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[Urist Tilaturist]

@Urist: Mail armor will be hurt by arrows, though mostly by blunt damage. Right now making mail easier to pierce will make it pretty ineffective as armor which isn't really accurate to how it was either.

Bolts and arrows have a chance of doing blunt damage to plate armor as well, as long as your using either the bodkin arrows or non-broadhead bolts.

Handheld firearms, overheating, fatigue and movement impairment of armor and sight/breathing impairment of helmets will depend on DFhack support. None of these are really viable with regular raw modding, so I'm hoping DFhack support for 43.05 will be available... sooner rather than later. Once that is there, these should be doable enough.

Bombards and cannons are not going to happen until toady implements more advanced artillery. Random exploding of poorly made guns sounds fun though, poor James, he was doing so well until he bought a crappy cannon and had to stand near it.


@Taffer: Your free to any thunder that strikes your fancy

However, most of the changes will be fairly specific to this mod. The material changes depend on ALL the non-adamantine metals having same shear yields which is not exactly the case in the vanilla game. You would have to copy over the whole weapon-metals portion, which would in turn not play well with the vanilla weapons/armor.

I do want to make make this mod play nicely with your DF Revised mod as its got some pretty cool changes in there.

Maille still reduced the power of a thrust. While it could be pierced with a sharp point, it was an awful lot harder to do it than just stabbing through clothes (see here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydjdBTV8ZbY). The best strength of maille, though, was stopping cuts, which have much less piercing power than thrusts. This is why late medieval swords like longswords, used at times when most troops were wearing at least maille, were pointy blades which were mostly used to thrust, while dedicated cutting swords like the falchion existed in the 13th century when many common soldiers were just wearing gambesons or clothes. Does the game differentiate between cuts and thrusts at all, or is all sharp damage the same?

What are the "legacy items" in the mod?

[Grimlocke]

Thank ye both for the feedback!

@Taffer: Whoops, the Arms and Armor folder is supposed to work separately, but it seems I forgot about undoing the removal of aluminium. Will correct that with a bugfixing kind of release soon.

As for the Revised material templates, the only different I saw off-hand is adding the butchery tags and some crafting tags to chitin. Make armor out of chitin is slightly goofy, but frankly so is making armor out of bone, so these all seem fine.

I have a body_default adaption for modest mod, I haven't yet looked if Revised changes anything that modest doesn't to that file, but I don't think anything in there will conflict too badly with what my mods put in there. I'm not entirely sure what changed about the hair material template though.


@Urist: Edged damage in the game has a contact area, and a penetration area. Stabs have a low contact area and thus generally apply more force per area, and stabs from particularly pointy weapons like awl pikes have more of this effect. Slashing attacks from swords have a lot of area, good for quickly murdering unarmored things but quite worthless for piercing armor as they don't have enough momentum per contact area. Spiky blunt attacks from morningstars and such have a large contact area (as they hit with a ball rather than an edge) and a low penetration area, as the spikes on it are only so long. Entirely blunt weapons still have 10 penetration depth (which is very little at all) to make sure they chew up and eventually break armor that they hit hard enough.

However, there is nothing in the game beside that that can differentiate between damage from a stab or a slash. Meaning that either all attacks first bend plate armor and do blunt damage and only then cut through it (as in most cases, they should), or the other way around. That is a bit odd for when you stab something in plate armor really hard and it just ends up doing blunt damage on a really small area but unavoidable for now. This is also the reason that bows and crossbows can cause blunt damage through armor. The game just doesn't simulate impact area spread from pointy things hitting plate armor.

I might try and see what exactly happens when I just reduce the overall thickness of mail armor, see if that makes it at least possible to pierce it with a really determined, pointy kind of stab.

Also, the legacy file contains items that I booted from the main mod, for various reasons. Most are just due to being from the wrong era entirely (200-ish years too early for instance).

[Taffer]

@Taffer: Whoops, the Arms and Armor folder is supposed to work separately, but it seems I forgot about undoing the removal of aluminium. Will correct that with a bugfixing kind of release soon.

As for the Revised material templates, the only different I saw off-hand is adding the butchery tags and some crafting tags to chitin. Make armor out of chitin is slightly goofy, but frankly so is making armor out of bone, so these all seem fine.

I have a body_default adaption for modest mod, I haven't yet looked if Revised changes anything that modest doesn't to that file, but I don't think anything in there will conflict too badly with what my mods put in there. I'm not entirely sure what changed about the hair material template though.

Thank you for the feedback: I feel like I never get enough of it. I should have clarified, though: I'm curious about integrating your material_template_default.txt and body_default.txt changes into Revised, given that you said "most of the changes will be fairly specific to this mod". I also don't change body_default in any way aside from textual changes, but I'm intending to change that next release: try to bring in some of your improvements and add in collarbones (and possibly femurs).

@Taffer: Your free to any thunder that strikes your fancy

Ha ha!

[Grimlocke]

Aaaah, oh

The balancing material-wise is in inorganic_metal, and in material_template for hair, silk and plant thread. The changes there are all the impact and shear values, the rest I left as they were.

The body default changes are the aforementioned collarbones, the JOINTS entry (substantially increased size), and embedded on lots of small bodyparts. You can simple use the body_default with the modest mod changes that already comes with my mod.

Again, I am not sure how the materials will function with vanilla weapons and armor, but it should be easy enough to just copy the materials over and knock some things about in arena mode to see how they react. There is a chance the vanilla weapons become useless, overpowered or a combination of both, in which case you might also have to tinker with the weapons in Revised to at least adjust the velocities to a point where the weapons make some sense.

Femurs are already in the game, they are upper leg bones. Perhaps you meant a pelvis? I considered doing that for consistency if nothing else, and might include it in a next release. Keep in mind though that this affects bodypart steppings of pants and body clothing/armor. This means that a skirt that extends down to the knee, loses one stepping in going from the lower body to the pelvis and ends up only covering the lower body. The same effects happens with collarbones.

[Urist Tilaturist]

Chopping at plate armour or helmets with a sword shouldn't really do much except break the sword (is weapon breaking even possible now?). In order to do any significant damage at all you need a weapon with more mass at the striking end.

This video shows the effect of medieval weapons on a replica bascinet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l47Idc7anG4

Crossbows cannot penetrate replica Anglo Saxon or Norman helmets either:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqGZl5MVFPg

Longbow arrow barely scratched replica breastplate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej3qjUzUzQg

In short, shooting armour with arrows or chopping at it with swords won't do a lot to destroy it.

[Grimlocke]

Weapons ingame generally behave like that. They can eventually break, but it only seems to happen when you hit something hard with a weapon made out of something soft, mostly wood. Tools also seems to break much more easily than weapons.

Though it should also be noted that the goal is never really to destroy someone's equipment, but to make the guy using unable to fight. Missile weapons don't have to go through the armor to make life for the guy in it thoroughly uncomfortable either.

Also, for gameplay reasons I did not want to make missile weapons entirely useless against armor. Once I get DFhack going, I want to split off crossbows into more and less powerful ones, ranging from hunting crossbows to the hulking great hand-ballistas that were used during sieges. This is also where gunpowder weapons will come in, in the form of handcannons and simple matchlock arquebusses.

[Urist Tilaturist]

Arrows are not entirely useless against armour. They can hit people in the face when they have their visors up, as happened to Henry V, and pierce maille if powerful enough, remembering that most common soldiers didn't wear full plate armour. If cavalry feature much in the game, they can also kill the unarmoured mounts, which is how longbowmen stopped mounted knights at Agincourt. The number of prisoners taken at that battle, including some of the French nobles at the head of the charge, indicates that most of the captured knights were not mortally wounded by arrows, but many horses were killed.

Arrows and bolts cannot and should not be able to pierce or meaningfully damage plate armour, unless you are talking about a ballista. That is where cannon become useful.

In a test battle I staged, an aketon seemed to protect someone's eye from punches. Why does this happen? I don't know if there is any way to implement reduced visibility from having a visor down in the game, but there were reasons people put their visors up in melee.

[Grimlocke]

Eyes and other facial features are protected by any body armor that extends up to the lower arm, as kind of an unintended side-effect. The extend of bodyparts body armor protects is defined by 'steps away from the upper body'. It sees 'neck, head, nose' as the same distance as 'collarbone, upper arm, lower arm'. Oddly enough, helmets don't have any way to protect facial features. Not much I can do about any of that.

Liftable visors are not really feasible to mod in right now, maybe not even with DFhack. Getting the both the interface and the AI to work with something like that seems rather improbable, sadly enough.

The ranged weapons we have right now are kind of a placeholder, for until I can actually get an accurate and balanced set into the game (which requires DFhack, which requires me to actually know how DFhack works and DFhack to work with 43.05). This isn't just a mod for pure historical accuracy, but also a combat balance mod and rendering ranged combat nigh-useless wouldn't really live up to that latter standard. Standing around getting shot at was a bad idea in the middle ages regardless of what you were wearing anyhow, so see this as 'historically accurate gameplay consequences' if you must

[Urist Tilaturist]

Eyes and other facial features are protected by any body armor that extends up to the lower arm, as kind of an unintended side-effect. The extend of bodyparts body armor protects is defined by 'steps away from the upper body'. It sees 'neck, head, nose' as the same distance as 'collarbone, upper arm, lower arm'. Oddly enough, helmets don't have any way to protect facial features. Not much I can do about any of that.

Liftable visors are not really feasible to mod in right now, maybe not even with DFhack. Getting the both the interface and the AI to work with something like that seems rather improbable, sadly enough.

The ranged weapons we have right now are kind of a placeholder, for until I can actually get an accurate and balanced set into the game (which requires DFhack, which requires me to actually know how DFhack works and DFhack to work with 43.05). This isn't just a mod for pure historical accuracy, but also a combat balance mod and rendering ranged combat nigh-useless wouldn't really live up to that latter standard. Standing around getting shot at was a bad idea in the middle ages regardless of what you were wearing anyhow, so see this as 'historically accurate gameplay consequences' if you must

Ranged combat isn't useless if the enemy isn't wearing full plate armour or is riding a horse, which applies to the majority of medieval armies even in the 15th century, and I presume in game armies as well. Even with a plate cuirass and helmet, an arrow or bolt to the unarmoured arm or leg could be incapacitating. I don't think goblin raiders are usually all clad in full plate. Unless literally everyone is fighting on foot in full plate longbows and crossbows will still be useful.

I'm not trying to dismiss longbows and crossbows at all. They are very useful weapons, except in the one specific scenario of fighting infantry clad in full plate armour.

[spudcosmic]

I'm noticing most strikes against helmeted heads cause no damage to the head but seem to often result in "the force twisting the neck and destroying the upper spine's nervous tissue". I'd understand a strike against the head could cause spinal injury but this seems a bit extreme. What are your thoughts on it?

Also sorry if this is explained elsewhere, but many weapons seem to have two different attacks that are identical in name? Why is this? Do they do something different? Or are they there just to increase the frequency that dwarfs use them?

[Urist Tilaturist]

I'm noticing most strikes against helmeted heads cause no damage to the head but seem to often result in "the force twisting the neck and destroying the upper spine's nervous tissue". I'd understand a strike against the head could cause spinal injury but this seems a bit extreme. What are your thoughts on it?

Also sorry if this is explained elsewhere, but many weapons seem to have two different attacks that are identical in name? Why is this? Do they do something different? Or are they there just to increase the frequency that dwarfs use them?

A strike with a heavy weapon like a mace or a lance smashing into the helmet from a charging horseman could easily snap back the neck and cause at least a knockout, if not something more serious. Sword cuts or spear stabs shouldn't do anywhere near that level of damage, though.

[Grimlocke]

Hmmm, the neck damage was intended, but I'll have a look how easily it happens exactly and adjust the nervous tissue material if needed.

[spudcosmic]

A strike with a heavy weapon like a mace or a lance smashing into the helmet from a charging horseman could easily snap back the neck and cause at least a knockout, if not something more serious. Sword cuts or spear stabs shouldn't do anywhere near that level of damage, though.

Bruising of the spine is common with spears and sword slashes, which result in neck down paralysis about 50% of the time.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Edit: That was at legendary spear user. It seems to be much less common at lower skill levels.
Hammers and maces seem to almost always tear apart the spine. This is through with greathelm + mailed bascinet + padded coif. Maybe it needs to be toned down a little bit. Neck injury should be expected but not so much though that much armor.

[spudcosmic]

A strike with a heavy weapon like a mace or a lance smashing into the helmet from a charging horseman could easily snap back the neck and cause at least a knockout, if not something more serious. Sword cuts or spear stabs shouldn't do anywhere near that level of damage, though.

Bruising of the spine is common with spears and sword slashes, which result in neck down paralysis about 50% of the time.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Edit: That was at legendary spear user. It seems to be much less common at lower skill levels.
Hammers and maces seem to almost always tear apart the spine. This is through with greathelm + mailed bascinet + padded coif. Maybe it needs to be toned down a little bit. Neck injury should be expected but not so much though that much armor.

after more testing it might be good right where it's at. Legendary users with maces snap necks left and right but just expert individuals might be lucky to get a bruised spine a quarter of the time.

after more testing it might be good right where it's at. Legendary users with maces snap necks left and right but just expert individuals might be lucky to get a bruised spine a quarter of the time. The heavy attack action makes it incredibly common at all skill levels and with any weapon strike though. I'm pretty sure only the player is capable of using the attack modes, so it doesn't affect fortress mode much.

[Grimlocke]

I did some testing with a AI characters in full plate and weapons too light to damage eachother with regular attacks, and they did actually damage eachother, although they took a while.

One thing I noticed that even a 'nervous tissue bruise' in the upper spine knocks you out, which I didn't think would happen (the bulk of the balance testing was done on a 'dummy' creature). Will correct that to make it so only a proper, heavy blow to the head will damage the spine.

Edit: About the 'duplicate attacks', they are not in any way different. They are for AI priorities only. It is the only way to make the AI one a weapon more for one attack than the other, besides the edged/blunt distinctions which will result in blunt attacks being used 100 times less than sharp ones. Bit much, that. The duplicates are basically there to make the AI use a stabby weapon for more stabbing, and slashy weapons for more slashing.