Questions / Suggestions

[Night Ninja]

In my opinion, RCM greatly overpowers certain equipment at the expense of others. Using it would entail rebalancing of all the items in the mod to better fit with Westeros.

The function of the RCM was to create realistic tactical application for particular equipment.  That is, large, heavy anti-armor weapons are going to be slower than lighter, shorter, and easier to use ones.  That plus removing utter absurdities that existed in Native to create balance, but instead just added strangeness.  It does create some balance issues, if you simply use it with Native loadouts and expect the game to balance the same.  However, it's not hard to plan troops around it - actually, you can do that from a history book, as a historically used weapon/armor combination should produce the same logical results.

But it was Native that over-powers certain weapons.  Specifically, the recurring theme that large, heavy weapons seemed to do a lot more damage, but still could be used at more than 90% of the speed of the lightest weapons in the game.  This produced an obvious imbalance - bigger weapon was always better.  (If this were true, everyone would have been fighting with telephone poles.)  The function of the RCM was to, in turn, balance this by making the heavier weapons realistically less convenient to use.  Also, Native greatly overrates the damage of the "couched lance", which was also balanced out.

But yes, it would require some re-outfitting the troops.  That's not a major deal, for the most part.  It's proven to be a lot easier than trying to get working balance out of the Native damage model.  (Ask Fujiwara about the balance problems in ONR back in .751 ... the RCM was originally created because those issues were found to be debilitating.)  Balancing a game around a reasonable model is some extra work, but it's still quicker than fighting perpetual imbalances that crop up because of a freaky model.  Call that experience.

Just putting that point back into perspective, before someone decides to create a LOT of work trying to avoid a little.

Ah, thanks for the explanation. I felt that having axes as Piercing weapons caused a lot of balance issues, since you have ridiculous situations like throwing axes penetrating plate and etc. In general, I also found axes to be horrendously powerful (even against plate armour), which shouldn't always be the case. 

Just wondering, is it possible to have dual damage types with one attack? For example, you could assign 9p + 18c to a greatsword's thrust, or something along the lines of that. This would help simulate the effects of a thrust, while preventing it from being an all-out armour piercing weapon when used to thrust.

[Ron Losey]

Ah, thanks for the explanation. I felt that having axes as Piercing weapons caused a lot of balance issues, since you have ridiculous situations like throwing axes penetrating plate and etc. In general, I also found axes to be horrendously powerful (even against plate armour), which shouldn't always be the case. 

Just wondering, is it possible to have dual damage types with one attack? For example, you could assign 9p + 18c to a greatsword's thrust, or something along the lines of that. This would help simulate the effects of a thrust, while preventing it from being an all-out armour piercing weapon when used to thrust.

The "cut" and "pierce" damage are purely statistical units. 

RCM sets pretty much all stabbing attacks with edged weapons to "cut" damage.  A straight thrust has a relatively high chance of leaving a deep wound (i.e. relatively high damage), but gives no mechanical advantage (the way a swing on a long handle does) - so its armor penetration is certainly no better than any other attack.  And yes, before you ask, I've tested this.  Unless you're talking about trying to slide a needle between rings in some kind of chain armor, a straight stab is certainly not an improvement in anti-armor capability.  The exception to this would be spikes like a stiletto or awlpike, which would have damage roughly half of their edged counterparts, but pierce instead of cut - they would penetrate the same volume of armor, but only inflict half as much damage.

Spikes, stiletto-type points, and the like are "pierce" but much lower overall damage.  Axes are pierce damage because they have a much more narrow blade area than swords of a similar length and weight - they are quite good at tearing armor to bits (I have tested this extensively, on various armoring materials), but cannot really leave a wound larger than the shape of the head forward of the handle (greatly reducing the odds of landing a debilitating wound on the first hit).  Although it sounds strange, because of the way the game calls it "pierce" damage, it is statistically accurate to actual trauma wounds and armor tests.

The throwing axes should either be cut, or relatively low damage pierce, depending on the design.  They should not do much of anything to plate armor either way, unless thrown with such force that the sheer impact was enough to cause injury.  Not saying that couldn't happen, but it should be rare.  I'm sure I checked the numbers on that.

Anyway, the damage numbers are just a math model, and you cannot have multiple ones.  You cannot add unique ones either, although I wish you could ... have "cut" as full damage and full armor value, "pierce" as half armor value, as it is now - and then I wish I could add something like "half-pierce", that was .75 armor value.  But that's not an option either - not at this time.  Have to work with what we have.

[virus_found]

and then I wish I could add something like "half-pierce", that was .75 armor value.  But that's not an option either - not at this time.  Have to work with what we have.

it is
in 1.003 it's customizable in module.ini
these are the defaults:

# You can modify the damage system by editing the following values:
# The first three values determine the amount which will be directly subtracted from damage due to armor.
# The next three values determine the percentage reduction from the damage.

armor_soak_factor_against_cut       = 0.65
armor_soak_factor_against_pierce    = 0.35
armor_soak_factor_against_blunt     = 0.3

armor_reduction_factor_against_cut       = 1.0
armor_reduction_factor_against_pierce    = 0.65
armor_reduction_factor_against_blunt     = 0.65

[Ron Losey]

Each entry may be customized, yes.  Nice to have, since the old system from .808 and before was a lot better than the default new one.  (There are numbers for this in the accumulated "RCM standard" - an abstract set of rules used to compute correct damage numbers for RCM mods.  Check the module.ini from any recent version of ONR to see what I mean.)  However, you are still limited to three damage types - two deadly, one not.  You still cannot add custom damage types.

[Agent Griff]

I'm all in favour for RCM in mods and I'd be sad to see it go from this mod. But hey, who said that there couldn't be 2 separate versions? Like in TLD for the .808 version, where simply editing a text file enabled you to have RCM statistics for weapons.

[Jheral]

Somehow, I doubt it's that easy, since differences in equipment would drastically alter the balance between different troop types. 

[HXavier]

Well, I have no idea about RCM. can´t see anywhere where it is explained wth it does. It´s own thread just points it was done for oni-something mod and that´s it.

About ASOIAF I would like to give a few suggestion:

1. Take the heavy mounted knights from Greyjoy invaders!
As as I can sey, they should be foot troops, wearing mostly leather and most are not even great fighters without a deck below their feets.

2. Make wildlings spawning in the nort, as a low grade troop, similar to looters, but just a bit better (with a crow among them from time to time, with better weapon, skillsa and leather and not just fur armor).

3. Make the map BIGGER with "generical" villages. Dozens of villages have been set afire by the Lannisters. I can´t see them. As I see, all the named areas should be TOWNS or CASTLES. The FEW major towns (I can only say "Kingsalanding" for now...) should have merchants with more money and equipament, bigger tavern with more options of interations than the others, etc.). The bigger amap would make this more feasible and give the aspect of great land wich is non existent now. Like someone said before, a 2 days trip between Winterfell and Kingslanding is to fast, but I don´t like the idea of having the travel speed reduced, so a bigger map would be better. Also, more forests along Kingsroad would be great. 

I didn´t play much. I got annoyed by the fact there was no "villages" I could recruit troops and the hit-and-miss on what is a town and a village was tiresome, also, the Greyjoy Knights..weird.

[tommylaw]

i'm with him on the greyjoys, they shouldnt have much cavalry

and when i used ctrl-t to look around, the villages in the north and the riverlands where on fire, a bit much...

[naptha]

I like the idea of more villages or a larger map. Since we are trying to stay true to the books, how about naming the villages after the nearby towns? Winterfell Village, etc. Can't wait for the port!

[HXavier]

I like the idea of more villages or a larger map. Since we are trying to stay true to the books, how about naming the villages after the nearby towns? Winterfell Village, etc. Can't wait for the port!

Is not a bad idea. I was just thinking on giving them very generical names, like "small village", "village", "holdfast", but yours is a better solution. Yesterday I got the Hundred Years War mod, and they have almost the right idea for the map, with villages in abundance. And they only have two factions! More factions, more stressing the need for villages if you want a god number of soldier, before or after have an allegiance. 

Is possible to have a location in wall, with a menu where you can send your troops to one side of another if you have a good relation with the crows? I don´t know if the game allows such a thing. I saw a bigger map of Westeros in the Guardians of Order RPG book, mostly of the new part, beyond the wall.

But still, what I meant as a suggestion is a bigger map+more generical villages, to fuel the war on the south side of the wall anyway. The map increasing at north would be good in case a bigger focus be giving in a campaign againt the wildlings and others, if they eventually be fleshed out as factions.

[Jheral]

As I recall, there is a hard limit on how big/detailed the map can be, so it might not be possible to expand it that much, while keeping it reasonably detailed.

Still, I agree; a bigger, more detailed map is always nice.

[tommylaw]

it'll be tedious if the map is too big, just for convinicence's sake, the curret map size is fine

[Night Ninja]

I believe that the village at the gates of Winterfell was simply referred to as 'the winter town'.

[tommylaw]

so what's the plan concerning the Vale?

are they going to remain Lannister, support the north, or be a neutral faction?

if its possible, an update on progress would be nice

[naptha]

agreed, an update once every week/two weeks would be greatly appreciated for those of us chomping at the bit.