Damage type of arrow vs dmg type of bow

[Woreczko]

Hi!
What would happen if I changed bow damage type to cut, eg 25 cut, while some arrows (say bodkin and khergit ones) would have a +10 pierce damage. Would final damage dealt vs. armoured foe be 25 cut*bonuses + 10 pierce? Or maybe 35*bonuses pierce? Or 35*bonuses cut? Or maybe 25*bonuses cut + 10*bonuses pierce?
Thanks

 

[Soil]

Why would you want to do that?

 

[Woreczko]

IMHO bows in general are too effective vs. high-end armours, especially if the archer in question has a very high power draw. This is because bow damage in native is of "pierce" type. Hence I would like to change it to "cut" type. However to give bow-oriented characters some chance vs armoured foes, a pierce-damage arrows would be available. They would have a lower damage bonus than barbed arrows (which are designed to damage the flesh, not pierce armour).
I need to know the exact formula, which the game engine would use in such circumstances to make this work as intended, as it is pretty difficult to test in-game.

 

[Soil]

Ah, ok then.

Why don't you go try it out yourself? Get a bow, make it's damage cut and then set the soak factor against cut to 1.0 in module.ini
Start a game, load that bow and shoot at an armored unit. If the damage is the same than before(you should test this) then it's pierce damage, if it's quite a bit less then it's cut+pierce and if it's no damage then it's cut damage. You might want to check out if hitting armored guys with swords does any damage to see if it works.

 

[Woreczko]

Good idea!

Edit: Wait! Setting soak factor of 1.0 means (as far as I understand), that 100% of given armour rating will be substracted from cut damage. I.E: armour rating needs to be higher than total damage to achieve 0 damage effect. I guess setting it to 20 should achieve desired effect....

 

[ealabor]

remember that powerdraw and shot speed of the bow could be a factor.

post the results of said test here because ive been curious about this for a while

 

[happah]

try shooting the targets in the castle, only pierce damage weapons bring up a score

 

[Soil]

I don't know if it's ONLY ranged AND pierced but stabbing someone in the castle definitely doesn't work.

 

[Woreczko]

I can sadly confirm, that damage type of arrow does not matter - final damage type would be the same, as specified in the ranged weapon entry.
Details of the test:
1. I set damage of hunting bow to 15 cut
2. Arrow damage 20 cut
3. Barbed arrow 20 pierce.
4. Armour soak factor (module.ini) at 20 vs cut (to make armoured foes impervious to cutting damage).
5. Created a new character, hunter type - 80 proficiency in bows, 2 power draw. He had/acquired hunting bow, arrow quiver, barbed arrow quiver, 2-handed axe and raw hide armour.

In a battle against looters he could not damage anyone in armour, neither with normal arrows, barbed ones or the ax. Hits on naked body worked though and he did that much damage, as can be expected from this setup (35+). It SEEMS, that bonus damage from arrows was not scaled, but don`t trust me on this. On the record, looters could not damage me with cutting attacks too, but other attack types worked as normal.

It was pretty fun having to headshot everyone in order to win the battle

 

[happah]

the line of targets at curin castle for example can be stabbed with a sword or a spear but cannot be hit by cutting or blunt attacks. If you were to alter a sword swing to have pierce damage, slashing the target would allow a score to register on screen. I deduce that if an arrow has pierce damage and a bow has cutting damage then if both are accountable in an attack on said target then a score would register.

 

[Woreczko]

Since it`s not possiible to have a bow with cut damage and arrows with pierce, what do you guys think of giving the bow "cut" damage? Maybe giving it some buff to base damage would balance things out? Or maybe not. Will the khergit-like warriors be viable without armour piercing bows? What about Vaegirs?

 

[Soil]

I do think that khergit horse archers should be totally effective damage wise against the heavily armored knights but rather pose a problem for infantry without cav support(and even with cav support it will be hard). If they can totally rape a knight in blade armor they are overpowered, IMO.

Really the same thing with vaegir archers, too. There were times I didn't use ANY crossbowmen because vaegir archers were quite effective against heavy armor and had a faster firing rate.

I think with a buffed base damage you could still keep them reasonably strong while reducing the damage on heavy armored troops.