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[SirHoneyBadger]

It's a very recogniseable theme in many heroic-style fantasies-bad ones in particular-to have elaborate, often oversized and unrealistically flanged/spiked/studded/bladed weapons, often with crazy-to-the-point-of-laughable modifications.

This isn't that.

But, it does give a nod to the historical idea that before industrialization, each weapon was forged individually, and often quite uniquely, incorporating both the abilities and style of the smith, and the desires of the customer-warrior.

This thread is kind of meant to go along with my 'New Weapons Based on Skill' thread, and is a suggestion that it be possible for our dwarfs to forge non-standardized "customized" weapons, that may have additional spikes or hooks, that are heavier or longer than average (in order to accommodate larger and stronger fighters), etc.

The way this could work is that you could order your dwarf to create a weapon of a given type (shortsword, spear, battleaxe, whatever), and then be able to customize it, which would require more time on the part of your smith, and maybe some extra resources, as well, but allowing you to "build" a personalized weapon, with additional or different features.

Some customizing examples include:
Adding different types of hilts to a sword, such as adding a basket hilt, a double-hilt, or a weaponized pommel (made heavier, or with a skull-cracking spike),
"Serrating" the blade of a sword or knife, to create more ragged, harder to heal wounds--makes sharpening the blade a lot more difficult, though,
Adding a hook, or a hammer, or even an additional blade, to the "back" of a battleaxe, to give it a double bit, or the ability to pierce armour,
"Bearding" the blade of a battleaxe, to give it a larger cutting surface,
Adding a spike or two to the center of a battleaxe blade, to give the blade better armour-piercing capabilities, and to create more vicious wounds,
Adding a spike to the butt of a spear, or reinforcing the spear's shaft, or adding some "horns" to the top of the shaft, to prevent impaled enemies from climbing up the shaft to attack you,
Adding the same to the blade of a 2-handed sword, for the same reason,
Adding a third blade to a spearhead, making it triangular in cross-section, and both reinforcing the head, and giving it better piercing ability, while reducing it's cutting power,
Adding barbs to the head or shaft of a spear, turning it into a harpoon,
Adding spikes or flanges or blades or studs to the head of a mace,
Making a mace heavier by giving it a core of lead,
"Weaponizing" the butt of a crossbow, with a metal cap,
Cutting 1-3 bloodgrooves into the blade of a sword or a knife, in order to reduce the weight,
Adding a parallel spike to the haft of a battleaxe, so that it has some stabbing ability (can be done in tandem with adding a spike, hammer, blade, etc. to the "back" of the axe),
Attaching flanges to either side of a spearhead, making it more like a trident or a ranseur/spetum/spontoon,
Filing "cletes" into the head of a warhammer (so that it looks like a meat-tenderizer), improving it's armour-destroying capability,
Giving a sword or axe an "ergonomic curve", so that it's better designed to follow, and work with, the shape of the wielder's arm (as in the yataghan, and certain battleaxes),
Reinforcing the shaft of an axe, or mace, with metal strips+studs, to help keep it from breaking,
Adding a rope or leather strap to the butt of a axe/mace/hammer, to wrap around the wielder's wrist, and keep the weapon from easily being disarmed,
Making the handle/haft/shaft of a weapon out of solid metal, making it much more difficult to break the weapon's handle, but increasing the overall weight,
Making the weapon longer or shorter, heavier or lighter, in order to "fit" it to the intended wielder, improving the balance, as well as speed (if lighter and shorter), or damage (if heavier and longer), but significantly increasing both the time and the cost.

Gems and other decorations could still be added, ofcourse, and customized weapons might have an improved value, based on the extra time, materials, and effort put into the item.

Certain improvements-like certain types of weapons-might require the improved skills of a more experienced and talented smith.

I think this would go along well with the new way that bodies will be put together (if bodies are going to be made out of many different, separate parts that still all manage to relate to each other, and form a system, why not apply the similar principles to the weapons that are designed to injure and kill those bodies?), in the coming update, and could perhaps better harness the more complex materials attributes and wound system we're getting.

[Craftling]

Urist mcChampion orders a heavy, platnium, serrated, menacing warhammer. All the other dwarves look on in awe.

I like it.

[Silverionmox]

There should be some skill requirement to use that extra feature. Simple reinforcements or balance adjustments probably don't require any getting used to, but effectively using a double axe will take practice. How would you adress that? Giving the weapon a penalty to skill, or requiring some skill level in another, appropriate weapon skill? (eg. stabbing to use the point on an axe)

Also, since weapons are unique, they could be seen as points on a continuum, rather than as variations on a list of standard forms. So keep making a dagger longer, and at a certain point its called a short sword; or mount an axehead on a pole, and it's a halberd.

[Grimlocke]

This suggestion is somewhat similar to the suggesting of making weapon/armour decorations have an actual effect on weight and performance, I quite agree with both. Menacing with spikes would be a lot more fun (not to imply it isnt allreay fun ) if they would actualy mess up the gobbos even more.

I guess this suggestion would be making decorations have an actual effect on performance and weight, adding a number of new decorations exclusivelly for weapons (we dont want serrated socks or loincloths with reinforced shafts and buttspikes...) and possibly adopting the suggestion in the post above (I quite like it).

Making the weapon longer, wider, etc. wouldnt work with decorations though. I think an additional sub menu in weapon creation could do the trick, for example, when you select 'make steel sword' you get a submenu with choises like regular, long, short, wide, thin, etc.

Another method would be to simply make a choice between making a regular weapon, or making a weapon for a specific dwarf. The later should fit the dwarfs personal preferences (as in, should the dwarf like bronze and spikes, his spear should get a bronze buttspike) and also the dwarfs skill with the weapon. This option would be a lot harder to code though.

Lastelly, 'Urish McChampion admired own fine serrations' would be nice 

[Orange Drink]

Most of these weaponry decorations are pretty good, except for the double bladed axe. IRL, double blades were never used because you always hacked your spine in half on the drawback for a big hit.

[eerr]

we need a nice big list of weapon mods like this.

someday, they might replace the quality system.

[Pilsu]

Structural changes should have appropriate drawbacks as well

[chucks]

I CAN HAZ MOAR FLYING GUILLOTINES PLZ?  KTHXBYEBBQ!

[varkarrus]

I want a magical vibrating "sword" encrusted with snall spikes.
Chainsawdwarf, anyone?

[Mel_Vixen]

Hmmm nice idea but in the end effect to much micromanaging if i want to have 100 swords with doublesized handle, triangular crossection and broadened crossguard.

Maybe some kind of adjustable template could work here.

I like to add some things to op-list.

- single/double-edged blades (singlebladed like: knifes/Flachion/Katana doublebladed: dagger/Swords/Jian)
- Barbs for arrows/bolts and daggers
- balanced for throwing (only for small stuff and spearlike stuff like knives, hatchets, hammers, javelins)

(- Materials for different parts)

[Neonivek]

-Fragmenting weapons: The ability for a weapon to break appart inside an enemy to cause further damage. (It can fragment on armor)

[bjlong]

One thought would be to have these weapons saved in templates that could be named. That would reduce the amount of micromanaging.

And, yes, there should be more drawbacks. For example, an axe with a spike in the blade should get stuck more often. Not too sure how these could be generated without a table of effects... which would be pretty nasty. It'd probably have to run into the long-standing combat discussion I had with Footkercheif... which he still needs to post in. *nudge*

The weight issue, however, can be easily handled by specifying a volume. Density is known, and we can just say the bit of material comes for free, or goes somewhere magical.

[Silverionmox]

I once tried to imagine what weapons with any combination of characteristics looked like, to be able to write a program that could put a sensible name - and usability - on a randomly generated weapon.
There were these dimensions (2^7 simple combinations, yay):
- hand-held or throwing
- with or without blade
- with or without pointed tip
- straight or wavy/studded/curved
- with or without spikes/teeth
- hinged or not
- single or double

I discovered that a hand-held, hinged, straight, pointed double blade is effectively a giant pair of scissors. Imagine a squad equipped with them..

[Footkerchief]

It'd probably have to run into the long-standing combat discussion I had with Footkercheif... which he still needs to post in. *nudge*

Aaaah, the guilt!  And the predictability of me reading these threads!

The weapon stuff we talked about -- modeling a weapon as a linear sequence of components, with designated grip points and so on -- was probably one of the more feasible ideas in that thread.  Mass distribution gets handled more or less automatically, so you can do some basic physics-ey stuff.  And you can properly account for strikes with the squishy end of the weapon vs. strikes with the hard end, and so on.

Any system for adding extra components should probably fall under the umbrella of a generalized improvements system.  This thread is a start in that direction, but it's mostly focused on cosmetic additions and doesn't have capacity for giving combat relevance to the "aftermarket" components.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Most of these weaponry decorations are pretty good, except for the double bladed axe. IRL, double blades were never used because you always hacked your spine in half on the drawback for a big hit.

Uh...yeah...no. Not at all. Double-bitted axes (Bipennis, Labrys) were used all the time, since atleast Minoan times (2000s BC). The Varangian Guard--the elite soldiers of the Byzantine Empire--were famous for them. So, no, there was no risk of chopping your spine in half on the back swing. The axe isn't designed that way, and your arm won't move that far back, unless it's atleast extremely dislocated, if not extremely broken or just torn off.

I've used them myself, for chopping wood, so I'm very familiar with how they swing, and they could be wielded both 1-handed and 2-handed in combat, depending on the length of the handle and the weight of the head. The big advantage for chopping wood is that when one side gets dull, you can just switch to the other side, but in combat, you'd be able to reverse your swing much more easily, chopping to your left or your right, without changing your grip on the axe.

Neonivek: Your idea of fragmenting weapons would work with glass spearheads. They're still used today by some aboriginal tribes, and are extremely deadly. They would need repair-if not the total replacement of the head-after every impact, however.

I want a magical vibrating "sword" encrusted with snall spikes.
Chainsawdwarf, anyone?

Wait for the magic arc.

Silverionmox: Maybe a basic "improvise weapon" skill? That could be useful for fighting with mugs, knives/tools, broken chairs, etc., as well as additions to weapons.

Having templates that we can create and save "on the fly" is an excellent idea, I think. Maybe even with the ability to modify the weapon's name?

Pilsu: I dont think, in every case, that there should be more than the time and materials charge (which could be substantial enough, especially if we're talking about a hundred of the things), but I've listed some drawback suggestions, so yeah, I agree there should be some.