Duke Patrick's Melee Combat No Recoil

Requirements: Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE) v20. NO BETAS


Get it here:

http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/914-duke-patricks-melee-combat-no-recoil/



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History
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January 2006 first release of this mod.
This was the first real "Mod" I had ever made. I did a tiny bit of WAD authoring in the days of DOOM. And some Hex editing of other games. But the only other programming I have ever done was a very simple color basic language 4k game 30 years ago on a TRS80 PC. That modest work in color basic was the only way I was able to decipher the script language used in Oblivion today.


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1. DESCRIPTION
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This mod changes the combat to feel more like SCA combat, a worldwide historical organization that includes full armor, full speed and full contact western European medieval martial arts. (As much as I am able to do in an Oblivion mod.)

Please see my Web page: http://www.spookyfx.com/book/tromp.html

The mod is based on my 30 years of melee tournament and war experience. SCA wars consist, on a good day, of two teams of several thousand fighters all in one battlefield trying to knock each others' heads off with everything from short swords to 12 foot spears!


This mod is made to focus on the psychology and physics of melee combat.

Although I very much favor shield and sword, after finishing the mod and play testing it seems that lighter faster fighters (such as single sword fighters) more often "beats" heavy slow weapons and shield IF the light weapon's fighter was at the most extreme levels of skill in Weapons, Block, H2H, Strength, Agility, Speed and Fatigue. I had believed (wanted to anyway) that it would to be the other way around were an expert with a weapon and shield would beat an expert with say a bastard sword.

If you train your skills up around 75 or more in all the skills I just listed (and you earn them not just cheat your skills up in 15 minutes) you will probably then complain to me that combat is too easy when fighting against sword and shield man even if you only have a dagger.

You may ask "why would I need to earn them, why not just cheat them all up to 75?"

Because there is some player skill needed as well. You will need to learn how to use the mod features correctly. The only way to do this is to earn your skills in game by putting in the play time. This is the part that I hope will keep the player interested even once their character has reached master levels in all their skills.




This mod includes:

- NO MORE BLOCK RECOIL! Staggering and recoil will happen from hits, "short shots" and other combat related reasons but no more "hobbled" attack combos! And being paralyzed (none magical) will almost never happen!

- Dead bodies get bashed to the ground violently instead of floating down thru the air like a feather.

- Locational hits with critical damage (INI configurable)

- Location armor for the head, body and legs. Wearing a good helmet may be all you need!

- Blunt damage will be more effective against light armor.

- Both the player and the NPC can Bob and Weave to avoid attacks. You will consume fatigue based on encumbrance load.

- Enemy melee AI is greatly improved and will also watch for the player's "tells", but this also means you can "trick" them!

- AI settings have been overhauled to attack, block and move more deviously, dynamically and ruthlessly.

- You can now use actual real-life sword and shield feints to land your shots (such as the "rising snap"!)

- BOTH Passive and Active blocking!

- Weapon/shield size matters! Bigger weapons/shields give you more geometric protection. But they also take more fatigue to parry with! The bigger the weapon/shield relative to your body size, the better your passive block chance. The better your block skill, the better your chance to parry. Bigger heavy shields / weapons have the advantage to absorb more damage than lighter/smaller ones.

- Weapons stats are now much more realistic. Weapon hit range is based on the actual model length of the weapon in the game. No more 20 foot long short swords! War hammers do not swing quickly like they are made of plastic. Weapon damage stats are not dramatically cranked up, they are only balanced relativistically with the speed and range of the weapon. This is all done via scripts "on the fly" so even custom weapons from other mods are included.

- Draining your fatigue completely with button bashing will result in blurred vision! ( INI configurable for the ...er...casual players.)

- Defensive Geometry and great timing is now more important than great player speed and reflexes. The angle of attack is a little tighter, so Offensive Geometry is more important in landing a shot.

- Footwork and range games are now very important for blocks and attacks.

- H2H now includes grapple blocks and throws.

- Fighting Giants is now a very scary undertaking, sometimes the only way to live is to run away! (see the crash course document for more tips on combat.)

- Bottle necking overwhelming numbers (such as with doorways) and other such tricks MUST be done or you will die!

- Weapon speed (timing) vs damage is now the second most important tactical consideration. Heavy one-handed weapons take an eternity to hit, but they hit HARD!

- Power attacks now require good timing to land but they do more damage!

- WRAPS This is a shot where you stand very close and swing your weapon to wrap around your opponent's shield thus reducing the benefits of a large shield.

- Short Shots This happens when you hit at the center of gravity on your weapon producing attacks that hit like a mace even if you are using a sword.


- Aiming under their weapon or shield gives a bonus to land your shot.

- If a feint works, the shield or weapon will move out of position right before the attack lands. What this does is give you a view of the opponent being OPEN for the shot as you land the blow!

- Results are based on the attributes, actions timing, conditions and dynamics of the combat not on simplistic dice rolls. This means you can eventually learn to take advantage of the subtle factors in combat and predict your opponent's action.

- All blunt weapons now have a good chance to stagger or even "push over" depending on how heavy the blunt weapon is and how strong the attacker is (modified by his fatigue) versus the target's strength.


- Armor is twice effective against Fist, Claws or teeth.

- Swinging your weapon will use much less fatigue than when your weapon actually hits a target. For technical reasons this feature only works on living targets not things like trees.



- Armor is twice effective against fist, claws and teeth.


-Kick Bash And Shield Bash (the normal shield bash in the game that auto triggers is removed. Now it is manually triggered.)



This is not the Read me file!
YOU MUST READ THE READ ME FILE IN THE ZIP. If I think you did not read the Read Me I may be very slow to help you on any issues.



Real Life Sword And Shield Combat : http://www.spookyfx.com/book/tromp.html

REV 2.6
New system to change weapons that you see on the ground so you do not need to pick them up to change the stats. Read me has a much expanded section on momentum damage. INI default for momentum damage is now OFF!



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Momentum Damage Bonus
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REMEMBER YOU CAN CHANGE THE MOMENTUM DAMAGE BONUS INTENSITY IN THE INI

So any posts about the intensity will likely take a very very long time before I address them. If you are experiencing what you consider to be outrageous momentum bonus then you can either track down your conflicting mods (see the read me file) or turn off this feature!


It takes a moment for the momentum to build up. And the subject must be moving in a vector (not turning as they move).
Keep in mind the MESSAGE system in Oblivion is delayed a LOT. So the Message about momentum (and all message for that matter) are not in sync with the action on your monitor.

When being charged by an opponent who is building up a lot of momentum, circle away or step sideways from them before they make physical contact. If the subject must turn to redirect in your direction they lose much of their forward (vector) momentum; it becomes centrifugal force veering off away from you not into you anymore.


Because the player can spin unrealistically fast using the mouse
Spin momentum damage bonus is based on the actor's strength (to guestimate their ability to overcome their own weight for movement) and actor speed attribute.

However ruining Momentum is calculated based on:

The actors size (per their bounding box).
The actors XYZ movement (actual vector speed not the speed attribute).

Strength and Encumbrance determines how much fatigue is used to jump and spin.
Jump also has a INI setting so that it can be turned off if you already have a mod that consumes fatigue when you jump.

Tripping and falling from attempting to spin to soon after the last spin is based on encumbrance, strength and agility as well as acrobatics and to a small degree athletics and luck.

If the actor hits in the opposite direction as they are moving the momentum bonus is reduced or eliminated. So if you spin left then you must hit from your right to your left. And running backwards will stop the momentum balance.


Keep in mind that this momentum damage bonus is the EXTRA damage done by movement OTHER than normal movement needed for most normal attacks. Lunging forward is normal movement for many attacks. Jumping down from a pile of rocks or running down a hill in a charge a few seconds before you hit is not normal movement, it is “extra”.


It is probably more obvious when talking about falling (why strength is not part of the formula for falling momentum. )

But you may be saying to yourself “how can strength not be part of momentum for running” when it takes strength (power) to get your body moving?"

To be more precise it is not just strength that gets you up to "speed" but rather Strength (power) and Time. You can be very weak and still build up a lot of speed if given more time.

Speed (acceleration really but we will stick with the layperson term of “speed”
to make this explanation more approachable) is the end result of the power and time.

If we were to included both strength and speed in the calcs we would be doubling the importance of one part of Newton’s law over the other (the speed side of the formula) when in fact speed and mass are of equal importance.

Momentum is the payload that is already stored in the mass as a result of speed at the moment just before the impact. The PUSH that comes from using strength just after the moment of impact is already addressed in the game per the DAMAGE formula for your attack.

So really if you used strength in calculating the running momentum bonus you would be TRIPLING the importance of strength in the final damage done.

If you wanted you could make a mod that regulates your character’s speed using their total mass and strength as factors. But that is not how the game works now (unfortunately) and so would not be an accurate way to calculate the momentum in oblivion.

I have studied physics as an amateur in order to improve my combat techniques. I have also had to deal with momentum professionally in designing animatronics (especially the kind that move very fast in the Halloween industry). But physics is not as easy to understand as it “should be” (you would think it would just be common sense). Understanding "conservation of energy" is the key to understanding physics with out being confused by all the high level math.

I am far from being a math genius!

However understanding the high level math that is sometimes used in physics is not really understanding physics. This is why two experts in math (one was a college professor and one was a professional programmer for the military ) could argue with each other on something as easy as how hard an SCA (blunted) arrow would hit in order to establish some safety parameters. (True story).

Einstein once said that if you could not explain a subject to your grandmother then you do not really understand it.

But trying to get experts ( in any field ) to explain things in that way is very difficult.

It took me many many years of reading books on physics intended for laymen and irritating...I mean talking to experts in the field before I finally “got it” (Groked the soul of the subject) with out becoming fluent in the language of the subject (the very high level math).

Now here is the dirty little secret, the total momentum in your body from running and falling is actually of little value to how hard a sword hits when it swings unless you can instantly biomechanicaly transfer all your momentum from your body into the sword right before it hits. Yes it is possible to do so somewhat and that is what the bets fighter strive to do but only by fractions of the total that is in your body are in the realm of plausible. The better fighters can increase this % in significant amounts when they are not running but rather lurching their body weight for attacks, but again not anywhere near %100 because our bodies are not perfect machines that do not suffer from imperfect levers or friction and other energy loss factors. And in running you do not have the leverage to do the necessary movements in order to "catapult" the momentum from your body to the sword.

Body momentum more easily applies to H2H attacks because there is so much body contact (such as when a lion pounces on your back) and much more "push" is done behind kicks and punches.

However the only time almost all your body momentum actually applies to a weapon attack is when your body weight is used to PUSH the attack further into the target such as when are using a spear. However, as there is no way to detect what kind of attack you are making in oblivion (a player could use any number of different animations of thrust or slashes ) so I decided to allow running momentum to be used in this way only because it feels wrong in the game when it is not to used.