[CF-Devel] Technical Object Questions

[Mark Wedel]

On Thu, 2 Aug 2001, Nils Lohner wrote:
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      Well, I find a lot of daggers (doesn't take me long to have a good
     
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      amount of them) and I wouldn't mind being able to throw them effectively
     
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      at shorter ranges.  Should be quicker than firing a bow too, IMO.  But
     
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      since there are specifically throwing daggers, this is OK.  It's a waste
     
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      of ammo though :)
     
     
 IMO, the bigger problem is that there are not convenient keys/button
clicks/whatever shortcuts to make this fast.  It should be a bit faster
than firing arrows yes, but with the current weight of daggers vs arrows
and the need to say something like 'throw dagger', using them is more a
pain.

 A lot of this has to do with the way the game is set up - monsters
have a lot more HP than players do, so while 4 or 5 spears should
realistically kill most humans, for most monsters, that is nothing more
than a scratch.  Even arrows at higher levels have a similar problem, as
damage done via arrow may not be faster than the monsters regen rate.

 I beleive there is already logic in place for special handling of
throwing things like dusts.  Throwing may get used more if more items
that gave special properties when thrown were available (think of AD&D,
with hammers that return to the thrower, or javelins that turn into lightning
or one dart that when thrown turns into a whole bunch)

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      My main problem is with them being WEAPON... that's a misclassification
     
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      in my opinion.  I have a pickup mode of ALLWEAPONS, and only realized
     
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      that this was a bad idea after walking around with a complete collection
     
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      of a Church's chairs... :)
     
     
 Note that item types when originally done were meant as a classification
for internal handling of objects (ie, what happens when this object is
equipped, and how is it used).  At the time it was done, I am sure the type
was not necessarily envisaged as being used for pickup criteria.


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      So throwable means 'effectively throwable' in the flags, but anything can be
     
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      thrown?
     
     
 Correct.  If an item is throwable, it travels farther, does more damage
(in some cases), etc.  I believe it really means that many values within the
object itself is used for that.  If you pick up a sword and throw it,
the program figures out range and other factors based on formula.

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      How possible/easy would it be to split WEAPON into subclasses?  Armor is
     
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      split into shield, helmet, gloves, boots, etc.
     
     
 It depends.  Note that the reason that armor is split up is because they
have different uses - the helmets go on your head, gloves go on your hands,
etc, so you can wear these combinations together.  In the case of weapons,
all are held in your hand so have pretty similiar characteristics.


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      I'd propose splitting WEAPON into
     
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      SWORD (long, short, broad, etc.)
     
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      KNIFE (knives and daggers etc.)
     
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      POLE (pole arms, lances, etc.) /* question: do these give you a longer
     
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      attack range, i.e. one or two squares?  IMO they sh/could...)
     
     
 No they do not.

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      OTHER (axes, maces, clubs, etc.) /* better name for these? */
     
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      The armor is very detailed, weapon only has bow/arrow split out atm.
     
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      THis would make the definitions more consistent.  And easier to
     
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      implement for autopickup :)
     
     
 I have often talked (well typed) about splitting objects into type/subtype.
In that vision, that split would still be functional within the item.
You can search the archives at real-time for more info, but the basic
idea is that everything the player might have would have type equipment,
and then below that may get split into armor, shield, weapon, etc.  This
would make for more consistent values of some of the fields in the object,
and would also make it easier to add new types (since the equipment type
would cover most everything except what particular part of the body it
may go on).

 Right now, other than auto pickup, such a split above has no use.  That
isn't to say it can't be done, but seems like a bit of work for that purpose
if all weapons are effectively the same.  Currently, all classes can
use any of those weapons if they have melee skill.

 It has been suggested before, and I think your idea goes right with this,
is that items should have a 'sort_type' or the like.  This type is
effectively public, would get sent to the client (so it can sort things
appropriately without having to look up via name).  This should also be what
gets used for autopickup instead of splitting up the current weapon type -
IMO, the current type fields should really be used for functional
use in the code, and not really relied on for anything as far as the player
is concerned.

 Longer term, I could also see weapons getting changed around some.
For example, think of these types:

Knives (dagger, knife, shortsword)
swords (as described above)
pole (as described above)
bludgeoning weapons (mace, flail, club, hammer)
cleaving weapons (axe)
two handed weapons (either as a total type, or another one for each of the
 above)

 Two handed weapons would prevent use of a shield.

 In addition, some weapons could be more/less useful against certain things.
If you go back to old AD&D, things like daggers and spears are not very
effective against skeletons, but hammers are.  Also, the melee weapon skill
could get broken out into a skill for each weapon type, with the ability
to learn certain things limited (the wizard won't be able to learn cleaving
weapons for example).  This could get used to add more flavor to some of
the classes.


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      I agree with this, but seeign a big pile of stuff and jsut grabbing
     
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      arrows and money is pretty quick.  When you get to types of arrows or
     
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      specific coins or gems, then it should take time.  I think this is a
     
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      good general rule that I'll stick to for the autopickup.
     
     
 I dunno.  Take a handful of quarters and toss them on your lawn and see
how quickly you can pick them up.  Realistically, anything in large numbers
take time to pickup.  I generally don't think we should get worried about
the time it takes to pick things up (even search items should probably
be made free).  While we can make it realistic and have it take time
to pick things up, the game is really meant to be fun.  If your playing
an archer type character, you probably want to pick up any arrow you run
across of. You really don't want to die as you run onto some big pile
of mixed arrows that freezes you as you pick them all up.  (note that
picking up too much stuff has the inherent danger in that more weight
slows you down already).


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      > Look at the notes on sourceforge - it has directions on setting up
     
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      >your CVS stuff (anyone who wants it gets read-only access to all sourceforge
     
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      >stuff, because everything is set up that way).
     
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      ...
     
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      I'll look through the docs.  The thing is I need :ext: cvs read-only
     
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      because I'm firewalled and the pserver port is blocked.
     
     
 I think that is available.  But to be honest, I'm not positive - I
know that is used for people with write access.