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But there's gonna be a better one in the future

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[flyteofheart]

Thanks a ton. This will help me so much. I will start using it immediately Copying the whole post to a text file so I can use it offline haha.

Do you know how compatible this would be with other mods? Like if I install this, and then careful not to overwrite anything, install a mod that adds new civs/creatures, will they use the new combat system? Or would I have to go back and mod those creatures too?

Thanks for your work. Combat has long annoyed me in DF for being too easy or too weird.

[Sver]

Do you know how compatible this would be with other mods? Like if I install this, and then careful not to overwrite anything, install a mod that adds new civs/creatures, will they use the new combat system? Or would I have to go back and mod those creatures too?

The exact incompatibilities are explained in the top post.
Overall, my mod doesn't touch the creature files themselves, but makes changes to organic body detail plan, tissues and some materials. Thus, unless the mod in question uses very specific, custom defined body layers, tissues or materials, it will integrate with mine seamlessly. EDIT: and if it does, it's probably for a reason, so there is no need to worry.
If you're adding new civs, I suggest giving them some of my mod's new weapons and armor - but it's not mandatory and there should be no conflicts regardless.

[Burneddi]

Could you consider adding some more sword options for dwarven civs? Currently short swords and war knives seem to be the only ones they can use. It'd be nice if they got scimitars as an extra one-handed option and longswords as a two-handed sword, or something.

PS: motivated by this mod and my civ not knowing how to make any of the cloth armor like gambesons, I wrote a small DFHack script to teach dwarves how to make items unknown to them without messing with entity_default.txt or re-embarking. It should be included with DFHack in a release or two, but in the mean time you can get it here.

[Sver]

Could you consider adding some more sword options for dwarven civs? Currently short swords and war knives seem to be the only ones they can use. It'd be nice if they got scimitars as an extra one-handed option and longswords as a two-handed sword, or something.

My presets are designed to stay closer to vanilla/generic fantasy, hence, I decided not to give the dwarves those weapons that Toady deemed "undwarfy", such as swords longer than a short sword. Also, the current variety covers all the common swordly specializations, as my dwarven preset includes: 'short sword' for general swordsdwarfship, 'war knife' for swift cutting/slicing and 'war cleaver' for chopping (all use SWORD skill); additionally, there's the 'falx' (PIKE skill) to fill the role of a two-handed slashing weapon.

However, my presets are simply there for convenience and I'm not forcing them on anyone. If you prefer your dwarves to have different (or simply more) weapons, you are free to add them - that's what the full list of items.txt is for. Only the 'greatsword', 'executioner sword' and 'longbow' (plus it's sets) are completely too big for dwarven usage.

PS: motivated by this mod and my civ not knowing how to make any of the cloth armor like gambesons, I wrote a small DFHack script to teach dwarves how to make items unknown to them without messing with entity_default.txt or re-embarking. It should be included with DFHack in a release or two, but in the mean time you can get it here.

Yeah, I saw it on reddit, very useful and neat, good work! I thought about posting a link here, but then figured you'll probably post it yourself sooner or later. Thanks for linking my mod, btw

[Burneddi]

Would it be possible to add in-game descriptions for items by way of supporting DFHack's view-item-info? As someone who's not exactly a medieval period geek, I find myself constantly scratching my head trying to figure out what exactly some of the items added by this mod are. Of course writing descriptions for them would be a pretty big effort, so I understand if you don't want to do it.

[Sver]

Well, I certainly will write some descriptions, eventually, but I'm way too unfamiliar with DFhack to implement them in there myself.

So, yeah. Once I'm done with some major stuff that I'm currently working on, at least, the descriptions will be added on this page. But to make them appear in-game I'd need someone who has any clue how that stuff works.

[Burneddi]

Well, I certainly will write some descriptions, eventually, but I'm way too unfamiliar with DFhack to implement them in there myself.

So, yeah. Once I'm done with some major stuff that I'm currently working on, at least, the descriptions will be added on this page. But to make them appear in-game I'd need someone who has any clue how that stuff works.

That particular part of DFHack is very simple; the only thing you'll have to concern yourself with is a file that contains a single Lua table. You can take look at the default item-descriptions.lua file in DFHack which contains descriptions for items in the base game. It's not too dissimilar to raws, being a similar kind of text-based markup. Basically, what would need to be created would look like this (excuse the crappy example descriptions paraphrased off of Wikipedia):

Code: [Select]

descriptions = {
  ITEM_ARMOR_GAMBESON_SVER = {
    "The gambeson, also known as the aketon,",
    "the padded jack, or the arming doublet,",
    "is a padded defensive jacket, that can be",
    "worn both separately and underneath mail or",
    "plate armour. It is a thick, quilted jacket,",
    "and can also double as a winter coat."
  },
  ITEM_ARMOR_BRIGANDINE_SVER = {
    "Brigandine is a form of armour made of heavy",
    "cloth or leather lined with metal plates.",
    "It was commonly worn over a gambeson and",
    "a mail shirt, though even then it did not",
    "offer protection as good as plate armour.",
    "It is, however, lighter and offers greater",
    "mobility than plate, making it favoured by",
    "soldiers who prefer to fight unencumbered."
  }
}
Saving that file as more-item-descriptions.lua and putting it under DFHack's scripts folder will cause DFHack to display descriptions for gambesons and brigandine:



Anyway, if you end up writing descriptions and can't figure out how to put them in yourself, hit me up and I can help you out. You can either PM me on Reddit or on IRC (I'm on eg. Freenode with this nickname)—I might miss it if you message me on the forums. Just keep in mind these descriptions limit you to 9 lines that are a maximum of 50 characters long.

[Sver]

Doesn't look too difficult. Thank you!

Just one more question: considering the character and line limit, would you prefer the descriptions to be be more flavorful (like your example wiki ones), more technical (like the vanilla DFhack ones) or something else?

[Burneddi]

Doesn't look too difficult. Thank you!

Just one more question: considering the character and line limit, would you prefer the descriptions to be be more flavorful (like your example wiki ones), more technical (like the vanilla DFhack ones) or something else?

Technical with a hint of flavour would probably be the best. It'd be ideal if players could get by without reading external descriptions or figuring out the different size, coverage and permit values, but that can be difficult to achieve. Here's what I would consider the essential information I'd be looking for myself:

• A short, concise description of what the item is and looks like (flavour, if any, would be mostly here)
• A description of what body part the item covers
• A couple of example items that would make good pairings for this item, such as how the gambeson is good for wearing under sturdier metal armour
• If it's a weapon, a short description of its attack properties (eg. if it's good against armour or good against chopping parts off)

Oh, also, apparently only the lines near the bottom are limited to 50 characters. Not sure what the exact character limits for the lines near the top are; some of the vanilla descriptions have lines over 70 characters long.

[Sver]

Got it

I don't think there will be too much problem packing it into ~450 characters.

Edit: also, PM'd a question.

[Sver]

A new poll is up.

[Xilian]

This mod really looks great!

So I was wondering, what is the major differences between this and Grimlocke's combat mod? in regards to the combat itself and the properties of the armour and weapons.

[Sver]

Thank you

I've never really played or arena-tested with the Grimlocke's mod, so I can only compare it by the raws and the feature list. So, please, take note, that these are mostly my musings and/or personal opinion. Grimlocke's mod does some thing that my mod doesn't, such as reworked material properties of metals, lowered bone density and interactions that make creatures more resistant to fatigue and pain. All of these probably affect how armor and weapons really perform in combat. All tests for my mod are done with vanilla metals, densities and creature attributes in mind, so I can only judge the raws from this perspective.
* Melee weapons. In Grimlocke's mod they seem much more powerful: even sword slashes have small contact areas, very deep penetration and very high velocity. As a result, Grimlocke's weapons are not as functionally different between each other as the weapons in my mod. In my mod, each weapon type has a distict combat purpose (heavy armor breaking, light armor breaking, quick bloodletting, limb chopping, organ damage) in which it excels, then certain subtypes excel in two things at once, but to a lesser degree, and so on; in Grimlocke's mod, most axes and swords would probably perform very similar. As the weapons in my mod are weaker, successful hits aren't always as deadly (thus, a bit less luck based combat) and it's harder to fight off large beasts, especially inorganic ones; in Grimlocke's mod, the weapons seem to be very deadly against everything. Regarding attack speed, in Grimlocke's mod short weapons are easier to parry with, while long weapons are harder to defend against; my mod uses a more simplistic system, where weapons have a gradually growing advantage the longer they are.
* Ranged weapons and ammo. My mod has more variety and functional distinction for ranged weapons: there is a steady progression of power and material cost (and/or min body size limit). My ammo is a lot lighter and shoot velocities are lower, thus, archers in my mod are not as slow, but not as deadly either. Also, in my mod it is possible to have archers with offhand weapons (so called "weapon sets"), so it's entirely possible to train squads that both fight and shoot just as good, and out-of-ammo invaders retain some level of danger.
* Unarmed attacks. My mod doesn't touch creature files at all. Compared to Revised (which I recommend to use together with my mod), Grimlocke's unarmed attacks are significantly weaker, although, even in Revised they are quite non-deadly. Due to tissue changes in my mod (see below), bruising multiple internal organs may render the opponent temporarily disabled, so unarmed combat may serve as a viable non-lethal way of fighting, while in Grimlocke's mod it's plainly nerfed.
* Armor. My mod has a bit more functional differences between armor pieces and more possible combinations. Also, my mod has a broader variety of plate armors, allowing for cheap, lightweight additions to put over existing uniforms, including other plate. These additions partially protect the main armor piece from damage, which might be quite useful when the armor is made from a low-grade material. Armor in my mod is generally lighter, thus, armored soldiers don't get tired as quickly. Some body armors in my mod protect facial features to a varying degree (helms are unable to do this within the game's mechanics), up to metal plate, making actually full plate armor achievable.
* Tissues. My mod does some tissue rebalancing that Grimlocke's mod doesn't. Force transitioning mechanic is significantly nerfed in my mod, which means no more neck snapping from a punch to the head and no more open joint fractures from a strike to the limb; without these fixes even the very best armor would be pretty lame, because it offers zero protection from force transitioning. Additionally, organ wounds have much more severe effects, so torso protection is vitaly important. Together, these changes make the armor in my mod much more powerful and important, while in Grimlocke's it mostly functions the same as vanilla. In my mod, a good enough armor can finally compete with the all-blocking power of a shield, making two-handed weapon wielders viable; doing the same in Grimlocke's mod is not a very good idea, as almost any hit can still deliver debilitating damage. Also, broken fingers in my mod don't cause as much agony, limb damage causes a bit less agony and skulls are more durable (all of this makes combat less inane and luck based).
* Shields. In Grimlocke's mod they are a lot less protective (22% max blockchance, compared to 85% in my mod) and don't seem particularly balanced between each other. In my mod, there is a steady progression of blockchance and weight, thus, larger shields are encumbering, but quite useful. This makes fighting certain creatures (such as dragons) easier in my mod, at least, with due preparations.

Something like this.

EDIT: Grimlocke has posted an answer that addresses some of the wrongful assumptions I've made here, so I suggest to check it out.

[Xilian]

Thank you very much for the comprehensive answers! I like the way your mod approaches combat in general

* Ranged weapons and ammo. My mod has more variety and functional distinction for ranged weapons: there is a steady progression of power and material cost (and/or min body size limit). My ammo is a lot lighter and shoot velocities are lower, thus, archers in my mod are not as slow, but not as deadly either. Also, in my mod it is possible to have archers with offhand weapons (so called "weapon sets"), so it's entirely possible to train squads that both fight and shoot just as good, and out-of-ammo invaders retain some level of danger.

Regarding the ammo, doesn't the very small size basically make them unable to harm armoured targets, or does the power of the (cross)bows make up for that? Or does the coverage of armour make up for this by sometimes allowing projectiles to bypass armour (like hitting through gaps in the armour)?

* Unarmed attacks. My mod doesn't touch creature files at all. Compared to Revised (which I recommend to use together with my mod), Grimlocke's unarmed attacks are significantly weaker, although, even in Revised they are quite non-deadly. Due to tissue changes in my mod (see below), bruising multiple internal organs may render the opponent temporarily disabled, so unarmed combat may serve as a viable non-lethal way of fighting, while in Grimlocke's mod it's plainly nerfed.

I heard halving velocity modifier of unarmed attacks already solves a lot of issues, do you recommend this with your mod too?

* Armor. My mod has a bit more functional differences between armor pieces and more possible combinations. Also, my mod has a broader variety of plate armors, allowing for cheap, lightweight additions to put over existing uniforms, including other plate. These additions partially protect the main armor piece from damage, which might be quite useful when the armor is made from a low-grade material. Armor in my mod is generally lighter, thus, armored soldiers don't get tired as quickly. Some body armors in my mod protect facial features to a varying degree (helms are unable to do this within the game's mechanics), up to metal plate, making actually full plate armor achievable.

This seems a lot in line with battles often not having too many casualties until a rout broke out.  I take it you lowered the weight of your armours by lowering the size, doesn't this also make the armours weaker and easier to broke by repeated hits?

* Tissues. My mod does some tissue rebalancing that Grimlocke's mod doesn't. Force transitioning mechanic is significantly nerfed in my mod, which means no more neck snapping from a punch to the head and no more open joint fractures from a strike to the limb; without these fixes even the very best armor would be pretty lame, because it offers zero protection from force transitioning. Additionally, organ wounds have much more severe effects, so torso protection is vitaly important. Together, these changes make the armor in my mod much more powerful and important, while in Grimlocke's it mostly functions the same as vanilla. In my mod, a good enough armor can finally compete with the all-blocking power of a shield, making two-handed weapon wielders viable; doing the same in Grimlocke's mod is not a very good idea, as almost any hit can still deliver debilitating damage. Also, broken fingers in my mod don't cause as much agony, limb damage causes a bit less agony and skulls are more durable (all of this makes combat less inane and luck based).
* Shields. In Grimlocke's mod they are a lot less protective (22% max blockchance, compared to 85% in my mod) and don't seem particularly balanced between each other. In my mod, there is a steady progression of blockchance and weight, thus, larger shields are encumbering, but quite useful. This makes fighting certain creatures (such as dragons) easier in my mod, at least, with due preparations.

Something like this.

I like the overall approach you did regarding making battles longer and less luck focused. So I wonder, how often do armours break in combat, and how much of a problem does exhaustion become in prolonged big fights?
Also to calculate weapon sizes and contact areas in attack do you use specific formulas, or do you kinda improvise per weapon so it feels right? Lastly, is it possible for me to use this mod and build upon it, for example I have made a custom human entity that takes inspiration from early Chinese imperial dynasties, thus I'd like it to have armour and weapons in line with this. For example armours were often not plate but coat of plates or lammelar and a lot thicker than european armours, their crossbows also tended to be a theoratically more powerful than their european counterparts. Hence, by your permission I'd like to use your mod and build upon by following the way you made armour and weapons and incorporate it into my new civilisations and mettalurgy.

[Sver]

Regarding the ammo, doesn't the very small size basically make them unable to harm armoured targets, or does the power of the (cross)bows make up for that? Or does the coverage of armour make up for this by sometimes allowing projectiles to bypass armour (like hitting through gaps in the armour)?

It's a bit of both. Regular bows and crossbows will not be able to do much against serious armor, but longbows and arbalests, especially with piercing ammo, perform pretty good. On the other hand, serious armor is expensive to make (and a full set is very rarely generated on invaders) - and cheaper, lower tier armors have gaps. Simultaneously, my mod still has heavy and powerful ranged options, such as atlatls (javelin throwers) and hand ballistas. Slings also perform well against armor, although they are more luck based than other ranged weapons.

I heard halving velocity modifier of unarmed attacks already solves a lot of issues, do you recommend this with your mod too?

This is what Revised does, yeah. Revised also removes biting and scratching from civilized creatures, because of how ridiculous those are within the game's mechanics. Both of these fixes work well with my mod.

This seems a lot in line with battles often not having too many casualties until a rout broke out.

Yep, one of the mod's main goals is to tone down the quick and random lethality of the vanilla DF combat and make the choice of armor less streamlined. Also, I feel like this has a positive effect on the storytelling aspect of the game, as there is now more room for mistakes in combat: having multiple viable armor choices gives the troops more character, and many militias who would have inevitably died in vanilla may end up wounded, yet saved by their comrades.

I take it you lowered the weight of your armours by lowering the size, doesn't this also make the armours weaker and easier to broke by repeated hits?

Short answer: no, lowering the layer size doesn't make the armor any weaker.
Long answer: due to how DF combat formulae handles armor thickness, there is no settling point of difference between the layer size values of 1 and 20 (20 being vanilla for plate), unless the armor in question is sized for a creature with a body size value of seven figures. Essentially, the layer size will only start to matter when worn by something the size of an ogre - and the armor sized for such a creature will be so thick that the difference in protection becomes irrelevant. Also, the weight will render the wearer immobile anyway.

So I wonder, how often do armours break in combat, and how much of a problem does exhaustion become in prolonged big fights?

There are too many variables for any combat situation to give a definitive answer here. In short, plate armors break less often than they do in vanilla, and exhaustion is much less of a problem even for the heaviest armor choices. Both still occur, but, in general, armor in my mod is more durable (due to weakened weapons) and less of a liability.
It should also be noted that exhaustion depends on many, many different factors and still plays one of the most decisive roles in combat - and will continue to do so until Toady teaches the AI to preserve stamina.

Also to calculate weapon sizes and contact areas in attack do you use specific formulas, or do you kinda improvise per weapon so it feels right?

Generally speaking, I use real life weapon examples, with the help of modern replica shops and extensive googling.
For the weapon sizes, I've calculated that for an iron weapon to weight somewhere close to 1 kg in the game, the size must be about 150. I set all sizes based on this ratio and the real life weight of the prototype weapon.
For the basic edged attacks, I use the prototype's edge length and, in case of axes, axe head lenght, converting them from inches to raw-units by a ratio. This ratio is based on a number that I've found (after some testing) to be a quite reasonable penetration depth for the short sword (2000), equated to a reasonable blade lenght for the short sword (20 inches). Thus, I multiply a real life value in inches by 100 to get a game-friendly value. It turned out to work surprisingly well in practice.
Things start to get a bit more complicated when it comes to stabbing and other special edged attacks, although the same ratio is used for the most part. As a general guideline, stabbing contact areas equal the prototype's blade width divided by 10; thrusting equals blade width; clean slashes have blade length multiplied by 10 and have limited penetration; cuts are equal or half of blade length and their penetration equals blade width. And then, some attacks have it more arbitrary.
For blunt and pseudo-blunt (fluke/spike strikes) attacks I mostly use arbitrary numbers that are given with the game mechanics in mind. Penetration depth of fluke/spike strikes is capped by the prototype's fluke length, although it is occasionally made lower, for balancing reasons.
The way I calculate velocities is all over the place, but the most important numbers here are the prototype's total length in inches and the total weight in kg. If you give me these two numbers and describe the weapon, I can calculate the velocities for you. Or you can just use the velocities from the closest analogue in my mod.
For attack prepare and recover times it's best to simply use analogues, as those are even more all over the place than the velocities.
I also used to have some genius formulae which I've used to calculate the proper shoot forces for ranged weapons, but I've lost it. So, again, analogues all the way.

As for armor, I got to say that DF item modding lacks the possibility to properly implement lamellar armor and the like, as the armor is either rigid (like plate) or elastic (like mail) - there is no achievable middle ground. My mod does it in a half-assed way: lamellar armor can deflect blunt force (so, essentially, it's rigid), but has a relatively high chance (33%) to let any attack path through; on the other hand, it is relatively light, while covering many bodyparts. I've yet to come up with any way to implement it better.
Layer sizes for my armor are generally made with weight in mind, but you can safely use them by analogy (10 for plate, 6 for mail and so on), as thickness doesn't really affect combat performance anyway. One way to simulate functional thickness, though, is to have the same armor pieces layered upon each other, so keep it in mind for layer permits and the [SHAPED] tag placement.

And yes, you do have my permission, as it is stated in the main post. Regarding making new items in the groove of the mod, I might also be able to give more precise answers to more precise questions =)