[CF-Devel] Crossfire's Speeds and weapons

[dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au]

While Mark is busy working on PR, I thought of a quick project I can do
before I make my gods changes. It has always annoyed me that crossfire's
weaponary only contain one handed weapons.. even a pike can be wielded
with only one hand (one I say hand, I refer to the whole working arm). As
I pondered this, more ideas began flowing and now I have a sizeable number
of points I would like to, first make, and then implement. All these ideas
relate to either Crossfire's weapons or Crossfire's Speed.


I will put these in a sort of list so you can more easily make comments.

* Change AC so that the displayer AC (in the client) is (AC - 20) x -1.
This will then mean the overall Armour Class a player has is give as zero
then increases as more AC is gained. Although I know it has been a
tradition to have it going 20 then decreasing, I would like to make it so
that all numbers are -> Bigger = Better. (On this theme we recently
changed it so that higher values of hunger are better, it used to be that
hunger -1 is good.. but this seemed alittle out of place).

* Change the displayed players moving speed to be in tiles per second on
normal terrain. Could possibly be M/s or Km/h.

* Change weapon speed (the value of the weapon.. not overall) to be ->
strikes per second. This value will be displayed when a player has
identified a weapon and will be between 0 (no hits... not really used) and
100 (although it will be able to go higher than that). Where 100 is 10
strikes per second. This value will be subject to change via the players
Dex, Str and level.

* The Big one, give players a weapons a number of hands (required and
have). Firstly, weapons like pikes and big axes will now have a required
hands of 2. Shields will only use one hand (unless someone wants to make a
special shield), and everything else will require no hands. This of course
will allow players to wield more than one weapon.. which raises a few
issues. Firstly, the damage and weapon speed will be weighted but be
slightly less than the average. When I say wieghted I mean that a weapon
that is really slow will have more effect on the overall weapon speed than
a fast one.. also a small damage will have alot more effect on the overall
damage. Thus preventing things like wielding a Bone Crusher and a dagger,
thus making the player hit really fast with a big weapon (couldn't happen 
anyway because bone crusher is two handed). Secondly a player will only be
able to wield one artifactual weapon. This may also change to a player may
only wield one artifactual weapon, plus another weapon if they have a
spare hand. Importantly, what defines what weapons a player can wield at
the same time will be defined by the weight of the weapon. A player will
not be able to wield two very heavy one handed weapons, but possible one
heavy and one light, or two medium etc etc. The amount of total weight the
player can fight with will be based on the Str only, so only strong
players can wield two heavy weapons (and possibly some players may not be
able to wield even one heavy weapon due to extremely low str). Bows are
two handed, and will ne ever be able to be wielded at the same time as a
melee weapon. This idea still needs alot of work, im sure there are flaws
in my logic which i need pointed out, but I hope you get my general drift.

* Along with this change, some weapons will need to be modified,
particualarly the two handed weapons. Spears for instance will be getting
quite abit more damage, and moving abit faster relatively than they
currently do (you have two hands wielding it.. so you should be able to
attack abit faster than you would expect).

* A Big idea which I had, that isn't really important, but I thought might
be cool, is to give Q's (Quetzalcoatls) three hands. Two for the arms, and
one for the tail. Obiviously the same str, weapon speed and damage rules
would apply thus making it alittle less efficient per weapon. Also because
of the Str stuff, a Q wouldn't be able to wield three heavy swords, but
possibly one two handed sword and a dagger or similar. This would give Q's
alittle more firepower later on in the game I think.. which is still
needed as Q's currently get in alot of trouble in the later stages of the
game.

Well thats it for now, but I am very interested to hear your replies. If
you agree on some then that is great, because I will then implement it.
Currently I plan to do the number of hands stuff over this weekend if time
allows so prompt response about that would be much appreciated. I
personally don't think it will make much difference to the balance of the
game, as a player will have to forgo a shield to wield two weapons, thus
drastically reducing over AC and arm, and the resistance bonuses a shield
will give (remembering that only one artifact weapon can be wielded). plus
it will be slightly less efficient to wield more than one weapons, as
speed and damage penalties will be enforced, and maybe even.. only the
same god on any weapon can be wielded.. so a player cannot wield Mostrai
and Devourers weapons at the same time. Thanks for reading,

dnh (AKA Darth_bob and Carrot)

ps. MichToen, could you please use the gcfclients method for calculating
speeds, I would really like to see standardisation there, it is alittle
confusing having two different systems for the same thing. Especially when
you try to compare weapons.