Now I have often heard on the boards that bolts made of heavier materials are better. Being a modder I was a bit skeptical, bolts use the EDGE tag, thus weight does not effect them, or effects them very little at all. Note that I said weight, not size, increasing the size is not a good enough example as it provides a bonus to the basic attack of the weapon. You need to create a new metal which has a higher density in order to have an accurate comparison.
After some
initial results I continued testing, expecting the same results as the Adamantine, about 50/50, give or take a few.
However this time I tested it with Iron and Heavy Iron with 10x the density (and thus weight) of regular iron. All dwarves were set up in the following format. For convenience, the Heavy Iron dwarves look like the soldier tile, while the Light Dwarves look like the normal peasant tile.
:::TEST ONE:::Each dwarf was competent in the marksman, and archery skill. Without a place to dodge or run to, the test has zero chance of having the bolt suddenly change course. Each is armed with a crossbow and 100 bolts of their material.
The battle commenced, the constant flutter of bolts and red liquid filled the screen. In a few moments it ended.
The results were terrifying, Normal Iron had 58 kills, compared to Heavy Iron’s 38 kills (with 4 ties)
If anything the heavy bolts had an adverse effect on the firing dwarves. Additionally the attacks by the Heavy Iron dwarves were no better then the attacks by the normal iron. A bolt would hit the dwarf in the chest, and break an organ. Regardless of weight.
RESULTS
Normal Iron : 58 kills
Heavy Iron : 38 kills
Ties : 4
:::TEST TWO:::Personally I was flabbergasted, I predicted a pretty close 50/50 match, after all. I predicted weight had very little effect on the dwarves. So I ran the test a second time, using the same set up.
So here we go again…
Again, an overwhelming victory from the Normal Iron bolts
RESULTS
Normal Iron : 64
Heavy : 35
Tie : 1
Heavy Iron suffered even more losses, and Normal Iron made even more gains. Furthermore, Heavy Iron yielded no extra damage over normal iron. Again, whatever the bolt could do as Iron, it did as Heavy Iron. In fact, the weight appears to be the sole reason why Heavy Iron lost so badly. They were slower then the quicker normal Iron.
::: TEST THREE :::I pitted two dwarves against two Bronze Colossus (Collusi?) Again, one was given normal iron bolts, the other was given heavy iron bolts. There was no noticeable increase of damage between the two. Furthermore, the normal iron bolts were way faster then their slower counterpart.
:::TEST FOUR:::I also tested whether the reload rate of the H iron bolts was significant enough to give them a serious disadvantage. I discovered something interesting, it didn't effect it at all, and in fact many times the Heavy Iron fired first. Skill is the only thing that effects reloading speed it seems.
::: CONCLUSION :::Weight does not effect the combat of bolts. I digress that the weight slowed down the Heavy Iron dwarves, however 10x larger would mean 10x more powerful, and no noticeable differences in the wounds between the dwarves and the bronze colossus further supports my claim. In fact,
I hypothesis that the added weight slowed the speed of the heavy iron shot, not just the reloading speed. Making it even less deadly then it's regular iron counterparts.(see test four)
[EDIT]My TEST FOUR data proves my previous hypothesis was wrong. The weight of the object
did not effect firing rate or reload time. In dwarf mode at least, both dwarves shot their first shot at the same time and would follow up with another shortly after their first shot landed.
ADDITIONAL DATA
[ITEM_WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_CROSSBOW]
[NAME:crossbow:crossbows]
[SIZE:400]
[SKILL:HAMMER]
[RANGED:CROSSBOW:BOLT]
[SHOOT_FORCE:1000]
[SHOOT_MAXVEL:1000] This is just to make sure a near-weightless object doesn't go faster than the string could possibly go.
[TWO_HANDED:0]
[MINIMUM_SIZE:15000]
[MATERIAL_SIZE:3]
[ATTACK:BLUNT:10000:4000:bash:bashes:NO_SUB:1250]
The comment text in the raw file for crossbows suggests that the SHOOT_FORCE provides some "velocity" number to the combat calculations, based on the weight of the bolt, but no higher than SHOOT_MAXVEL. We don't know if the code actually works like that. I do know that if you increase both of those variables to large numbers, you can get knockback/send flying critters that get hit by a bolt. Perhaps the SHOOT_MAXVEL prevents adamantine bolts from demonstrating ludicrious results.
tl;dr
Adamantine Bolts > Silver Bolts even with penetrating armor. Weight does not effect bolt damage.
Author
Topic: Test on Bolts and Weight (Read 11629 times)