Bay 12 Games Forum

Hi! I just wanted to make it clear that this mod still works with the current version of Dwarf Fortress (also updated the post tag!) and will continue to do so until Toady changes the way the game reads weapon/armor entries (at which point I will work to update this to work with them).

Quote from: Lucelle on August 03, 2016, 03:29:10 pm

Quote from: jecowa on August 03, 2016, 12:17:52 pm

Am I understanding correctly that I need to copy all the tags in "Item Tags.txt" and paste them into the 5 major races in "raw/objects/entity_default.txt"?

If I remember correctly (I haven't had time to really play in-depth in years), that is right. You can mix and match all you want, as well.

I'm confused, do I need to stick them into section and make sure they're all lined up like the unmodded raws are? ore will they work just being copy-pasted?

Edit: Figured it out on my own. and in the interests of general improvement of this excellent mod I'd like to point out a few things
*Estocs don't have sharpened edges. They're highly specialized swords designed for penetrating armour. Essentially a giant spike in a handle.
*The firearms should have a melee skill defined instead of using the crossbow skill for melee. Makes no sense to become a legendary marksdwarf by bayoneting wolves. I recommend Musket=Spear Pistol=Mace Arquebus=Hammer
*Strongly curved swords are pretty rubbish at stabbing, some like the kilij have broad tips that make for poor penetration and the curvature makes for awkward attack angles when stabbing. Maybe bump the prep time up to 4 to reflect this.
*The back "spike" on a halberd is almost always a hook, perhaps it would be better to call it that than having "top spike" and "back spike" which can be confusing at a glance.
*Broad axes are tools used in making lumber and could perhaps be better put in a tool tag inside Item Tags.txt Unless your refering to the Dane Axe in which case it should be called a Dane Axe.
*Scythes are completely unusable in combat. I'm not going to go into why here because theres a lot to go over. I'm not going to reccomend you remove it because scythes are awesome. I'm just going to have to put some thought into how to make it more realistic. Reccomed you tool tag this one as well
*The blade shape of a sickle would render most of the actual edge area inaccessible in combat. Another Tool
*Swords with a forward curve like the yataghan have a shorter edge length then curved swords like the pulwar this could be implemented by lowering the edge value and raising the penetration value perhaps.
*There are waaay to many things using the pike skill. While I personally think that having seperate skills for pikes and spears was silly, putting stuff like the Bec de Corbin under PIKE is just silly.

I don't have time to play this game anymore but I'd be very appreciative if you made these edits and submitted them to me. I'd put them into the mod. I put the pike skill on a lot of polearms because it was the closest equivalent, and a bec de corbin is a bit more like a pike than it is like a spear. Its more an engine limitation and there needs to be far more categories for weapons than there are. I know scythes are a farming tool and were not normally used in combat, but I wanted to include it anyway since its a fantasy game and scythes are often used as weapons in fantasy settings. Same thing with the sickle and broad axe. Both tools not used for combat but still often used for fighting in fantasy settings. I wasn't even aware you could tag two different weapon skills on something to give muskets a separate melee skill. As for estocs, there are examples with sharpened edges. I like those most myself. Thank you for your feedback. If this were a year or two ago, I'd jump on updating the mod with your suggestions but I'm not in a good state anymore and I just don't have time to open things up. That and I haven't touched DF in almost two years now and I fear I'd fuck up things if I were to go on an editing spree now. Again, I like your feedback and would incorporate most of it into my mod if you made the edits. I check out this forum somewhat rarely but you can contact me at zerieseven@yahoo.com or most easily from my steam page (the little globe icon under my avatar will take you there. I'm much more friendly than I look).

is it okay if I modify weapons in the mod. sorry if I'm necroing the thread

My apologies for taking so long to reply, I've been away for quite some time. Of course you can, do with them as you wish as long as you credit my name as the original author.

The title of this mod made me think of Lucatiel from Dark Souls II.

I wonder how hard it would be to make armor and weapon sets from Dark Souls...I know I would definitely download that mod.

I can't imagine it would be anything other than changing the names of pieces (ie. allone cuirass, archdrake robes, armor of aurous), since magical effects on armour can't be done at the moment (as far as I know).

You know, I was just wondering about combining BPFA with a historic armour mod... 

Anyway, you might want to check out the thread for that mod, as well as Joben's Broken Arrow, because a lot of !!SCIENCE!! has gone into ranged weapons now that 0.40 is out.

Absolutely! Would be honored if you wished to use some of my armour in your own work.
Ah, thank you! I'll see what I can do about my muskets real quick, as well as add that Guandao that was requested earlier.

Added in any pre-Classical armament? Ancient Egyptian swords were neat.

I like that idea. I'll probably get to work on more stuff pretty soon.

Speaking of which, can I ask you to add bel biv devoe glaives-guisarmes?

I'll throw one of these in just for you (in a separate section of course for purists)

PTW. Very interested in the progress of this mod.

Will there eventually be races or something to make them stick to certain weapon types so you can have things like Elven samurai versus a bunch of Dwarvern musketeers?

Its more to provider the users with a large variety of weapons they can mix and match with different entities on their own (and I have absolutely no experience making custom races )

I'd just like to say thanks for working on this.  I'm leaning more and more towards doing some modding myself, and I might use this.

Thank you very much! I'm just happy people use it.

The numbers look a bit off, actually.
In terms of 'balance', I find copying the stats from a weapon that functions similarly (like greatsword>zweihander for example) and then making adjustments from there to work best.

[ATTACK:EDGE:5:1250:jab:jabs:NO_SUB:1250] Jabbing
   [ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:3:3]
Here, the first value (5) is the contact area of the blade, and the second is the penetration. A contact area so tiny would be more reminiscent of the tip of an arrow or dart, and not a blade like that of a katar. A size of perhaps 20-30 would be more in line.

[ATTACK:EDGE:1000:600:slash:slashes:NO_SUB:1000] Slashing
   [ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:3:3]
This seems mostly fine except the penetration value is usually larger than the contact area for smaller edged weapons. I'd test out swapping the two values and seeing how that works for you.

[ATTACK:BLUNT:20000:600:slap:slaps:flat:1000] Flat Slapping
   [ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:3:3]

The contact area is far too large. That's the sort of contact area you see on polearms. Generally the slapping attack has the same contact area size as the slashing attack. And the penetration value is a bit too high. I'd try out 750:100 .

On the stone dwarven pickhammer,
[ATTACK:EDGE:20:10000:pierce:pierces:NO_SUB:1250] Pierce
   [ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:3:3]

That penetration value is way too high. A value of 2000-4000 would be more in line.

The quarterstaff suffers from a similiar problem: the values are just too high.  Blunt trauma inducing weapons have small contact areas and small penetration, because the intent is to transfer force through protection and deliver it to the flesh underneath; rather than force themselves past the armour. Values of like 40-60:500-700 or so.

The flayer's contact area:penetration values suggest its just used to keep slaves in line by leaving vicious lashes and welts, which I like the idea of.

Also love what you are doing with your advanced civilizations mod :3.