Tips, Tricks, and Newb Questions!

[evilexecutive]

[quote=“Random_dragon, post:12835, topic:42”]Plus the whole issue of what sort of armor and tactics it was designed to deal with. Even a proper zweihander has trouble with full plate, though half-swording and mordhau allows it to be more effective in that regard.

Or you can always end him rightly. o3o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jETLCm7k3sU

Anyway, as it stands we don’t have support for weapons arbitrarily being more or less effective at piercing armor, in the same way ranged attacks can be.[/quote]

To be fair, every weapon has problems dealing with Plate Armour. If you read manuscripts and literature from the medieval eras, most late period plate armour made its wearers invincible combat monsters, who could move as agile and quickly as an ordinary person in his naked skin. Nothing could pierce their armour, so fights between knights could sometimes go on for several hours, until one knight finally knocks over the other. Usually these fights were ended not by wounds, but by you knocking over your opponent, and then placing an blade right up to his eye slit to demand that he surrenders.

Even maces, hammers, and flails had problems with a fully kitted knight, even though these are often touted as “knight killers”. Since knights would also wear thick padding underneath the plate that would stop weapons that rely on shock force. They do however work well against people who don’t have padding.

[Laughing_Fool]

[quote=“evilexecutive, post:12841, topic:42”][quote=“Random_dragon, post:12835, topic:42”]Plus the whole issue of what sort of armor and tactics it was designed to deal with. Even a proper zweihander has trouble with full plate, though half-swording and mordhau allows it to be more effective in that regard.

Or you can always end him rightly. o3o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jETLCm7k3sU

Anyway, as it stands we don’t have support for weapons arbitrarily being more or less effective at piercing armor, in the same way ranged attacks can be.[/quote]

To be fair, every weapon has problems dealing with Plate Armour. If you read manuscripts and literature from the medieval eras, most late period plate armour made its wearers invincible combat monsters, who could move as agile and quickly as an ordinary person in his naked skin. Nothing could pierce their armour, so fights between knights could sometimes go on for several hours, until one knight finally knocks over the other. Usually these fights were ended not by wounds, but by you knocking over your opponent, and then placing an blade right up to his eye slit to demand that he surrenders.

Even maces, hammers, and flails had problems with a fully kitted knight, even though these are often touted as “knight killers”. Since knights would also wear thick padding underneath the plate that would stop weapons that rely on shock force. They do however work well against people who don’t have padding.[/quote]

Actually a Samurai who dual wielded katanas could bisect a knight wearing full plate in seconds. Please educate yourself on the subject and stop spreading misinformation.

[pisskop]

Hi can we not do the thing where katanas versus everything else happens?

Its bad enough that my glorious vikings lost a computer simualtion.

Like there’s a whole subforum for that. The developers have consistently shown a preference for believable functionality and mechanics. Maybe theyre the people to talk to.

[evilexecutive]

[quote=“pisskop, post:12843, topic:42”]Hi can we not do the thing where katanas versus everything else happens?

Its bad enough that my glorious vikings lost a computer simualtion.

Like there’s a whole subforum for that. The developers have consistently shown a preference for believable functionality and mechanics. Maybe theyre the people to talk to.[/quote]

I’m about tempted to just get on the github and apply realism myself. I’m kind of sick of just seeing people spout memes while I’m trying to have a serious discussion. The memes got old 4 pages ago.

[pisskop]

inb4 100 damage sword with 50 attack speed.

You’re welcome to do so, iirc.

[Laughing_Fool]

The end result of applying realism would be making all the antique swords useless and leaving fireaxe, ironshond quarterstaff and baseball bat to reign supreme. I can support that.

[Valpo]

What type of enemy are you shooting at? In general armor pierce seems to have a difference against stuff like tank drones and shoggoths. I suppose zombie soldiers as well, as you can see a noticeable difference in damaging them compared to nearly every other type of zombie.

I can t figure out any differense in damage when handling ammo with equal total score of dmg+pierce . When running tests against a soldier z my 9mm jhp would even do more dmg on average then the fmj rounds.

they have equal total score. jhp 26 dmg fmj 24 dmg and 2 pierce.

[deoxy]

[quote=“deoxy, post:12834, topic:42”][quote=“Wyzack, post:12820, topic:42”]I think that katana thing is an ancient pasta from /tg/. In any case i do agree that the japanese swords are way overblown in terms of effectiveness

There’s a really good youtube video series on katanas by I am Shad, talking about the pros and cons of katanas in a very well researched way. Summary: for pre-modern steel technology, they made a blade that was quite effective at slicing and cutting, at least among the best ever made; modern steel still kicks their a–, takes their lunch money, and makes them say they like wearing frilly dresses. There’s actually video of a katana being struck against a modern blade - the modern blade is fine, and the katana bends rather dramatically (it’s completely ruined).

That said, Musashi (the guy who wrote the Five Rings) really was, by all historical data, an amazing swordsman, who lived a full life and was never defeated in combat, so if you could somehow distill his combat ability (not just by reading the bloody book, which is available in any library), the results would certainly be amazing.[/quote]

From a guy who practices HEMA, the problem I see with Katanas and their martial art is mainly that they came from an isolated culture with no real means of developing increasingly better weapons and armour. Japan was isolated from the world for nearly all of their history, and as such their martial arts were only developed really from clever individuals who devoted their lives autistically to a mono-art. They had nobody else to learn from, or to test their swordsmanship on except for other people from the same culture. This caused them to stagnate, and for much of their history they used the same damn equipment with extremely few changes.

In Medieval Europe, all of the various countries had over a thousand years of constant war to perfect the art of killing humans with swords, and protecting humans with Armour. Many thousands of people were trained in the art of killing, and spent their whole lives perfecting it further and building upon the work of those before them. Every newly developed suit of plate armour was objectively superior to the last, but still owed its inspiration to its predecessor. If certain aspects of the Armour worked, they were put to great use in further suits, and parts that didn’t work out well were either phased out or improved upon until they finally did work.

The Zweihander and the Arming Sword both have over 1000 years of bugtesting, improvements, wars, and many thousands of nobles working on making them the perfect tool for killing. While the Katana is merely the work of an artisan who wanted to make a pretty sword. The katana doesn’t realistically stand up to other European weapons. It’s Fragile, takes too long to make, and was created using extremely low-grade materials due to a lack of battle-tested metalurgy. While the common Zweihander was made from superior metals tested over thousands of years of constant battle, and has been mastered in its construction to a point where an army can easily equip 50,000 people with one… TO USE AS THEIR SIDEARM.[/quote]

Well, first off, the zweihander was never a sidearm, it was a primary weapon for a fairly elite or at least rare and somewhat expensive unit.

Your first point about cultural isolation is not inaccurate, but it is only explanatory, and even then, only to the extent that your assumptions/base assertions are correct… and they are only partially correct.

For the technology used and the time it was originally created, the katana is actually pretty darned amazing. The zweihander isn’t really better because of all the “bugtesting”, it’s better because it’s made with better steel - essentially modern steel. The cultural isolation, in regards to the katana, wasn’t nearly as significant as the TECHNOLOGICAL isolation.

“Battletesting” has essentially nothing to do with the metallurgy, save perhaps as a final trial by fire after the fact. The basic technological breakthrough underneath is getting the steel hot enough, which is just plain HARD to do - 3000 degrees F is just crazy stupid hot, by human standards.

To be fair, every weapon has problems dealing with Plate Armour. If you read manuscripts and literature from the medieval eras, most late period plate armour made its wearers invincible combat monsters, who could move as agile and quickly as an ordinary person in his naked skin. Nothing could pierce their armour, so fights between knights could sometimes go on for several hours, until one knight finally knocks over the other. Usually these fights were ended not by wounds, but by you knocking over your opponent, and then placing an blade right up to his eye slit to demand that he surrenders.

That’s at least close to correct. A good hit to the head could still significantly disorient or even injure a man, even through all the that, but from the outside, yes, it would basically look like he “fell over”.

Otherwise, yes, plate ruled the (European*) battlefield until the advent of firearms. Nothing could penetrate it with sufficient reliability and speed (the crossbow failed on the speed part) - pistolliers could be outfitted for a fraction of the cost of the knight and kill several knights in close combat before they ran out of loaded pistols.

*The Crusades showed that plate ruled essentially EVERY battlefield… until the other side learned to just get out of the way and let the high temperatures exhaust the guys wearing self-contained heating units IN THE DESERT. So yeah, it’s amazing (I’ve spoken with guys who’ve worn it and let people beat on them with baseball bats… and could barely tell they were being hit), and the weight isn’t nearly as bad as the movies would have you believe, but it doesn’t breathe, so wearing it in hot places is… a very short-term thing, if one wants to not die of heat exhaustion.

[quote author=Laughing Fool link=topic=14.msg263632#msg263632 date=1451941196]

[quote=“evilexecutive, post:12841, topic:42”][quote=“Random_dragon, post:12835, topic:42”]Plus the whole issue of what sort of armor and tactics it was designed to deal with. Even a proper zweihander has trouble with full plate, though half-swording and mordhau allows it to be more effective in that regard.

Or you can always end him rightly. o3o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jETLCm7k3sU

Anyway, as it stands we don’t have support for weapons arbitrarily being more or less effective at piercing armor, in the same way ranged attacks can be.[/quote]
Actually a Samurai who dual wielded katanas could bisect a knight wearing full plate in seconds. Please educate yourself on the subject and stop spreading misinformation.[/quote]

Seriously, man, use a /sarc tag! There are people who actually, seriously post and believe ridiculous stuff like that, eh?

[Laughing_Fool]

I suggest all the antique swords should suck or at least be very high maintanence, while new superalloy based modern versions developed by rivtech could have the present stats of their more primitive brethren.

[evilexecutive]

[quote=“pisskop, post:12845, topic:42”]inb4 100 damage sword with 50 attack speed.

You’re welcome to do so, iirc.[/quote]

Here, Niten was surprisingly easy to fix. The only issue with it was that the perception modifier scales way the hell too quickly. At 20 perception, it more than doubles your damage. With a surprisingly simple change, Niten’s scaling is instead that you gain a roughly 40% bonus damage at 20 perception. That’s not too bad, but no longer insta-kills hulks and brutes at later levels. Now I need to find the guy who made medieval swordsmanship and see if he can also change it to be in similar power level. The dodge modifier was also pretty ridiculous, as at higher perception levels you could basically never dodge anything. The Attack ability changing your dodge would have left you pretty helpless.

[spoiler] },{
“type” : “martial_art”,
“id” : “style_niten”,
“name” : “Niten Ichi-Ryu”,
“description” : “Niten Ichi-Ryu is an ancient school of combat, transmitting a style of classical Japanese swordsmanship conceived by the warrior Miyamoto Musashi. It primarily focuses on the proper use of the katana and wakizashi, but includes staff techniques as well.”,
“arm_block” : 99,
“leg_block” : 99,
“static_buffs” : [
{
“id”: “niten_stationary_buff”,
“name” : “Niten Ichi-Ryu”,
“description” : “Perception increases dodging and damage.”,
“min_melee” : 2,
“cut_per” : 1.0225,
“bash_per” : 1.0225,
“dodge_per” : 0.9115
}
],
“onmove_buffs” : [
{
“id” : “niten_move_buff”,
“name” : “Blocking”,
“description” : “You forgo dodging on the move, but gain more blocks.”,
“min_melee” : 2,
“max_stacks” : 1,
“buff_duration” : 2,
“dodge” : -4,
“bonus_dodges” : -1,
“bonus_blocks” : 2
}
],
“onhit_buffs” : [
{
“id” : “niten_hit_buff”,
“name” : “Blocking”,
“description” : “You forgo dodging on the offensive, but gain more blocks.”,
“min_melee” : 2,
“max_stacks” : 1,
“buff_duration” : 2,
“dodge” : -4,
“bonus_dodges” : -1,
“bonus_blocks” : 2
}
],
“ondodge_buffs” : [
{
“id” : “niten_set-up”,
“name” : “In-One Timing Set-Up”,
“description” : “You found a gap in the enemy’s defense!”,
“min_melee” : 4,
“buff_duration” : 2,
“max_stacks” : 1,
“cut_mult” : 1
}
],
“techniques” : [
“niten_water_cut”,
“niten_red_leaf”,
“niten_stone_cut”,
“niten_timing_attack”,
“niten_feint”
],
“weapons” : [
“katana”,
“diamond_katana”,
“firekatana_off”,
“firekatana_on”,
“bokken”,
“wakizashi”,
“diamond_wakizashi”,
“q_staff”,
“cudgel”,
“nodachi”,
“diamond_nodachi”,
“l-stick”,
“l-stick_on”
]

},[/spoiler]

[quote author=deoxy link=topic=14.msg263638#msg263638 date=1451942721]

[quote=“deoxy, post:12834, topic:42”][quote=“Wyzack, post:12820, topic:42”][spoiler]I think that katana thing is an ancient pasta from /tg/. In any case i do agree that the japanese swords are way overblown in terms of effectiveness

There’s a really good youtube video series on katanas by I am Shad, talking about the pros and cons of katanas in a very well researched way. Summary: for pre-modern steel technology, they made a blade that was quite effective at slicing and cutting, at least among the best ever made; modern steel still kicks their a–, takes their lunch money, and makes them say they like wearing frilly dresses. There’s actually video of a katana being struck against a modern blade - the modern blade is fine, and the katana bends rather dramatically (it’s completely ruined).

That said, Musashi (the guy who wrote the Five Rings) really was, by all historical data, an amazing swordsman, who lived a full life and was never defeated in combat, so if you could somehow distill his combat ability (not just by reading the bloody book, which is available in any library), the results would certainly be amazing.[/quote]

From a guy who practices HEMA, the problem I see with Katanas and their martial art is mainly that they came from an isolated culture with no real means of developing increasingly better weapons and armour. Japan was isolated from the world for nearly all of their history, and as such their martial arts were only developed really from clever individuals who devoted their lives autistically to a mono-art. They had nobody else to learn from, or to test their swordsmanship on except for other people from the same culture. This caused them to stagnate, and for much of their history they used the same damn equipment with extremely few changes.

In Medieval Europe, all of the various countries had over a thousand years of constant war to perfect the art of killing humans with swords, and protecting humans with Armour. Many thousands of people were trained in the art of killing, and spent their whole lives perfecting it further and building upon the work of those before them. Every newly developed suit of plate armour was objectively superior to the last, but still owed its inspiration to its predecessor. If certain aspects of the Armour worked, they were put to great use in further suits, and parts that didn’t work out well were either phased out or improved upon until they finally did work.

The Zweihander and the Arming Sword both have over 1000 years of bugtesting, improvements, wars, and many thousands of nobles working on making them the perfect tool for killing. While the Katana is merely the work of an artisan who wanted to make a pretty sword. The katana doesn’t realistically stand up to other European weapons. It’s Fragile, takes too long to make, and was created using extremely low-grade materials due to a lack of battle-tested metalurgy. While the common Zweihander was made from superior metals tested over thousands of years of constant battle, and has been mastered in its construction to a point where an army can easily equip 50,000 people with one… TO USE AS THEIR SIDEARM.[/quote]

Well, first off, the zweihander was never a sidearm, it was a primary weapon for a fairly elite or at least rare and somewhat expensive unit.

Your first point about cultural isolation is not inaccurate, but it is only explanatory, and even then, only to the extent that your assumptions/base assertions are correct… and they are only partially correct.

For the technology used and the time it was originally created, the katana is actually pretty darned amazing. The zweihander isn’t really better because of all the “bugtesting”, it’s better because it’s made with better steel - essentially modern steel. The cultural isolation, in regards to the katana, wasn’t nearly as significant as the TECHNOLOGICAL isolation.

“Battletesting” has essentially nothing to do with the metallurgy, save perhaps as a final trial by fire after the fact. The basic technological breakthrough underneath is getting the steel hot enough, which is just plain HARD to do - 3000 degrees F is just crazy stupid hot, by human standards.

To be fair, every weapon has problems dealing with Plate Armour. If you read manuscripts and literature from the medieval eras, most late period plate armour made its wearers invincible combat monsters, who could move as agile and quickly as an ordinary person in his naked skin. Nothing could pierce their armour, so fights between knights could sometimes go on for several hours, until one knight finally knocks over the other. Usually these fights were ended not by wounds, but by you knocking over your opponent, and then placing an blade right up to his eye slit to demand that he surrenders.

That’s at least close to correct. A good hit to the head could still significantly disorient or even injure a man, even through all the that, but from the outside, yes, it would basically look like he “fell over”.

Otherwise, yes, plate ruled the (European*) battlefield until the advent of firearms. Nothing could penetrate it with sufficient reliability and speed (the crossbow failed on the speed part) - pistolliers could be outfitted for a fraction of the cost of the knight and kill several knights in close combat before they ran out of loaded pistols.

*The Crusades showed that plate ruled essentially EVERY battlefield… until the other side learned to just get out of the way and let the high temperatures exhaust the guys wearing self-contained heating units IN THE DESERT. So yeah, it’s amazing (I’ve spoken with guys who’ve worn it and let people beat on them with baseball bats… and could barely tell they were being hit), and the weight isn’t nearly as bad as the movies would have you believe, but it doesn’t breathe, so wearing it in hot places is… a very short-term thing, if one wants to not die of heat exhaustion.

[quote=“Laughing Fool, post:12842, topic:42”][quote=“evilexecutive, post:12841, topic:42”][quote=“Random_dragon, post:12835, topic:42”]Plus the whole issue of what sort of armor and tactics it was designed to deal with. Even a proper zweihander has trouble with full plate, though half-swording and mordhau allows it to be more effective in that regard.

Or you can always end him rightly. o3o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jETLCm7k3sU

Anyway, as it stands we don’t have support for weapons arbitrarily being more or less effective at piercing armor, in the same way ranged attacks can be.[/quote]
Actually a Samurai who dual wielded katanas could bisect a knight wearing full plate in seconds. Please educate yourself on the subject and stop spreading misinformation.[/quote]

Seriously, man, use a /sarc tag! There are people who actually, seriously post and believe ridiculous stuff like that, eh?[/spoiler][/quote]

Oh, sorry if I didn’t clarify enough. About the Zweihander being a sidearm, I was referring to Pike Hedges that utilized mixed units of Zweihanders and Pikes to form an incredibly effective line holder. The general idea with Zweihander being a “Sidearm” to the pike, was that your infantry switch to it when the pike hedge starts to fall apart, and they use the sudden switch to force back an attacking block quite quickly.

It was still fairly effective in duels too! But it was also commonly mixed in with other units.

[Random_dragon]

I’ll be sticking with my pike, thank you very much. :V

[Malkeus]

Holy cow people…could we stop quoting the entire contents of a post in order to respond to one point in the post? Please?

[Wyzack]

That would not be such a bad idea. As is, finding a really really high tier medieval melee weapon is almost trivially easy in pawn shops and museums, and kinda invalidates the sense of progression through craftable and found weapons of higher tiers. Why fabricate any weapon ever when you found an awl pike in a pawn shop on your third day?

[pisskop]

I craft steel spears by my 3rd day a lot, and it three-shots most standard zoms by that time, only to get even better later.

[Laughing_Fool]

I’ll be sticking with my pike, thank you very much. :V

What’s so good about the awl pike? is the reach attack really this useful?

[Random_dragon]

What’s so good about the awl pike? is the reach attack really this useful?

Before the buff, it was decent so long as you stuck to max range and avoided being too encumbered/slowed.

After buffing it should be a touch more practical. o3o

[evilexecutive]

That would not be such a bad idea. As is, finding a really really high tier medieval melee weapon is almost trivially easy in pawn shops and museums, and kinda invalidates the sense of progression through craftable and found weapons of higher tiers. Why fabricate any weapon ever when you found an awl pike in a pawn shop on your third day?

One could probably fix this by drastically reducing the spawn rate of the actual medieval weapons, and increase the spawn rate of the ‘Fake’ weapons. Seriously, when was the last time you found a battle-ready; literally anything, in a shopping mall? The overwhelming majority of weapons you’ll find in museums and pawn shops are not even remotely capable of holding up to combat. They’ll have things like extremely dull edges, Rat-tail tangs, No tang at all, or god forbid being made of dirt-cheap stainless steel.

Finding an actual sword that meets all the criteria for a “Battle-ready” weapon should be an incredibly rare occurrence. Ideally you should have to make your own if you’re not extremely lucky.

[Malaxxor]

On-topic: if swords and other medieval stuff would be nerfed, what would be a suitably realistic high-damage melee weapon? As in: what would you guys try to get your hands on IRL (well, expect firearms ofc).

Off-topic: what’s the best/most efficient way to use MRE’s? Like what is the most nutrious/useful stuff you can craft out of the stuff you get from them? As it stands, I warm up the main course with the heatpack, sue the water purification pills to get clean water, use the water to make 2x lemonade (with the lemonade mix) and 1x protein shake (with the protein powder and dehydrated veggies), then I light up the paper and plastic bag with matchbook and make some coffee. This leaves me with two units of clear water, the cracker and the various candies. Is there anything I could with them, besides eating them? Or is there a better way to use the components of the MRE’s?

[pisskop]

I use them for the purifiers and as last resort meals. They have a lemonade, protein mix, scrap plastic, some napkins, and water purifier.

I think with some fruit you can make some protein drink and some booze from the powder.

Why, do you want to farm mres?

[morik]

Hi, I’m a newb, just started playing yesterday.

I have a few questions.

1. I tried a “Sheltered” scenario and was in that LMOE shelter thing. It was real dark inside and I could only see 1 square, but then after I stumbled into the fenced internal area that had a bunch of weapons in it, I could suddenly see everything. I didn’t hit any sort of lightswitch (didn’t see one)… any ideas what caused this? (Did my eyes adjust to the darkness?)

It lasted until I went above-ground; when I went back down I was back to seeing only 1 square distance, and haven’t been able to reproduce this effect.

2. Is there a way to ‘win’? Or is this one of those “just keep going until you die or get bored” things? (Like Dwarf Fortress)