Shockers zap you if bow conducts electricity

[mentos046]

Using 7433 Tiles on Windows. Shockers are supposed to shock you when you hit them with something that conducts electricity. I’ve seen the term “zapback” being thrown around and I assume that is what this refers to. It also seems to be happening with bows, however. No matter how far away the shot is from it always zaps my character. I didn’t notice it for quite a while though, and looking at the bows I’ve accumulated I assume it’s because this one conducts electricity where the others didn’t. That said, the arrow is no longer touching the player once it is shot so this shouldn’t happen.

The bow in question is the Survivor’s Fighting Bow from the Cataclysm++ mod. It may affect other ranged weapons that conduct electricity as well; I haven’t tried it.

[TheZoneWizard]

Shockers use the gun method friend. This has been the norm for a long time now.

In fact, the player can find a cbm that gives you this ability. It was awesome for crowd control

[mentos046]

Do you mean the one where they shock you with a bolt of electricity that arcs everywhere? If so, I meant something different. The message log reads “striking the shocker zombie zaps you” or something to that effect anytime you hit them with something conductive, and perhaps when you use unarmed. That’s also what it says when I shoot them with the bow, along with the associated pain and slight damage.

[TheZoneWizard]

Oh, well yes. They also have this effect. So instead of shooting the arrow and you give him a smack with a metal object, then yes. You DO get zapped. Like pissing on an electric fence!

[mentos046]

The problem is that it’s happening when I use the bow to shoot them, though. It’s 15-20 squares away, and I’m shooting it with a projectile that is not connected to the character, but still getting shocked as if I were hitting it with something conductive.

[TheZoneWizard]

Ahh…Yes…well that is a bug then XD

…unless! You tethered some metal fishing line to it?..eh??? j/k

It’s a bug

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

The survivor bow has REACH_ATTACK and SLICE flags. One or both seem to make any ranged attack made using the bow connect to player.

[Mantar]

So it’s caused by a mod doing something weird, then, huh? 'Cause I don’t think any standard bow has REACH. (Kinda silly tag for it to have IMO)
I’m not sure why SLICE works that way, though, what’s that supposed to be used for?

[mentos046]

I see. Thanks for looking into it. It’s probably best not to use the bow, then. The Expanded Archery mod has plenty of bows that are better balanced anyway.

[kevin.granade]

Looks like avoiding the bow will work, but hey, it’s also a bug on the engine side since we don’t actually have a rule that says you can’t make a bow that also has a reach attack…

[TheZoneWizard]

Think you meant Reach attack.

But I see no reason why you cannot attach a line. While I was joking before. I think this has a practical application here. Imagine an arrow that didn’t break with a tethered line. The player could shoot. Yank the arrow back and reuse said arrow if it didn’t break. Just be careful of shocky stuff

[darktoes]

I see no reason why you cannot attach a line. While I was joking before. I think this has a practical application here. Imagine an arrow that didn’t break with a tethered line. The player could shoot. Yank the arrow back and reuse said arrow if it didn’t break.

The line would throw off the shot something shocking, and trying to pull an arrow out of a beastie that way would probably break it.

The Expanded Archery mod has plenty of bows that are better balanced anyway.

Technically it just rebalances existing ones and makes some more craftable, but it’s still good.

Also a bit out of date which i intend to fix soon.

[kevin.granade]

Yea, we didn’t anticipate that ranged weapons would also have reach applied to them, so the reach code overloads the ranged attack code, and it ends up getting confused and counting as a melee attack just because the weapon has the REACH_ATTACK flag.

I’m adjusting the code to only trigger a reach attack if the target is in reach, that will at least let you avoid this issue in most cases. You’ll still be unable to fire a bow that has REACH_ATTACK at point-blank range, but… well don’t do that then.

[DeWolf]

At that point unless you are training archery why would you.

[kevin.granade]

Actually there is a way this is set up, you switch the gun firing mode to REACH and it handles it for you, but that’s not triggering for some reason.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

chaosvolt has removed the REACH_ATTACK flag from the bow and fixed several other things.

[TheZoneWizard]

Not sure how would actually fire an arrow at point blank range anyway. I understand you can knock the arrow and let it fly. But I mean, when you want to shoot at a target. Such as, if a mob came around the corner and scared the sh!t out of you. You just would stand there like meat puppet to get eaten!

[kevin.granade]

Trickier than expected, but here you go:

Test and fix zapback

[Aabbcc]

This thread had me thinking what the hell kind of ranged weapon would conduct zapback. After thinking some on it, the only practical one I can think of would be following the cabled arrow idea into something that exists irl: a harpoon gun.

As for ranged weapons with reach, even if it’s a little silly and likely mod-only material, a gunspear would qualify.

[TheZoneWizard]

Hey now that is a neat idea. Harpoon gun + cabled. Yank the cable and get it back…with or without a zombie or chunk there of… >_>