Arrows hurt more

[Deleted1848331User]

Hm, well, I can't think of a code, but some useful ones may be

 

SetAttackDamage

GetAttackDamage

Player.GetEquippedObject 17 ;17 is arrow slot

 

Top of a code:

scn scriptnamehere

short Arrow
float ArrowDamage
;ref Self ;maybe, but it doesn't work in quest scripts

;Set Self to GetSelf

Set Arrow to Player.GetEquippedObject 17
Set ArrowDamage to GetAttackDamage Arrow

;if Self.GetEquipped IronCuirass == 1 
;Set ArrowDamage*Player.GetAV Luck
;and so on with other armor

 

Set Self to GetSelf is to find out who is the enemy, but I can't figure out the way to get it to work in a quest script. That's an example I can think of.

 

Every function useable with OBSE, Pluggy, CS, etc...

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/List_of_Functions

[Taurni]

Ferryt. While it is the Arrow in reality that allows for the armor piercing, why should that equate to the arrows in game being what pierces the armor? From what I seen in the construction set, there are fewer bows then arrows, and your quality comparison still works if we were to place it on the bows. Though I do not know how to go about doing it. Is it even possible for a script to assess the armor of an NPC you fire at? If it is, how do we get your formula to work? (Why yes, I do feel like making this now...)

 

What if the target has no armor? Will it crash the game when the check fails?

[Deleted1848331User]

You could attach a script to all of the arrows in the game to check :P Set Self to GetSelf, then checking their armor ;D

[Ferryt]

I referenced the penetration to the quality of the arrow, rather than the bow, because it makes no sense to me to fire an iron arrow with a silver bow and get additional penetration based upon the quality of the armor vs. the quality of the bow. The bow, really, should have nothing to do with the penetration an arrow gets against a "harder" substance. In real life a silver arrow will flatten against steel, for instance -- no penetration at all. It doesn't matter if you use the most powerful longbow at point blank range, you'll just get a flatter arrowhead.

 

Carrying this into Oblivion, I see the classes of armor as being progressively "harder" substances, and therefore able to absorb more damage than the softer ones before catastrophic failure. I see the classes of arrow being similar, with the lower ones able to easily penetrate softer armor and having progressively more difficulty penetrating harder armor. Where the bow comes in is, presumably, its ability to propel an arrow faster, which means more penetration (i.e. damage) if it does penetrate. It's still up to the arrowhead, itself, to get through the armor, and in that case it should be material vs. material, and the bow is completely out of the loop once the arrow has been sent on its way.

 

I believe OBSE has a way to examine a character's inventory, and determine what items are equipped. I'm not absolutely certain about that, though, so you'd have to consult the OBSE documentation to see if the required functions are available, although LordFrostcraig seems to have a workaround to any direct way to do it, with the caveat that "ref self" won't work in a quest script. The only problem I can see with this is that it's very possible there's no way to determine precisely which piece of armor is struck by an arrow in a quest script, and there's no guarantee that a given NPC will be wearing all the same kind of armor. I don't ever recall seeing one with a mixed and matched set -- doesn't mean it can't happen, especially with custom NPCs from installed mods. I think all the stock NPCs are scripted to always employ the same kind of armor for each piece. An alternative would be to determine all the pieces of armor the NPC is wearing and do a weighted average of their armor classes, based upon the approximate body coverage of each piece. A gauntlet or boot, for instance, wouldn't count as much as a cuirass. The result could just be plugged into the formula for ArmorClass.

 

No, the script shouldn't bomb out if the NPC is wearing just clothing, or even nothing at all. I don't see any possibility of a division by zero, here. If the NPC is unarmored the check would return a value of "1" for ArmorClass. The game engine takes care of the 0.00% damage reduction behind the scenes, so that's not even something that's directly under your control in a script, although there might be an .ini setting that deals with that. I really haven't looked for one, though.

[Taurni]

ok... I red that block of text you have there, and it has firmly converted me to you viewpoint. Unfortunately I have nowhere near the molding ability to create this. I can do a new shop, a new sword, unicue enchantments. But scripts... I am a noob to scripts, the most complex script I have created a ring that summons armor and adds spells to the player, then removes the armor and spells worn the ring, or any piece of the armor is taken off.

 

While I would be happy to implement a script (aka the tedious bit of applying it to each and every arrow) I can not make one. I am willing to help with a creation of a mod that dose this, but i cannot make the script with my current skills. The script is on someone else, but if they post it here, ill be happy to put it on all the items, make sure it works, and then upload the mod here (with credit to all involved of course.)

[MarkInMKUK]

There are a few anomolies in armor penetration in real life which may take consideration. Cloth-based armor such as quilted stuff is surprisingly good against arrows, as the multi-layering acts a little like a kevlar flak jacket, and snnarls up the arrowhead - that's one reason oriental armour haad a quilted silk underpadding.

 

Re the "silver" arrows and steel plate - I mentally treat "silver" as "high-chrome-steel" and assume it's a slang term used by in-game smiths to protect their methodology.

 

There also ought to be a chance with the tougher armors that the arrow bounces off, especially at increased range - it IS a curved surface after all. A pity the game engine can't tell you WHICH bit of the body gets hit - a head shot should kill outright for instance.

[Ferryt]

You're right, MarkInMKUK, but this project is already becoming far to complex for my meager scripting skills. Do arrows bounce off hard objects like stone walls in the game? I've really never noticed, and I actually don't ever remember hitting a wall with an arrow. I'd think the physics engine would take care of any such instance if the arrow can't penetrate. The question then remains, if an arrow hits a valid target and doesn't penetrate, does the game engine treat that as zero penetration or is it still going to be sticking in your opponent? Again, I haven't a clue.

 

Someone else suggested that "silver" weapons and armor are actually "silvered". That's just a cop-out, though, since you really can't silver plate most metals because of incompatibility. It's not possible using Medieval metallurgy to silver plate steel, for instance. This can be done using electroplating in a bath of silver chloride, potassium carbonate and potassium ferrocyanide, without resorting to a copper under-layer, but I think this is way beyond the technology level of Oblivion. The game is fantasy, after all, and silver weapons have long been a staple in the high fantasy genre.

 

Oblivion doesn't have cloth armor, so I didn't mention anything about that, but you're correct on that count, too. Due to the lack of cloth armor in the game, though, I think that's probably a non-issue.

[Taurni]

Ah good sir, the silver arrows MUST be silver, or silver plated, because they can harm ghosts, and other things a silver weapon can. I think that we should assume that it is like a silvered weapon in D&D, which means that it is coated in silver leaf, or otherwise plated. So we could have sliver be the same as steel. Problem solved.

 

As for the cloth and leather armor, how about the script simply doesn't cancel out the AR?

 

Edit: also Ferryt. This is a universe in which magic exists. Factor in that when making educated guesses please. I am sure that a mage can bond steel to silver. The fact of it not being possible with historical methods is irrelevant, because this is not ancient earth. This is Cyriodil.

Edited February 13, 2011 by Taurni

[Ferryt]

True, Taurni. Remember that I've said as much in this thread, myself. However, there is no precedent within the game, or within Elder Scrolls lore, to my knowledge, to account for even magic being used to silver plate harder metals like steel. If it were possible, then I'd expect to be able to do this myself, given a steel sword, a few silver nuggets, and access to spell making and enchantment altars. Now, if all silver weapons were enchanted, just with something that made silver stronger and less malleable, then I'd have no problem at all.

 

However, even a silver-plated weapon is going to rapidly lose its silvering, just because silver is so soft that every single contact with a harder surface will erode it away, and most surfaces are harder than silver. Pure silver has a hardness of 2.7 on the Mohs scale, making it one of the softest substances around -- almost as soft as a fingernail (hardness = 2.5), where glass has a hardness of around 6.0 and steel around 7.0, with diamond topping the list of naturally-occurring substances at 10.0 (by definition).

 

So, no ... silvering, in and of itself, is not a solution to the issue. The best solution is to just ignore the reality of physics, here, and accept that silver weapons do exist and not try to explain them away.

 

As far as the script not canceling out the armor rating, I'm not sure where you got the impression that anyone has suggested this. Were I doing this mod, myself, I'd simply load up whatever armor ratings are currently defined, rather than forcing the mod to change them so as to maintain maximum compatibility with both vanilla Oblivion and mods that actually do change the armor rating. By allowing the game engine to handle everything that the mod doesn't directly address you minimize such conflicts, and by letting other mods define different ratings, and having this mod load after them, you minimize any unforeseen problem areas with those other mods.

 

The only thing this mod should directly alter is arrow damage, and that would ideally be done dynamically on impact as a percent alteration of whatever is currently defined. That would make it compatible with mods which, themselves, alter arrow damage, and could be tweaked through an .ini file, if necessary.

[Taurni]

That is what I meant, the arrows could be made to only ignore armor rating from metal armors (and glass) but the effect simply dosen't have an effect on leather armor (and possibly chainmail.)