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[bahihs]

I'd like to gather any illuminating research done on the combat system (and obviously their results) for the new version. Small, huge, extensive, specific, whatever it is, please post it here!

Here is my contribution:

1. It seems the difficulty of any shot determines how much exp is received for attempting the attack: the more difficult, the more exp. Exp is given per shot, so multiattacking will raise exp for every hit for a specific weapon.

EDIT: It seems however, that "impossible shot" will not give as much exp as "difficult shot"
EDIT2: So, it seems as long its not a green shot (i.e easy, easier) or impossible shot, it will give max exp (so tricky works as well as difficult)

[Max™]

That seems obvious in hindsight, but I honestly did not know that... that's actually a hell of a contribution!

[Bloax]

The silly thing about those markers is that they do not account for your skills - even if you're the baddest thing that has ever existed in the world with your weapon/fighter skills in the double-digit legendary+x, you will still have the same "tricky", "difficult" and "impossible" shot markers as a complete scrub, even if you can reliably hit even on "impossible" shots.

[Max™]

I made good use of this earlier, managed to get a hydra to jump backwards with their entrance ramp behind them, and after laughing as they Wile E. Coyote'D for a second I capitalized on it by sitting to the south and going side to side taking the difficult or at minimum tricky shots at the heads and body and went from like 400/1100 (adept I think?) to around 400/1600 (expert?) before it finally suffocated.

It wasn't able to come directly at me so rather than being smart and going diagonally out to circle around it just swung up/back at me and let me shield block/side step a swarm of heads with impunity as long as I stuck to quick+multi and resisted the urge to do any of the slower options.

I had to save scum after it grabbed my leg+Fist of the North Star'D me... Omae wa mou shindeiru...

You have already been struck down.

[a smiling bearded cretin]

For order of attack, normally one attacks the legs to drop opponent speed, and then arms/upper body/necks/head depending on what's green. But with the hydra, you'll get more out of the fight if you resist the urge to drop speed and let the hydra do what it does best which is to be quick and strike multiple times. Some worlds ago when my swordsdwarf cut the leg tendons under the hydra, alongside its speed drop was my character's defensive and observer stat gain. Since it did less, my character got less.

The hydra, fought solo, is not dangerous to the fully armored character with proficient stats in armor, shield, dodge and fighter, and competent weapon which feels like the rough minimum. Attribute-wise leans more towards demigod/hero where better endurance means you have to manage it less. If someone has solo'd a hydra with a peasant, it'd be interesting to see the attribute stats. Obvious requirement is fight outside so you always have the dodge away option.

This brings us to Fighting inside versus Fighting outside. Blocking with shield can be done anywhere. Fighting inside versus Fighting outside is more about Dodge away versus Dodge adjacent and about whether the opponent has a grab attack. Dodge away means after you manually opt to dodge there will be 1 square of space between you and your opponent. Dodge adjacent means you will still be in contact with the opponent after dodging. Depending on things like opponent speed, direction and variety of attacks (both grab and strike), dodge adjacent can cause you to suffer negative outcome. In order to always have the option to dodge away you need to be outside with (virtually) unlimited space. This means luring your opponent outside by getting their attention (some creatures don't need this) and jumping backwards towards the exit. Jumping is more effective than turning and running. Once you are outside, unless wildly statistically outmatched (or they breathe fire), you should not lose the fight.

[Authority2]

One problem with fighting outside is reanimating biomes.

[a smiling bearded cretin]

One problem with fighting outside is reanimating biomes.

Definitely.  I probably should have been a bit more specific in regard to when you'd chose outside over inside. That's more towards the hydra at proficient defensive stats, as at adept you can definitely have the fight in the lair (particularly if you use bleed out weapons), night trolls until probably expert (caveat being no spears, they don't grip break), and minotaurs when you first start out. But yeah I'd avoid the evil biome until I was could meet the minimum requirements to fight inside, and in relation to night trolls until I could definitely hit tricky shots more often than not in the cases where they do secure a grip during a grab attack. Giants, cyclops, ettins are too slow to require any environment management.

Still, fighting outside allowing for consistent dodge away is the safest in the above cases even after you're in a comfortable range when it comes to the stat comparison.

[bahihs]

Now obviously, the calculations that go into determining speed and accuracy of hits are probably very complex (with lots of different variables).

But one thing that bothers me is the difference between the fighting skill and the weapon skill regarding speed and accuracy. If I have the same level in both, will they each contribute equally? Is it an average? Cumulative? Does one have greater effect than the other?

The new system depends more on correct timing and taking advantage of small opportunities making it possible for weak characters to defeat stronger ones with enough patience. The only thing I wish, was if we could see the speed of our opponents (even a relative sense would be helpful, like "fast", "quick", "very slow" etc. to us) or at least determine speed drops given certain status conditions (e.g webbed, tired, broken/severed limb). Actually, are the speed drops numerical (like -.3) or proportional (like *.3)? And are they equivalent for both the PC and the NPC?

Another issue I have, is sometimes my skills for dodging or blocking will be at a certain level (say, adequate) in the skill menu, but when I go to dodge or block, the stated level is lower (usually novice). Why is this?

I'd like to test these things; does the arena mode simulate adventure mode combat well enough for this type of thing?

[Bloax]

Another issue I have, is sometimes my skills for dodging or blocking will be at a certain level (say, adequate) in the skill menu, but when I go to dodge or block, the stated level is lower (usually novice). Why is this?

You have a debilitating status (usually hunger/thirst/drowsiness/stun [and probably pain] with stacking penalties for combinations) that induces a penalty on your skills.

I'd like to test these things; does the arena mode simulate adventure mode combat well enough for this type of thing?

Swapping between fortress mode and adventure mode is already in and it's called taking control of a unit in test arena.
so yes, it is does simulate it well enough because you're literally in adventure mode

[bahihs]

Awesome, experiments are underway. Lets see what we can find. For science!

EDIT1: I did some simple experiments to determine which skill has greater effect on general combat ability, fighter or weapon skill:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Parameters:

1. 2 trials of 40 vs. 40, same initial starting conditions for both sides
2. Humans, average in all skills, group one has Grandmaster Fighter, group two has Grandmaster Axeman. No skill in everything else
3. No armor (I was lazy), Iron Battle-Axe for both groups
4. Battle continues until one side is victorious

Results:

In trial one, only 12 out of the 40 GM axeman survived; 0 out of 40 GM fighters survived
In trial two, 19 out of 40 GM Axeman; 0 out of 40 GM fighters survived

More trials can probably be done, but I'm concluding that weapon skill is more significant toward combat ability than fighter skill.

Also some random stuff with speed in different conditions:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Base speed is 1.0 which is the same between characters that have the same attributes (skills not yet tested, though I believe they should have no effect)

1. If tired, speed goes from 1.0 -> .833 (83% or -.167)
2. If prone, speed goes from 1.0 -> .323 (32%, about 1/3, or -.678)
3. Broken leg has same effect as prone 1.0 -> .323

Now for some more interesting results:

1. If tired AND prone, speed goes from .833 -> .303 (or -.53)
2. Similarly tired and broken leg .833 -> .303

Meaning there is some sort of cumulative effect (being tired amplifies prone/broken leg penalty by a factor of 1.12 or actually decreases it by .143, depending on whether the effects are summed or multiplied)

I need to explore this a little more, as well as look at attack speeds.

[Bloax]

2. If prone, speed goes from 1.0 -> .323 (32%, about 1/3, or -.678)

Code: [Select]

creature_standard.txt
[CREATURE:HUMAN]

[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_BIPED_GAITS:900:675:450:225:1900:2900] 39 kph
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_CRAWLING_GAITS:2990:2257:1525:731:4300:6100] 12 kph, NO DATA12/39 = 31%

It all depends on the creature.

Oh, and fun thing about that;

Code: [Select]

Dwarves:
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_BIPED_GAITS:900:711:521:293:1900:2900] 30 kph
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_CLIMBING_GAITS:5951:5419:4898:1463:6944:8233] 6 kph
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_SWIMMING_GAITS:5951:5419:4898:1463:6944:8233] 6 kph
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_CRAWLING_GAITS:2990:2257:1525:731:4300:6100] 12 kph

Humans:
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_BIPED_GAITS:900:675:450:225:1900:2900] 39 kph
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_CLIMBING_GAITS:6561:6115:5683:1755:7456:8567] 5 kph, NO DATA
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_SWIMMING_GAITS:5341:4723:4112:1254:6433:7900] 7 kph
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_CRAWLING_GAITS:2990:2257:1525:731:4300:6100] 12 kph, NO DATA

Elves:
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_BIPED_GAITS:900:642:428:214:1900:2900] 41 kph
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_CLIMBING_GAITS:2206:1692:1178:585:3400:4900] 15 kph
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_SWIMMING_GAITS:2990:2257:1525:731:4300:6100] 12 kph
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_CRAWLING_GAITS:2728:2069:1409:675:4000:5700] 13 kphDwarves are slow as molasses, elves are pretty fast.

[Remuthra]

Combat System:
        Axe
      /      \
Whip ---- Hammer

[Max™]

Playing around with gaits by directly editing stuff in gui/gm-editor I was able to get various humans/dorfs/elves/gobs to cap out at 6.666 displayed speed.

I was able to get a couple of glitchy moments like when I accidentally made an elf something like 30% normal size and the displayed speed was like 7.420 I think, and you can directly change a couple of different things and temporarily get the same displayed speed but it goes away if you change direction, returning to the cap of 6.666.

From the comments in the raws it looks like a speed of 1 tile per frame would be 8.100 but I've yet to actually get a creature capable of this speed, though I haven't tried non-humanoids, I have no idea what happens if you were to go faster but I assume your character implodes or turns into a wambler which then implodes or something like that.

Things I messed with were all under the body header in gm-editor.

I think body plan has the sub-headings size info and gait info, gait info is obvious enough, first heading is walking, with speeds in descending order, second is crawling, then climbing and swimming (or swimming and climbing, I forget), and I think flying is last.

I think there is a "sweet spot" with body size and stuff, I noticed that if I went too far either direction I'd get slower, I think a default elf caps out when the body size is 3900~4000, didn't check as closely with the other two races, and there is a bit of a speed modifier due to the values under uh, body material percent or something, the headings were like total, base, muscle, and fat, with values around 65235 for a human base as I recall? Those changes only come into play if the top flag under a given gait is true (layers_slow), otherwise being stacked with muscles and belarded with fat doesn't matter for speed.

These were all around when I was trying to make a human adventurer expy of Saitama from Onepunch Man, who is too strong and tends to end fights in a boringly immediate fashion with a single blow.

Later I noticed the rather hilarious nature of the "brawl/non-lethal/lethal/no quarter" system whereby if you add edge tags to your barehanded attacks and adjust the contact/penetration perc values enough to enable you to delimb/behead targets you can run up and chop someones arm off but still have non-lethal responses since you're "unarmed"... which is almost ironic.

[bahihs]

Movement stuff seems to be pretty straight-forward from the raws.

But what about the vastly more important, combat speed?

[Max™]

The only direct change I've made which has clearcut effects is the attack and recover values, as expected setting them to 1 lets you wail away on stuff before it can swing again.

Not sure about the modifiers on that, but I can't see anything as noticeable as the attack/recover ones.