After half a year (geez.. time goes by too fast) overdue update on DO Reborn project is here. Some real-life things had happened and not a pleasant ones but let's skip the details, since "It's personal" as Morgan Bernhardt used to say. Good things are that the life and the project keep moving on regardless.
In the meantime, early version of melee combat mechanic has been implemented with following features: - combat score (only wound points are taken into account) - strike priority (3 groups: first strike (charge), normal, last strike (weapon type)) - charge bonus (temporary boosts unit strength, strike priority and combat score in the first round) - wounds resolution changed from unit based to model based
In addition, user interface got battlefield map view which displays unit information when hovering with cursor over its banner.
Last but not least, we welcome Dougie who is working on 3D character portraits.Thanks to previous community knowledge he figured out how to re-implement portraits in UE4. More details about this can be learned in this thread of DO fan-forum. http://forum.dark-omen.org/3d-scenery-models/portrait-meshes-t1227.60.html
Future plans is to finalize melee combat and continue with implementation of the ranged one.
I've already tried beta-multiplayer and I'm very positively impressed so far. I haven't learned many things yet since there is only PvP mode but the game has many tactical features like morale, flanking, formations, LOS, friendly fire, day/nigth cycles with ambushes and traps and the most important... you can't move your squad which is engaged in melee combat but only use it's abilities. If you want to disengage from the combat you have to give retreat order and your squad will flee until reaches your nearest camp. Just like in Dark Omen! (except there are no camps there )
All mechanics felt meaningful and important during my few games. For instance, I was able to hold with my spearmen in spearwall formation 4 enemy squads and was winning until 5th enemy squad charged my spearmen from the rear.
There are still building, recruiting and resource gathering mechanics but they are very simplified and automated, so you can focus on combat much more then in other RTS games.
It's been awhile since the last update on the DOR progress and some might have thought that the project was abandoned but it is not. On the contrary, the project has nearly reached its very important milestone - the combat mechanic implementation which appeared to be quite a complex issue right from the start. Units allocation in melee raised many questions: how many unit's models should get into melee contact, how to arrange them porperly, how to arrange all of these in multi-units combat, etc.
Earlier this month, it was decided to go through complete code refactoring due to downsides of unit movement, i.e. drifting, stucking and other issues made movement look and feel not right. It was a tough decision and took 3 weeks of programming efforts but it was definitely worth it. Now, movement looks very spot on to the original Dark Omen's one and somewhat even surpassed it (more fluid, no way to repro DO "dancing bug"). Numerous playtests helped to succefully discovered precise movement speed formula used by units in Dark Omen. New map with tick marks for testing helped greatly to achieve this. Another playtest sessions helped to find unit formation dependency in DO which has already been succesfully added to current build version of DOReborn Next steps are implementation of proper unit collision which will allow to proceed with implementation of melee combat mechanic.
As far as i remember (it's been a while) there is a clumsy hardcode of cavalry speed: It checks unit armor. If unit has what editor refers to as 'mounted armor', then speed is hardcoded and equals to infantry speed 7 regardless of what you set in Mv.
Very interesting info... Now I understand why cavalry becomes slower if you set its armor from "mounted" to "usual" armor in WHedit. It starts using its unit M speed (which is 4 by default). Same goes with infantry, if you set its armor to "mounted" it becomes veery slow since it starts using hardcoded mount speed which infantry does not have. But if you set infantry mount (horse) it becomes fast. Here is in-game test video which demostrates default cavalry, cavalry with "usual" armor and cavalry with "mounted" armor but no horse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o31dWknOmt4
But you can make cavalry type, non-zero mount byte (horse or boar), just set them regular armor: 0 through 4. Then you set mv = 9 (for wolfriders) and they run fast. Ijust hope that no 'mounted armor' does not prevent such unit from being a cavalry in all fight checks. It works properly in ctl though and no reason to suspect worse at lower code levels.
Addon: mounted armor may influence certain combat situations, like polearm infantry cancels its bonus or something like that. But there is no other choice atm to make faster or slower cavalry.
I do not remember in TT rules that being a cavalry type gives unit any checks in combat and I presume that there is none in DO too. In TT, Mount just gives unit(models) +1 armor save, equivalent of 1 armor shield in DO.
I am also sure that all cavalries in DO has barded horse due to the facts that: - cavalry may have up to 5 armor shields which is equivalent of +2 save in TT available only to rider in heavy armor+shield and mounted on horse with barding. - cavalry speed is M7 which is due to barding (though, if you upgrade armor to 5 shields M has to become 6 which is not the case in DO)
I tested units speed a bit and noticed that my Cavalry with movement=3 moved at the same pace as cavalry with movement=4. The only other difference in stats was initiative: 5 vs 4.
Cavalry unit movement (M) value does not affect its speed. Its mount does affect cavalry unit speed and mount M value is more likely hardcoded (tested in WHeditor)
Also noticed in WHeditor that Chariot has M8 and no mount, thus its M value affects its speed (unlike cavalry with mount)
Yes, In Dark Omen, initiative affects the rate at which a regiment turns. That said, if two regiments have the same speed, a regiment with higher initiative will move faster across the battle field.
I can't confirm that Initiative affects turn(wheel/reform) rate. From my numerous tests Initiative affects only unit maximum(real) speed, i.e. after acceleration. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DPYlcmzMyc
Additional info: If we compare a treant (i=2, mv=6) vs a vampire (i=7 or 8, mv = 6), we see that vampire accelerates much faster. Also, as there is usually no straight way between A and B, units have to turn slightly every now and then, and at each such turn vampire increases the gap between him and treant. Vampire may even overtake a cavalry regiment (mv = 7), though if both units move along a straight line, cavalry seems to move a bit faster as it should be.
I would not compare Vampire vs Treeant as they are different in terms of model size (normal vs large correspondignly).
Also, one-model unit behaves differently than multi-models unit, so unit-size affects turn (wheel/reform) speed
Can't confirm this. In my test so far combat round was 24 seconds (most of the time). I measured it by the time between death of models which was consistent in my case (but 2 times it varied from 24 to 28 seconds). It was matched with the duration cycle of Ld test which I identify as "stay firm men" event by unit with unbreakable ability. There are time delay between Model death event and Ld test event which varies from combat to combat but has equal cycle duration for each particular combat.
Okay me and olly have just spent the evenning testing strength and toughness leading to:
Dark Omen Strength v Toughness table
Target Toughness
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 4 5 6 6 N N N N N N S 2 3 4 5 6 6 N N N N N T 3 2 3 4 5 6 6 N N N N R 4 2 2 3 4 5 6 6 N N N E 5 2 2 2 3 4 5 6 6 N N N 6 2 2 2 2 3 4 5 6 6 N G 7 2 2 2 2 2 3 4 5 6 6 T 8 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 4 5 6 H 9 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 4 5 10 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 4
The boost button gives +1 strength
Two Handed Sword +2 Charging into the front: +1 Strength Charging in the rear gives +2 Strength
After my S vs T tests I can confirm facts listed above tested by Darkmancer except that charging in the rear gives +2 Str. In my test Charge gave +1 Str from any possible flank.
Just small remarks: Charge (at any side) gives +1 Str for the first round only The boost button gives +1 Str for 1-2 rounds (depends when you finish boosting unit) Great swords give +2 Str bonus permanently All above Str bonuses stack (cumulative)
P.S. Other Str bonuses like from mount etc., I will test later after have firm confirmation of combat round duration
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