[crossfire] Discrete damage type

[Nicolas Weeger]

>   Random question to everyone at a whole - should the old 'dam' field go
> away at some point, that is to say, everything should use the discrete
> damage?

In the future, probably, yes. But we must take care, as this field is used for 
other things than damage, IIRC...
Also, we already have many obsolete things to remove :)

>   This would require map & archetype updates, but that could all be
> automated - if attacktype is set for say AT_FIRE and AT_PHYSICAL, and dam
> is 10, then script would just remove that and add damage_fire 10 and
> damage_physical 10.

Yes, that can probably easily be automated.

>   It also means that attacktype basically goes away - instead, that
> information is conveyed in the discrete damage fields.
>
>   Which leads to an interesting question right now:  If I set up the
> discrete damage values for an item, but don't update the attacktype to
> include those attacks, what happens?  I can think of 1 of 2 things:
>
> 1) Attacktype is ignored - if the discrete damage is set, that is used no
> matter what (meaning that attacktype basically could go away if everything
> was updated) 2) The discrete damage isn't used, since the attacktype isn't
> set.
>
>   If #2, should probably be documented someplace.

Right now, it's #2. I still use attacktype to know if I should use that 
attacktype or not. Reason is that no item already has the discrete damage, so 
I still must "dispatch" to attacktypes.
IMO, we should move to #1 at some point - discrete damage should handle that, 
I think.

>   Are things smart enough to handle the case where I modify an archetype on
> the map to included a discrete damage type?  For example, suppose I take
> the standard longsword, which just has a standard dam value, but want to
> make a specialized weapon - something that still does mostly physical, but
> a little bit of fire, so I use the discrete damage values to do that.
>
>   Will that work?  IMO, it should, because that is a pretty likely
> scenario, and from a map maker perspective, I shouldn't have to know the
> internals of how things work - I should be able to set up discrete damage
> types and just have it work.

Yes, loader will handle that nicely. But it'll totally ignore the 'damage' 
value you set, in this case.

>   Don't know if done, but I'd also suggest that things like examine object
> should dump that information.

True, will do that at some point if no one does that.

Nicolas
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