Duke Patrick's Combat Archery Mod
OBSE 18 or better needed.
Shivering Isle needed.
English version install of Oblivion only!

SCA Combat Archery uses real armor, real bows and real cross bows with real arrows that have wide blunt tips so as to dramatically reduce their ability to kill while still keeping as much of the historical and physical factors as is safe to do so. This allows us to study history and medieval combat by physically recreating it.

You tube:

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=kDQGvTy-_MM

[youtube]kDQGvTy-_MM[/youtube]


This Youtube move is a more or less fair representation of SCA combat archery. Except that in my local chapter we use 1000 pound draw crossbows...now that will leave a mark on you even in leather armor!



WARNING! READ ALL READ ME FILES OR YOU WILL BE CONFUSED BY WHAT THE MOD IS DOING IN YOUR GAME!

get it here (NEW LINK):

http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/514-duke-patricks-combat-archery/

Quick overview of what the mods does (BUT READ THE READ ME FILE THAT COMES WITH THE MOD):

(Most are from my older SCA Combat Archery mod, but several are NEW and the old ones are revamped.)


-Bows can be player set to do various multiples of the vanilla damage (or of what ever damage is set to the bow in the game by other mods).


-Arrow damage and speed will be calculated based on the materials and craftsmanship used to make the arrow. A bonus is given to magic arrows. This arrow damage feature is optional.


-Duke Patrick’s "Don’t Shoot Me Bro" system helps to prevent NPC from shooting their friends in the back!


-The bow jerks off target after the shot is fired. You will need to re-aim after each shot. However this feature is optional.


-Breathing bow sway if you are in zoom sniper mode, but you can also hold your breath!


-Moving around will make you miss (shoot off the cross hair) a lot. Running or jumping is worst than walking. This is reduced by holding still for a few moments. There is an optional Bobbing bow sway effect that visually tells you when momentum is no longer effecting your shot after moving or jumping.


-Moving backward has RISK! This is NOT a random event. My mod detects tripping hazards! You may trip over the dead, change in elevations like stairs or large world objects that interfere with your movement such as a chairs!


-The PC strength is now as important as their skill in detraining the damage that a weapon can inflict. Weapon selection strategy will be important by using the right kind of bow for the PC Marksmanship agility and strength!


-Stronger bows will take much longer to draw the arrow then weaker bows depending on your strength. If you try to use a Bow that is stronger than you are it will take a great deal of time to draw the bow.


-Bows eat fatigue no mater what skill level you are. The stronger ones eat more than the weaker ones. So if your bow is stronger than you are your may become exhausted very quickly TRYING to draw the bow!


-If you fire the bow without drawing it all the way your arrow will be drastically reduced in speed AND DAMAGE.


-Slow arrows will bounce off of the armor your target is wearing.


-Arrows that hit Critical locations such as the Head, Solar Plexus or Crotch will cause pain and may multiply damage done by the arrow. Plus an optional feature where the player character will say things like "That had to hurt!' when they land a critical hit on their opponent.


-Weaker bows fire faster and use less fatigue, so if you are a good marksman that can hit the Critical locations more often you may find using a weaker bow is a much better strategy!


-Shield men will now be the archer's worst night mare! NPC will Shield Charge and sprint at you to knock you and your bow to the ground. (Kill them before they get too close!)


-Bows are not mêlée weapons! You will not be able to draw your bow if you are being crowded by your opponent (they are too close to you). If the NPC hits you as you are drawing the bow it will be knocked off target.


-Better NPC AI! Your target will side step or block the arrow if they see you fire at them and have the agility, speed and skill to do so.


-Npc will run up inclines to get you now. (no more perching on top of a pile of rocks!)


-Aim your bow straight down to the ground to denock it!


-Arrows that are stuck in the NPC have a chance of being dislodged and dropped to the ground in combat.


-Quiver Capacity limit for actors and the player. Everyone now has a limited number of “conveniently assessable” arrows. Extra arrows must be keep in a protective arrow case or you risk breaking them if you are staggered or fall down. This will hamper but not “cold stop” the player and the actors from getting more arrows in combat. YOU NEED TO READ THE FULL DESCRIPTION BEFORE YOU USE THIS FEATURE!



For the most advanced SCA combat with sword and shield:
http://www.spookyfx....book/tromp.html

Thread 3 reached 200 posts. I thought the thread was auto locked at 200?

No threads are all locked manually.

Sometimes they go as high as 220 before mod catches them.

4.3.2 .... but I just updated to 4.3.1!

I assume the only change is in the esp?

Yes, just the ESP, I hope you can use it without re-Bash-ioning or what ever you do with each new rev and all your power player tools.

Sorry, I have no good excuse for the REV avalanche today, the truth is I was just not being careful.

I am working now on improved detections for when the actors are in the sneak positions (this really throws a monkey wrench into the calculations because the head is not only down but off to one side.)

I did get it working well enough but that REV will not be come out until I also get the Actors Can Miss merge into the Mod.

Wow that's a lot of releases today, which is good!

I have been playing this mod for a while. I found one little conflict, which is easily avoidable. Looks like if you use FCOM (or Fran's mod) with this mod, and you activate the slow backward running in both, your speed attribute gets broken eventually (it goes down permanently). Even though it is not a bug of the mod itself, looks like FCOM players should turn off one of the two slow backward running functions. I had this bug today and thanks to those who answered I could fix it. Also, obse v0020 beta 4 seems to run fine with this mod. After extensive testing I can finally say this. Thought players who are using mods requiring this version of obse would be happy to know this.

The way to remove the hindered backwards running with FCOM is to get the Frans patch called no MOBS run limit on the http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=17621 (a great resource page too btw). This is a known issue when using more than one mod that affects backward movement. Also if you use Realistic Fatigue I'd recommend lowering the chance to trip on both that mod and this as they will work synergistically and you will stumble a lot more than if only one mod is used.

Duke-

you know I'm a fan of merging mods, so yay one less esp.

No problem on the updates - better to fix than forget.

Hi everyone ! I'd like to use this mod with FCOM . What .ini settings and load order would you recommend ? thanks in advance

Second that. First time I ran them together I was falling down constantly - both amusing and annoying.

@DP - Thanks!

I just put it right before Deadly Reflex. I left the ini on default. I'd recommend Duke Patricks's Actors can Miss Now mod as well or things are gona get real frustrating.
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=17706

I haven't had too many issues with tripping and Realistic Fatigue. Most of the time I trip I can tell it's Combat Archery. It's always dead bodies I fall over with Realistic Fatigue.

Nice mod that makes archery feel so much better.

There seems to be something wrong with the scripts, though. Sometimes I get a "system message" telling me that the calculated arrow speed didn't match and the console is always spammed with the following over and over again:

Error in script 840le5deAttempting to call a function on a NULL reference or base objectFile: Duke Patricks - Combat  Archery.esp Offset: 0x02CA Command: Let

This is with versions 4p2, 4p3 and 4p3p2. In case it's important, my modifications to the .ini are:

; Using PCvoice mod so these do not match:set aaDPSCABOWSWAYquest.RaceIndex to 7 ; Game-mechanic conflict with "Inventory Is A Backpack". If > 0 you will first need to manually ; drop the protective arrow case from your inventory screen before dropping your backpack.set aadpArrowLimitQ.QuiverLimit to 0

My subjective feelings are that the game also crashes a lot more often during combat, however that may be selection bias since I can't reliably reproduce those crashes.

Sorry to but in, but I was wondering if a clean save is required to updgrade from Rev 4.2? I just found out there was a new revision...

Thanks a lot ! What about FCOM archery ? Is it needed or not ?

People are having those errors a lot whether you use obse stable or beta. However, It hasn't crashed my game nor have I seen a weird bug.

This is also covered in the READ ME file.

Bottom line is don't worry about it.....I am not.

Standards and code of conduct requiers me to say yes, clean save is alsways the best way to avoid dirty upgrades.
(But I personally did not in my game for this particular rev).

Thank you Spooky,

I know it is a redundant question, but I had to ask in this case. I normally do a clean save every time I upgrade this mod, but the process can be tedious at times. I just thought I could be lazy today... Regardless, I will still do a clean save as to avoid complications. My thanks once again.

Sealwarrior

So i took a few years break from oblivion and just before i left i was looking at your scrips alot. Well i finnaly came back and have been useing them and i gotta say i love em. I havent messed with this much, being since i just installed last night but reading the readme and stuff, it seems to be how i always wanted archery in oblivion I have a visual bug which i have to quit and load the game up with this, but im 99.99999999% sure its from somthing else.

Just wanted to say great script and thanks for your work on it!

I have the new Head Shot script now working to detect lower leg shots in the same way. This means you can hist the shins and feet of all actors both NPC and creatures to make them trip and fall! Armor is not checked for the legs as any damage to the leg will likely result in a momentary fall.

This will be turned on and off in the along with the Head shot feature in the INI. This new feature will be in the next release. I am not sure when the next release will be however.

That sounds awesome! You're really making archery a challenging and dynamic experience. Things aren't gona be pretty when archers start knocking me off my feet.
I think you've already stomped all over Mount and Blades archery system.

Thanks for the words of encouragement, I am suppose to be catching up on my game time, I have not been able to play in months. But with the excitement of Skyrim archery and combat I for some reason am feeling like the next several months might be my last for modding Oblivion. So I am pulled back to the CS when I get inspiration for a new way to put my game mechanics ideas into the game.

It will depend on how Skyrim is as a Mod-able game.

Oblivion was relativly easy to mod and the vanillia combat was so generic it allowed a blank canvas for someone like me with very little programing skills
but a lot of melee and archery combat experience to bring to the game.

Still...I wish I could make a game from the ground up, you guys would be blown away. For example one idea I hope I get to try before I "walk into the clearing" is in bullet time being able to click on a part of the body or weapon and alter the direction of the movement slightly. For example if a sword blow was about to hit the top edge of a shield you would click on the sword and draw a vector ( a quick mouse gesture) that would eventually bring the swords movement up a little. Nothing drastic just little movement changes that end up as big changes in trajectory as the movement completes. We already have had the technology to do this for many many years. The 15 year old game Die by the Sword was very close to this, sword would move as the mouse did, but there was also canned animations you could trigger with hot keys. BUT you could override (or rather MIX together) the canned animations with the mouse movement. So after a lot f practice I could actually throw REAL LIFE sword blows in the game such as the rising snap. The "rising snap" is a shot that looks like it is going to hit the legs but actually hits the head.

The problem was that they did not designed DBTS to work that way (to mix the canned and live movements together) , they wanted you to use EITHER the mouse OR the canned movement. So it was not optimized to work in the way I would do it if I had made the game.

Funny how they were so close 15 years ago and just barley missed the mark. They were ahead of their time in the area of combat mechanics. The Dev needed someone with real melee combat experience to show them what need to be automated and what the player should be responsible for. They gave total control to the player and as a result critics said the game was too difficult to play. The DEV was hailed as visionary but failed to make money.

Your welcome. Ha! They have DBTS on gog.com and it seems to get a lot of praise. You just made me want to buy it lol

I wouldn't worry too much about Skyrim. I have it preordered but I'm not touching it until someone creates a new combat system. Duel wielding, yeah man you can totally dish out damage with a pair of long swords, go ahead! That and fatalities for every kill? That'll get old. Yes I use Deadly Reflex, but it takes some serious skill and luck to pull off a finisher. I believe that in a world of magic you could magically cut someone in half with a sword, 'cause it's magic

I really wanted to love Mount and Blade's combat system, but they messed it up by making everyone a hero that didn't have to worry about stamina and the bow could be used like a sniper rifle. Plus they made the combat so shallow, it wasn't that gritty medieval combat I was looking for. Your archery system feels like what M&B should of had.

Outside of Oblivion and Morrowind all I play are hardcoe simulators and competitive FPSs, so I'm all for adding tons of realism to the ES games and making them insanely hard. And of course I don't mind a middle ground between FPS and sim, like Red Orchestra or Operation Flashpoint. I feel this mod and Deadly Reflex brings Oblivion closer to that middle ground. The mods work wonderfully to add "hardcoe" difficulty and that violent medieval combat I've wanted. I'm hoping Skyrim will provide even better tools to make the combat system we want. I'll probably give modding a try myself, even though I haven't modded since Morrowind.

Wow, I think we are close to kindred spirits! I know there must be other people that feel the way we do but the only other one I personally know of at this time is Psymon. I am amazed at players like you and Psymon that feel the way you described, I would have thought that kind of attitude would only be found in dedicated Western European full speed full contact heavy weapons fighters (there are a few such organizations in the world not just the SCA).

I saw one comment once concerning my back-wards tripping mod ...."sure it is realistic, but it is over the top for a game".

Wow...if we stayed with that attitude in sword ans shield combat game evolution we would still be playing games like ZELDA.

I am delighted that there are still people in the world with such hearts of a warrior.
No offense intended but assuming you are not an SCA member (or other such ) I am left to wonder how you came to your views on game combat?

I personally do not buy into the "anything goes " because there is magic in the game excuse. You must have realistic physics and limitations in a game so that whne oyu do have MAGIC it is ....."MAGICAL"!

Rev 5 now on Tesalliance

Now critical shots at the legs can work on all actors including creatures.

My "Actors Can Miss Now" mod is merged into this Combat Archery mod from now on. Other small bug fixes.

Personally just lots and lots of reading, watching medieval combat demonstrations, more reading, and having conversations from people like yourself on the Mount and Blade forums. I'd love to join an organization like the SCA, but the doctor says I can't play full contact sports. I recently had to give up paintball and I'd rather not go through that again.

I wasn't suggesting the "anything goes" perspective, but rather if I'm going to be a hero with magical powers I'd like to have the ability to decapitate someone with a medieval sword. I know from research that's impossible to do with a standing body due to the laws of physics, but let's say I used magic to hold the guy in place while I cut through his neck, and thus the laws of physics are obeyed since the body cannot move to absorb the impact. Well that's one way to justify Deadly Reflex I guess. I installed it because the AI is awesome and it makes the game more fun and challenging.

I also agree that we need more realistic physics in games. That was the most impressive part about Mount and Blade. And of course that's why I play simulators, cause that's as close as you can get to the real thing, and in the case of ARMA 2 that's as close as I want to get to the real thing

Spooky just to let you know if you haven't noticed http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1173487-beta-oblivion-script-extender-obse-0020/page__view__findpost__p__17333475

I took a break for a while just to experience T.I.E sans Combat Archery, with the intent of coming back to it ... That got delayed along the way because I became dependant upon OBSE 0020 beta.

Anyway looks like I can safely jump onboard again, very much like the recent developments and especially incorporating Actors can Miss. Will give another feedback report one of these days, I must say I have seriously missed Combat Archery though, it makes so much difference to the game.

Oh and congratulations on influencing the development of the next TES mechanics - I wasn't going to get it straight away but having heard that, Skyrim is very much on our wish list