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[Nilik]

Just a quick one; are whips still monofilament wires of armor-piercing death, or have they been fixed? If not fixed, is there a way for me to fix them myself by editing the raws? Which values would I need to tweak? And will this work on a game in progress? There are no whips currently on my map if that makes a difference.

I'm just kind of sick of training up a decent military and having them all die to lashers, which has been a recurring pattern in my recent forts.

[SpiralDimentia]

They're still Jedi.

[UnrealJake]

I'm still waiting for one to drop a steel whip, I want my own squad...

[JmzLost]

The raws for whips have not changed recently.  To fix it, you would want to increase the contact area (first number) and decrease the velocity multiplier (last number).  Try changing this:

[ATTACK:BLUNT:1:10:lash:lashes:NO_SUB:5000]

to this:

[ATTACK:BLUNT:10:10:lash:lashes:NO_SUB:2000]

This is a double nerf, it increases the contact area from 1 to 10, and reduces the velocity multiplier from 5000 to 2000.  You can readjust these numbers if it makes the whips too weak.  Changing the values should be ok even with whips on the map, as it will reload the values when you load DF.

JMZ

[Byakugan01]

Just a quick one; are whips still monofilament wires of armor-piercing death, or have they been fixed? If not fixed, is there a way for me to fix them myself by editing the raws? Which values would I need to tweak? And will this work on a game in progress? There are no whips currently on my map if that makes a difference.

I'm just kind of sick of training up a decent military and having them all die to lashers, which has been a recurring pattern in my recent forts.

They're still Jedi.

Then you must learn to use the force, Urist. Feel it flowing through your body like Magma. Rip your weapon from the hands of your cold, dead enemy. And turn it on his friends as they watch.

[Alastar]

Recurring topic. Greatly increasing contact area or reducing velocity aren't really consistent with expected whip behaviour; increased contact area would make it act more like an edged weapon. I'd rather improve the modeling: The real problem is that the game doesn't know whether a weapon is rigid or flexible. Currently, you don't get most of the weapon being slack and controlling a supersonic tip, you get 1kg of rigid supersonic metal hitting point on.

If you think it's a leather whip with a small metal tip, change size to 1-2.
If you think it's a chain whip with around 10 sections, change size to 10-20,

I believe the former is intended - the tiny contact area and extreme velocity seem more in line with that interpretation. Whips with greatly reduced weight behind the blows will still be good at incapacitating through pain but won't ignore armour.

[JmzLost]

Recurring topic. Greatly increasing contact area or reducing velocity aren't really consistent with expected whip behaviour;

Neither is the removal of limbs.

Changing the size, contact area, and/or velocity multiplier will give results that are more consistent with expectations for a whip.  Size might even be better than the ones I suggested.  I don't know, I haven't done much fighting lately.  And if you have marksdwarves to kill them before they reach your troops, it doesn't matter what they're armed with.

JMZ

[Lagslayer]

The problem with reducing the size is that it can be swung much faster as well.

[UnrealJake]

The problem with reducing the size is that it can be swung much faster as well.

It goes to 88mph?

[Byakugan01]

The problem with reducing the size is that it can be swung much faster as well.

It goes to 88mph?

In reality, they go FASTER than that. Whips BREAK THE SOUND BARRIER when used properly. That being said, putting that in would turn them into !!Munchkin Spiked chains of +1 Kill Gods!!

[UnrealJake]

The problem with reducing the size is that it can be swung much faster as well.

It goes to 88mph?

In reality, they go FASTER than that. Whips BREAK THE SOUND BARRIER when used properly. That being said, putting that in would turn them into !!Munchkin Spiked chains of +1 Kill Gods!!

So that's a yes?

[Nilik]

Wow. Can of worms.

So if I change the raws for my game in progress, will that take effect now? Or will I need to re-gen?

Also, why would increasing the surface area make it act more like an edged weapon? Isn't it acting like an edged weapon now? Its certainly slicing limbs off like one.

I was just thinking of maybe changing contact area from 1 -> 5 to start with, thanks for pointing me to the appropriate raw entries!

[Byakugan01]

Changing the raws FOR THE WORLD should affect your in-progress game. If you change the raws in the main raw folder, then you'll have to re-gen for the changes to take effect, but this has the benefit of affecting ALL your worlds.

[Alastar]

I haven't seen whips do a lot of limb removal, they seem to mostly chip bones through armour and jam skulls through brains with depressing regularity. Are you sure you're not confusing whips with scourges?

Scourges are handled very differently by the mechanics. They aren't actually very good weapons overall, but they are capable of cutting off small bits even through armour. They are lighter and cut less deep than the otherwise identical morningstars (which are legitimately good weapons) but are more spectacular for this: the difference between a corpse and a still-twitching dwarf having every body part wounded and missing a dozen individual bits.

As I said earlier, size 1-2 seems right for the metal tip of a leather whip and is consistent with the contact area of 1. For a chain whip, size 10-12 (1-2 links of the usual 7-11) and an increase in contact area (5-ish?) seem in order. I only tested the former. It's weak against armour for a blunt weapon, only moderately damaging against unprotected flesh but still very good at making opponents give in to pain. Sounds good to me.