Print

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

[BoogieMan]

I've been working on a 4-armed humanoid race, and I've been making custom weapons for them, and I'm running in to some difficulties.

Is there a way to essentially make a weaponized shield, or vice versa? I had the idea for Shield Warriors being an option for the new race, where in both lower hands they use more or less regular shields, while the upper armed hold an object that is a mixture of a shield and a large fist weapon/cestus. Kind of like a slightly smaller shield but has blades and spikes. The thought being a: something unique, and b: highly defensive warriors. Are world gen and adventure mode weapons selected purely from chance (and weapons accessible to race) or is there a way to bias certain weapons or even certain equipment loadouts so you could encounter such an enemy in Adventure Mode? I have the feeling the only way this could be encountered is by random chance, made more likely if they shields could be made to be viewed as acceptable weapons with shield like properties.

I tried to add slightly modified short sword attacks to a shield, but they don't seem to be accessible. Just a basic strike. Also, it could have just been chance but it didn't feel like in the object testing area that the extra shields really added any more survivability or chances to block. A member of the custom race with the 4 shields will nearly always lose against a member of the same race with the same skills with 1 longsword and a shield. Granted that if the shields worked how I envisioned they would be more effective offensively, but defensively speaking the guy with 4 shields seems to get cut down just the same as a guy with 1 shield.

I also made a custom bow for them, similar to a compound bow - or simply just a bow that requires a lot of strength + an extra arm to effectively pull the high tension string back, adding force to the arrow fired. I know that ranged weapons can, or at least used to be, excessively lethal. Using the base bow/arrow as a model, what would be acceptable numbers to make this work without making it too powerful? I don't know if changing the force from 1000 to say 1200 would be reasonable or start going back to the railgun bows that were OP.


Last, I made a greatsword for them, with fairly strict body size requirements that is supposed to be held in four hands. I don't see that being possible and I am accepting it as just an even larger two-handed swords. So I used the base two hander as a template and made some adjustments to the stats. However, they seem more ineffective than I am intending. A group wielding the new greatsword gets absolutely wrecked by a group using regular two handed swords. Obviously I don't understand the weapon stats enough to pull this off, so if someone could give me some pointers I'd appreciate it. Example below.

Default Two-Handed Sword:
[SIZE:900]
[SKILL:SWORD]
[TWO_HANDED:77500]
[MINIMUM_SIZE:62500]
[MATERIAL_SIZE:5]
[ATTACK:EDGE:100000:8000:slash:slashes:NO_SUB:1250]
   [ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:3:3]
[ATTACK:EDGE:50:4000:stab:stabs:NO_SUB:1000]
   [ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:3:3]
[ATTACK:BLUNT:100000:8000:slap:slaps:flat:1250]
   [ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:3:3]
[ATTACK:BLUNT:100:1000:strike:strikes:pommel:1000]
   [ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:3:3]


Custom Two-Handed Sword:
[SIZE:1400]
[SKILL:SWORD]
[TWO_HANDED:85000]
[MINIMUM_SIZE:75000]
[MATERIAL_SIZE:8]
[ATTACK:EDGE:120000:10000:slash:slashes:NO_SUB:1250]
   [ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:3:4]
[ATTACK:EDGE:60:5000:stab:stabs:NO_SUB:1000]
   [ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:3:4]
[ATTACK:BLUNT:120000:10000:slap:slaps:flat:1250]
   [ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:3:4]
[ATTACK:BLUNT:125:1250:strike:strikes:pommel:1000]
   [ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:3:4]

Is the recover being 4 as opposed to 3 that huge a difference? Or is it the other stats? Also, what do the very last two fields represent? Like NO_SUB and the final number? I consulted the wiki first, but it didn't answer all my questions so here I am.

[Bearskie]

NO_SUB refers to the part being used to make the attack. For eg. 'pommel' results in 'You slap Dwarf 2 with the pommel of your steel sword!'. 'NO_SUB'  results in 'You slap Dwarf 2 with your sleep sword!'

The number beside it is the velocity multiplier. Higher means faster, and hence more dangerous. I'd recommend upping it for your 2h sword, since the logic being when you swing a larger item, it has greater momentum. And yes, PREPARE_AND_RECOVER is very important - it refers to the number of ticks needed to complete and recover from an attack.

[Eric Blank]

Shields can't be made to work like weapons and vise-versa, but skilled warriors can use their weapons to parry attacks, and misc. Object users can use their shields as less effective maces. Copper shields are reasonably lethal for unarmored targets last I tried.

I really dont know which properties of a weapon dictate how effective it is at parrying, but its something I would love to know.

You're going to have to test your bow in the arena with different velocity/force multipliers to find the balance you desire.
On your great sword; the attacks would probably be more effective if you reduced the contact area (first value) and penetration size (second value) back down to something only a little above the original and increase the velocity (last value) The same force spread over a larger contact area results in reduced damage to any section of that area. On the contrary, reducing the contact area while maintaining force (or maintaining area and increasing force) results in better penetration and damage to tissues beneath the skin, or through armor. Think of it as pressure. You want to increase pressure to make it more lethal, but if youre applying the same sum total energy to a larger area pressure is being reduced across the board. Walking on snow in snow shoes creates less pressure over that larger area, you don't sink as much as with ballerina slippers.
You could up the contact area of the slashing attack and increase force proportionally, since that larger area does allow it to better sever limbs.

 The fact it takes longer to recover (you increased the recovery time to 4) just exasperates the loss of overall force-per-inch. The warriors with the older equipment are getting more hits in, can act more often, and are doing more damage.