Bay 12 Games Forum

Actually, I'll attempt to break goblin G's arm in case that doesn't work. I'm sure Akroma will be fine, anyway.

Yes, pretty much all commonwealth countries, and some others, have remembrance day.

For the uninformed:

During World War I, most of the trench warfare of that massively bloody conflict took place on the border between France and Germany, with the Commonwealth on the French side. Many, many, many war dead were buried at a place that at the time was known as "Flander's Fields". The sheer number of casualties was so staggering that they had to be buried near the front line they were fighting on in life. Very few soldiers had their bodies shipped home.

Flander's fields are grasslands in which the red poppy grows, much like dandelions elsewhere. Carpets of them. They grew between the crosses. Around the crosses. On the graves themselves. They became symbolic of the war-dead. Lt.-Col. John McCrae, a soldier who at the time of writing the following poem had recently lost one of his closest friends in the conflict, was inspired to write "Flander's fields", as seen below.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
— Lt.-Col. John McCrae


Much like the poppy, the poem itself is very symbolic of remembrance day. The native larks would often sing over the sounds of gunfire and artillery, as mentioned in the poem. All in all, it was a very surreal location.

The graves are still there to this day.

After a casual glance at the surroundings (Not much surprises me after the whole jungle in a tower and stone elephant thing) I head over to the head monk, apologize that I wasn't much help in the elephant battle, and ask if he can teach me anything about combat. (Those actions are related, right?)

Dividing them into short and long arms solves that problem. An SMG is a long arm. A tec-9 is a short arm. Long arms and short arms are totally independent of automatic/semiautomatic capability - how fast they fire is irrelevant. Firing three shots with an M16 takes as much skill as firing one shot - all it does is lower accuracy.

If you don't like that, here's an idea:

Weapon Familiarity.

We'd have a general skill for firearms. Then we'd have a percentage value for how familiar someone is with how to shoot a shotgun, SMG, short automatic, rifle, or pistol.

The percentage value starts at 0% and goes up in an (in terms of difficulty to increase) increasing "curve". As in, it's really easy to get that percentage up to 10%, and almost impossible to get it up to 100%.

Using a pistol increases all your "pistol familiarities", but at a slower rate than the pistol you're actively using.

For example, I shoot a .44 magnum and get my weapon familiarity up to 30% with said .44 magnum. If I suddenly start using a 9mm autoloader, instead, my weapon familiarity is 20%. If I switch back to the .44, weapon familiarity goes back up to 30%. Familiarity values are stored independently, but go up whenever you shoot a gun that's in the same type. So firing a pistol should raise all pistol familiarity SOMEWHAT, and raise it regularily for the pistol type you're actually firing.

The same thing goes for rifles and the like. If I've been shooting a .44 pistol all this time, and switch over to an M16, well, obviously I'm not going to be used to firing an M16. However, somewhat below half of my pistol familiarity goes into my rifle familiarity. I have an idea how to use iron sights, how to balance myself and control breathing, I'm just not used to firing a rifle instead of a pistol.

All gun skills go up when you fire a gun - they just go up more slowly than if you were actually using said gun.

I realize that's not very clear, so let's put it this way: Firing a .44 gives you an idea how to fire an M16 and vice versa, meaning that firing a .44 raises M16 skill. However, it raises .44 skill MUCH more than M16 skill. It also somewhat raises .22, 9mm, .45 and other pistol familiarity, but again, not as much as the .44.

This would mean that characters are realistically flexible in their skill with using firearms in general as well as specific firearms. They'll just be really good with the weapon they've always used, somewhat good with weapons of the same type that they've always used, medicore in weapon types they haven't used.

One more example.

I'm going to categorize guns into "types". We'll have (just for clarity's sake) SMGs, rifles, and pistols.
SMGs: MP5
Rifles: M16, M4, AK47, shotgun
Pistols: .44, .45, 9mm, .22

Firing an M16 raises M16 familiarity at 100% of the normal rate.
At the same time, firing an M16 raises Rifle familiarity (for the M4, shotgun and AK47) at 75% or so of the normal rate.
Again at the same time, firing an M16 raises Pistol (.44, .45, 9mm, .22) and SMG (MP5) familiarity at 50% of the normal rate.

In summary:
Firing a gun raises that gun's INDIVIDUAL familiarity at 100%.
Firing a gun raises that gun's TYPE familiarity at 75%.
Firing a gun raises OUTSIDE OF THAT GUN'S TYPE familiarity at 50%.

Thoughts?

I like the idea, but I think it would be more feasible to produce an entirely new product after DF reaches 1.0 based off the DF engine. You'd have to start from scratch in order to implement MP. Single dwarves sounds like a neat idea.

Dwarven Special Forces has entered a martial trance!
You hear the computerized words "MAXIMUM STRENGTH"
You begin to glow red!
You punch Urist McAnnoyingnoble in the head!
Urist McAnnoyingnoble's lower jaw has been shattered!
Urist McAnnoyingnoble's upper jaw has been shattered!
Urist McAnnoyingnoble's nose has been broken!
32 of Urist McAnnoyingnoble's teeth have been knocked out!
Urist McAnnoyingnoble's brain has been broken!
Urist McAnnoyingnoble is propelled away by the force of the blow!
Urist McAnnoyingnoble has collided with an obstacle.
6 of Urist McAnnoyingnoble's ribs have been broken!
Urist McAnnoyingnoble's left leg has been mangled!
Urist McAnnoyingnoble has bled to death.

If only.


Seriously, I want to get that sequel to Crysis, I enjoyed the original game muchly.

Awww man, the author of Jurrasic Park?

You shall be missed, Micheal.

Apparently the guy who made that sting pain index was a sythesesiac - as in, he experiences stimulation of another sensory pathway at the same time as something else. Basically, synthesesia means seeing sound, tasting pain, etc.