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Author Topic: Falling damage nerfed?  (Read 27105 times)

khearn

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Falling damage nerfed?
« on: June 01, 2012, 01:34:03 pm »

I built a puppy dropper 10 levels above my dining hall in my current (0.34.10) fortress, expecting a 10 z-level fall would be an automatic death like it has in the past, and was disappointed to see that the puppies were usually surviving the fall. SO I've made another shaft for drop-testing goblins. A 10 z-level fall was survived by all 3 that I dropped, although the third one landed on teh second and was only stunned. The second guy did take damage from being landed upon. I then tried 12 and 14 z-level falls with new goblin volunteers, and all have survived. So it looks like creatures need to fall significantly farther now before we can be sure they'll die. Has anyone done any science on this recently? If not, I'll try higher drops over the weekend to see how things are working now.
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mazterlith

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Re: Falling damage nerfed?
« Reply #1 on: June 01, 2012, 01:37:41 pm »

You are doing Armok's work, friend.
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Hammerstar

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Re: Falling damage nerfed?
« Reply #2 on: June 01, 2012, 03:04:55 pm »

Haven't experimented with drops (I tend to take 'em alive and drop them into a pit only a couple levels deep filled with giant cave crocodiles or other horrible things), but I'm going to say it's very likely connected to the physics revamp for the minecarts, and how flying/falling with style work now.

Anyway, keep going. I'm interested to see the results.
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misko27

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Re: Falling damage nerfed?
« Reply #3 on: June 01, 2012, 04:38:00 pm »

Well I dont know about that, my experiment where I dropped a bull down off the execution tower didn't kill him, but appearantly dropping a grackle on him shattered his leg. He bled to death a bit later.
« Last Edit: March 01, 2014, 04:31:55 pm by misko27 »
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ledgekindred

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Re: Falling damage nerfed?
« Reply #4 on: June 01, 2012, 05:31:04 pm »

I have to agree that falling damage has been modified, probably through the new physics stuff.

I've been doing a little !!SCIENCE!! on this, since my last siege left me with quite a large number of ... volunteers.  About a dozen goblins, same number of war jabberers and a handful of giant rats.  I also caught a couple of raccoons.  I was hoping to drop the goblins in the hopes of making them explode, so I might get useful bones from them.

I started at 10z levels, and everyone was surviving.  So I started experimenting.  I tried dropping the jabberers, since they are big animals, I figured they would land harder and splat better.  Nope.  They survived also.  Same thing with the raccoons and rats. 

I dug down another 5 z-levels, leaving the landing pad at 15 z-levels below the drop zone.  I figured, at this distance, anything hitting a solid floor is going to splat to bits.  Nope.  Still had plenty of survivors - probably 90%.  The ones that died landed on their heads and immediately died from crushed brains.  I had one giant rat that died of suffocation a while after landing and smashing his ribs and damaging his lungs.  Even the jabberers - big and heavy as they are - all survived the drop.  Although I only had one or two lucky deaths, everyone had multiple broken bones from the landing.

I would have kept digging but I started stationing the military under the drop zone since the vast majority of the critters I dropped were lying there unconscious from pain for the most part and the dorfs weren't interested in dragging them back upstairs to be re-dropped.  So I ran out of volunteers.

Next siege will hopefully give me some more experimental subjects and I will dig further down and continue the experiments.

P.S.  I wound up with over 2000 units of meat from all the jabberers.  I have one stack of a couple hundred masterwork jabberer roasts that's work 94k dorfbucks.  So it wasn't a complete waste of effort.

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I don't understand, though that is about right with anything DF related.
I just hope he dies the same death that all dwarfs deserve: liver disease.
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ZzarkLinux

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Re: Falling damage nerfed?
« Reply #5 on: June 01, 2012, 07:15:01 pm »

Well it looks we can safely use children for medical practice without the mothers going ballistic.

After all, that which does not kill...
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Urist Da Vinci

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Re: Falling damage nerfed?
« Reply #6 on: June 01, 2012, 07:45:00 pm »

Back in 0.31.xx, about 35% of dwarves would die from falling (as long as they fell at least 2z, but less than 10z). 20% of instant brain death on impact, and 15% of suffocation due to broken spine. All survivors had multiple broken bones.

Now, in 0.34.10, I only got 11% brain and 8% spine deaths. I dropped 100 dwarves from 4z up in the arena. Also, some survivors are walking away with bruises. Falling seems to be less damaging overall.

I wasn't able to test how far you have to fall now to explode into bits.

misko27

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Re: Falling damage nerfed?
« Reply #7 on: June 01, 2012, 08:38:43 pm »

Well, I've noticed It depends on the creature. On my execution tower, kittens and cats die instantly, whilst dogs and medium size creatures are crippled, gennerally to be torn apart by traps I place at the bottome to maximize "testing". A horse survived with severe-ish injuries, but I set him out in a pasture and he appearantly walked it off. Same with a ram. kills goblins fine though. It seems more realistic, I mean, would a fall from a 2 story building kill you? by the way, a cage trap at the bottom will allow for more use of your, "subjects". Remember to Recycle!
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Panando

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Re: Falling damage nerfed?
« Reply #8 on: June 02, 2012, 08:18:05 am »

One of my dwarves dropped 2 z due to dust. Was stunned and bruised, and got back up and back to work. In previous versions this would never have happened, a 2z fall would always result in death or require hospital care for broken bones.
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Muddy Mudstone

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Re: Falling damage nerfed?
« Reply #9 on: June 02, 2012, 10:21:26 am »

kittens and cats die instantly, whilst dogs and medium size creatures are crippled ... A horse survived with severe-ish injuries ...

This is the opposite of realism, I think. If a horse falls two floors, the impact ought to be more severe than if a kitten falls the same distance. To assist the thought experiment, imagine standing underneath.
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rtg593

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Re: Falling damage nerfed?
« Reply #10 on: June 02, 2012, 11:10:11 am »

Interesting... I normally bore a 20z shafts with an upright spike trap at the bottom... That should still make them explode, right?

Haven't played fort mode since the day minecarts came out :p Played around with routes, automated quantum stockpiles and such, and then got stuck in adventurer mode. Not done much science :p
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misko27

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Re: Falling damage nerfed?
« Reply #11 on: June 02, 2012, 11:24:22 am »

Well, it's still better then before. If you fell two stories IRL, would you require hospitalization? Now apply that to hardened dwarves.
Interesting... I normally bore a 20z shafts with an upright spike trap at the bottom... That should still make them explode, right?
Yeah, I'd expect to be cleaning goblin part at that height, 13z has them essentially crippled, with high chance of death.
« Last Edit: March 01, 2014, 04:34:46 pm by misko27 »
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Rez

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Re: Falling damage nerfed?
« Reply #12 on: June 02, 2012, 11:45:44 am »

I had noticed that falling many many z-levels would often leave invaders with only a broken leg.  I'm talking about 6 to 8 z-levels of falling and they get up.  In addition, in some forts, I noticed enemies that landed on other enemies wouldn't take any damage.

If you give the first drops places to wander and you fill the drop zones with spikes, lethality increases significantly.
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byrnsey

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Re: Falling damage nerfed?
« Reply #13 on: June 02, 2012, 11:46:18 am »

I agree.  Actually tried to edit the wiki with this info a while back but there's a lot of resistance to new info from non-registered users.  Makes me wonder how much of what's on there is still relevant.

Anyway, I can confirm that 2z level falls will rarely do more than bruise.  I had a pit that was 5z deep, which would reliably break bones.   However - I filled the bottom with cavern monsters and dropped a full seige of goblin archers into it.  I'm pretty sure a few got shots off in the air, and enough landed without crippling injuries that they were able to kill their way out.  Can't confirm if those goblins landed on the monsters or not, but I'm pretty sure even 5z does not guarantee broken bones, especially not with armor.
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FallingWhale

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Re: Falling damage nerfed?
« Reply #14 on: June 02, 2012, 11:50:04 am »

well, Its still better then before. If you fell 2 stories IRL, would you require hospitalization? Now apply that to hardened dwarves.
Dwarfs mostly came out okay with a good chance of breaking something. That's accurate.
Now fifty foot drops aren't killing them, how is that better?
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