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[Holy Mittens]

So I've been modding in a new group of creatures that is smaller than a dwarf, but faster and essentially has a really hard shell and razor sharp teeth and claws. To that end I've given them their own material template for their flesh.

But it is IMPOSSIBLE to get it balanced how I want. What I'm aiming for is a 2:1 ratio of the new creatures vs a dwarf in iron equipment with an axe.

But even as much as changing a single digit of a material token swings the fight WILDLY. If I have [SHEAR_FRACTURE:200000] or [SHEAR_YIELD:130000] then the new creatures take forever to kill, so much that five of them are an even match with dwarves. If it's more than 5 on 5, it's a wash in the favor of the new creatures. They take tons of damage, for sure, all their parts are marked red, but they just don't die.

But if I lower those values by just one point to [SHEAR_FRACTURE:199999] and [SHEAR_YIELD:129999] then the dwarves kill them before I can count to 10. A few hits and the creatures bleed to death or are struck down.

And even if I change one of the values to 0, as long as the other one is above the threshold, my dwarves are powerless before them!

Now just as a gag on myself, I tried replacing the iron axes with steel ones and, sure enough, they turned the new creatures into mince meat even with the Shear Fracture and Shear Yield raised.

Is it really such an all or nothing affair? Do materials either effortlessly cut through each other or not at all? Please tell me I'm missing something that will fix my problems (and don't tell me Sheer Elasticity! That does nothing as far as I can tell. Setting it arbitrarily high did nothing to alter combat).

[Shima]

As far as I can tell, things are a tad screwy right now.  It's a shame.

[piecewise]

pretty much the entire way the game worked was replaced, so it's not surprising that it's unbalanced now.

Inorganic bodies (shells, ironmen, etc) really screw things up right now, so try to avoid using them.

[Acanthus117]

Don't worry, they'll be fixed and we can all be happy.

[Shima]

If I had to describe it, things are very rock, paper, scissors right now.  If it works, it works perfectly, if it doesn't, it never will.  For example: iron bolts won't pierce iron armor at all, no matter what, nor any stronger metal.  Meanwhile, even bronze bolts, as well as other metals will SHRED iron armor.  Lead bolts won't go through silk at all.  Steel bolts basically destroy anything.  I think that's why bronze is now the standard metal in Adventure mode, because it's the strongest non-steel in the game as far as I can see.

[Kagus]

Adamantine weapons (anything, not just hammers and maces) are quite easily stopped by gold armor. 

It's stylish, and effective!  Actually, gold armor seems to be remarkably effective against quite a few things...  Oddly enough.

[Shima]

It seems mostly to be due to the material reworking.  We need this stuff to be fixed before we'll really be able to get further with mods again.

[Acanthus117]

all my mods so far are pretty much reskinning weapons, and making simple creatures. Hope it'll be fixed so I can do more.

[Max White]

Yea, seems like the formulas to figure out what hurts what are very quantized right now. I'm sure toady will blur the lines in time to come.

[Shima]

I sure hope so.  For me, rebalancing materials is very important, it's very much needed for mods to be more unique.  After that, we need stuff like the military and such fixed up.

[Acanthus117]

rebalancing materials and combat are on my top list. Specifically making certain enemies... easier to kill.

[Max White]

rebalancing materials and combat are on my top list. Specifically making certain enemies... easier to kill.

Yea, those slugmen are a down right menace! Once one of them shows up your done for!

[Ampersand]

The problem seems to lie in force not transferring through tissues properly. A person in a suit of armor can be killed by blunt force trauma even if the structural integrity of the armor is not violated at all. This gets stickier with creatures without organs to damage though. However, I've seen an Ironman go down at the hands of a dwarf in only a couple rounds, so things aren't nearly as cleanly cut as it seems.

As a stopgap against this sort of thing, my recommendation is to give it some kind of nerve or circulatory system inside of the shell layer, or directly behind it. This is kind of how Ironmen work. They have a circulation system of a gas material that is released when their iron flesh is broken. Doing the same to bronze colossi and your modded creatures may balance things out a little with the [shear] values.

Again, only a stopgap measure to put in place until these problems are fixed.

[Holy Mittens]

The problem is they DO have all the normal organs and whatnot. They just have a tougher than normal outer shell.

When the numbers are below their threshold, the skin just does nothing to stop wounds. When it's over the threshold, they just take wounds to red and don't die. They don't seem to bleed properly.