Slings...

[GeraldDuval]

before anyone dismisses it hear me out. Slings were a very basic yet extremely effective weapon used from almost the dawn of time to even now.

It was considered and effective weapon for the same reason as the mace or war hammer, blunt force trauma. When the conquistadors invaded Mexico, the incas and aztec weapons, made of obsidian were useless against their armor. however, slings were used effeectively, killing and injuring many of cortez's men.

for those who might think that slings were not used in medieval combat, i'd like to point you to a few pictures:

Slinger with shield, Battle of Najeras (Spain)
14th century, Chronicles by Froissart - Hondero

Saxon slinger, Engraving XVIII century, British Museum

A man hunting birds with a sling, Bayeux Tapestry, 11th century

Staff slinger launching a grenade
Battle of Sandwich, 1217 - source unknown

not only would it be historically correct and interesting. It makes peasants with rocks far more dangerous than they already are....

Let me know what you guys think.[/img]

 

[Sir Prince]

Yes, slings sound good, I think this idea has been said before, but only twice I know of. ANd they had no pics!

 

[powerg8]

I like it.

 

[RedXIII]

Well they throw rocks so they might as well be able to have a slinger.

 

[13 Spider Bloody Chain]

Perhaps we could make a bow vs crossbow situation with this?

Slings can be the equivalent of bows- faster firing rate, lower damage.

Staff Slings can be like crossbows- lower firing rate, higher damage.

And to throw in my own idea (and steal the original poseter's ) - maybe we can also make different types of sling stones? The order from the least powerful to the most:

Common stone, granite stone, river pebble (same damage as granite but with longer range), lead bullet (basically a chunk of lead slung as a rock).

 

[GeraldDuval]

thats a good point with ammo. There were alot of diffrent types of sling stones. In the professional militaries (most medieval armies, greece, rome, etc) sling stones were usually those lead pellets.

some picts of ammo:

Darts/bolts

Roman Lead bullet

more lead bullets

 

[NikkTheTrick]

It will be good to have a decent ranged weapon with blunt damage

 

[Ingolifs]

Didn't the greeks have 'take that!' etched onto the lead pellets they threw in slings?

 

[Ryuta]

I think it's Romans. They have a lot and give us a good source of common Latin at that time.

Though we can have slinger units (minus visible sling).
Make a new item (stronger, faster version of throwing stone), new unit (slingers) and made the item available to that unit and you'll have a slinger. Stone throwing animation is actually pretty close to sling-throwing motion, I think.

 

[soup_alex]

I am by no means an expert, but I'd think it too difficult to create a credible sling "draw" animation - like a flail swing, which I know has been mentioned before.

Furthermore - what class of weapon would they count as? Thrown? Archery? "Sling"?

 

[marousal]

slings were not faster than bows, in trained hands maybe AS fast, but not faster. they had a longer range though. the damage was not smaller, it was different, blunt damage (however, the romans were equipped with special wooden "tongues" that were used to pull out leed bullets out of the bodies... ) . it takes a lifetime of daily practice to master the use of a sling.
but its a fact that it was used in the middle ages, but mainly as a siege weapon, thanks to its range it was possible to lob the glands, or stones over the walls of a city while staying out of reach of enemy archers.

now as for staff slings, it's different. they are easy to use, and very powerful (thoug a bit more clumsy). you can turn a peasent in an artillery unit in notime. it's not possible to use it as a sniper weapon though, it lacks the accuracy of a normal sling (the slinger having immense experience of course). there were both long staffs with smaller stones (sometimes more than one at a time), and shorter ones, with stones bigger than a fist.

and being a fan of slings, i agree they should be considered in the game.

 

[Ryuta]

No no, I meant if you really want to make a sling, you can substitute it by modding throwing stones and pretend it's sling.

By the way, I think, given the movement of slinging, throwing skill would do.

They are, in skilled hand, deadly. I recalled Xenophon in 'Anabasis' telling that Rodian slingers have longer range and more accurate and deadlier than persian horse bows. He was in that skermish so I could trust his account.

 

[Destichado]

*still looking for a good translation of the Anabasis*

The version I have is abridged.

 

[The Mark]

http://www.slinging.org/
Some classy info on slings there.

I actually remember reading somewhere that an experienced slinger could shoot bullets out in a very fast rate, something akin to 1 stone per second, as long as the slinger had bullets in his off hand; he would shoot a bullet, continue the slinging motion so that the pouch would come to his off hand, with which he would insert another stone to the pouch and again continue the motion to sling the stone. I'm not particularly certain about the credibility of that, but it might be possible for a highly skilled slinger.

 

[GeraldDuval]

I am by no means an expert, but I'd think it too difficult to create a credible sling "draw" animation - like a flail swing, which I know has been mentioned before.

Furthermore - what class of weapon would they count as? Thrown? Archery? "Sling"?

actually, the "flail" motion seriously degrades your accuracy. Most slingers use a baseball like through for accuracy and and underhand for distance.

When i sling, i've noticed that while a flail style gives more power, you cand hit crap. Animation wise, all you'd have to do is put the rock in the leading hand and the 2 strings in the back hand and just delay the release of the projectile after the character throws it....

http://www.slinging.org/articleimages/21/video1h.mov
here's a movie showing the overhand release style.

 

[okiN]

Search, damn you. Even if it's not in the frequent suggestions thread, you search just in case.

I agree with the suggestion though, for obvious reasons.

 

[svart]

actually, the "flail" motion seriously degrades your accuracy. Most slingers use a baseball like through for accuracy and and underhand for distance.

When i sling, i've noticed that while a flail style gives more power, you cand hit crap. Animation wise, all you'd have to do is put the rock in the leading hand and the 2 strings in the back hand and just delay the release of the projectile after the character throws it....

http://www.slinging.org/articleimages/21/video1h.mov
here's a movie showing the overhand release style.

Nice movie and good technique.
With the power of a spinning motion comes range, how would the above technique fair in higher ranges ? and do you have some references that shows this technique was widely used with slings in medieval times ?

I am by no means an expert, but I'd think it too difficult to create a credible sling "draw" animation - like a flail swing, which I know has been mentioned before.

If the animators use IK (Inverse Kinematics) anywhere in the making of the animation (usually an animation software is used to rig and animate and then export to a format used by the game engine), and i'm sure they do - then making the character animation should be a lot simpler then most of the animations they made to the game.
making an animation for the weapon however is a bit problematic, since you need to create animation for each object - still simple, but tedious for more than a few chain weapons.

Just remember they got a gazillion other things to do too

 

[GeraldDuval]

with the hellenic style of throwing and just under a month of slinging experience i've been able to relatively accurately throw a fist sized rock from the outfield of a full size baseball field and hit the backstop behind homeplate.

with the flailing underarm style i've been able to get it over the backstop and farther, but like i said earlier, without much accuracy.

 

[leo]

Everything's better with slings.

 

[Ryuta]

It was very nice movie.

For accuracy, I think the target in the movie was too small. It's not really good comparison but Victorians used steel plate of 3m high and 90cm wide as a target to check the accuracy of their guns. May be it represent a horseman, or footmen in row.