know, right?
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Pirate Bob on June 08, 2013, 02:38:01 pm
Quote from: pisskop on June 07, 2013, 07:52:38 pm
You bumped the thread.  I demand an update! Funny how the bolt v. armour thread also got a new post today too.
I am going to try to work on testing how body part size figures into the bolt vs. armor calculations.  I am pretty sure that it matters, as helms of the same material and thickness are more effective than breastplates, but I don't quite know how it works.  I believe this is the last major piece to the puzzle, but figuring it out may be difficult.

On that note, I would like to try to create creatures that are, for example, just a dwarf's head.  Ideally, I'd like to have no facial features etc, just a plain sphere of flesh, but with skin, fat, muscle, and bone in the same sizes and proportions that a dwarf (or other humanoid) would have.  Then the idea would be to vary the size of this target to see how size changes the results.  I might also try another body part or two (like a torso and maybe a shin) to make sure that they all behave the same way when set to the same size.

Anyhow, I am pretty sure I can figure out how to make these things, but I have limited experience working with the creature templates (and they seem rather complicated), so if someone who knows what they're doing felt like giving me some pointers, it would be much appreciated.

Edit:  Here is my best attempt to make a blob of dwarf flesh.  I basically crossed a sponge with a dwarf.  I don't think I managed to give it any bones, but I'm not sure if that matters - it definitely can be cut and bruised, and I think that might be good enough.
Code: (Arena Blob) [Select]
[CREATURE:ARENA_BLOB]
[DESCRIPTION:A blob of flesh destined to die horribly.]
[NAME:arena blob:arena blobs:arena blobby]
[CASTE_NAME:arena blob:arena blob:arena blobby]
[CREATURE_TILE:1][COLOR:7:0:0]
[CREATURE_SOLDIER_TILE:2]

Many of the following tags are actually caste-level tags (in this case, male and female), but because there are no differences between the castes for these tags in a dwarf, you can add them earlier.  Any caste-level tag that occurs before castes are explicitly declared is saved up and placed on any caste that is declared later, unless the caste is explicitly derived from another caste.

[INTELLIGENT]
[TRANCES]
[BENIGN]
[NOPAIN]
[NOEXERT]
[CANOPENDOORS]
[PREFSTRING:squishiness]
[BODY:BASIC_1PARTBODY_THOUGHT]
Next we use body detail plans (which have their own raw file) to streamline the addition of some of the common materials, tissues and their relationships with each other.

[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_MATERIALS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_TISSUES]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:VERTEBRATE_TISSUE_LAYERS:SKIN:FAT:MUSCLE:BONE:CARTILAGE]

[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RELSIZES]


This controls the bleeding behavior.

[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:BLOOD:BLOOD_TEMPLATE]
[BLOOD:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:BLOOD:LIQUID]


****I don't think the rest of this matters, but I left it the same as regular dwarves***


These classes are used by syndromes (such as poison) as well as some restricted entity positions.  You can name them whatever you want.

[CREATURE_CLASS:GENERAL_POISON]

Some tags to control the overall infection behavior.

[GETS_WOUND_INFECTIONS]
[GETS_INFECTIONS_FROM_ROT]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:PUS:PUS_TEMPLATE]
[PUS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:PUS:LIQUID]

Attributes for dwarves are still described in terms of the median value below, but the actual game effects are altered according to the raw numbers.  The numbers are different percentile values.  1000 is the human median for all attributes, so dwarven strength, for instance, has a higher median of 1250, although they suffer from their smaller size.

[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:STRENGTH:450:950:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]              +
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:AGILITY:150:600:800:900:1000:1100:1500]                 -
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:TOUGHNESS:450:950:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]             +
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:ANALYTICAL_ABILITY:450:950:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]    +
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:FOCUS:700:1200:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]                ++
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:CREATIVITY:450:950:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]            +
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:PATIENCE:450:950:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]              +
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MEMORY:450:950:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]                +
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:SPATIAL_SENSE:700:1200:1400:1500:1600:1800:2500]        ++

These tags establish the growth phases of the creature's life.  The format is (BODY_SIZE|<year>|<day>|<average size>).

[BODY_SIZE:0:0:3000]
[BODY_SIZE:1:168:15000]
[BODY_SIZE:12:0:60000]

These body modifiers give individual dwarves different characteristics.  In the case of HEIGHT, BROADNESS and LENGTH, the modifier is also a percentage change to the BODY_SIZE of the individual creature.  The seven numbers afterward give a distribution of ranges.  Each interval has an equal chance of occurring.

[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:100:100:100:100:100:100:100]
[APP_MOD_IMPORTANCE:500]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:100:100:100:100:100:100:100]
[APP_MOD_IMPORTANCE:500]

In order to set properties for body parts, first you select them.  In this case, we select all body parts of category EYE, then we add a few modifiers to them.


These are as before.

[MAXAGE:150:170]

Attack definitions are formatted as follows:


Here, GENERAL_BABY_NAME is at the creature level, and BABYNAME is at the caste level.  These names could be gender-specific but aren't right now.

[BABY:1]
[GENERAL_BABY_NAME:dwarven baby:dwarven babies]
[BABYNAME:dwarven baby:dwarven babies]
[CHILD:12]
[GENERAL_CHILD_NAME:dwarven child:dwarven children]
[CHILDNAME:dwarven child:dwarven children]
[EQUIPS]
[CAVE_ADAPT]
[DIURNAL]

This is the new format for making specific unit names for a creature.  Any unit token can be used.  If you want to add a caste-specific profession name, use CASTE_PROFESSION_NAME instead, once the caste has been declared.

[PROFESSION_NAME:CRAFTSMAN:craftsdwarf:craftsdwarves]
[PROFESSION_NAME:FISHERMAN:fisherdwarf:fisherdwarves]
[PROFESSION_NAME:HAMMERMAN:hammerdwarf:hammerdwarves]
[PROFESSION_NAME:SPEARMAN:speardwarf:speardwarves]
[PROFESSION_NAME:CROSSBOWMAN:marksdwarf:marksdwarves]
[PROFESSION_NAME:AXEMAN:axedwarf:axedwarves]
[PROFESSION_NAME:SWORDSMAN:swordsdwarf:swordsdwarves]
[PROFESSION_NAME:MACEMAN:macedwarf:macedwarves]
[PROFESSION_NAME:PIKEMAN:pikedwarf:pikedwarves]
[PROFESSION_NAME:BOWMAN:bowdwarf:bowdwarves]
[PROFESSION_NAME:MASTER_CROSSBOWMAN:Elite Marksdwarf:Elite Marksdwarves]
[PROFESSION_NAME:MASTER_BOWMAN:Elite Bowdwarf:Elite Bowdwarves]
[SPEECH:dwarf.txt]
[HOMEOTHERM:10067]
[ALCOHOL_DEPENDENT]
[SWIMS_LEARNED][SWIM_SPEED:2500]
[PERSONALITY:IMMODERATION:0:55:100]
[PERSONALITY:VULNERABILITY:0:45:100]
[PERSONALITY:STRAIGHTFORWARDNESS:0:55:100]
[MANNERISM_FINGERS:finger:fingers]
[MANNERISM_NOSE:nose]
[MANNERISM_EAR:ear]
[MANNERISM_HEAD:head]
[MANNERISM_EYES:eyes]
[MANNERISM_MOUTH:mouth]
[MANNERISM_HAIR:hair]
[MANNERISM_KNUCKLES:knuckles]
[MANNERISM_LIPS:lips]
[MANNERISM_CHEEK:cheek]
[MANNERISM_NAILS:nails]
[MANNERISM_FEET:feet]
[MANNERISM_ARMS:arms]
[MANNERISM_HANDS:hands]
[MANNERISM_TONGUE:tongue]
[MANNERISM_LEG:leg]
[MANNERISM_LAUGH]
[MANNERISM_SMILE]
[MANNERISM_WALK]
[MANNERISM_SIT]
[MANNERISM_BREATH]
[MANNERISM_POSTURE]
[MANNERISM_STRETCH]
[MANNERISM_EYELIDS]
[SPOUSE_CONVERSION_TARGET]

Now we'll declare the specific castes.

[CASTE:FEMALE]
The gender tag lets it know how breeding works.
[FEMALE]
[MULTIPLE_LITTER_RARE]
To add beards, put square brackets around the following:
BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:FACIAL_HAIR_TISSUE_LAYERS
[CASTE:MALE]
[MALE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:FACIAL_HAIR_TISSUE_LAYERS]

This command lets you select all of the castes again.

[SELECT_CASTE:ALL]
[SKILL_RATES:1:8:8:16]
Now we'll select all of the hair tissue layers we can find so that we can add colorations to them.  Even if the castes have different tissue layers, it'll find the layers and establish modifiers for each of the castes properly.

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:HAIR]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:CHEEK_WHISKERS]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:CHIN_WHISKERS]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:MOUSTACHE]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:SIDEBURNS]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:EYEBROW]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:EYELASH]

A color modifier takes a list of color patterns (every color is associated to a monotone color pattern of its color, so you can also use color tokens) and frequencies.

[TL_COLOR_MODIFIER:AMBER:1:AUBURN:1:BLACK:1:BROWN:1:BUFF:1:BURNT_SIENNA:1:BURNT_UMBER:1:CHARCOAL:1:CHESTNUT:1:CHOCOLATE:1:CINNAMON:1:COPPER:1:DARK_BROWN:1:DARK_CHESTNUT:1:DARK_TAN:1:ECRU:1:FLAX:1:GOLD:1:GOLDEN_YELLOW:1:GOLDENROD:1:LIGHT_BROWN:1:MAHOGANY:1:OCHRE:1:PALE_BROWN:1:PALE_CHESTNUT:1:PUMPKIN:1:RAW_UMBER:1:RUSSET:1:SAFFRON:1:SEPIA:1:TAN:1:TAUPE_DARK:1:TAUPE_GRAY:1:TAUPE_MEDIUM:1:TAUPE_PALE:1:TAUPE_SANDY:1]
[TLCM_NOUN:hair:SINGULAR]
[TL_COLOR_MODIFIER:GRAY:1]

This gives the start and finish time in <year>|<days> for the color change to occur

[TLCM_NOUN:hair:SINGULAR]
[TLCM_TIMING:ROOT:80:0:130:0]
[TL_COLOR_MODIFIER:WHITE:1]
[TLCM_NOUN:hair:SINGULAR]
[TLCM_TIMING:ROOT:130:0:150:0]

Now we'll select the eyebrows and eyelashes and give them variable lengths.

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:EYEBROW]
[TISSUE_LAYER_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:LENGTH:50:80:90:100:110:120:150]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:eyebrows:PLURAL]
[APP_MOD_DESC_RANGE:55:70:90:110:130:145]
[TISSUE_LAYER_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:DENSE:50:80:90:100:110:120:150]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:eyebrows:PLURAL]
[APP_MOD_DESC_RANGE:55:70:90:110:130:145]
[TISSUE_LAYER_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HIGH_POSITION:0:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:eyebrows:PLURAL]

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:EYELASH]
[TISSUE_LAYER_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:LENGTH:50:80:90:100:110:120:150]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:eyelashes:PLURAL]
[APP_MOD_DESC_RANGE:55:70:90:110:130:145]

All of the other hair is selected and started at length zero.  It's fine to group them all together like this -- the creature can still accomodate different lengths once hair cutting/styling goes in.  I used one modifier here because the growth rates and starting length are all the same.

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:HAIR]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:CHEEK_WHISKERS]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:CHIN_WHISKERS]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:MOUSTACHE]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:SIDEBURNS]
[TISSUE_LAYER_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:LENGTH:0:0:0:0:0:0:0]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:hair:SINGULAR]

Here we set the growth rate.  This will change the modifier (LENGTH) by 1 each day up to a maximum of 1000 from the start of the dwarf's life (early beards!) for as long as the dwarf is alive.  The format is (APP_MOD_RATE|<rate>|<scale>|<min>|<max>|<start year>|<start day>|<end year>|<end day>) where the final two tokens can be replaced by NO_END if the growth is to continue indefinitely.

[APP_MOD_RATE:1:DAILY:0:1000:0:0:NO_END]
[APP_MOD_DESC_RANGE:10:25:75:125:200:300]

[TISSUE_LAYER_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:CURLY:0:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:hair:SINGULAR]
[TISSUE_LAYER_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:GREASY:0:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:hair:SINGULAR]
[TISSUE_LAYER_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:DENSE:50:80:90:100:110:120:150]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:hair:SINGULAR]
[APP_MOD_DESC_RANGE:55:70:90:110:130:145]

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:HAIR]
[TISSUE_STYLE_UNIT:HAIR:STANDARD_HAIR_SHAPINGS]
[TSU_NOUN:hair:SINGULAR]

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:CHEEK_WHISKERS]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:CHIN_WHISKERS]
[TISSUE_STYLE_UNIT:BEARD:STANDARD_BEARD_SHAPINGS]
[TSU_NOUN:beard:SINGULAR]

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:MOUSTACHE]
[TISSUE_STYLE_UNIT:MOUSTACHE:STANDARD_MOUSTACHE_SHAPINGS]
[TSU_NOUN:moustache:SINGULAR]

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:SIDEBURNS]
[TISSUE_STYLE_UNIT:SIDEBURNS:STANDARD_SIDEBURNS_SHAPINGS]
[TSU_NOUN:sideburns:PLURAL]

Here we handle nail length.

*** need a new style to keep these short and need to make the entity def say to keep them short
SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:FINGER:NAIL]
PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:TOE:NAIL]
TISSUE_LAYER_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:LENGTH:100:100:100:100:100:100:100]
APP_MOD_RATE:1:DAILY:0:1000:0:0:NO_END]
APP_MOD_NOUN:nails:PLURAL]

Here all of the skin is selected and various colors are listed.

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:SKIN]
[TL_COLOR_MODIFIER:BROWN:1:BURNT_UMBER:1:CINNAMON:1:COPPER:1:DARK_BROWN:1:DARK_PEACH:1:DARK_TAN:1:ECRU:1:PALE_BROWN:1:PALE_CHESTNUT:1:PALE_PINK:1:PEACH:1:PINK:1:RAW_UMBER:1:SEPIA:1:TAN:1:TAUPE_PALE:1:TAUPE_SANDY:1]
[TLCM_NOUN:skin:SINGULAR]

[TISSUE_LAYER_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:WRINKLY:0:0:0:0:0:0:0]
[APP_MOD_RATE:1:YEARLY:0:100:60:0:NO_END]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:skin:SINGULAR]
[APP_MOD_DESC_RANGE:0:0:0:1:25:50]

Now we do the eyes, using the somewhat clunky eye color patterns.

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:EYE:EYE]
[TL_COLOR_MODIFIER:IRIS_EYE_AMETHYST:1:IRIS_EYE_AQUAMARINE:1:IRIS_EYE_BRASS:1:IRIS_EYE_BRONZE:1:IRIS_EYE_COBALT:1:IRIS_EYE_COPPER:1:IRIS_EYE_EMERALD:1:IRIS_EYE_GOLD:1:IRIS_EYE_HELIOTROPE:1:IRIS_EYE_JADE:1:IRIS_EYE_OCHRE:1:IRIS_EYE_RAW_UMBER:1:IRIS_EYE_RUST:1:IRIS_EYE_SILVER:1:IRIS_EYE_SLATE_GRAY:1:IRIS_EYE_TURQUOISE:1]
[TLCM_NOUN:eyes:PLURAL]
So, that leaves me with two questions for you talented modders out there:
1) Am I doing something stupid here?  I want something that does a pretty good job of getting wounded at about the same frequency a dwarf would.  My hope is that putting dwarf tissues on a sponge body should be OK, but maybe it's not?  All I will be looking for is the frequency of minor bruises (to skin/fat) vs serious injuries (cuts, possibly bruised muscle, broken bones if I could add those).  Do I need to have bones for it to work right?  Are there any other things I might be doing that are a big problem? 

2) What will be the size of this creature relative to a dwarf's head and/or torso?  This I can always find out later, but it would be nice to know.  If I am reading the raws correctly, I used [BODY:BASIC_1PARTBODY_THOUGHT], which gives a "body" with [DEFAULT_RELSIZE:2000], while dwarven heads have [DEFAULT_RELSIZE:300] and upper bodies have [DEFAULT_RELSIZE:1000], so this creature would be twice the size of a dwarven upper body (or the same size as the upper+lower body) and 6.7 times the size of a dwarven head?

Thanks in advance for any help!
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: random_odd_guy on June 08, 2013, 05:29:55 pm
I think there's a floating head creature in the game. It might be more effective to take THAT, and just replace the tissue layers with that of a dwarf, as well as altering the size to fit that of the head part of a dwarf. (it already being head shaped would likely make it a better candidate) and if you added CAN_EQUIP or whatever that tag was to it, you could have it wear a helm.



Now, if someone could figure out what's going on with the whips, we could finally have realistic combat physics (seeing as the main game already fixed the "hammer-dwarves launching foes into space" thing)
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: scamtank on June 08, 2013, 05:53:46 pm
Quote from: random_odd_guy on June 08, 2013, 05:29:55 pm
Now, if someone could figure out what's going on with the whips, we could finally have realistic combat physics (seeing as the main game already fixed the "hammer-dwarves launching foes into space" thing)

Mace-like weapon volume, pinpoint contact area and massive velocity multiplier. It behaves more like a hyper-powerful pick than a whip of any sort.

What I did was turn it into a cutting implement, increase the contact area to sword slash levels, drop the penetration depth to a minimal 2-3 units, drop the velocity to 1.0x and dial down the weapon size until it doesn't reach the bone anymore with average goblins. It hurts, it bleeds, it's a terror weapon that can't really cope with armor.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: random_odd_guy on June 08, 2013, 06:12:06 pm
Raw for edited version please?
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: pisskop on June 08, 2013, 06:48:22 pm
Pirate Bob - Well you could literally make a dwarf head  all it is is a head with humanoidparts, tissues, materials.  A onepart body should react the same as a head on a body . . . as far as size dwarves use humanoid sizes, which are probably those found on the humanoids body parts in body_default.  I want to say 30.  This taken in conjunction witg the rest of the body parts gives you tge size when it divides into 60k, te dwarves size.  Im away from a computer but by comparing the

dwarf size / rel head size of a dwarf

you can creat a creature tthe size of a dwarf stealing literally everything else but its body shape from the dwarf creature.


Edit:  yall seem to have this.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Agent_Irons on July 21, 2014, 02:20:25 pm
It seems like this would be compatible with .40.xx, but I don't think I know enough to check.

Any updates on bolt physics in DF2014?
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: mastahcheese on July 21, 2014, 02:24:17 pm
That's some serious necro there, but for once, it's a relevent necro.

I don't think that ranged attacks work differently as far as the physics go, so yeah, as long as they're checked to make sure the other bits are compatable, then it should work.
I'll check myself when I can get on the computer and see the files.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Agent_Irons on July 21, 2014, 03:18:31 pm
Quote from: mastahcheese on July 21, 2014, 02:24:17 pm
That's some serious necro there, but for once, it's a relevent necro.

I don't think that ranged attacks work differently as far as the physics go, so yeah, as long as they're checked to make sure the other bits are compatable, then it should work.
I'll check myself when I can get on the computer and see the files.
I have read the slabs and learned the secrets of life and death, but I only use them for good, I promise.

I had a peek and it looks like as long as you respect the ATTACK PREPARE AND RECOVER tags on the end of the relevant definitions, everything should work okay. I noted arrows and bolts are still SIZE:150 which seems awfully beefy. Then again, I've only dug through about half the bolt science threads(there are a few, and they're very dense indeed), so perhaps nerfing bolt size didn't work very well?

I will test this evening and report back.
 Put in the things! Seems to work okay. Wild animals are trickier to kill than they were before, but wood bolts still cut up some giraffes and smash cavy skulls, so everything seems to work.

Relevant raws
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I made crossbows a little better than bows. I should feel shame.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Pirate Bob on July 22, 2014, 01:44:27 pm
Quote from: Agent_Irons on July 21, 2014, 02:20:25 pm
It seems like this would be compatible with .40.xx, but I don't think I know enough to check.

Any updates on bolt physics in DF2014?
I created a thread (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=140971.0) about this.  The short answer is no, there do not appear to be any significant changes. 

Sorry for no updates in a long time.  I got busy with other things (like having a baby...), and also had interpreted that dev logs as meaning there *would* be significant changes in the new version, which made me less excited about reverse engineering the old version.

I believe Agent_Irons posted raws should result in 100% deflection of bolts/arrows by armor (provided the armor material is equal to or better than the bolt material, with adamantine>divine metal>steel>iron=bronze>copper>silver).  At least, if I am reading my own plots (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=116151.msg3842409#msg3842409) correctly.  Unmodified bolts/arrows have masses of about 1, so the momentum of the projectile will be about 25-30.  The contact area being 5 instead of 10 doesn't matter much, as (contact_area*layer_thickness) gets rounded to the nearest 100, and layer thickness is 15 or 20.  I prefer contact area 10 so that thick armor (helms, breastplate) gets rounded to 200, and gives better protection than the rest of the armor, which rounds down to 100.
Quote from: Agent_Irons on July 21, 2014, 03:18:31 pm
Wild animals are trickier to kill than they were before, but wood bolts still cut up some giraffes and smash cavy skulls, so everything seems to work.

Relevant raws
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I made crossbows a little better than bows. I should feel shame.
I'm not sure what you mean that animals are harder to kill.  Do you mean just with wood bolts?  I did controlled testing and found no significant difference in deadliness of bolts with momentum ~75 against unarmored targets, so I would think 25-30 would still be effective, but maybe not.

Anyhow, if you want there to be some chance of projectiles penetrating the lower armors (copper, bronzer) you can increase SHOOT_FORCE to 40 or 50.  I like setting it closer to 70-75 to make lower armors mostly ineffective, iron about 50% effective and steel/addy almost 100% effective.  If you are happy with armor always deflecting projectiles provided the armor material is equal or better than the projectile, then your raws are fine.

Also, if what I am saying seems to be way off, please say so and I will check things more carefully when I have more time/sleep.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: mastahcheese on July 22, 2014, 01:47:55 pm
No, I think you've got it spot on, it seems to work great.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Agent_Irons on July 22, 2014, 01:54:14 pm
I pulled them right off the first page of this thread, but I still don't really know what I'm doing.

I mean wild animals are marginally harder to kill with .40 broken arrow wooden bolts than .40 vanilla wooden bolts, probably due to the lack of bone-shattering. Which is to be expected and good.

Raws for copy-pasta purposes
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Based on the advice of Pirate Bob, bumping contact_area to 10 for helmet/breastplate increased protection and upping the shoot_force for crossbows and bows (but crossbows more than bows, because natch). I'll test these a little more this afternoon and evening and report back, because partial armor penetration would be nice, especially when I put in FDII enemies a little later.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Pirate Bob on July 22, 2014, 02:01:59 pm
Quote from: Agent_Irons on July 22, 2014, 01:54:14 pm
I mean wild animals are marginally harder to kill with .40 broken arrow wooden bolts than .40 vanilla wooden bolts, probably due to the lack of bone-shattering. Which is to be expected and good.
Ah, yes, wood bolts working poorly with these numbers makes perfect sense.  If you want them to work better, you can increase SHOOT_MAXVEL (back up to even 1000).  Wood is very light (and due to rounding errors gets mass zero in these calculations) and will get velocity equal to SHOOT_MAXVEL, which is the maximum allowed velocity.  All metal bolts have mass of approximately 1, and will get velocity equal to SHOOT_FORCE.  In other words, with your current raws SHOOT_MAXVEL controls the power of wood bolts and SHOOT_FORCE the power of metal bolts.  I think bone is also light enough to get SHOOT_MAXVEL, but I'd have to check to be sure.

I think your current raws look quite reasonable, and should produce a nice variation in bolt/arrow effectiveness against armor (at least for metal bolts - wood bolts will always be deflected, but that makes sense).
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Agent_Irons on July 22, 2014, 03:54:56 pm
With shoot_force at about 70,maxvel 200 copper bolts pretty regularly defeat steel armor. The armor 'catches' them but they have too much momentum, which can shatter bones through the rigid armor. All bolts(even silver) are deflected 100% by rigid adamantine, though. Flexible adamantine (chain) transmits the force, which can kill you.

Wooden bolts can still cut flesh, but not steel armor. So that's okay. I think I'm going to bump crossbows down to about 50, and bows a little less (30?). I'll play around with that for a while before posting raws.(not that anyone needs them...) I'd like to have a chance to penetrate the nicer armors, but currently steel is useless against copper bolts, which is a little high.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Agent_Irons on July 22, 2014, 07:44:36 pm
At Shoot_force 50 Steel turns aside copper nearly every time(some bruising, which can eventually(theoretically) lead to pulping), and silver slips through the thinner parts (greaves) and can fracture(1/10 or so? rarely). Bronze does not turn aside copper. Copper turns aside wood(and probably bone) bolts, but of course they can always get you in the throat.

Hmm. I think that's about where I want it, actually. Copper bolts are (relatively) expensive, but armor-piercing. Steel-clad enemies need specialized munitions or simply millions of (copper) bolts to handle, which seems about right.

So that's the shoot_force pretty much where I want it. I think the MAX_VEL is alright?
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Pirate Bob on July 23, 2014, 10:46:30 am
Yeah, actually you're right.  I think copper bolts have a mass closer to 1.5 than 1, so you would need to reduce SHOOT_FORCE to around 50 if you want steel armor to stop them.  Iron/steel bolts have a mass closer to 1, and will be stopped more readily by steel armor.  To get around this weirdness of bolts having wildly different (not to mention very large) masses, I made a little mod where bolts/arrows are made from materials with density of wood but all other material properties of metal, to approximate bolts/arrows being made out of wood and tipped with the appropriate metal.  It is linked in my sig, assuming DFFD is working today (which does not seem to be the case).

Sorry I forgot that copper (and of course silver) are actually significantly more dense than other metals.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Agent_Irons on July 23, 2014, 11:08:51 am
Oh man I had no idea copper would be strictly better than iron under certain circumstances, although obv if they are denser they are more likely to be able to beat the IMPACT_FRACTURE of metals.

With about 50 copper can beat bronze and not quite steel, and I infer steel/iron will be able to punch right through copper armor, so that all seems about right. Taking down rhinos and giant anteaters with wooden bolts requires a great deal of them in the arena, but they suffocate or bleed out, so I'm probably overdoing it. Not to mention the total lack of quality modifiers. I'm playing a fort with the tweaked raws right now and I have yet to actually really engage anything significant (my hunters are terrified of the giant storks native to the area.  ::) ) They'll get over it eventually.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: pisskop on July 23, 2014, 11:11:46 am
Quote from: mastahcheese on July 22, 2014, 01:47:55 pm
No, I think you've got it spot on, it seems to work great.
(I hate wooden bolts now, it really makes me shoot straight for metal and use less crossbowmen)
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Agent_Irons on July 23, 2014, 11:28:15 am
Quote from: pisskop on July 23, 2014, 11:11:46 am
Quote from: mastahcheese on July 22, 2014, 01:47:55 pm
No, I think you've got it spot on, it seems to work great.
(I hate wooden bolts now, it really makes me shoot straight for metal and use less crossbowmen)
They're -extremely- cheap now that wood is plentiful. So, they're good for shooting people in the throat and things, and hunting soft targets. And of course practice. Turn out two dozen crossbows and get your fishery workers to carry crossbows and quivers of wooden bolts around all the time, and block out the sun so your militia may fight in the shade.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: mastahcheese on July 23, 2014, 12:28:50 pm
Well, I mean you're shooting them with wood.
I think it should suck a bit, although look on the bright side.

Dem elves use wood arrows.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Agent_Irons on July 23, 2014, 02:43:20 pm
Oh man you guys (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=6364) we're getting better physics in 40.05! I'm so excited! Adamantine bolts will fire at absurd speeds, giving them the armor-penetrating flesh-rending power they always deserved. You'll be able to bump up SHOOT_MAXVEL if you like.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: ToadChild on July 24, 2014, 07:00:29 pm
Quote from: Agent_Irons on July 23, 2014, 02:43:20 pm
Oh man you guys (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=6364) we're getting better physics in 40.05! I'm so excited! Adamantine bolts will fire at absurd speeds, giving them the armor-penetrating flesh-rending power they always deserved. You'll be able to bump up SHOOT_MAXVEL if you like.

Indeed, it looks like he fixed the rounding errors and is also changing some of their properties in the raws.

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=6262
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=5516
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=6870

I'm excited to play with combat in .40.05.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Art on July 26, 2014, 03:41:10 pm
Pirate Bob does your mod make armor reduce some of the damage when penetrated, to simulate absorbing a portion of the impact, as well? Or does it only affect deflection rates?

I just took a silver arrow to the back of the head in unmodded .34. Shattering the skull through the leather hood. I was wearing a bronze helm but I don't know if it had any effect, the battle log didn't mention it.

I was pretty bummed.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: scamtank on July 26, 2014, 03:48:04 pm
If there's a magic bullet (ha) to get that impact absorption effect going, it's screwing with the metals' MAX_EDGE numbers. If I remember Urist's science right, they determine only how much energy the swing/shot loses from punching through a layer of material.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Art on July 26, 2014, 04:13:04 pm
So would Agent Iron's mod be better for what I am looking for?

I am ok with with plate armor being penetrated, I just think it makes sense that some of the damage be reduced when that happens.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: random_odd_guy on July 27, 2014, 12:16:29 am
Now if only there was something similar to nerf bogeyman horns...
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Agent_Irons on July 27, 2014, 01:19:14 am
Quote from: Art on July 26, 2014, 04:13:04 pm
So would Agent Iron's mod be better for what I am looking for?

I am ok with with plate armor being penetrated, I just think it makes sense that some of the damage be reduced when that happens.
I haven't tweaked MAX_EDGE or indeed anything other than SHOOT_FORCE and SHOOT_MAXVEL for bows and crossbows.

However, with 50/200, steel armor 'catches' bolts and makes them bruise instead of cutting, so that does give some of the behavior you want I think.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Melting Sky on July 27, 2014, 06:23:12 pm
It looks like Toady has gotten around to fixing projectiles in vanilla. In the patch notes he cited the work of some of the good folks in this thread so I just wanted to say thanks for that.   :)
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Agent_Irons on July 27, 2014, 07:03:36 pm
For reference, SHOOT_MAXVEL is approximately 200 and SHOOT_FORCE is 1000, but there was at least one velocity rounding bug affecting their performance. Anyone had a look at the new projectile performance?
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: mastahcheese on July 28, 2014, 01:35:41 pm
Quote from: Melting Sky on July 27, 2014, 06:23:12 pm
It looks like Toady has gotten around to fixing projectiles in vanilla. In the patch notes he cited the work of some of the good folks in this thread so I just wanted to say thanks for that.   :)
Yeah, I remeber Joben telling me (possibly in a PM, it was a long time ago) that he was hoping this work would eventually find its way into Toady's hands.
Since I haven't seen him in a while, I just wanted to mention that for him.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Pirate Bob on July 28, 2014, 01:50:56 pm
Quote from: Agent_Irons on July 27, 2014, 07:03:36 pm
For reference, SHOOT_MAXVEL is approximately 200 and SHOOT_FORCE is 1000, but there was at least one velocity rounding bug affecting their performance. Anyone had a look at the new projectile performance?
I've been working on that here (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=141364.0).  The very short story is now adamantine and steel plate stop projectiles.  The rounding bugs that Toady fixed have significantly changed the way projectile physics works, so that predictions based on 34.11 testing are not valid any more (or even close).
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Art on July 31, 2014, 04:17:32 pm
Pirate Bob, is  the 'light bolts' mod supposed to lessen arrow weight in previously generated worlds in adventurer mode? I applied it to my world and arrows still seem quite heavy.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Pirate Bob on August 01, 2014, 06:36:05 am
Quote from: Art on July 31, 2014, 04:17:32 pm
Pirate Bob, is  the 'light bolts' mod supposed to lessen arrow weight in previously generated worlds in adventurer mode? I applied it to my world and arrows still seem quite heavy.
My initial guess would be no, although I am not a modding expert.  The light bolts mod will create various "metal tipped" materials (i.e. "copper tipped", "iron tipped" etc) which all have the density of wood and the other material properties of the associated metal, to simulate a wooden arrow tipped with metal.  I believe for these materials to be used in adventure mode they need to be present at worldgen.  I have verified that they are used in adventure mode (for all bolts and arrows, and nothing else) if you generate a new world using the mod.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Art on August 01, 2014, 12:01:29 pm
I generated a new world and they showed up. So your explanation seems correct.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Art on August 13, 2014, 12:22:42 am
If I used both Pirate Bob's lighter arrows and Joben's broken arrow, would that lead to over nerfed arrows? I am wondering if someone who gets the physics could give some insight.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Pirate Bob on August 13, 2014, 09:11:17 am
Quote from: Art on August 13, 2014, 12:22:42 am
If I used both Pirate Bob's lighter arrows and Joben's broken arrow, would that lead to over nerfed arrows? I am wondering if someone who gets the physics could give some insight.
Yes, this will make arrows almost useless.  If you use the lighter arrows, you want to set SHOOT_MAXVEL to about 833 (or something like that).  There should be a spreadsheet included in the zip file which shows data for different choices of SHOOT_MAXVEL.  833 will make steel nearly impenetrable, iron somewhat effective, and all lower armors only effective as helms.  You can tune it up or down from there to get what you want.

The velocity you want is the same for 34.11 or 40.05, as the changes were to a rounding error (which is irrelevant with the light arrows) and making [SHOOT_FORCE] give 20 times less momentum than in 34.11.

If you are playing 40.05, due to the bug fixes it is MUCH easier to get reasonable arrow behavior.  The vanilla behavior is that steel is nearly impenetrable and lower armors are useless, which is not bad.  If you want more randomness, you can set bolt contact area to 10, and [SHOOT_FORCE] to around 1500, which should give the same deflection results as applying my "light bolts".  Then, if you want all bolts to be lighter, you can decrease the size of bolts from 150 to say 50 or 30, and increase [SHOOT_MAXVEL] to around 500 (so that it doesn't cut off the speed of lighter bolts).  If you like the idea of having bolts made out of wood with metal tips, then my light bolts mod should work as-is in 40.05, although I haven't actually tried this.  I know that the bolt physics changes still give the same result, but I don't know if the changes to workshops etc to make the bolts appear still work.

Contact area and size can be found in
Spoiler: \raw\item_ammo.txt (click to show/hide)

while SHOOT_FORCE and SHOOT_MAXVEL are in
Spoiler: /raw/item_weapon.txt (click to show/hide)

I am just writing most of this from memory, so the numbers could be off.  If you would like, I can check the numbers more carefully in the evening.  Also, if you tell me specifically how you want bolts to behave, I can try to show you how to do that.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Art on August 13, 2014, 01:42:08 pm
Thank you for that.

I want results similar to the videos posted at the start of the thread, but with the lighter arrows. Vanilla arrows are ridiculously heavy.

Arrows of the same material should sometimes pierce armor, not always, as in the video. And when they do penetrate, I think it should not be full damage but reduced, again, like in the videos. Not consistently bone shattering and organ exploding. More like fat and muscle tearing, and perhaps occasionally worse.

I realize v.4 has better physics but it will still be buggy in other areas for a long time. I imagine a lot of people still play v.34


Edit- I guess I don't need the arrows to simulate being made out of wood and metal. I just want them to be a reasonable weight if that can be done by modifying their size.

Double Edit- I see there is a big difference between candy/steel and the other armors and that can make fine tuning difficult. What stats would I need for iron/bronze armor to be mostly effective against iron/bronze/copper/silver bolts? I would like there to be occasional penetrations <20% but with reduced damage, as described above.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Pirate Bob on August 13, 2014, 02:12:15 pm
In 34.11, if you want to avoid heavier bolts penetrating armor more efficiently than lighter ones, then you need to make all bolts have the same density.  This, combined with the fact that bolts are ridiculously heavy prompted me to make them all have the density of wood.

If you download the mod in my sig and use it as is this will result in moderate (I think about 30%) protection from iron armor, and poor protection (as in only from helms) for lower armor.

If you want all plate armor to deflect bolts all the time, you can set SHOOT_MAXVEL to 222 (equivalent to Joben's SHOOT_FORCE=20) or 288 (equivalent to Joben's SHOOT_FORCE=26).  I don't think it should make much difference, as arrows will deflect off all plate armor all the time with these numbers.  Maybe bronze (which is actually worse than copper) will be penetrated sometimes.  Also, all armor is useless against all edged attacks (including arrows/bolts) if the material is inferior to the weapon, with addy>steel>iron=bronze>copper>silver, so even when I say it gives "100% deflections" this is only if the bolt isn't made of a superior material.  But if you use Joben's settings an adventurer in full iron plate won't have to worry about arrows at all, except for the areas not covered by plate (neck, upper arms, face).

Unfortunately, due to the funky rounding error in 34.11, if you reduce bolt size, then the mass is less then 1, and gets rounded to zero, meaning that bolts are fired at SHOOT_MAXVEL, so you can't just use Joben's numbers and reduce the size.  You need to calculate what value of SHOOT_MAXVEL will give you an equivalent bolt momentum (which in 34.11 is approximately equal to SHOOT_FORCE because bolt masses are about 1).  For example, if you want bolts to be 10 times less massive, then you would need to set SHOOT_MAXVEL to 200 to get the equivalent if SHOOT_FORCE=20.  Wood bolts are 11 times less massive, hence SHOOT_MAXVEL =222.

Again, let me know if you want me to be more specific.  I can also run a quick set of tests to experimentally measure how effective armor will be if you settle on numbers you think you'd like to use.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Art on August 13, 2014, 02:18:59 pm
How about the stats I outlined in my second edit?
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Pirate Bob on August 14, 2014, 11:10:16 am
Sorry I forgot to check this last night.  Too busy feeding the baby...

Have a look at this post (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=116151.msg3842409#msg3842409), which shows plots of %nonserious wounds vs. bolt momentum for standard armor (there is also a link to a spreadsheet with the raw numbers on DFFD, if you can get that to work). 

You didn't give specifics of what size you want to use for bolts, so I'll assume you will start with my "light bolts" mod and adjust the [SHOOT_MAXVEL].  If you want to do something different, let me know and I can recalculate.

To get 80% deflections off iron armor, you want to set bolt momentum to about 40.  This means setting [SHOOT_MAXVEL= 444] for my mass 0.09 wood bolts.  This will result in only about 5% "serious" wounds (tears, chips, fractures, jams).  At this level, projectiles should pose little threat to a fully armored adventurer.  Keep in mind that you will block/dodge a decent fraction, so it will probably take a hundred or more attempts for archers to actually hit you.

If you find this to be overkill, and want more like %60 deflection and 20% serious wounds, try setting momentum to around 60 [SHOOT_MAXVEL= 666].

Again, if this is not exactly what you are looking for or how you want to do it, let me know and I will try to modify the numbers.  I may not get to it tonight, as we have company coming, but definitely by this weekend.

Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Insanegame27 on August 15, 2014, 06:54:21 am
Quote from: Joben on August 26, 2012, 09:29:23 pm
Here is a typical example of what happens when arrows meet a breastplate of the same material; they either dent but deflect, or they may penetrate a little. But imedietely life threatening wounds would be rare. Ignoring the fact that IRL there would be other protective garments under a breastplate, I haven't seen an arrow or bolt of any description make it more than 2 inches past an iron or steel breastplate. That will only kill a human quickly with a lucky shot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCE40J93m5c&feature=related

sorry to quote off the 1st reply but...
in the video, note the thickness of the armour.
knights in medieval times actually admitted that they were afraid of crossbows. One knight was wearing 4cm thick steel plate armour. He was shot and killed by a single crossbow bolt.
he was my great great great great blah blah blah granddad
2 more words
Agincourt
Crecy
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Pirate Bob on August 15, 2014, 11:41:34 am
Quote from: Insanegame27 on August 15, 2014, 06:54:21 am
Quote from: Joben on August 26, 2012, 09:29:23 pm
Here is a typical example of what happens when arrows meet a breastplate of the same material; they either dent but deflect, or they may penetrate a little. But imedietely life threatening wounds would be rare. Ignoring the fact that IRL there would be other protective garments under a breastplate, I haven't seen an arrow or bolt of any description make it more than 2 inches past an iron or steel breastplate. That will only kill a human quickly with a lucky shot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCE40J93m5c&feature=related

sorry to quote off the 1st reply but...
in the video, note the thickness of the armour.
knights in medieval times actually admitted that they were afraid of crossbows. One knight was wearing 4cm thick steel plate armour. He was shot and killed by a single crossbow bolt.
he was my great great great great blah blah blah granddad
2 more words
Agincourt
Crecy
I assume this is supposed to be a joke?  Or maybe it is a typo and you mean 4 mm.

1) There is no way anyone could wear 4 cm thick steel.  It would be too heavy.  Steel has a density of about 8 g/cm^3.  Assuming the breastplate only covered the front of the chest, and was 30 cm wide by 50 cm high, it would have a volume of 6000 cm^3 and a mass of 48 kg.  I guess a very strong person might be able to stand with this, but it would be extremely difficult to move.

2) No arrow, from any bow modern or otherwise, is going to penetrate 4 cm of steel.  For example, 0.5 cm is apparently enough to stop gunfire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ned_Kelly#Armour).  I'm pretty sure even a modern large-bore rifle with an armor-piercing round would not penetrate 4 cm steel, but I can't find a reference for this.

Anyhow, either you are joking or you mean 4 mm. 

Since you bring up Agincourt, a quote from its wikipedia page:
Quote
Modern historians are somewhat divided on how effective the longbow fire would have been against plate armour of the time, with some modern texts suggesting that arrows could not penetrate, especially the better quality steel armour, but others suggesting arrows could penetrate, especially the poorer quality wrought iron armour. Rogers suggests that the longbow could penetrate a wrought iron breastplate at short range and penetrate the thinner armour on the limbs even at 220 yards (200 m). He considers a knight in the best quality steel armour would have been more or less invulnerable to an arrow on the breastplate or top of the helmet, but would still have been vulnerable to shots hitting the limbs, particularly at close range. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt)

I am somewhat skeptical that any bow could penetrate even 4 mm of steel plate, although I suppose it might be possible if the steel was of poor quality and the bow was extremely powerful with a bodkin tip.  I think its more likely that a man wearing steel plate that at some places was a thick as 4 mm was killed by an arrow which hit him in a much weaker place.

I totally, 100%, unequivocally agree that armor should not provide complete protection from arrows, or anything else.  For melee attacks, DF does a decent job of reproducing this, as there is a large spread in protection (I believe due to different hits being "direct", "just able to graze", etc).  However, the protection offered by plate armor against projectiles is pretty much all-or-nothing right now.  You can somewhat get around this by making plates of different thickness protect differently (by setting contact area for bolts to be 10 or more to get around the rounding DF does), but its still not great (see the link in my previous post).  I felt the best solution available was to set bolt momentum to about 75, which gives 20% penetration of steel armor and 80% penetration of iron armor, so this is what I chose for my "light bolts" mod, but if others would like to make iron armor more effective by lowering bolt momentum, then what's wrong with that?  If you are happy with all arrows penetrating all armor all the time, then do nothing.  If you want only steel to be effective, then use 40.05, or mod 34.11 using a higher bolt momentum (say 100).

I would absolutely love to see Toady do something to make projectile deflection off armor more realistic.  In 40.05, he did at least reduce bolt momentum to a reasonable level (50), but since he left contact area at 5 this means that steel provides great protection, and everything lower is useless.  This is much better than before, but still somewhat incomplete.  I hope that in the future he does something like consider bolts hitting armor at an angle, which would be quite trivial if he just models armor components as spheres (I figured out how to do this before, but can't find it right now.  If you're interested I can work it out again, but it ends up being a simple function of just one random number).  This would result in even low level armors like copper having a (very small) chance to deflect projectiles if they hit at a glancing angle, while still allowing direct hits to penetrate steel (if you want that).
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Insanegame27 on August 16, 2014, 08:53:47 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

upon revising, my great great blah blah was killed from from short range while wearing 1cm thick armour plus chain-mail. the shield was a 3cm thick kiteshield with a steel frame but solid hardwood inside the frame. the crossbow bolt went through the shield, into the plate, through the chainmail, and buried into the lung.

my mistake. the bolt went through 3cm thick hardwood, 1cm thick plate, not sure how thick the chain was, and into his lung. i assumed from memory 4cm of material, so i assumed it was 4cm thick steel.

another distant relative of mine is Richard 1. you know what happened there, although i admit he wasn't wearing armour.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: scamtank on August 16, 2014, 10:43:05 am
I don't have any middle-age relatives, but I still feel like you're throwing up way big numbers. 4cm of wood? That's about twice as thick as my desk.

And a whole centimeter of plate? Listen, do you understand what else had a solid 1cm of steel plate? A lot of the tanks designed in the 1930s.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Agent_Irons on August 17, 2014, 12:47:01 am
Huh, I did some research before opening my mouth, and it turns out up is down. Plate armor maxed out at maybe 25kg, with 15kg much more common. Medieval plate was shot at by hand cannons and the dent circled with decoration as 'proof', and good plate was rarely penetrated by crossbow bolts or gunpowder weapons. At range, that is. At close range all bets are off, natch. All about muzzle velocity and drag with ranged weapons.

And one centimeter of plate would only weigh about 12kg, cribbing densities/sizes from a couple posts up. Certainly quite heavy, but not ridiculously so.

A whole centimeter of plate isn't that crazy for a person. The Renault FT, the most popular tank in the interwar period, had between 8 mm and 22 mm of steel plating all over it. Invented in 1917, it was in use right through the beginning of WWII. Generally speaking it wasn't as successful during the war as the Vickers 6-ton(invented '28), which had 2.5 cm of steel on the front and 2 cm on the rest of it. So it would be a stretch to declare 10 mm of steel plate as strictly for tanks and not for people.

Note to self, scamtank has a very thin desk. 3cm of wood is just over an inch thick, which honestly seems a little light for a shield I'm putting between me and an axe.


Anyway. I don't worry too much about DF vanilla ranged weapons since 40.05, although I would like that black powder mod by DC to be updated to reflect the new momenta values.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Art on August 24, 2014, 08:33:46 pm
Thanks a bunch Pirate Bob, I have been playing with your suggestions for a while.

Now that 4.10 is out and it seems much of the major behavioral bugs have been fixed, I am probably going to start an adventure in 4.10

What do you recommend as far as 4.10 arrow modding? Should I just leave everything vanilla?
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Pirate Bob on August 25, 2014, 05:09:47 pm
Quote from: Art on August 24, 2014, 08:33:46 pm
Thanks a bunch Pirate Bob, I have been playing with your suggestions for a while.

Now that 4.10 is out and it seems much of the major behavioral bugs have been fixed, I am probably going to start an adventure in 4.10

What do you recommend as far as 4.10 arrow modding? Should I just leave everything vanilla?
I have done some detailed testing, and maybe you still do want to do some modding.  See this thread (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=141364.msg5604641#msg5604641) for details.  Anyhow, you can either accept that iron plate armor is useless against projectiles and instead wear chain mail (100% effective against projectiles) or you can increase the contact area of bolts to 10 and the SHOOT_FORCE to about 1400.  This will make iron armor about 50% effective, iron and copper helms 100% effective, and chain mail only 35-40% effective.  You can of course tune SHOOT_FORCE up or down to change armor penetration - I give some more cases in the other thread.  Let me know if you have any questions.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Jake on September 04, 2014, 11:06:11 am
Quote from: Agent_Irons on August 17, 2014, 12:47:01 am
Anyway. I don't worry too much about DF vanilla ranged weapons since 40.05, although I would like that black powder mod by DC to be updated to reflect the new momenta values.
You're not thinking of mine, are you? Because I've just about got it fine-tuned to the point of being ready to release... ish. Armour still has an annoying habit of deflecting lead bullets without the wearer suffering so much as a bruise, so I'm going to take onboard some of the excellent advice in this thread and see if upping the mass of the individual projectile helps at all.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Pirate Bob on September 04, 2014, 01:38:34 pm
Quote from: Jake on September 04, 2014, 11:06:11 am
Quote from: Agent_Irons on August 17, 2014, 12:47:01 am
Anyway. I don't worry too much about DF vanilla ranged weapons since 40.05, although I would like that black powder mod by DC to be updated to reflect the new momenta values.
You're not thinking of mine, are you? Because I've just about got it fine-tuned to the point of being ready to release... ish. Armour still has an annoying habit of deflecting lead bullets without the wearer suffering so much as a bruise, so I'm going to take onboard some of the excellent advice in this thread and see if upping the mass of the individual projectile helps at all.
You may not need to increase the mass of the projectiles.  There are two reasons why deflection can occur:
1) The momentum of the bullet is too low to penetrate the armor.  Increase [SHOOT_MAXVEL] and/or [SHOOT_FORCE] to make sure the bullet momentum is high enough.  For testing, just make them super huge (say 100,000) to make sure you don't see any deflections.
2) The bullet itself cannot withstand the momentum of impact.  See the heading "The Projectile Absorbs the Force of the Collision" on the Material Science (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Material_science) page of the wiki.  I believe this mechanism is unchanged in the new version, although I have not tested it carefully.  If this is the problem, you have a few options:
a) decrease the projectile contact area (gets multiplied times armor thickness (15-30) and rounded to the nearest 100, so only helps if it is not already less than 10).
b) increase the projectile size (and hence mass)
c) increase the IMPACT_YIELD for lead.

The IMPACT_YIELD for lead is pretty low (only 35,000, compared to 10,000 for wood, which is known to have this problem and 245000 for copper, the softest weapons grade metal).  I bet you already made your guns pretty powerful by increasing force and max velocity, so I am guessing your problem is #2.   I am also guessing that your contact area for bullets is no more than 10, so decreasing that won't help either due to rounding.  So you can either increase your bullet size (and mass), or, if your bullets are already as heavy as you want, just increase the IMPACT_YIELD of lead. 

I believe this mechanism is supposed to represent bolts being destroyed when they hit armor.  This works well for things like wood or bone, which will shatter, but lead bullets are expected to melt on contact.  The momentum of the somewhat melted lead is so high that it still will penetrate (thin) armor.  I would just increase the impact yield of lead by a factor or 10 or so to make this issue go away, as a lead bullet is not ever going to shatter.  Also, I doubt lead is used in any other weapons or armor besides bullets, so increasing its impact yield won't affect anything else. 

If you don't like doing this, you could also just make your bullets out of copper or silver.  You could even make this a "feature" - by setting the SHOOT_FORCE of your guns very high but the SHOOT_MAXVEL to something moderate such that all bullets are fired with the same velocity, you could make copper/silver bullets armor piercing and lead deflected by armor but more damaging to unarmored targets due to its larger mass.

If you have questions about exactly what numbers you will need for your IMPACT_YIELD, SHOOT_FORCE, SHOOT_MAXVEL, etc, I should be able to estimate these fairly accurately if you post the raws for your bullets (specifically size and contact area), and any modded armors that you want to protect from and/or be penetrated by bullets.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Jake on September 04, 2014, 02:23:34 pm
Aha! I actually increased the projectile contact area when SHOOT_MAXVEL and SHOOT_FORCE buffs didn't help, that might be part of it. Increasing bullet mass is worth looking into as well.

And I already have reactions for making bullets out of copper; in fact, I have reactions set up for making them out of any metal. I'm doing most of my calibration tests with lead because it's the material most often used in real life, and therefore makes a reasonable baseline.
Title: Re: Broken Arrow - Fixed Archery Balance
Post by: Agent_Irons on September 05, 2014, 02:28:40 pm
Quote from: Jake on September 04, 2014, 11:06:11 am
Quote from: Agent_Irons on August 17, 2014, 12:47:01 am
Anyway. I don't worry too much about DF vanilla ranged weapons since 40.05, although I would like that black powder mod by DC to be updated to reflect the new momenta values.
You're not thinking of mine, are you? Because I've just about got it fine-tuned to the point of being ready to release... ish. Armour still has an annoying habit of deflecting lead bullets without the wearer suffering so much as a bruise, so I'm going to take onboard some of the excellent advice in this thread and see if upping the mass of the individual projectile helps at all.

I am, but I am really bad at attribution/remembering what the hell I'm talking about. Sorry Jake.

Yours is the only black powder mod for me! Finally a use for sterling silver, and galena, and all that pewter I make accidentally. I always use spring-guns because I can never source enough brimstone. :(