Ammo Reloading System

[xenoargh]

So, as a recent poster has pointed out, it's possible to win sieges single-handidly, if you just twink the system and have an endless supply of free time. 

Is this a bug or a feature?  If it's a bug, how should I fix it, now that I have the new ammo system written?  Please let me know

 

[Steffenximus]

You could give the defending AI the ability to counter-attack when the attackers are very few. I use this tactic to wipe out remaining archers.

 

[xenoargh]

That sounds good, but I'm afraid that then people would just go up a steep hill and twink the enemy with another weapon.  Think Nest of Bees and a Latticed Flatbow, for example. 

Basically, this sort of tactic is the kind of thing people do in Native to single-handedly kill off garrisons (I've read at least a half-dozen posts with the line, "and I killed 200 guys in a castle with my crossbow by myself", etc.), only this mod's spiffy equipment makes it more efficient.  I think that's terribly unrealistic and very anti-fun, personally.  If you don't have the people, and aren't a Barbarian or very, very lucky and skilled, you should just plain lose (imo).

On the other hand, it's their free time, I suppose. 

I just don't like the idea that people are going to write whiny posts about how it's "too easy", when they aren't actually playing it fairly to begin with.

 

[Lancefighter]

well, to be fair, you can do the same thing with a jezzail, it just takes slightly more time (and shields piss you off slightly more).

I would be in favor of greatly increasing 'free reload' time(maybe once per 10 minutes or more on the field, at least 5 minutes in siege), but giving dedicated archer units 2 sets of arrows (and bolts if thats required). As well, decrease bolts/cannon ammo to slightly lower levels (say around 10 solid shells?)

Thus, most AI units stay similar (archer units might lose their shield if they had one, but have bow/arrow/arrow/2hand), but the player is required to carry more ammo if he wants to keep doing this... and even then, probably required to wait it out (i can fire MAYBE 10/shots per siege reload off a siege handgunne, so carrying around 10 solid shells per set would mean he can have 6 minutes straight of firing time at most, coupled with a 4 minute wait.. Of course, if he has a shield, he spends considerably more time waiting.. shield and sword? even more time!)

Also, can scripts or something detect damage settings? If so, you should totally change the players health based on what setting he is on (on 1/4 damage, he loses 3/4 of health, on 1/2, he loses half, on full damage, he gains 20% )

as per killing tons of people by yourself..... well, go on siege defense vs 2500 people, and carry a siege handgunne. Its fairly easy to kill 20 people a shot if your battlesize is big enough.

 

[xenoargh]

you can do the same thing with a jezzail, it just takes slightly more time (and shields piss you off slightly more).

Well, I can fix that too.  The new ammo system is very flexible.  I've already decreased bolt/bullet ammo, it's just one more step to say, "no more endless Jezzail sniper-god for u".  But that at least takes some skill.  And time.

I would be in favor of greatly increasing 'free reload' time(maybe once per 10 minutes or more on the field, at least 5 minutes in siege), but giving dedicated archer units 2 sets of arrows (and bolts if thats required). As well, decrease bolts/cannon ammo to slightly lower levels (say around 10 solid shells?)

That might be a good compromise-  you can still twink, but it takes so long that nobody will bother.

as per killing tons of people by yourself..... well, go on siege defense vs 2500 people, and carry a siege handgunne. Its fairly easy to kill 20 people a shot if your battlesize is big enough.

That doesn't bother me at all.  What bothers me is the idea of people creeping back and forth, say with 20 cannoneers, and killing 200 guys, then creeping back down a hill, repeating as necessary.  That is very anti-fun, imo.  But it's pretty obvious that people have been trained to do stuff like that by Native, so I'm going to have to fix it.

 

[Steffenximus]

I never downloaded the last version. The new weapon bee something seems vastly overpowered. I think it was a mistake to add it. Rifles are strong enough. Cannons already overpowered. But that's my opinion.

 

[xenoargh]

The Nest of Bees is getting nerfed in various ways, no fear about that.

 

[Lancefighter]

the nest of bees? eh once i realized i wasnt supposed to use explosive rounds with it, it made a lot more sense >.> Besides, its sorta the handheld version of the fairly powerful chinese fire arrows: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Arrow

I like that it gives khergits their own special flair..

 

[xenoargh]

Yeah, like I said... the Explosive Rounds was a bug.  It's why I decided to figure out the new ammo system.  The previous system had too many glitchy loopholes like that.  The new system won't give you ammo for more than one Cannon type, period (other than Dragons, which are allowed to share shotshells between single and double-shot versions), and limits explosive ammo to the Siege Handgonne, period.

That goes a long way towards fixing the issues, but this whole grind-via-endless-ammo thing is another issue that I obviously need to deal with.

 

[Lancefighter]

Yeah, I knew it was too good to be true... but it sorta looked like what the khergit guys were using

The new system, cannons only accept certain types of ammos? no forcibly selling the wrong types of ammo?

 

[xenoargh]

Yes, that's all been fixed.  Now you buy one ammo type:  "cannon ammunition".  It's automagically transformed into the correct ammunition type.

You get ammo for only one type of cannon, as well, so while you can carry a loaded Nest of Bees and a loaded Double Dragon, you can only have ammo for one of them (you can still carry around a brace of 3 Double Dragons and ammo, though, if that's your thing).  This fixes a lot of minor abuses that could be done with these weapons, and makes it easier to balance them (one of the reasons why I didn't put in more exotic cannon ammunition like grapeshot / bar / chain or a ball simulation was because of balance issues).

 

[Lancefighter]

So siege handgunne gets explosive shot, and mortar gets solid shot?

Also means I dont have to carry around 4 different ammo stacks for my cannons  (i like to be prepared)

 

[xenoargh]

Righto. 

Although now that I can have the flexibility of developing totally-custom weapons with unique ammo types, it's doubtful that the Mortar will remain the same.  Maybe I'll <gasp> actually make it work like a mortar (subject to the "shooting through the skybox makes our shots disappear" limitations of the engine, ofc)- i.e., low velocity, high trajectory, and a lot of power (it'd have to be player-only, though, because the AI simply will not arc shots past a relatively low angle, period).

 

[xenoargh]

I've had an Aha!

Here's what I'm going to do.

In 1.160, you will buy "army reloads"- name to be determined later.  These will reload your entire army's ammunition once, then are removed.  They take up an inventory slot apiece, and will not be cheap (I'm thinking around 2K apiece).  Voila- you can't do endless-ammo twinking of fortresses, but you can bring up a force of Cannoneers and win sieges, or defend against a horde in the field with conventional arms... if you're willing to spend the cash.  I like it.

 

[Lancefighter]

i dont understand - an inventory slot, in your inventory? or... on your person?

Also, I dislike this idea on principal of unlimited-length field battles. My units, just because they are so much more awesome and stay on the field longer, should not be penalized for staying on the field longer

 

[xenoargh]

Inventory slot- i.e., at max inventory, you can carry around 96 reloads for your entire army.  IOW, not incredibly penalizing, just enough to keep ammo reloads from being abused by people doing silly stuff, and a very rudimentary simulation of supply.

 

[Lancefighter]

ah ok, i see where that is coming from as well - however, food usually takes up more than half my inventory at any given time (low inventory management - the 'party skill' denotation doesnt work, it seems)

I suppose i do visit cities often enough between battles anyway... but i still see them being used virtually every battle that has more than 200 or so people in it..

I assume these will be hotkeyed? (and can be used while dead, more importantly)

 

[Steffenximus]

In RL, during sieges the defenders had quite an ample amount of arrows, bolts, etc. I think you should increase the defender's resupply time to 10 min, and no resupply for field battles, and siege attackers unless they have what you said

 

[xenoargh]

No resupply for field battles would be a disaster for players, imo.  If you had an archer-heavy army, for example, you'd be done shooting in less than 3 minutes, and then infantry / cav-heavy armies would just run you over.  Personally, I think that would be disastrous for balance, and would lead people right back to building single-type armies again, instead of wanting to use multiple arms.  I could "fix" that by giving archers even more arrows, but frankly I don't think that's a good fix for the real issue, which is that players need to deal with huge enemy forces sometimes, and there's no way for archer-types to survive that unless they can reload. 

IRL, in the field they'd have more arrows brought up anyhow from the supply train, so it's not quite as unrealistic as it seems (OK, it'd be perfect if there was a supply train you had to defend, but that's not on the agenda atm, as the workload involved would be pretty insane).

So, I think it'll use the same system- you can keep reloading, so long as you have supply.  The delay may be raised (it's currently 4 minutes, which gives a bit of "breathing room" vs. archers, but firearms/crossbows have effectively infinite ammo).

Defenders in sieges will get reloads for free- IRL, that wasn't necessarily the case, but it's much less of a balance issue.

 

[Azrooh]

Defending the supply trains weren't much of an issue, they had masses of civilians paid from small villages to protect from small cavalry raids, the rest of the armies were devoted to - y'know - fighting.

I'd love the resupply that goes in your inventory idea though. Right now it seems rather cheap.