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[Nimbby]

I recently was playing as a modded race of demons, who were nearly 100 times the size of a human being. I decided to be a swordsman and go on a rampage in my starting town. The issue was, armor scales in size with the creatures that create it, but weapons don't. Needless to say, even against what was just fiber clothing an iron sword was like trying to kill them with a thumbtack.

With the new adaptions to combat coming up, I believe it might be a good idea to do three things with weapons. The first is to make them scale in size, this would fix issues with dwarves not being able to equip halberds and two-handed swords if they somehow manage to make them. The second suggestion is to separate weapons into multiple pieces, something that has been suggested before I believe, but is worth bringing up since a combat update is fast approaching. The third suggestion is to allow interactions on objects and weapons, such as an attack with a weapon can have some effect on a creature beyond just harming it with the physical attack. Any thoughts would be welcome, I'm not so great at making walls of texts so perhaps discussion will be of benefit to the idea.

[Nimbby]

I just now realized that I noticed something else that bothered me about the way weapons are handled. If a giant were to use a longsword in the current system, he would gain sword skill for using it, but the size of the weapon makes it more akin to a knife for a creature of his size. I think the other weapons are appropriately differentiated, but skill with a mace might translate into skill with a hammer, the same way that a knife might help with a sword. Beyond this, there should be skill for specific weapons. So if a creature uses the same +iron shortsword+ throughout time, they would be not only better with swords, but to a greater extent with shortswords, to a lesser extent with iron, and yet to a greater extent with the specific weapon.

[Revanchist]

So, perhaps skills like "blades weapon skill", "blunt weapon skill", and the rest? Sounds intriguing, to say the least.

[MrWiggles]

This thread isnt about more realistic weapons but better respect toward size of the creature and size of the equipment their using. Which there are various things planned, eventually.



Equipment skill refer to their skill association for leveling up and have no concept of the size of the creature wielding it. And this goes toward intent, which the computer is terrible at figuring out.

[Nimbby]

I could certainly see that the computer might have a hard time figuring out what skill was appropriate, the suggestion (in terms of what it says about skill, and not how weapons are crafted) means to say that using weapons that are similar, based on the item type, default skill, and material should give bonuses to other things than the default skill itself. As with the sword example, if you train with one weapon for long enough you come to know the feel of the weapon and how to best use it, but you also become more skilled with weapons similar to it (being the item type) and then to a diminished extent all weapons that attack in a similar way (the way the current skill system works). I used to be an avid fencer, and while my experience taught me how to fight with my sword the best, it also taught me how to fight with rapiers in general, and one handed weapons, but the less a weapon is like a rapier, the less ability I have to use it well. In terms of dwarf fortress, a dwarf that uses one military issued weapon throughout his career, say a longsword, would be amazing with the weapon he was issued, great with longswords, good with swords, decent with one-handed weapons, decent with slashing weapons, but not great with a two-handed sword; he would be in the current system however.

One solution could be breaking the skill system down into smaller skills that will culminate into bigger effects, and perhaps having dynamically generated skills centered around very particular objects. This could break down into something that went from least specific to most specific this way Melee weapons-Bladed weapons-Swords-One Handed Swords-Scimitars-*steel scimitar*

[Neonivek]

Once again I have to state that a giant knife isn't a sword. We arn't going by Zelda logic here.

At the same time a small sword isn't a knife.

The handles limit how it is held.

As for "Giant sized weapons" the issue is that for the most part... Giant weapons are not reasonable in dwarf fortress. At least in terms of swords. Yet the game has yet to really add giant weapons like a Tree club.

[MrWiggles]

The size difference is there. its just not totally respected yet.

[Zoolimar]

The problem of armor and weapons is that giant won't be able to effectively wield them if they have same proportions as armor and weapons wielded by dwarfs and humans. At least if he doesn't have magical power in muscles.

If i remember correctly strength scales to square of volume size and mass scales to cube of volume size. So giant will be getting more and more trouble with moving his own weight and donning on armor won't be very practical. The same goes for weapons.

Edited: Basically if giant has 2 times the height of human he gets 4 times the strength and 8 times the mass of human.

[Pootis]

One solution could be breaking the skill system down into smaller skills that will culminate into bigger effects, and perhaps having dynamically generated skills centered around very particular objects. This could break down into something that went from least specific to most specific this way Melee weapons-Bladed weapons-Swords-One Handed Swords-Scimitars-*steel scimitar*

Interesting thought this is, as it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that such a system would make randomly generated items and weapons more feasible.

[TastyMints]

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Weapon_token

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Entity_token

If you can figure out how to mod creatures then I'm sure you can figure out how to make modded weapons.

When your race makes weapons too small for their stature it's because you told the game that they make weapons of that size in their civ/entity information. You need to create the appropriate weapons, then place the appropriate tags in the entity raws.

Also your creatures are going to need some ridiculous strength and agility to wield weapons as large as you might want. Size scaling doesn't really account for unreasonably large creatures.

As far as your suggestion is concerned, I must confess I have no thoughts to contribute other than the information above.