[Your View] Armament Techlock II

[Vysii 77]

Making light armours viable

The Techlock - Armaments post does well in summarising how well different kinds of ranged weapons can pierce different types of armour. While it can definitely be improved upon, it at least gets the job done. Along with a revamped version of the Armaments post, The LOTC team should consider writing up a 'Techlock - Armours' post conveniently categorising and educating people on different armour types while providing solid redlines people can readily refer to when arguments break out.

 

For example, a full plate armour loadout may have a redline of reducing the number of blocks the wearer can move per turn. Whereas lighter armour loadouts would still permit full or only slightly inhibited movement.

 

Something as simple as enforcing different official movement speeds for different armour loadouts would be both historically authentic and intuitive. It would go a long way towards making light armour legit viable. It would also be a lot easier to implement and enforce than an arbitrary stamina system.

 

Historically, light infantry could harass heavy infantry with ranged fire and maintain a safe distance because of their superior tactical mobility. Light infantry had a clear tactical role on the battlefield that current movement rules make impossible to reflect. By allowing more lightly equipped players to viably kite more heavily equipped players to death, light infantry would finally have strength and purpose on LOTC.

 

There isn't any actual need to nerf the protectiveness of plate armour, buff the power of existing mundane projectile weapons, or buff the protectiveness of light armours beyond what was realistic. Mobility was the entire point, and it makes for a great defense of its own.

 

Ranged changes

When it comes to the ranged changes, it'd probably be best to keep the system as simple and intuitive as it currently is. The current system of having a set number of emotes to shoot a specific type of ranged weapon worked alright. It can be summed up in like 1-2 sentences and it's easier for people to remember and keep track of. It also makes realistic sense. The emote counts for self-bows and arbalests really just needed to be reduced to 2 and 4 respectively to be viable in the action economy.

 

And if we're going the magic system route, having a mana-like stamina system to limit how many projectiles someone can shoot from a certain weapon type before they get tired seems like it'd just make mundane ranged weapons even more useless. Given how short battles actually tend to be in terms of number of CRP rounds and how there is no standardised system to determine the success of hits or how much damage they'd do, in practice the limit would be probably either be so low it'd be frustrating and unrealistic or so high most people won't bother to memorise the system.

 

Heavy Crossbow categorisation

As for the suggestion for a new crossbow/arbalest categorisation, merging the crank crossbow and (windlass) arbalest into one simple category it can write redlines around is definitely a good idea. But I don't think it'd be advisable to call or think of the category as 'armour-piercers'.

 

It's worth nothing that what many people here call the 'crank crossbow' and 'arbalest' are practically the same weapon. An arbalest is basically a medieval crossbow with a steel prod. That implies a draw weight so high that ordinary human muscles alone won't manage it anymore, necessitating a particularly strong loading mechanism to pull back the prod. The windlass and the cranequin (crank) just happened to be the two most powerful loading mechanisms available to medieval crossbowmen for drawing back their arbalests.

 

The windlass and cranequin aren't quite the same. Different loading mechanisms are capable of different mechanical advantages, which in turn decides the maximum draw weight they can manage. Tod's Workshop, a YouTuber who recreates and field tests historically authentic medieval weapons, notes that the windlass has a mechanical advantage ratio of 78:1 and can manage draw weights exceeding 1,500lbs. Meanwhile, the cranequin is actually capable of a significantly higher mechanical advantage ratio of 182:1 and pulling back draw weights exceeding 2,000lbs. But when it comes to categorising weapons for the making of crafting a simple and practical combat system, this shouldn't matter too much. All it means in the end is that they both enable the use of crossbows with extremely high draw weights.

 

It'd be more intuitive and appropriate to call the category the 'Heavy Crossbow' category. While the arbalest is certainly a powerful weapon, regardless if it's windlass or cranequin-loaded, it just wasn't powerful enough to beat the kind of armour implied by the average goon with a plate armour skin. Describing the category as 'armour-piercers' would be a bit of a misnomer that'd only encourage the kind of powergaming people hate about arbalests and (often wrongfully to a huge degree) dread about firearms.

 

The 'power' of a medieval crossbow mainly depends on its draw weight, draw length, and how quickly the prod's material allows it to revert back to its original shape, along with the mass and shape of its projectiles. The main bottlenecks limiting an arbalest's power are its short draw length and the material properties of medieval steels.

 

Steel can only bend so far before it reaches the point of plastic deformation or snaps. A steel prod will not bend anywhere near as far back as, for example, a yew wood bow with equivalent dimensions. The highest-quality medieval steels weren't exactly terrible, but they weren't quite on the level of homogenous modern carbon steels either. So increasing a crossbow's relative draw length to be more comparable to a self-bow just isn't a option unless the prod is made of stronger and more flexible fantasy metals.

 

One can also increase an arbalest's draw weight by making the prod larger and thicker. But the further one goes in doing that, the heavier and more unwieldy the crossbow becomes. And at some point, it will face diminishing returns. The limited draw length of a crossbow meant that even the heaviest arbalests were only roughly equivalent in power to the strongest self-bows, which compensated for their lower draw weights with higher draw lengths and the higher speeds at which their materials flexed.

 

For a crossbow to qualify into the aforementioned 'Heavy Crossbow' category, the basic requirements would be that it 1) needs a powerful loading mechanism to handle its extreme draw weight and 2) is light enough that a normal human being can typically wield it without needing support its weight with a bipod, tripod, or some other kind of stand. The second requirement practically limits the handheld arbalest to a rather low power ceiling, to the point it wouldn't really be appropriate to call it an 'armour piercer' unless the target is wearing some very antiquated, outdated, or low-quality armour.

 

The main drawback to the arbalest, as an infantry weapon, is that its prod and loading mechanism were relatively heavy. The weight of a medieval arbalest and its accessories were in the ballpark of 7 kg. In comparison, a historical zweihander weighed up to 4kg and historical halberds weighed about 2-3kg. Arbalests weren't weapons medieval soldiers could comfortably carry around everywhere they go on campaign. The large weight of arbalests meant soldiers mostly only brought them out during sieges, when battle lines are mostly static and tactical mobility isn't much of a concern.

 

By the time we got the archetypical knight in shining plate armour in real life, the arbalest had been rendered obsolete a long, long time ago. Late Medieval plate armour came about to counter the rise of handheld firearms. The arbalest could not contend with the latest developments in armour technology and metallurgy. It also could not complete with the much cheaper and more powerful handgonne, arquebus, and musket.

 

According to historian Alan Williams in The Knight and the Blast Furnace (Chapter 9.5, Page 947), the typical arbalest simply could not produce the necessary kinetic energy to effectively pierce the armour of a knight wearing early 15th-century Milanese-style plate armour. Contemporary armourers also made it a standard to prove the effectiveness of their armours by shooting them at point blank range with arbalests and showcasing the shallowness of the resulting dents. Armourers in later centuries also did the same thing with pistols. If the most important pieces of plate armour (such as the breastplate) could be pierced to serious or lethal depths by an arbalest bolt or pistol bullet, they were practically unsellable.

 

Not even counting fantasy materials, LOTC players have easy access to the best armours of the Late Medieval and Early Modern periods. Meanwhile, the strongest mundane ranged weapon available to counter them was historically developed to combat armours and metal quality standards from many generations prior.

 

Basically, if you shoot a guy square in the breastplate with the typical arbalest, even at point blank range, your target generally should not be going down. An arbalest bolt won't pierce deep enough to cause serious injury. It won't even significantly knock them backwards either thanks to Newton's Third Law of Motion. People wearing modern bulletproof vests can casually get shot square in the chest with a 7.62x51m NATO cartridge fired from a battle rifle and still not go down. An arbalest bolt might be multiple times heavier than a modern rifle bullet, but they're still being loosed with only a fraction of the kinetic energy. The arbalest is just not that strong, especially not against the standard armour the average player will probably be wearing to battle.

 

For an arbalest to consistently defeat plate armour, the weapon would need to either 1) be upscaled to crew-served siege artillery (at which point, you end up with the 'Mounted Crossbow' already described in the Armaments thread) or 2) incorporate certain fantasy materials and energy-efficient design features from modern-day compound bows and crossbows.

 

If LOTC needs a medieval-friendly niche for an actual 'armour-piercing' mundane ranged weapon, the team is deadass better off just introducing handheld firearms rather than awkwardly forcing arbalests into a role it historically became inadequate for.

 

Using crossbows while mounted

For the ruling on using crossbows while mounted, it'd make more sense to restrict reloading on horseback rather than just completely banning its usage on horseback entirely. Operating a cranequin mechanism on top of a moving horse would be awkward for sure. Even moreso for a windlass, which necessitates the use of a stirrup at the end of the crossbow to anchor the whole weapon system to the ground as the user winded up the windlass. But there shouldn't be anything stopping a cavalryman from simply holding and shooting a crossbow that's already loaded and doesn't have its loading mechanism attached.

Edited June 1, 2024 by Vysii

[Werew0lf 24181]

4 hours ago, Vysii said:

When it comes to the ranged changes, it'd probably be best to keep it as simple and intuitive as it is. The old system of having a set number of emotes to shoot a specific type of ranged weapon worked alright imo. It can be summed up in like 1-2 sentences and it's easier to remember and keep track of. The emote counts for self-bows and arbalests really just needed to be reduced to 2 and 4 respectively.

 

And if we're going the magic system route, having a mana-like stamina system to limit how many projectiles someone can shoot from a certain weapon type before they get tired seems like it'd make mundane ranged weapons even more useless. Given how short battles tend to be in terms of number of rounds and how there is no standardised system to determine the success with hits or how much damage they'd do, in practice the limit would be probably either be so low it'd be frustrating and unrealistic or so high most people won't bother to memorise the system.

 

Heavy Crossbow categorisation

As for the suggestion for a new crossbow/arbalest categorisation, it would definitely be for the better if the team went ahead with merging the crank crossbow and (windlass) arbalest into one simple category it can write redlines around. But I don't think it'd be advisable to call or think of the category as 'armour-piercers'.

 

It'd be more intuitive and appropriate to call it the 'Heavy Crossbow' category. Because while those weapons are certainly powerful, the arbalest — regardless if it's windlass or cranequin-loaded —

realistically wouldn't be powerful enough to be the bane of the average goon with a plate armour skin. Describing the category as 'armour-piercers' would be a bit of a misnomer that'd only encourage the kind of powergaming people despise about arbalests and (often wrongfully to a big degree) dread about firearms.

 

It's worth nothing that what many people here call the 'crank crossbow' and 'arbalest' really are practically the same weapon. An arbalest is basically a medieval crossbow with a steel prod. That implies a draw weight so high that ordinary human muscles alone won't manage it anymore, necessitating a special loading mechanism to pull back the prod. The windlass and the cranequin (crank) just happened to be the two most powerful loading mechanisms available to medieval crossbowmen for drawing back the steel prods of their arbalests.

The windlass and cranequin aren't exactly the same. Different loading mechanisms are capable of different mechanical advantages, which in turn decides the maximum draw weight they can manage. Tod's Workshop, a YouTuber who recreates and field tests historically authentic medieval weapons, notes that the windlass has a mechanical advantage ratio of 78:1 and can manage draw weights exceeding 1,500lbs. Meanwhile, the cranequin is actually capable of a significantly higher mechanical advantage ratio of 182:1 and pulling back draw weights exceeding 2,000lbs. But when it comes to categorising weapons for the purpose of crafting a simple and practical combat system, this shouldn't matter too much. All it means in the end is that they both enable the use of crossbows with extremely high draw weights.

 

The 'power' of a medieval crossbow is mainly dependent on its draw weight, draw length, how quickly the prod's material allows it to revert back to its original shape, and the properties of its projectiles. The main bottlenecks limiting an arbalest's power are its short draw length and the material properties of medieval steels. Steel can only bend so far before it reaches the point of plastic deformation or snaps. A steel prod will not bend anywhere near as far back as, for example, a yew wood bow with equivalent dimensions. You can increase an arbalest's draw weight by making the prod larger and thicker, but that would make the crossbow a lot heavier and more unwieldy, and at some point you're getting diminishing returns. The limited draw length of a crossbow meant that even the heaviest arbalests were only roughly equivalent in power to the strongest self-bows, which compensated for their lower draw weights with higher draw lengths and the higher speeds at which their materials flexed.

 

The main drawback to the arbalest, as a weapon, is that its prod and loading mechanism were typically quite heavy. The weight of a medieval arbalest and its accessories were in the ballpark of 7 kg. In comparison, a historical zweihander weighed up to 4kg and historical halberds weighed about 2-3kg. Arbalests weren't weapons medieval soldiers comfortably carried around everywhere they went on campaign. Heavier arbalests were typically only brought out during sieges, when battle lines are mostly static.

 

For a crossbow to qualify into the aforementioned 'Heavy Crossbow' category, the basic requirements would be that it 1) needs a powerful loading mechanism to handle its extreme draw weight and 2) is light enough that a normal human being can typically wield it without needing a bipod, tripod, or some other kind of stand to support its weight. The second requirement limits the arbalest to a relatively low power level, to the point it wouldn't really be appropriate to call it an 'armour piercer'.

 

By the time we got the archetypical knight in shining plate armour in real life, the arbalest had been rendered obsolete a long, long time ago. Late Medieval plate armour and its associated developments in metallurgy came about to counter the rise of handheld firearms. The arbalest could not contend with the latest developments in armour technology. It also could not complete with the significantly cheaper and more powerful handgonne, arquebus, and musket.

 

According to historian Alan Williams in The Knight and the Blast Furnace (Chapter 9.5, Page 947), the typical arbalest simply could not produce the necessary kinetic energy to defeat the armour of a knight wearing early 15th-century Milanese-style plate armour. Contemporary armourers also made it a standard to prove the effectiveness of their armours by shooting them with arbalests and showcasing the shallowness of the resulting dents. Armourers in later centuries also did the same thing with pistols. If the most important pieces of plate armour (such as the breastplate) could be pierced to serious or lethal depths by an arbalest bolt or pistol bullet, they were practically unsellable.

 

Not even counting fantasy materials, LOTC players have easy access to the best armours of the Late Medieval and Early Modern periods. However, the most powerful mundane ranged weapon they got, was developed to combat armours multiple armour development stages prior.

 

Basically, if you shoot a guy square in the breastplate with the typical arbalest, even at point blank range, they target generally should not be going down. An arbalest bolt won't pierce deep enough to cause serious injury. It won't even significantly knock them backwards either thanks to Newton's Third Law of Motion. People wearing modern bulletproof vests can casually get shot square in the chest with a 7.62x51m NATO cartridge fired from a battle rifle and still not go down. An arbalest bolt might be multiple times heavier than a modern rifle bullet, but they're still being loosed with only a fraction of the kinetic energy. The arbalest is just not that strong, especially not against the standard armour the average player will probably be wearing to battle.

 

For an arbalest to accomplish the feat of consistently defeating plate armour, the weapon would need to either 1) be upscaled to crew-served siege artillery (at which point, you end up with the 'Mounted Crossbow' already described in the Armaments thread) or 2) be made with certain fantasy materials and incorporate more energy-efficient design features from modern-day compound bows and crossbows.

 

If LOTC needs a niche for an actual 'armour-piercing' mundane ranged weapon, the team is deadass better off just implementing handheld firearms rather than unrealistically forcing arbalests into that role.

 

Using crossbows while mounted

For the ruling on using crossbows while mounted, it'd make more sense to restrict reloading on horseback rather than just completely barring its use on horseback entirely. Operating a cranequin mechanism on a moving horse would be awkward for sure. Even moreso for a windlass, which necessitates the use of a stirrup at the end of the crossbow to anchor the whole weapon system to the ground as the user winded the windlass. But there shouldn't be anything preventing a cavalryman from holding up and aiming a crossbow that's already loaded and doesn't have its loading mechanism attached.

 

Making light armours viable

The Techlock - Armaments post does well in summarising how well different kinds of ranged weapons can pierce different types of armour. While it can definitely be improved upon, it at least gets the job done. The LOTC team should highly consider writing up a 'Techlock - Armours' companion post conveniently categorising and educating people on different armour types while providing solid redlines people can refer to.

 

For example, full plate armour can have a redline of slightly reducing the number of blocks the wearer can move per turn. Whereas lighter armour loadouts wouldn't have such disadvantages. Something as small and simple as enforcing official movement speeds for different armour loadouts would make light infantry finally viable and tactical mobility a thing worth considering.

nerd emoji

[Borin 7645]

need gun

far easier to shoot myself with a gun than with a bow probably.

[Sarven 2619]

If we speak historically/realistically, light armours like gambeson can stop sword slashes and even arrows (from light bows), like it is decent armour by itself. 

People just don't know, if there's more explicit writing about what can do what, would probably have the same effect.

 

Plate armour is fine as is, people over exaggerate "blunt trauma" against it, its supposed to be the best in-class armour, if you want to counter act its prevalence, then some sort of 'cost' can be associated with it. For ex, you pay for it or need some sort of 'proof' that a player forged it.

[indiana105 5126]

i don't think attaching redlines to player skins is a good idea

 

just punish people who rp as an MW3 juggernaut and drop the bow emotes from 3 to 2, don't make it more complicated than it has to be. a bow isnt some weapon of mass destruction it can be countered by emoting *holds up his shield. if someone is stupid enough to charge an archer without any kind of defense they deserve to die

[CharlestheDwarf 184]

Rather than nerfing, buffing, and reworking either armor or ranged weapons as separate entities... why not do both?

Take the current idea and implement it, and then have lighter tiers of armor assist with making the use of ranged weapons more effective.

IE:) Heavy armor requires the standard 3 to attack and 3 to maintain due to increased difficulty of upward shoulder movement beyond a level plane as well as the general hindrance of bulkier armor. Longbows and Arbalests should remain as 4 emotes.

Medium armor uses the change as is, with 3 emotes for the first attack and 2 follow-up emotes for every attack after. Longbows and Arbalests are 4 emotes to start and 3 to maintain for damage piercing properties.

Light armor functions as Medium armor does, but may use Longbows and Arbalests at the rate of 3 emotes.

I feel like this generally gives lighter armor sets more precedent, where Medium armor pushes versatility and light armor rewards ranged fighting styles in exchange for being so vulnerable.

It should also be specified that moving should require one to start the firing process over again, which means you'd have to have the longer emote attack first before continung.

[_RoyalCrafter_ 5285]

ranged changes are good, though not sure why the increased emote count for the longbows. I still think armour is a non-issue, and people need to improve their RP quality, its not an issue with the rules. as others stated before me, there are advantages inherit in different sets of armour, like chain being better against stabs compared to plate.

[Onnensr 1908]

Concocting a system for agility would be better than simply buffing light armor somehow. When you take the physical traits of the races into consideration, which are often accepted universally even in events, you've got dwarves are hardy, orcs are strong, humans are universally average, and elves are agile. That last one, agility, seems the most power gamed and the most need of a strict definition. Once defined, light armor is more purposeful, and it likewise counteracts any future issues of *dodges*. 

[Unwillingly 18113]

after thinking about this for a little bit I want to come back and explain why I dont like 2 emote bows of any kind, even if they operate more as magic casting mechanics

 

I think something we aren't really considering here is that unlike magic, bows are completely unrestricted in almost, if not every area other than emote counts. mages have mana and can only cast on a limit, archers can have an infinite quiver. magic is restricted and self-regulated, bows are accessible to anybody who wants one. mages cannot wear full plate, archers can wear full plate and wield a bow on top of a heavy hitting melee weapon, and the fact that a hit by an arrow is guaranteed to do severe damage no matter where it strikes the body. I definitely don't think we can simply apply an emote system designed for magic to the common bow weapon without tweaking it

 

I'd be much more forthcoming to 2 emote bows if they were in turn nerfed in other areas, such as restricting the amount of arrows that one can carry, adding a "cooldown" for x amount of arrows shot that would be described as your character's arm tiring out and needing to rest, etc. if the issue here is really just fire rate, then people shouldn't have a problem with those other areas being nerfed, otherwise bows will become the absolute meta no matter what kind of weapon an encounter might demand

[NotEvilAtAll 10906]

13 hours ago, Unwillingly said:

otherwise bows will become the absolute meta no matter what kind of weapon an encounter might demand

Attack once every round (melee)

VS

Attack once every two rounds ONLY after you've already "connected" to your bow all magic-style.

By simple action economy melee is still better than archery and there are still situations that 100% call for melee weapons (enclosed spaces, your enemy is right in front of you, etc.)

[Unwillingly 18113]

35 minutes ago, NotEvilAtAll said:

Attack once every round (melee)

VS

Attack once every two rounds ONLY after you've already "connected" to your bow all magic-style.

By simple action economy melee is still better than archery and there are still situations that 100% call for melee weapons (enclosed spaces, your enemy is right in front of you, etc.)

melee weapons still take 2 emotes to draw and attack, and 2 more emotes if you're disarmed at any point. the emote factor beyond that point isn't incredibly huge in the scope of CRP given how much of an advantage bows would still have. bows guarantee that you can attack from a distance, and thus cannot be disarmed while still having the potential to deal crippling damage no matter where your shot hits. so all of my previous points still apply here, zero regulation in every area outside of emotes with all of the benefits. you'd be surprised what situations people will try to use bows and arbalests or w/e in, ive seen players just blast arrows and bolts into tightly packed crowds trying to hit the single enemy in the middle

[Clone_Fives 75]

17 hours ago, Unwillingly said:

archers can have an infinite quiver

CRP does not last long enough for an Archer to run out of arrows even with two emote bows. An Archer can carry at most 13 arrows comfortably give or take. Under ideal conditions it would take 27 emotes for one to run dry

 

2 hours ago, Unwillingly said:

melee weapons still take 2 emotes to draw and attack

This I have not heard of before or seen in crp. Usually I have seen most people  draw a melee weapon in one emote as a free action. Though will say for in this case melee can still be better due to how fast you can move in or less than three emotes. Also assuming combat just started it will take you less time to draw your funny sword than an archer to get 'connected', notch, fire.

As someone who plays a mostly ranged character three emotes to use a bow just sucks horribly. Even if you start a crp at a distance people can and will catch up to you far fast than you can think. With mages I have heard they can move fairly fast and get away from melee  safe in comparison to the archer. If you want a suggestion for dealing with heavy armored archers (which I agree is silly) I recommend what taking a look at CharlestheDwarf suggest here if you haven't already. \/ \/ \/

 

22 hours ago, CharlestheDwarf said:

IE:) Heavy armor requires the standard 3 to attack and 3 to maintain due to increased difficulty of upward shoulder movement beyond a level plane as well as the general hindrance of bulkier armor. Longbows and Arbalests should remain as 4 emotes.

Medium armor uses the change as is, with 3 emotes for the first attack and 2 follow-up emotes for every attack after. Longbows and Arbalests are 4 emotes to start and 3 to maintain for damage piercing properties.

Light armor functions as Medium armor does, but may use Longbows and Arbalests at the rate of 3 emotes.

I feel like this generally gives lighter armor sets more precedent, where Medium armor pushes versatility and light armor rewards ranged fighting styles in exchange for being so vulnerable.

It should also be specified that moving should require one to start the firing process over again, which means you'd have to have the longer emote attack first before continung.

 

[NotEvilAtAll 10906]

7 hours ago, Unwillingly said:

melee weapons still take 2 emotes to draw and attack, and 2 more emotes if you're disarmed at any point

Warriors do not get disarmed in every CRP fight and typically enter combat with weapons drawn so for most attacks it is 1 emote = 1 attack.

7 hours ago, Unwillingly said:

the emote factor beyond that point isn't incredibly huge in the scope of CRP given how much of an advantage bows would still

Action economy is HUGE and making attacks in fewer actions puts you at an advantage.

I highly doubt these changes will lead to a CRP meta of all archers because without any melee backup to hold back enemies said archers will just get rushed down and slaughtered. 

[Hanrahan 2983]

I have some thoughts.

[BakedPotato 1021]

On 6/1/2024 at 8:59 PM, Unwillingly said:

 

after thinking about this for a little bit I want to come back and explain why I dont like 2 emote bows of any kind, even if they operate more as magic casting mechanics

 

As someone who plays both mundane characters and mage characters, I very much agree.

 

Bows have zero drawbacks, take no slots to use, and are easily accessible where someone just needs to craft a bow to become a master archer. As both a mundane fighter and a ranged caster, fighting against a two emote bow would be incredibly annoying. People can perch on unreachable walls or fire from long distances and bow spam you, which gets even worse in group scenarios. A connected mage would barely get a minor teleport off to escape and that’s only because the cast emote happens before any attacks, assuming the mage has translocation. Two emote bows have an emote count comparable to mages worse spells, while every spell worth casting needs 3/4 emotes even after connecting. As someone who crps often, multiple times a week even, I believe this is a bad change.

 

Bows have the advantage of range, making it hard to attack back, and the advantage of being easily accessible to anyone unlike alchemy and magic. Buffing their emote count to make them even stronger just makes bows overpowered against mundane knights and mages alike.