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Author Topic: Is damage cumulative?  (Read 455 times)

kiwiphoenix

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Is damage cumulative?
« on: January 11, 2014, 02:18:30 am »
Hello, all! Not sure if this has been covered before, but a quick search didn't turn up much.

So, I've been trying to make leather more feasible (toughening the material and giving the armour extra-high coverage).
It's working pretty well - highly effective against cuts - but I've noticed a trend during arena testing.
The first dozen or so sword slashes or so will bruise the skin. After that, one starts to see shallow gashes. Eventually, the occasional organ-scrambling full penetration will appear, as well.

Am I seeing patterns in random happenstances? Or does DF track armour damage over time?
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Chaia

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Re: Is damage cumulative?
« Reply #1 on: January 11, 2014, 04:27:08 am »
DF does not track armor damage as far as I know. MY theory is that the enemy gained a higher skill level thus making him better and stronger. This leads finally to the effects you mentioned
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Garath

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Re: Is damage cumulative?
« Reply #2 on: January 11, 2014, 07:37:14 am »
One lucky hit may also severely reduce the defences of the target, making all the following hits more likely to land and do damage
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They Got Leader

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Re: Is damage cumulative?
« Reply #3 on: January 11, 2014, 05:55:11 pm »
Armor and damage is awkward, as Toady has mentioned before. There is little truly known about how it works.

Once a part of the body has been hit, it's defenses are reduced. Depending on what part of the body, this affects a lot more than just that. Because everything is connected like it would be in real life, damage to arms cause the creature to stop blocking effectively (and so on). If the wound is not healed, it will continue to weaken and take more damage.

This is what makes large creatures (like giant sea sponges and dragons) very difficult to deal with, as their large sizes allow them to heal from wounds at faster rates. Armor does degrade over time, I believe, but that is not related to how it is used in battle.
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Witty

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Re: Is damage cumulative?
« Reply #4 on: January 11, 2014, 08:45:56 pm »
IIRC, armor in use will not degrade. Armor will only decay if it's left to rot in a refuse stockpile.
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Telgin

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Re: Is damage cumulative?
« Reply #5 on: January 11, 2014, 09:13:08 pm »
Based on some analysis on damage and weapon penetration that someone else did (Urist DaVinci I think?), I believe it was found that armor behaves like an extra tissue layer that heals immediately after it's hit.  I'm not sure if that was just an analogy or if that's what disassembling the game actually revealed.

Either way, no, armor isn't damaged at all when something is hit.  The game just doesn't track that yet.
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