Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: [1] 2

Author Topic: solution for ineffective bites/claws  (Read 12208 times)

derigo

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
solution for ineffective bites/claws
« on: April 28, 2010, 05:34:53 am »

I don't know how widely this is known, or if anyone is aware, but I wanted to post this here since it involves editing the raws...or rather raw. 
material_template_default.txt  to be exact.


Quote
I've been rooting around in the raws lately, and I think I might've found the reason for this. If so its a quick fix.

raw quote of pertinent bits:
[MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:STONE_TEMPLATE]
 ...
    Used for blunt-force combat, measured in KPa. Data scattered around the net (used compressive strength). All very spotty.
    [IMPACT_YIELD:120000] used marble
    [IMPACT_FRACTURE:120000]
    [IMPACT_ELASTICITY:100]
...
[MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:METAL_TEMPLATE]
...
    [IMPACT_YIELD:1080000] used average for stainless steel
    [IMPACT_FRACTURE:1080000]
    [IMPACT_ELASTICITY:1000]
...

[MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:SKIN_TEMPLATE]
...
    [IMPACT_YIELD:10000]
    [IMPACT_FRACTURE:10000]
    [IMPACT_ELASTICITY:50000]
...

[MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:TOOTH_TEMPLATE]
...
    [IMPACT_YIELD:10000]
    [IMPACT_FRACTURE:10000]
    [IMPACT_ELASTICITY:100]
...

Now correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't this mean skin is as hard as teeth, but much more flexible? The same numbers are used for all organs, leather, wood, horn, nails, hoof, hair, and other things. But take a look at bone:

[MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:BONE_TEMPLATE]
...
    [IMPACT_YIELD:200000]
    [IMPACT_FRACTURE:200000]
    [IMPACT_ELASTICITY:100]
...

So bone is almost twice as hard than stone and 20 times harder than teeth. Keep in mind this is for blunt force calculations only, sheering and compressive forces account for slashing and stabbing attacks respectively.

The numbers for various metals all get overwritten by the specifc raw entries for each specific metal. But there's no equivalent of that for tissue materials like teeth so WYSIWYG hardness wise unless a creature creates a custom material on the fly in its own raw. I don't recall seeing any creatures do that with skin, teeth, hooves, horns, or muscle.

I'm going to try playing with these numbers a bit in the arena and see what happens.

Quote
It worked! :D

I just copied the impact yeild, impact fracture, and impact elasticity values from bone onto teeth, horn, hoof, and shell, and made up something imbetween stone and bone for nail. Now grizzly bears and dogs can bite through clothing!

It looks like toady (or one of his helpers) spent a considerable amount of time and energy looking up reasonable values for the shear yield etc (tensile strength) for various substances. He left notes throughout the raw about where he got his information from. But it looks like he was copying all the templates from SKIN, and never got around to putting reasonable impact values in for things like teeth, even though those numbers do get used by bite attacks and whatnot. Copying the bone values onto the other materials will make them behave more like they should, but its not accurate to the level of detail present in the rest of the raw.

So, you can make bite attacks 'work' by doing the copy, but until toady puts his numbers in, or someone else finds or makes up really good ones, it's not going to be terribly accurate.

And be warned! Doing this change will make anything that uses natural attacks that much scarier! Elephants, forgotten beasts, demons, anything that bites or claws is all of the sudden going to be very scary.
Logged

Deon

  • Bay Watcher
  • 💀 💀 💀 💀 💀
    • View Profile
Re: solution for ineffective bites/claws
« Reply #1 on: April 28, 2010, 06:09:13 am »

It "fixes" ALL bones.

You can make a specific bone/tooth and apply it to a specific creature without touching others.

material_template_*.txt
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

tissue_template_*.txt
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

creature_*.txt
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Voila.
Logged
▬(ஜ۩۞۩ஜ)▬
✫ DF Wanderer ✫ - the adventure mode crafting and tweaks
✫ Cartographer's Lounge ✫ - a custom worldgen repository

derigo

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: solution for ineffective bites/claws
« Reply #2 on: April 28, 2010, 06:24:21 am »

I know that you can make creature specific materials, but the fact remains that the generic teeth, horns, hooves etc of generic creatures that do not have their own creature specific materials is far to 'soft.'  Editing the generic raw entries fixes the problem across the board.  If you want your creature to bite especially hard relative to his size/strength or something, yea, make a custom material for his claw/teeth.  What I meant when I said I hadn't seen it done before, was that toady doesn't do that in the vanilla raws, (or at least not in any of the creatures that I've looked at), and as such, most if not all creatures use the generic materials (which are too soft to pierce clothing).

Incidently, you made the tooth_beast_material as hard as steel in your example.  But then, you made the bite attack petrifying, so who am I to complain? ;p
Logged

Deon

  • Bay Watcher
  • 💀 💀 💀 💀 💀
    • View Profile
Re: solution for ineffective bites/claws
« Reply #3 on: April 28, 2010, 06:28:23 am »

Yeah I just thought that it may be useful for others to know how to add specific teeth.
Logged
▬(ஜ۩۞۩ஜ)▬
✫ DF Wanderer ✫ - the adventure mode crafting and tweaks
✫ Cartographer's Lounge ✫ - a custom worldgen repository

Vester

  • Bay Watcher
  • [T_WORD:AWE-INSPIRING:bloonk]
    • View Profile
Re: solution for ineffective bites/claws
« Reply #4 on: April 28, 2010, 08:26:41 am »

This of course means that you can now chew someone to death as a human adventurer. Which is awesome.
Logged
Quote
"Land of song," said the warrior bard, "though all the world betray thee - one sword at least thy rights shall guard; one faithful harp shall praise thee."

Nihilist

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: solution for ineffective bites/claws
« Reply #5 on: April 28, 2010, 05:05:37 pm »

This really drives home how awesime the new raws are ^.^
Thanks for this! I'll actually be able build an effective army of doom hounds!
Logged

derigo

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: solution for ineffective bites/claws
« Reply #6 on: April 28, 2010, 08:34:00 pm »

:D

i don't have much experience with adventure mode, how do you do anything but hit with your weapon or wrestle(bite or kick for instance)?  Is it just something that happens randomly when you 'attack' and you're unarmed?
« Last Edit: April 28, 2010, 08:52:58 pm by derigo »
Logged

Wirevix

  • Bay Watcher
  • Hammered Elf Sympathizer
    • View Profile
Re: solution for ineffective bites/claws
« Reply #7 on: April 28, 2010, 09:13:13 pm »

I haven't played on my modded dragon adventurers yet in .31, but in 40d, yes - if your species has the attack available, you may randomly use an attack rather than wrestling.  Note that if the attack is [SECONDARY] it will almost never get used, so switch any attacks you want to use regularly to [PRIMARY].

And if you play a race with no [GRASP] parts, you only use your creature attacks!  Which I find more fun.
Logged
In other news, the trees in my game can have invisible sex.

LoSboccacc

  • Bay Watcher
  • Σὺν Ἀθηνᾷ καὶ χεῖρα κίνει
    • View Profile
Re: solution for ineffective bites/claws
« Reply #8 on: April 29, 2010, 07:35:10 am »

does this require a world regen or can I just fix my world raws?

edit: I'm doing something wrong. applied the fox for the yeld and stuff o materials of the main raws, entered the arena mode, put a unskilled silk dwarf agains dogs and all the attacks were still glancing away
« Last Edit: April 29, 2010, 08:18:33 am by LoSboccacc »
Logged

Deon

  • Bay Watcher
  • 💀 💀 💀 💀 💀
    • View Profile
Re: solution for ineffective bites/claws
« Reply #9 on: April 29, 2010, 08:39:16 am »

I haven't played on my modded dragon adventurers yet in .31, but in 40d, yes - if your species has the attack available, you may randomly use an attack rather than wrestling.  Note that if the attack is [SECONDARY] it will almost never get used, so switch any attacks you want to use regularly to [PRIMARY].

And if you play a race with no [GRASP] parts, you only use your creature attacks!  Which I find more fun.
What. It's MAIN/SECOND and there're no brackets. There're no [PRIMARY] and [SECONDARY] tokens at all.

Quote
does this require a world regen or can I just fix my world raws?
You just fix your world raws.
Logged
▬(ஜ۩۞۩ஜ)▬
✫ DF Wanderer ✫ - the adventure mode crafting and tweaks
✫ Cartographer's Lounge ✫ - a custom worldgen repository

derigo

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: solution for ineffective bites/claws
« Reply #10 on: April 29, 2010, 06:50:32 pm »

Ok here's a guide:

To fix your default raws (this will affect any new worlds you gen, but not any existing ones)
-Go into material_template_default.txt  in dfdirectory\raw\objects\
-follow the procedure outlined below
To fix your current world,
-Go into material_template_default.txt  in dfdirectory\data\saves\[name of save]\raw\objects\


-Go down to [MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:TOOTH_TEMPLATE]  and find these lines
   [IMPACT_YIELD:10000]
   [IMPACT_FRACTURE:10000]
   [IMPACT_ELASTICITY:100]
These lines, together in some way define the 'hardness' of the material as used in blunt attacks.  10000 in both slots are the same value used in skin. 

To 'fix' it change the values to
   [IMPACT_YIELD:200000]
   [IMPACT_FRACTURE:200000]
   [IMPACT_ELASTICITY:100]

200000 is the value used by bone.  Its harder than stone, but no where near as hard as metal.

- Repeat the above procedure for hoof, horn, and possibly nail (I used a lower value for nail), and anything else you want to be harder.  Leather, for instance should probably be harder than skin.  I don't know if changing the hardness for leather would make leather armor better.  If you've tested it at all, leather armor is TERRIBLE right now.



This is just a temporary fix to make it workable until toady puts real values in there.  His will probably be more accurate and more balanced.
Logged

Wirevix

  • Bay Watcher
  • Hammered Elf Sympathizer
    • View Profile
Re: solution for ineffective bites/claws
« Reply #11 on: April 29, 2010, 08:37:06 pm »

What. It's MAIN/SECOND and there're no brackets. There're no [PRIMARY] and [SECONDARY] tokens at all.

I think anyone reading through the raw will be able to tell what I was referring to when they saw it.  : P  I wasn't exactly digging into anything to check if I had the labels right, just getting the gist across.
Logged
In other news, the trees in my game can have invisible sex.

derigo

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: solution for ineffective bites/claws
« Reply #12 on: April 29, 2010, 08:40:02 pm »

someone asked, so I provided. ;p
Logged

HeliumFreak

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: solution for ineffective bites/claws
« Reply #13 on: April 30, 2010, 01:14:43 am »

edit: I'm doing something wrong. applied the fox for the yeld and stuff o materials of the main raws, entered the arena mode, put a unskilled silk dwarf agains dogs and all the attacks were still glancing away

Ive noticed this as well. However youll note that the attacks are just "glancing away" rather than being deflected by *pit tail fiber shirt*. Im not  sure how to fix that though, maybe someone else can help?

Something i just noticed now running another arena. If you put the dog in clothes (pig tail trousers and a cap) then the dwarfs attacks start being deflected away from said clothes. So maybe the focus should be on making pig tail cloth weaker?
« Last Edit: April 30, 2010, 01:25:52 am by HeliumFreak »
Logged

derigo

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: solution for ineffective bites/claws
« Reply #14 on: April 30, 2010, 01:33:24 am »

I think the problem you're seeing is just that dogs are fairly small and weak.  Imagine a medium sized house dog trying to bite your through a coat.  It'll hurt...sometimes.  Sometimes he'll just get a mouthfull of coat.  If training animals for 'war' still does what it did in 40d (double the creatures strength), war dogs, especially in large numbers should be much more dangerous than dogs.

Try grizzly bears with and without the change and you'll see the difference is dramatic.  A dwarf in clothes pre-change can take on at least 6 bears without difficulty.  Post change, the bears insta-gib him. 

Logged
Pages: [1] 2