Realism Gameplay Mod - On Hold

[Manitas]

A general gameplay mechanics mod, aimed at exploring new possibilities, and making things as realistic as possible as the module system allows.
I'm not planning to make any story. If it's ever finished, I'm gonna release a toolkit containing snippets and schemes in addition.

21 May 2006 -  subrelease 0.06

Not much this time, but what is - is quite interesting I hope:

1: There is a bug in vanilla battle size implementation.
In 1 on 1 encounters number of combatants of one side can not exceed 50% battle size, even if at the other side is just one guy.
Furthermore, in 'join battle' encounters neither number of friendly nor allied troops can exceed 25% of battle size!

Fix is too much of a word, but it seems like I found a workaround, and it looks like it works. Parties get aditional reinforcements as needed in the begining to compensate for the bug. I also integrated it into the existing reinforcement system modification.

The effect suprises even myself. It's the most noticeable in 2 vs 1 battles.

2: The code responsible for 2 handed weapons being unusable from horseback mysteriously disapeared from the previous release. I fixed it now. But you can still hold them and couch polearms and hefted weapons. I can't help it.
 
Get it from here: REALMOD


14 May 2006 -  subrelease 0.05

New features:
- Snowball Effect: When 2 parties of same template meet, they join together. Currently affects river pirate parties only. The better you are at finding and destroying these parties, the less chance for them to form big parties.
- No more river pirate spawn camping: Self explanatory, You're not gonna ever see rp party spawn, unless you are using map cheat.
- Troop daily wages: In addition to the built in (and laughingly low) weekly wages there are now daily wages calculated upon troops prisoner mangement skill. The formula is: (pm+1)^2, so you can set wages in range 1-100 (knows_prisoner_ management_10 raises assertion, 9 is max usable).
- Two handed weapons can no longer be used from horseback and taken away 2h weapons from regular mounted troops.
- Farmers upgrade to 2 kinds of cheap anti-river-pirate troops. Now farmers respawn in Zendar tavern as well.

Coming next weekend: Loans and brokers

Get it from here: REALMOD



03 May 2006 -  subrelease 0.04

New features:

- Fear Factor: Sometimes, badly injured individual soldiers (either player's companions or enemy) will turn their back and flee. In addition, when an enemy party realizes they are doing terribly bad, they will all decide to flee.
- known problems:  Unfortunately scripted behaviors do not work for cavalry and ranged units yet, so probably this feature will reach it's full capabilities when the next module system is released. For now, I applied it only to 1 on 1 encounters. If you join a battle in progress, everything is as it used to be.

- Reinforcements reworked: The ammount of reinforcements you get is proportional to the sizes of fighting parties.
- known problems: Unfortunately, either i can't find, or there's no way to tell how many of  party members are unconscious, so the numbers are calculated accordingly to total party sizes.

- New weapon damage approach: weapons are designed to kill. Now all true weapons maximum damage done to a bare torso exceeds 50. Exceptions are some farming tools, hunting ranged weapons, etc.. (note that in M&B weapons appear to deal damage from the range [0.5*max ; max] ). Armor protection, weight and value has ben increased accordingly.
- known problems: Bows seem to get insane damage bonuses from strength and proficiency. So in the beginning they are somewhat below okay, but on about 20str/300prof they become machinegun bazookas again.

- 2 handed hefted weapons like warhammer, maul, great axes. Changed the way they are handled so it does not look like guys get wrist strain from holding them. Also, their use on horseback with one hand has been limited.
- known problems: You can couch them now.

Coming Soon: Snowball Effect - small parties of same kind will sometimes join together upon encounter.

Planned : (when there's a way to adjust troop wages)
- Loans! Borrow denars and then pay back, or you will face a broker.
- Horse management - dead horses of your as well as enemy troops will stay dead after a battle.
- Peasant uprising.

Surrender feature has to be postponed till another MS release, maybe it will become possible then.

Get it from here: REALMOD

==============================================================================

17 apr 2006 - Update & Port to .750

New features:
- Found a way to disable all the powerskills - now every being in the game starts with all powerskills set to 8.
- New behavior for shields using resistance stat - patience does not pay off anymore - you're not going to break a shield by throwing stones at it, on the other hand a really good axe hit or couched lance are able to shatter them in just one blow.
- River pirates and farmers tuned up, now they should posess at least some threat. New upgrade path for farmers - now they branch to shortbowmen and axemen which should be useful against ranged units.

Planned:
- A chance for badly injured units to pass out.
- Making knights less numerous - removing knights from upgrade paths, instead you will have to buy them a courser, armor and weapon to be able to upgrade.
- Badly outnumbered parties will surrender.

==============================================================================

2006.04.09

New features:
- More crazy tweaks (experimental), It's difficult to list them all here, basically armor endurance went ways up, most weapons damage went up, further tweaks to ranged stuff etc (however, don't expect miracles, it'as early version, and the 'power' skills are messing up all the combat system).
- Archery Range for weapon testing purposes. Ask Dranton in Zendar inn, he will show you the place. You will find there several dummies wearing range of armors from none to plate, they will let you kill them for your convenience.
- Since easter is coming, here's an egg: Now Watchmen are somewhat more usefull. Try asking them what time it is.

Get it from here: REALMOD

As always I'll appreciate any feedback.


Not-so outdated feature list:
1. Melee weapons:
New approach, now using swords requires different technique than axes/blunts
Basically swords are now versatile, fast thrusting weapons with limited slashing capability, opposed to axes/blunt which are slower, powerfull slashing weapons.
Now slashing insanely is not gonna get you far. It's very difficult to perform thrust properly, as you'll get a lot of negative modifiers, but if you manage to do it right, its often an instant kill.

Details:
- Swords have been made faster, piercing damage increased, edged damage greatly reduced and changed to blunt (does not sound realistic, but it gives more realistic outcome)
- All swords can thrust now (sabers, even a falchion)
- All swords have now thrusting ability when on horseback. 
- Axes/blunts have been made slower.
- thrusting polearms are faster.

Thrown weapons
No more kills with axe thrown from more than 100 meters. they are still quite powerfull, but on the line between kalashnikow and thrown lump of something, they are now closer to the 'lump'.

Details:
- Initial velocity has been greatly reduced.
- All but stones have now cutting damage, even javelins (again, does not sound realistic, but it gives more realistic outcome).

Bows/crossbows
They are no ultimate solution anymore, and they have very limited effectiveness against heavy armor.

Details:
- Initial velocity reduced, so arrows/bolts lob nicely.
- Accuracy significantly decreased
- damage on bows slightly increased
- damage on crossbows decreased
- arrows/bolts now deal cut damage (again, does not sound realistic, but it gives more realistic outcome).

Armor
It made no sense that head was the least protected body part. But now it's fixed,  headshooting dark knights is not reliable solution  anymore.

Details:
- All headgear protection increased by 50%

BONUSES:
played around with scripts just for fun.

- Powerfull NPC in Zendar tawern for hire/obtain (I really had to make his armor so powerfull, otherwise my lvl 1 squire could defeat him with ease).
- Accidentally fixed Zendar training bug.


This version is suppose to contain bugs and inconsistencies. I don't have much time to play, so its not tested enough.
I'd be gratefull if somebody played around with it and posted some conclusions/bugs found etc.. If anybody likes it, I might work on this some more.

Get it from here: REALMOD

Installation: Unzip in your M&B/Modules folder preserving the folder structure.
To get the NPC you need to start a new character.

Even though there are no new models here's a shot (yeah, my vidcard is crap):

[lancer63]

Game crashed after my first round in the arena, but must be another random crash cause it didn't happen again. I like what you did to the weapon stats.

[Raz]

Seems really promising I've always wanted a realistic mod like that, good job!

[blackso]

great! I think Realism is very important, sometime i think it is more important than game play! actually, I think all weapon should have blunt damage, very one can be hurt and fall down by losing too much blood     does not sound realistic, but "i think" it gives more realistic outcome

[Assyrian]

good work, I have the same vision of point as Raz... Always had it.

[Colt]

Anyone who tries to promote reality is my hero. You have my utmost respect regardless of if I agree with you on all the changes you've made to try to acheive that.

[Manitas]

Game crashed after my first round in the arena. I like what you did to the weapon stats.

Checked that, didn't happen for me. It's probably unrelated, bacause I have not changed anything about the arena.

Anyone who tries to promote reality is my hero. You have my utmost respect regardless of if I agree with you on all the changes you've made to try to acheive that.

Thanks. TRY is the keyword here. Combat system is not very moddable at the moment, so do not take this 'realism' too seriously yet. I just hope the mod makes the game somewhat more challenging.

[Raz]

So.. what are your plans for the future then?

[calandale]

Manitas: Nice avatar. That's from Rune Quest no?

[Damien]

Not to be disrespectful, but I feel I'd be remiss not to bring this up: You call this RealMod and explain that it's designed after making items more realistic. But there are some things in your features list that are wholly not realistic.

Basically swords are now versatile, fast thrusting weapons with limited slashing capability

That doesn't make any sense at all. Swords are largely cutting weapons, often with quite adequate thrusting capability. Off-hand, the only M&B sword I can think of that looks as if it were designed more along the lines of being a thruster is the Arming Sword. But even that would moreso be an equal parts cut and thrust sword.

So this design change is not realistic at all. It's quite unrealistic.

Now slashing insanely is not gonna get you far. It's very difficult to perform thrust properly, as you'll get a lot of negative modifiers, but if you manage to do it right, its often an instant kill.

Doesn't make sense either. There's nothing innately difficult about thrusting.

Swords have been made faster, piercing damage increased, edged damage greatly reduced and changed to blunt (does not sound realistic, but it gives more realistic outcome)

These are all problems. Again, the types of swords M&B presents are not primarily thrusting swords. Only the arming sword stands as any kind of exception to that. Reducing edge damage is also wrong, even a sword designed like the arming sword would still be a very effective cutter, perhaps even moreso than it is an effective thruster. And swords are not blunt and knocking people out with a sword is not a 'realistic outcome.'

All swords can thrust now (sabers, even a falchion)

The falchion in M&B is -not- a thrusting weapon. It would never function as one. Some falchions had points capable of thrusting. The one in M&B doesn't.

All swords have now thrusting ability when on horseback.

All swords shouldn't even be usable on horseback. But even so - again, the falchion should not thrust, and I'm on the fence about thrusting with a scimitar from horseback.

Axes/blunts have been made slower.

Not realistic at all. Axes and hammers are very quick weapons.

- All but stones have now cutting damage, even javelins (again, does not sound realistic, but it gives more realistic outcome).

How is the outcome more realistic for javelins to be cutting weapons?

- Accuracy significantly decreased

How significantly? I've found that the accuracy in vanilla is actually pretty spot-on, especially for crossbows.

damage on crossbows decreased

I'm on the fence about this. While crossbows on the 'heavier' side of things did deal too much damage, in my opinion, bringing it down too much would be no more realistic. Neither would arbitrarily increasing normal bow damage.

arrows/bolts now deal cut damage (again, does not sound realistic, but it gives more realistic outcome).

And as with javelins, I'd like to know how the outcome is more realistic.

- All headgear protection increased by 50%

Way too much. Helmets are simply -not- that protective.

[Stonewall382]

I'm not flaming you here Damien, but have you played the mod?  I myself haven't, I'm just wondering if you have?

[Worbah]

Damien, the cutting damage of ranged weapons is AFAIK meant as a way of removing the armor piercing.

[Damien]

I'm not flaming you here Damien, but have you played the mod?  I myself haven't, I'm just wondering if you have?

I've not. Don't have time quite yet, which is why I only responded in reference to the listed features.

Damien, the cutting damage of ranged weapons is AFAIK meant as a way of removing the armor piercing.

But they already have relatively low damage, so that would just be double-impairing them (especially with the reduced damage noted for crossbows).

[Andronicus]

It's impossible to use a sword on horseback?

[Merlkir]

it is possible. Some swords just can't thrust from horseback.