| Team A Weapon: Cedar crossbows Ammo: 100 iron bolts Armor: None Skills: Proficient Archer Proficient Marksdwarf | | Team B | Weapon: Cedar crossbows | Ammo: 100 light iron bolts | Armor: None | Skills: Proficient Archer | Proficient Marksdwarf | | Team V | Weapon: None | Ammo: None | Armor: Varies | Skills: None | |
| Test 1 Team V unarmored | | Test 2 | Team V equipped with shields | iron shield | | | | | | | | Test 3 | Team V equipped with armor | iron breastplate | iron chain mail | iron greaves | iron helm | 2x iron gauntlet | 2x iron high boot | | | Test 4 | Team V equipped with armor and shields | iron breastplate | iron chain mail | iron greaves | iron helm | 2x iron gauntlet | 2x iron high boot | iron shield |
| Test No. | | Test 1 | | Test 2 | | Test 3 | | Test 4 |
| Team A avg. no. of bolts | | 12.14 | | 14.07 | | 18.79 | | 17.71 |
| Team B avg. no. of bolts | | 14.09 | | 14.37 | | 35.29 | | 43.10 |
Thank you, thank you, I am very gratified by your warm reception of this research paper. :)
However, I must caution against drawing conclusions which reach beyond the scope of this study. The sole conclusion which can be safely made is that ammo weight IS a factor in crossbow performance, and that heavier ammo is better than lighter ammo, all other things being equal. As AutomataKittay has observed, weight is hardly the only performance parameter. There seemed to be a bit of confusion as to whether the weight of a bolt contributed in any way to a ranged attacks destructive power, so I set out to confirm this hypothesis, and (hopefully) did. However, the test was made between two types of bolts which differed only in weight/density. I can make no assumptions on the superiority of one default metal over another, since they differ in more ways than weight/density.
I found it interesting that all wood types do not have their three shear parameters (yield, fracture and impact) specifically defined, only their density. I assume this means they all have the default values given in the material_template_default.txt file under [WOOD]? I know only the bare basics of modding, so I would appreciate if someone with more knowledge confirmed. If so, the damage potential of wooden bolts is defined solely by the density of the particular tree type, unless there are other factors than weight and the three shear parameters (and quality of craftdwarfship of the bolts, of course)?
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Material_definition_token I think this cover what you're missing, I see a lot of notes about default parameter if not set
My first thought was to ask about MAX_EDGE, but I suspect other factors affect it more than the edge from what I'm aware of with bluemetal vs steel weapon researches
However, I must caution against drawing conclusions which reach beyond the scope of this study. The sole conclusion which can be safely made is that ammo weight IS a factor in crossbow performance, and that heavier ammo is better than lighter ammo, all other things being equal. As AutomataKittay has observed, weight is hardly the only performance parameter. There seemed to be a bit of confusion as to whether the weight of a bolt contributed in any way to a ranged attacks destructive power, so I set out to confirm this hypothesis, and (hopefully) did. However, the test was made between two types of bolts which differed only in weight/density. I can make no assumptions on the superiority of one default metal over another, since they differ in more ways than weight/density.
I'd love to use this setup to find out whether the silver bolts that I favor are any good. And how bad is wood vs bone vs copper against a typical goblin ambush?
So to conclude, from now on we know it's alright to arm our hunters with bone/wood/whatever bolts but it's very important that our military gets the fancy copper/silver/bronze ones. Very good work, you have furthered the cause of dwarfdom!
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Material_definition_token I think this cover what you're missing, I see a lot of notes about default parameter if not set
My first thought was to ask about MAX_EDGE, but I suspect other factors affect it more than the edge from what I'm aware of with bluemetal vs steel weapon researches
Thanks, this will definitely help.
In the unforseen future I'll try to single out some probable factors and see if they have a significant effect on crossbow performance like weight had.
You could also pick a wood that uses the defaults, and modify its density as done with iron. Make varieties from 250 to 7750, or higher, in 250 unit (or 500 unit if you don't have time/patience for all those tests ;) ) increments to test with. For the lower density tests you may want to equip the firing dwarves with 150 bolts to ensure definitive results.
Also, running each test more than once, I'd say two or three times each would probably be enough considering its already 100 samples per test, should give a more statistically accurate view of what happens.
By Armok, I wish I had the time to do this testing myself ...
Now I'm no dwarven physicist, but I can see ways to get a rough guesstimate on the importance of weight. You could take normal-weight iron and see how much you have to nerf its properties before it performs as poorly as light iron. Or you could take a material with crappier properties (like copper or silver) and see how dense you have to make it to get similar results to normal iron.
Another thing maybe worth investigating is how important bolt density is against creatures of different sizes and skintypes.
I would enjoy seeing a report of experimenting with wooden bolts' density since featherwood trees are lighter than even bluemetal by half, and they're relatively poor in performance.
You could also pick a wood that uses the defaults, and modify its density as done with iron. Make varieties from 250 to 7750, or higher, in 250 unit (or 500 unit if you don't have time/patience for all those tests ;) ) increments to test with. For the lower density tests you may want to equip the firing dwarfs with 150 bolts to ensure definitive results.
Also, running each test more than once, I'd say two or three times each would probably be enough considering its already 100 samples per test, should give a more statistically accurate view of what happens.
QuoteI would enjoy seeing a report of experimenting with wooden bolts' density since featherwood trees are lighter than even bluemetal by half, and they're relatively poor in performance.
Since the study concluded that lighter ammunition is, in general terms, worse than heavy ammunition, I'd say featherwood bolts performing very poorly is exactly what should be expected.
Wooden bolts of different densities have actually already been initially tested in Crossbow Ammunition Testing (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=114106.0) (albeit, admittedly, by way of a non-rigorous testing scheme). The Wooden bolts used by Wrex were, quite by design I am certain, from opposite ends of the wood density spectrum - featherwood with a density of 100 and bloodthorn with a density of 1250. Unsurprisingly (in light of this study) bloodthorn won out. I suspect that the only parameter differentiating wood types is their density, so with woods almost for certain heavier is always better. This would make bloodthorn (1250), glumprong (1200), mangrove (830) and oak (700) the best wood types for wooden ammunition. Most wood types seem to have a density of around 500, the same as bone, interestingly. This would mean that bone ammunition is roughly as good as normal wooden ammo, given their equal MAX_EDGE (Unless you're surrounded by bloodthorn) (Or featherwood) (And unless other parameters which I am unaware of apply).
*sigh* I can't get people interested in science today because off all the work and math. Then you add Dwarf Fortress and people are willing to write perfectly formatted lab reports.
Now, how can I add DF to real world chemistry?
There are definitely some interesting ideas to check out in the field of dwarven ballistics. I would assume that larger creatures would take longer/larger amounts of ammunition to kill... but I'm not exactly sure how the damage dealing mechanism works, so I wouldn't know for sure. It's not like larger creatures have more hitpoints, exactly ;] More durable body parts, perhaps? And what are skintypes, exactly?
Does this mean that silver and copper bolts are better than iron bolts, since they are heavier?
...In any case, first I'd like to identify all parameters which influence ranged damage. I suppose the next one is MAX_EDGE of the ammo used. Does anyone know of any other parameters likely to be used in damage calculations for ranged weapons? Apart from quality, which I believe cannot be changed in the object testing arena (Can it?).
I assume something other than MAX_EDGE is used, because all metals apart from adamantine (100000) have the same value for MAX_EDGE, 10000. (Wood and Bone have 1000). If MAX_EDGE and SOLID_DENSITY are the only two parameters affecting ranged damage, then Heavier is always better as far as metals goes (again, except for adamantine)....
Currently shear yield/fracture is used to determine edge effectiveness and the effectiveness of a material against a cut. Impact yield/fracture is used to determine resistance against impacts. Solid density will increase weight and therefore the impact of attacks.
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:75:95:98:100:102:105:125]
[APP_MOD_IMPORTANCE:500]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:75:95:98:100:102:105:125]
[APP_MOD_IMPORTANCE:500]It appears that all arena creatures are created with average ability scores, but the height is still chosen from the random set. This was first noticed while sciencing butchering results....Thus it can be concluded that ammo weight is indeed used in some manner in ranged crossbow attacks, adding to armor penetration. This effect is practically unnoticeable on unarmored opponents, possibly due to the powerful parameters of the vanilla crossbow. If these parameters were weakened more data could be gathered. Other future works include testing the effects of sharpness, both sharpness and weight, testing default materials (instead of modified as opposed to modified ones), testing the effect of Marksdwarf, Archer, Shield skills, etc. etc.
On the other hand, if your launching battle-axes, why shouldn't they cut limbs?...Thus it can be concluded that ammo weight is indeed used in some manner in ranged crossbow attacks, adding to armor penetration. This effect is practically unnoticeable on unarmored opponents, possibly due to the powerful parameters of the vanilla crossbow. If these parameters were weakened more data could be gathered. Other future works include testing the effects of sharpness, both sharpness and weight, testing default materials (instead of modified as opposed to modified ones), testing the effect of Marksdwarf, Archer, Shield skills, etc. etc.
For reference, the vanilla crossbow is so powerful, if you increase the contact area of the bolts from 2 to 40000 (battleaxe-sized), the bolts will chop off limbs and even decapitate/bisect creatures.
...Thus it can be concluded that ammo weight is indeed used in some manner in ranged crossbow attacks, adding to armor penetration. This effect is practically unnoticeable on unarmored opponents, possibly due to the powerful parameters of the vanilla crossbow. If these parameters were weakened more data could be gathered. Other future works include testing the effects of sharpness, both sharpness and weight, testing default materials (instead of modified as opposed to modified ones), testing the effect of Marksdwarf, Archer, Shield skills, etc. etc.
For reference, the vanilla crossbow is so powerful, if you increase the contact area of the bolts from 2 to 40000 (battleaxe-sized), the bolts will chop off limbs and even decapitate/bisect creatures.
Refering to the way they often pucnh through armor. I apreciate it in general, but in adventure mode its a down-right killer....Thus it can be concluded that ammo weight is indeed used in some manner in ranged crossbow attacks, adding to armor penetration. This effect is practically unnoticeable on unarmored opponents, possibly due to the powerful parameters of the vanilla crossbow. If these parameters were weakened more data could be gathered. Other future works include testing the effects of sharpness, both sharpness and weight, testing default materials (instead of modified as opposed to modified ones), testing the effect of Marksdwarf, Archer, Shield skills, etc. etc.
For reference, the vanilla crossbow is so powerful, if you increase the contact area of the bolts from 2 to 40000 (battleaxe-sized), the bolts will chop off limbs and even decapitate/bisect creatures.
This seems to be the common sense, and at the expense of sounding stupid, I dont think 20 iron bolts to kill someone who is 3 meters away so much overpowered...
Edit: forgot to congratulate OP. Looking forward for more papers like this.
Refering to the way they often pucnh through armor. I apreciate it in general, but in adventure mode its a down-right killer.Meh. The bolts aren't what kill you, they just horribly incapacitate you. If you've got super dwarven willpower/endurance you can make it out there with a bolt sticking through your leg or something, otherwise you're going to die to a spearbold.
Hey Zivilin,
someone on reddit, latexified your post - your research in shiny research doc format. :D - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2891221/DF%20study.pdf
Bones are very noticibly better than wood when it comes to bolt, I checked the raw and a lot of it's stats are much better than default, when it comes to everything other than mass ( I think MAX_EDGE is at default, so that too). My dwarves that uses bone for hunting takes down animals with fewer bolts and with far more peneration and tearing in combat log than with wooden bolts.
Would love to see some iron vs. silver vs. copper numbers.
...In any case, first I'd like to identify all parameters which influence ranged damage. I suppose the next one is MAX_EDGE of the ammo used. Does anyone know of any other parameters likely to be used in damage calculations for ranged weapons? Apart from quality, which I believe cannot be changed in the object testing arena (Can it?).
I assume something other than MAX_EDGE is used, because all metals apart from adamantine (100000) have the same value for MAX_EDGE, 10000. (Wood and Bone have 1000). If MAX_EDGE and SOLID_DENSITY are the only two parameters affecting ranged damage, then Heavier is always better as far as metals goes (again, except for adamantine)....
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=30026.msg1007133#msg1007133Quote from: Toady OneCurrently shear yield/fracture is used to determine edge effectiveness and the effectiveness of a material against a cut. Impact yield/fracture is used to determine resistance against impacts. Solid density will increase weight and therefore the impact of attacks.
Testing indicates SHEAR_YIELD acts like the Mohs scale of mineral hardness and determines what can cut what. I created a silver colossus and a copper colossus in the arena, and then tried having a dwarf grand master attack them repeatedly with copper and silver swords. The silver sword can dent the copper colossus, but the copper sword is deflected off the silver colossus. See also this bug report for a fix to obsidian swords, which can't cut as good as wood swords: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=5346
I'd also suggest modding the test subjects to remove random body size variations:Code: [Select][BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:75:95:98:100:102:105:125]It appears that all arena creatures are created with average ability scores, but the height is still chosen from the random set. This was first noticed while sciencing butchering results.
[APP_MOD_IMPORTANCE:500]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:75:95:98:100:102:105:125]
[APP_MOD_IMPORTANCE:500]
...Thus it can be concluded that ammo weight is indeed used in some manner in ranged crossbow attacks, adding to armor penetration. This effect is practically unnoticeable on unarmored opponents, possibly due to the powerful parameters of the vanilla crossbow. If these parameters were weakened more data could be gathered. Other future works include testing the effects of sharpness, both sharpness and weight, testing default materials (instead of modified as opposed to modified ones), testing the effect of Marksdwarf, Archer, Shield skills, etc. etc.
For reference, the vanilla crossbow is so powerful, if you increase the contact area of the bolts from 2 to 40000 (battleaxe-sized), the bolts will chop off limbs and even decapitate/bisect creatures.
This seems to be the common sense, and at the expense of sounding stupid, I dont think 20 iron bolts to kill someone who is 3 meters away so much overpowered...
Also, the criterion I chose (average number of bolts used to kill) may not be the best for judging weapon power. In fact, the parameter I wanted to use in the first place was something based on wound types. I still think this will be better for most comparative studies, especially with ammo vs armors scenarios: How many type A bolts pierced through type A armor? How many were deflected? How many type B bolts pierced through type A armor? How many were deflected? How many type C... etc etc. I suspect there is very little point to unarmored tests, because dwarf skin/muscle is not very good at stopping piercing attacks on its own (predictable, really). The number of bolts to kill is a criterion perhaps better suited to testing the Marksdwarf skill?You could use unarmored (and unclothed) dwarves as the ultimate control group for your bolt type versus armor type testing. This could also give a bit more info on bolt type verses flesh and blood as well, which might be worth it for its own sake.
While typing this I thought of a more complex testing method that might provide in some better, or at least more interesting, results. Take your current setup, but have the target be webbed in place so he can't move. I know for melee testing this would ensure headshots (and the need for helms on the target to test armor) but I'm not sure if that is the case for ranged attacks against the webbed target.
This is based on reports of (sometimes otherwise unarmoured) dwarves with helms being perpetually attacked by giant cave spiders while webbed because the spider cannot pierce the helm, but always attacks the head because the victim is incapacitated by the webbing.
Secondly, if one wants to have more accurate criterion for bolt effectiveness, I could suggest analyzing gamelog.txt. Of course doing that by self would be tedious, but it'd the most accurate data if someone wrote a program that'd check on how many times key phrases (like bruising/tearing skin/fat/muscle, bruising/chipping/shattering/jamming bone/skull) are encountered by which bolt material they're preceded and by which armor they're followed. Unfortunately, I myself can't do it at the current moment.
You pick up the feather wood bolt with your right hand.
The flying feather wood bolt strikes Dwarf 2 in the head, but the attack is deflected by Dwarf 2's iron helm!
You pick up the AP feather wood bolt with your right hand.
The flying AP feather wood bolt strikes Dwarf 2 in the upper body, tearing the muscle and tearing the liver through the iron breastplate!
The AP feather wood bolt has lodged firmly in the wound!
The Dwarf 2 pulls out and drops the AP feather wood bolt.
You pick up the feather wood bolt with your right hand.
The flying feather wood bolt strikes Dwarf 2 in the right hand, but the attack is deflected by Dwarf 2's iron right gauntlet!
You pick up the AP feather wood bolt with your right hand.
The flying AP feather wood bolt strikes Dwarf 2 in the upper body, tearing the muscle and tearing the right lung through the iron breastplate!
Dwarf 2 is having trouble breathing!
The AP feather wood bolt has lodged firmly in the wound!
The Dwarf 2 pulls out and drops the AP feather wood bolt.
You pick up the feather wood bolt with your right hand.
The flying feather wood bolt strikes Dwarf 2 in the left lower leg, but the attack is deflected by Dwarf 2's iron greaves!
You pick up the AP feather wood bolt with your right hand.
The flying AP feather wood bolt strikes Dwarf 2 in the right upper leg, chipping the bone through the iron greaves!
A tendon has been torn!
The Dwarf 2 falls over.
The Dwarf 2 gives in to pain.
[PLANT:FEATHER_AP]
[NAME:feather tree][NAME_PLURAL:feather trees][ADJ:feather tree]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:STRUCTURAL:STRUCTURAL_PLANT_TEMPLATE]
[BASIC_MAT:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:STRUCTURAL]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:WOOD:WOOD_TEMPLATE]
[STATE_NAME:ALL_SOLID:AP feather wood]
[STATE_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:AP feather wood]
[STATE_COLOR:ALL_SOLID:CREAM]
[SHEAR_YIELD:5000000]wood default 40000
[SHEAR_FRACTURE:5000000]wood default 40000
[SHEAR_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:0]wood default 1000
[PREFIX:NONE]
[DISPLAY_COLOR:7:0:1]
[TREE:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:WOOD][TREE_TILE:5]
[TREE_COLOR:7:0:1]
[DEAD_TREE_COLOR:7:0:0]
[PREFSTRING:feathery leaves]
[DRY][GOOD]
[BIOME:NOT_FREEZING]
[SAPLING]
[SOLID_DENSITY:100]
...
So yeh, dwarves do indeed seem to be firing 2.2 pound spears at what appear to be supersonic speeds.
So yeh, dwarves do indeed seem to be firing 2.2 pound spears at what appear to be supersonic speeds.The Dwarves were being a bit modest when they called it a crossbow...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear-thrower Maybe they figured out how to mechanize this? I do notes a mention of 93 MPH spears...So yeh, dwarves do indeed seem to be firing 2.2 pound spears at what appear to be supersonic speeds.The Dwarves were being a bit modest when they called it a crossbow...
Perhaps iron already has a high enough max edge that raising it doesn't help. Have you tried lowering it significantly?
Or start with wood. As you said, crossbows are powerful enough that there's a lot less room for variables to outweigh statistical error.
So...High shear yield and density makes good bolts?
K, I'm getting 1.18 kg per arrow too.
So removed the referenes to dividing by 10 and put in references to the sizes listed in the raws for weapons and ammo.
Weight (in Γ) = Density * Volume / 100,000
Weight (in Γ) = Density * Volume / 100,000