Duke Patrick's Archery / Heavy / Light / H2H - Combat

[sca]

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Edited June 4, 2017 by sca

[DukePatrick]

I really should have assumed that, considering your work.

 

Well... it was still a good question. One thing I have to try to keep in mind is that players can be unsure of what the mod is doing because they have been conditioned to expect erroneous mechanics from years of playing less than realistic combat games.

[DukePatrick]

Real life 1handed mace and axe were actualy a little less total mass and shorter than a sword. This was to make them "swing plus recover" about as fast as a sword could. But in this game the mace and axe are often heavier. So the "swing plus recover" is more awkward.

 

However, per my mod all the melee weapon stats are done using formulas that keep all the melee weapons relative. So even though the mace you are using may be slower it will do more knock back and often more damage. Damage gets tricky with a top heavy weapon. The heavier the head the more damage it could do but also the slower it may swing and thus the less damage it can do...

 

The formula's include the balance, weight, length, and leverage (how many hands and how far apart they are placed) and are based on physics formulas for force and speed. Using two hands on a weapon does not make the attack all that much faster but can make the recovery much faster.

 

Don't forget (I sometimes do myself) that the swing speed in this game is unfortunately a combination of BOTH the attack and the recover. So the recovery is faster than it should be and the attack is slower than it should be. Forgetting this can make it seem like the weapon speeds are not realistic. I really wish game companies would get a clue and separate these into two different animations as it would create a vastly improved combat experience and a new layer of weapon stats that would be tactical beyond the old and tired damage per second of melee weapons...

 

​If you want your actor to swing and recover with a mace or axe more true to real life just look around for a lighter than game-normal mace or get one via a mod. A mace or axe about 4 to 8 Skyrim mass should do the trick.

 

The mod is smart enough to take into account if you have adjusted all your weapons mass. So if for example you use a mod that reduces all the weapon weights to the real world weights like a 2 to 3 pound steel sword instead of the 10 units of skyrim the mod will adjust all the math for this after detecting it.

 

The nuance for the difference between axe and mace is so small that it may not be worth the effort and extra scripting, however I am looking into what the difference may translate to game mechanics and I might do for this for a latter rev.

 

 

 

 

 

FYI: See "Iriodus's Stream" on Mondays at 7:00 pm for lets play using my combat mod: https://www.twitch.tv/iriodus

[DukePatrick]

I have gone thru all the research I have available to me concerning the practical differences between mace and axe. I also asked for the opinions of some of my peers in the medieval martial arts community.

 

This was difficult because there is extremely little about using a mace at all in period manuscripts translated to English. Most of what we know is derived from physical tests and use in real life combat tournaments.

 

The bottom line is that an axe is a partway transition from sword to mace. Thus it will do more damage than a mace against flesh, but it takes more effort than a mace to use properly and requires more stringent angles of attack to land a shot true.

 

Keep in mind that with my mod stamina is no longer just your "get up and go" rather a combination of fatigue level, opportunity, perception and reflex. In other games this is called "Action Points"

 

So in my mod the mace will have the following bonus/penalty:

25% less damage (No sharp cutting blade.)

25% less hit-miss stamina (More opportunities, less effort to strike from any position to any position.)

Same amount of knockback force.

 

 

HOWEVER...

There is no reliable way to detect a 2H hammer (2H axe and 2H hammers are all weapon type 6). I can test the name of the weapon for the word axe but that is only going to work "most of the time" as many weapons (especially unique weapons) have non- descriptive names. This means that you will get the mace/hammer penalty and bonus for a 2H "axe" ...sometimes.

 

 

WAIT wait wait I forgot about the keywords, I can do this with the keywords. The keywords were not consistently used for a lot in Skyrim and especially by modders but for what ever reason the weapons get proper keyword treatment even by modders making new weapons. So this will be in the next revision. :dance:

[DukePatrick]

NEW REV 47

get it here: http://www.nexusmods...im/mods/78303/?

or here: http://tesalliance.o...weapons-combat/

REV 47

Mace will have the following bonus/penalty:

25% less damage (No sharp cutting blade.)

25% less hit-miss stamina (More opportunities, less effort to strike from any position to any position.)

Same amount of knockback force.

See my previous post to understand why I made this change.

[DukePatrick]

After a week of research on contact mechanics and talking to knowledgeable professionals and instructors on a physics form I decided to double the mace bonus /penalty to 50% less damage and 50% less hit miss stamina cost in the next revision.

 

That is going to make a world of difference between axe and mace/hammer. Giving these two weapons truly their own sets of identity and tactics.

[sca]

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Edited June 10, 2017 by sca

[DukePatrick]

NEW REV 47.1

get it here: http://www.nexusmods...im/mods/78303/?

or here: http://tesalliance.o...weapons-combat/

REV 47.1

Tweaks to the "stuck animation" feature in the MCM to work better and to work on the "cannot stop sprinting" bug. However I also added an auto correct in the mod to solve this automatically when it happens so you may not notice it happening anymore anyway.

After a week of research on contact mechanics and talking to knowledgeable professionals and instructors on a physics form I decided to double the mace bonus /penalty to 50% less damage and 50% less hit miss stamina cost in the next revision.

That is going to make a world of difference between axe and mace/hammer. Giving these two weapons truly their own sets of identity and tactics.

[DukePatrick]

NEW REV 47.2

get it here: http://www.nexusmods...im/mods/78303/?

or here: http://tesalliance.o...weapons-combat/

REV 47.2

The speed calculations were missing a factor for the counter balance on great swords. I was treating them like they were a staff weighted the same from top to bottom. Counter balance is now in the calculations making great swords faster to attack and recover.

[DukePatrick]

NEW REV 47.3

get it here: http://www.nexusmods...im/mods/78303/?

or here: http://tesalliance.o...weapons-combat/

 

REV 47.3

Damage calculations updated to match the speed calculations. The result is that now a 2h battle axe does terrifying damage to un-armored targets and light weapons do a little less than before but as per the previous rev they are faster.