Notes

0020932)

Bertinator (reporter)

2012-02-29 18:46



Changing the contact area from 2 to 20 mostly fixed the wooden bolts issue, although they were still able to score rare successes. I have not tested it with other materials yet.

0020941)

zombiejustice (reporter)

2012-03-01 06:01



Out of curiosity, do shields make any difference? Or ranks in armor user (and shield user)? This doesn't seem THAT broken, if so, and I'm not sure it warrants an 'urgent' rating. That said, I'm interested in learning more and seeing how this issue might be resolved.

0020949)

Xotano (reporter)

2012-03-01 09:09



bolts and arrows were ment to go through armor, prolly not as much as they do but this still isnt a bug, its more of a balance issue, it is nice to have some numbers on the subject tho.

0020966)

Bertinator (reporter)

2012-03-01 12:42

edited on: 2012-03-01 13:16



"Out of curiosity, do shields make any difference? Or ranks in armor user (and shield user)? This doesn't seem THAT broken, if so, and I'm not sure it warrants an 'urgent' rating. That said, I'm interested in learning more and seeing how this issue might be resolved."



I did further testing with 5 axedwarves with 10 in Fighter, Axedwarf, Shield User, Armor User, and Dodger versus 5 marksdwarves with 10 in Archer, Marksdwarf, Armor User, and Dodger. There were two parallel lines of Marksdwarves and Axedwarves, with 22 tiles in between.







In iron armor with iron weapons, the Marksdwarves consistently won. The result was generally 4 unwounded Dwarves with brusing at best and one moderately wounded Dwarf. It wasn't even much of a contest. The Axedwarves could make it to melee range (with injuries), but were still shot to death very shortly thereafter.







In iron armor with steel weapons, the result was different. Because marksdwarves tended to bunch up on their targets, the results usually were that 2 Dwarves would be left horribly maimed with multiple fractures, torn internal organs, etc, while the rest would be uninjured before making contact. The axedwarves that weren't targeted then proceeded to rip through the iron armor like it wasn't there, murdering the marksdwarves, although they still received some minor to moderate injuries from post-contact pot shots.



Of course, this was not a realistic battle situation. The Axedwarves started just outside of the Marksdwarves' maximum range and then all charged simultaneously, essentially moving as a wall of melee units. This is not how controlling Dwarves works normally. If they had the single-file approach Dwarves seem to love in Dwarf Mode, casualties would be significantly higher among the Axedwarves. For them to even have a chance, it also requires them to outclass the enemy armor with their weapons, while the Marksdwarves would have been equally effective with copper.



So, basically, in absolutely perfect conditions with high-level units and superior weaponry, Axedwarves take 40% casualties plus wounds on some of the rest. God help you if I did the realistic thing and supplemented the full-time Marksdwarves with a horde of lower-level units. Even with higher level skills, armor is still very ineffective at stopping bolts.



EDIT: Testing with an example goblin force. 20 proficient-level archers in two distinct squads, with competent to proficient in all relevant combat skills. Two accomplished-level leaders to represent Elite units, one in each squad grouping. All goblins had an iron breastplate, an iron crossbow, and iron bolts. They fought 5 axedwarves with all steel (including breastplate+two mail shirts and helm+two caps), including weapons and shields. The Axedwarves were accomplished in Axedwarf, Fighter, Shield User, Dodger, Armor User, and even in skills like Wrestler and Biter, just in case. It yielded predictable results. Axedwarves were slaughtered, only managing to kill 5 goblins before dying. I would strongly advise against rushing Goblin archers with melee units unless they are all Legendary and you have comparable numbers until ranged weapons get nerfed. Do not ever attempt to send melee units without shields.



"bolts and arrows were ment to go through armor, prolly not as much as they do but this still isnt a bug, its more of a balance issue, it is nice to have some numbers on the subject tho."



I think it qualifies as a bug, or such a big balance issue it might as well be. If copper arrows penetrated iron or even steel more than they should, that would be a balance issue. When wooden arrows can pierce through adamantine, that's a bug.





0021643)

Mafia_Puppet (reporter)

2012-03-21 19:29



The British longbow, which was the height of bow technology up through the 1400's, could only puncture French plate armor at a distance of less than thirty meters. A dwarf in full steel armor should be able to charge a bunch of goblins with pretty close to impunity from a realistic perspective.

0022163)

cameral3 (reporter)

2012-04-08 13:34

edited on: 2012-04-08 13:57



had same issue in Adv.Mode, when my Superhuman Legendary hero in full heavy Bronze, who can otherwise withstand dozen of goblins without a single wound was several times(i used saves) crippled and killed by different "nameless" goblin archers.



I would add, not only full armor with Legendary++++ Armour Skill can not protect from (copper) arrows, but the "Superhuman" toughness - as well.



ps. still, with legendary Block+Dodge it is possible to cut off archers without a problem. Until the first non-blocked non-dodged arrow. And then comes Fun.





0023442)

Thorbinator (reporter)

2012-08-12 00:22

edited on: 2012-08-12 05:57



Alright, I spent several hours testing this and messing with raws in the arena



Variables that changing did nothing:

size, velocity multiplier, penetration_size in item_ammo.txt

shoot_force, shoot_maxvel in item_weapon.txt under crossbow



What I finally settled on was that this bug is some underlying factor that maximizes the damage/force/velocity of these bolts, and I can't change that.



What I could change, and did, was the glancing. When I set contact_area in item_ammo.txt to 60 (instead of 2) then copper bolts only penetrate full iron armor in the upper arms and legs. This is a bad bandaid fix, but it is far better than what is currently in the game.



Wooden is useless against any kind of armor but still good against cloth/naked, bolts above copper still penetrate armor easily. I haven't tested these bolts vs adamantine.



https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1285839/item_ammo.txt [^]



Here is my modified raw, please implement it as a hotfix or fix the underlying issue.





0023703)

HiEv (reporter)

2012-11-02 04:26



For some massive research into how bolts vs. armor of the various materials work, see this forum thread:

Dwarven Research: A Comparison Study on the Effectiveness of Bolts vs Armors

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=116151.0 [^]



Includes deflection and penetration ratios, knockback distances, and testing of how the various armor and bolt material tokens affect those things.

0023714)

Jetman123 (reporter)

2012-11-14 08:38

edited on: 2012-11-14 08:49



The real issue - aside from absurdly powerful penetration - is that marksmen are entirely too accurate as well. Muscle powered ranged weaponry is absurdly inaccurate in real life, which is why to have any hope of hitting anything you need a lot of folks shooting. They're barrage weapons. Yet as things stand in DF, even an untrained shooter can easily pull feats worthy of Legolas.



And no, a bow and arrow - even the famed English longbow - would not and could not reliably penetrate plate armor at any range, even point blank. They could penetrate once in a while if you got lucky. They could damage, it, though- by the time knights at Agincourt were close, their armor was dented and battered, but they were physically mobile and able to fight. They were simply exhausted from the battering they had faced over the entire long advance and facing dozens of Englishmen for each French knight, on foot. (They had also taken _some_ casualties from those unlucky penetrations, but they weren't wiped out.) The French were easily wrestled to the ground and overwhelmed.



The idea of ranged weaponry being able to easily invalidate plate armor is complete absurdity - if that were the case, it wouldn't be worth the (very, very, very great) expense, and ranged infantry would have been the dominant force on the battlefield instead of cavalry.





0023776)

Pirate Bob (reporter)

2012-12-15 09:38



The research mentioned by HiEv above (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=116151.0 [^]) shows the following about armor protection in DF34.11:

(1) Plate armor provides abolutely no protection from metal bolts/arrows.

(2) Mail is able to convert edged damage to blunt damage if the material is equal or better than the projectile. "Better" is determined by the material's SHEAR_YIELD and SHEAR_FRACTURE, with adamantine>steel>iron=bronze>copper>silver.

(3) Wooden projectiles can be deflected via a mechanism based on the armor's density and the projectile's IMPACT_YIELD, but this mechanism cannot be made to apply for metal projectiles without grossly modifying the material raws (which would undoubtedly mess up melee combat).

(4) Projectiles can be deflected by armor if their momentum is low enough and the armor material is equal to or better than the projectile, but all DF34.11 projectiles are fired at such high momenta that this mechanism does not apply.

For more details of these results, see the wiki: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Material. [^]



There are a few ways in which projectiles can be modded to reduce their momenta to the point that armor has an appriciable chance of stopping them. See http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=116151.msg3842409#msg3842409 [^] for a plot of bolt deflection off fully armored dwarves. Note that for this plot CONTACT_AREA of bolts was increased to 10 (which significantly increases deflections off the thicker armor of breastplates and helms), and results were only tabulated for standing dwarves. Projectiles penetrate much more easily when dwarves have fallen over or are injured, so no armor offers complete protection.

(1) Reduce [SHOOT_MAXVEL] or [SHOOT_FORCE]. With contact area set to 10, armors will provide intermediate levels of protection between bolt momenta of 20 and 300. Bolt/arrow masses are iron/steel=1.1775, bronze=1.2375, copper=1.3395, and silver=1.5735, so this requires setting [SHOOT_MAXVEL] between 15 and 250. Due to bug 6262, all these bolts will be treated as having mass=1 for the purpose of calculating their velocity from [SHOOT_FORCE], so one could equivalently reduce [SHOOT_FORCE] to between 15 and 250 and leave [SHOOT_MAXVEL] at some higher value (which will then determine the velocity of adamantine, bone, and wood projectiles). This modification has the somewhat strange result that silver projectiles will be the most likely to penetrate steel/adamantine armor because they have the highest mass, and hence highest momentum. Armor will still offer no protection at all from projectiles with made from better materials, so steel bolts will never be deflected by copper, bronze, or iron armors. Therefore this modification will result in a sort of "rochambeau" or armor/projectile materials, with steel/adamantine being the best projectiles against "lesser" materials, but the "lesser" (but denser) projectiles the best at penetrating adamantine and steel.

(2) This oddity can be eliminated by creating custom materials which are only used for ammunition. These materials have all the same properties as their normal counterparts, except that all densities are changed to be the same. See http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7202 [^] for an example where all projectiles are modded to have density equal to wood. This has the added benefit that projectile masses can also be made more realistic (a 1+ kg arrow is VERY heavy), but the drawback of being very messy. In particular, I was only able to make reactions to create bolts from the custom materials out of normal metal bars appear in the craftsdwarf's workshop. Additional, nonfunctional rections to make bolts out of (nonexistant) custom metal bars also appear in the forge.

(3) If Toady were to fix 6262 (see relationship), then all projectiles would have the same momentum (except for very light projectiles whose velocity would be set by [SHOOT_MAXVEL]). Then one could simply set [SHOOT_FORCE] equal to the momentum corresponding to the desired level of armor penetration, and all bolts material not superior to the armor would penetrate equally well.