Print

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

[Urist McShire]

I'm sure that this has been asked before by someone, but exactly how important is the [BODY_SIZE] token when it comes to a creature's ability in combat? I know that a dwarf at adult size is 60,000, and an Elephant is 5,000,000, but I've never had my dwarves encounter elephants before so I'm a little unsure of how much more/less dangerous an elephant would be if I chopped its size down to 20,000 or upped it to 10,000,000.

Or does it not affect combat at all and instead only affects butchering returns?

[Urist Da Vinci]

Short answer: Yes, it is very important to combat.

Long answer: There is complex behind-the-scenes math involving creature size and combat. In particular damage resistance, charging, and attack momentum all benefit from being larger. Look at this thread, especially the combat.lua DFHack script that I wrote: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=131995.msg5220442#msg5220442

Elephant kick momentum: ~4713
Human kick momentum: ~81

EDIT: I will add that for charging, being even 1.2x as large as your opponent seems to make a huge difference, such that human adventurers can almost always win charges and knock down goblins, elves, or dwarves. (this is anecdotal and not based on serious research)

[Putnam]

It is easily the most important thing in the game when it comes to combat, bar none.

[TheFlame52]

It is easily the most important thing in the game when it comes to combat, bar none.

If it was the most important thing, then my legendary swordsman adventurer would not be able to kill unskilled bronze colossi.

[scamtank]

Giant metal statues are much fragile than actual giant creatures.

[TheFlame52]

The same stands for any other large creature. Giant lions, rocs, etc. Skill is the most important. But yes, size falls right behind.

[puke]

sooo.... the captured megabeasts should be put in a coinstar or danger room before being unleased against a siege?  That is what I'm hearing you guys say, right?

[Putnam]

megabeasts can't learn

[puke]

What?  That's tragic!

edit:  many of the semi-megabeasts can learn, including giants and other oversized humanoids (trolls, etc.).  I guess they usually dont come with their own armor, so coinstars may be useless.  But making them legendary Dodgers and Fighters probably isnt a total waste of time.  Surely nothing could go wrong.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Did some serious research into wrestling and related areas:

- An unskilled creature can barely wrestle another unskilled creature of the exact same size (random creature size differences disabled)
- A grand master wrestler (with other skills at grand master level if that matters) can easily wrestle unskilled creatures of the same size, but starts having serious difficulty with creatures about 1.3x larger.
- Conversely, even with no wrestling skill you can beat creatures that are 0.75x your size.

- Ability to dodge a charge is a combination of the dodge, observer, and fighter skills, but you are required to jump out of the way of the incoming attack, and that may not happen: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=3778
- Notably a creature that fails the observer check "looks surprised by the ferocity of Your onslaught!"
- Once the game has determined that two creatures will collide in a charge, a WRESTLING skill check is performed to determine who will fall over. As above, size matters a huge amount.
- Part of the equation is "number = size/100 + strength/100". So a strength of 5000 is roughly equivalent to an increase in size of 1.6x over 1000 strength. Note that sizes in the code are 1/10 of that in the raws, so humans are 7000 base. The equation uses the "current" size rather than the base size, so FAT and MUSCLE sizes both help. I saw a dwarf in a test fort who was effectively 1.3x larger due to being corpulent and very strong.
- The enemy AI is aware of the above and appears to gleefully charge you a lot once it realizes it has the advantage. This should be a warning sign. In adventure mode, you can test the potential success of wrestling moves by attempting to charge the creature - if you can't knock it over, don't bother wrestling.

[TheFlame52]

Huh. This explains why seasoned adventurers can knock over members of their own species - they are so strong that they are huge.