Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[plynxis]

thanks. i have a certain pathological obsession doing these things (even though i get horribly bored when i dont expect surprises). i spent hours upon hours of testing units and set-ups in starcraft 2 not too long ago and even had ideas on a more automated unit tester. interesting things popped up there too, like situations where a single weak unit more on one side would change the outcome from a slaughterfest where one side wins to a slaughterfest where the other side wins. games have crazy mechanics

if dfhack gets to the latest df version i *might* be brave enough to try making a more automated testing platform for df. but thats a bit too wishful thinking cause i'm still pretty much a noob at coding.

[Internet Kraken]

Try and survive a horse kick in real life. Now make that horse skeletal, immune to pain, and therefore not worried about kicking its damn hardest. That's a skeletal horse.

This. Also take into account that Dwarves aren't as tall as humans, so a horsekick is probably going to hit them right in the head.

[LoSboccacc]

Try and survive a horse kick in real life. Now make that horse skeletal, immune to pain, and therefore not worried about kicking its damn hardest. That's a skeletal horse.

This. Also take into account that Dwarves aren't as tall as humans, so a horsekick is probably going to hit them right in the head.

as a matter of fact, thousands of butchers die yearly providing you with cow and horse meat... only not.

[plynxis]

Try and survive a horse kick in real life. Now make that horse skeletal, immune to pain, and therefore not worried about kicking its damn hardest. That's a skeletal horse.

This. Also take into account that Dwarves aren't as tall as humans, so a horsekick is probably going to hit them right in the head.

again, this doesnt explain how monsters like dragons that are huge and other supernatural stuff like magma men etc. dont kick ass as much. i mean dragons arent that fond of kicking i guess, but they dont own armored dwarves like they're candy. i mean obviously considering my previous posts, they have their way to die, but it just doesnt fit to me how domestic animals can be so much more dangerous than exotic monsters that are made to be dangerous. and besides, real life doesnt qualify as a strong argument here - its a game and it has many abstractions. i just dont think it fits well in the context of the game's world because it makes monsters that should be more threatening than horses, look a lot less threatening. if its intended to be this way then ok, whatever - i'll just deal with it anyway.

[Nikov]

My testing revealed that while horses can be dispatched with a spear (my first attempt killed the horse immediately), horses will knock you down and stamp on your limbs until you are unable to stand, then trample you to death with four kicking attacks per round. Frankly I'm not surprised their skeletal versions can trample you to death, since a lack of organs make spears nearly useless against them and nothing else has the same stopping power against large creatures.

[plynxis]

yeah i forgot about spears, good testing choice. i did try war hammers though (maybe i posted about it too, dont remember). i thought those would work on bones a lot better, like making them sail of in an arc or something, but they didnt do much

[thijser]

Maybe some of the test result done in this tread could be reported here?
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/User:Thijser/Test

[plynxis]

thats a good idea, i'll probably do it later though, too bored to look over my posts again and make the results look decent. however, i also think that if a testing page is going to work, there should be a link to it on the wiki's military article so that people who go there can see it and know it exists so they can contribute to it.

and maybe have a more standardised format for easy viewing.

[Niveras]

... both but what the fuck is a "left eye tooth"?

Basically a canine tooth. The teeth that line up vertically with the eyes. Not teeth attached to the eye.

Overall it was pretty riveting to read through the testing. Sounds like shields are pretty OP right now, though I guess if it requires a high level of training maybe that's fine (and maybe you generally want to reach a point that a highly skilled dwarf is nigh invulnerable, if only to make the situation more bizzare when they die to a fluffy wambler).

[plynxis]

thats such a weird terminology. i checked to see if its like official and it is. why not just call it a left or right canine? anyway

Military testing

I got a wiki page up after all. Sorry thijser, but i think its better this way. Its open to anyone who wants to add their tests to it.

I haven't linked it to any of the wiki pages yet though. I think its a good idea to put it as a link on the DF2010:Military page so that someone looking for combat information will find it . I'm also not sure everyone will agree with how I made it, so feel free to comment on what you don't like about it or change it. Would it be better if it was named "DF2010:Military testing"? (or perhaps some better name than "military testing" which is a bad name but i cant think of a better one right now). I thought that since it would be best for all the tests to be in one place, it didnt need DF2010 in the title.

I added just a crude trial i did while this thread was still in its first page so i dont remember the details perfectly, but i wanted it to have at least one legitimate entry so that there is a clearer picture of what it should look like so that anyone who wants to add doesn't have to think of a format from scratch. I'll add the rest of the tests i did but tomorrow - its 4 am and i'm dead tired now.

[Ubiq]

camels. camels have laser sight on their hoof, always aiming at brain of my poor dwarves

For me, it's always muskoxen as I have at least one world with multiple named muskoxen. The most embarassing incident involved a Legendary Fighter/Swordsdwarf with a Bronze Colossus and about a dozen semimegabeasts to his credit having his initial attack dodged and then having his brain kicked through his skull.

[decius]

Bah. Try having a giant eagle grap you by the upper body and shake you around.

What exactly does the upper body become detached from?

For cheap defense, try leather robes and silk dresses. Both cover everything except feet, hands and heads. (Somehow protecting toes, fingers, and noses.)

[Exiledhero99]

I know I'm a wee late to the game, but allow me to pitch my two cents into your problem, since most of Bay12 is doing just that. From what I've seen in armor/weapon testing in 31.xx (I don't remember the name of the thread) two things were discovered.

1) shields, when used as blunt weapons, have the largest surface area of all blunt weapons, and are second in blunt damage only to whips/lashes/flails.
2) armor intensifies the effects of blunt weapon damage.

In relation to two, a kick from a horse is considered blunt damage. Might I suggest sending unarmored dwarves against the horrid beasts?

[plynxis]

What exactly does the upper body become detached from?

um, the rest of the body? i'm not sure i understand

For cheap defense, try leather robes and silk dresses. Both cover everything except feet, hands and heads. (Somehow protecting toes, fingers, and noses.)

yeah i've heard that those are used to achieve full coverage, definitely useful. as far as i know, not even with mail shirts and chain leggings can you get full coverage without using either of these two so its not just a cheap defense, its required if you want their armor to be totally complete.

In relation to two, a kick from a horse is considered blunt damage. Might I suggest sending unarmored dwarves against the horrid beasts?

um, i dont know how much of the thread you read. in case you skipped my huge walls of text, i actually had them completely unarmored with the exception of the shield. and my dwarves were totally unarmored (well besides clothes) in the game when i sent them in the first time (and they died horribly).

shields, with skill and a metallic weapon seem to work wonders though as i've managed to dispatch lots of herds so far with almost negligible casualties (like a couple died because one was an idiot and fell into a pond, the other was so stupid i told them to get into the burrow but he just *HAD* to go up to the item he had tagged to find out its forbidden, at which point he got his ass killed by a horse) and it was pretty easy to get their shield skills up (they get free fighter skills too so its working great).

if you dont have a link and dont remember the name, could you provide a hint so i can save time searching? i'd like to see the thread itself to see how detailed the info is, cause it might be good to add to the wiki page i made. i'll eventually link to it and post a thread to inform the rest of the forum of its existence anyway though.

btw, for those watching, i've added almost all of my tests to the wiki page. once i'm done i'll link it to the DF2010:Military page on the wiki and i'm working on making a java applet to make adding test information faster and easier.

[Exiledhero99]

yes, yes I did. My apologies, I'm being particularly lazy this evening.