Archers Leaves Walls / Tower

[Banto]

Archers not using their advantage
So something that i loved for StoneHearth was to get Archers on Walls and Towers which kind of became possible after the defense flag became better with them leaving to eat and sleep but the problem is they always leaves the walls to go down on grass close combat instead of using their advantage on the walls.

Defense Flag AREA
Also wish the defense flag did not create this huge square showing the area forever i rather have so it would disapear a short while after you put it out or only showing when your about to place this flag.
Makes little sense to have it show when it’s already there and makes it look bad.

[EnochTheRed]

What about making a “item” that is called Archer Position, which is a flat item that requires an archer to be assigned to it. In that way the archer will stay there and man the location possibly using existing mechanics.

You could then make an archer tower, position on a wall or like, that the archer will post until they need to get food or sleep. The job management window can have this as one of the function of the Archer - man archer posts.

Thinking out loud…

[Yosmo78]

I think it would be cool if TR made it so that an archer can shoot farther when they increase in height (or go up higher). Thus making their AI actually use towers we make for them.

[Banto]

Indeed and many times i feel like i have to make towers look bad for them to be able to perform good because the ai favor going down instead of finding the shooting spot

[Freedom]

This would be great, I think what would be even better is that the engine actually simulated the trajectory of an arrow instead of being, this archer fires and arrow at this goblin - play the animation and the arrow always hits.
This is the one pet peave of mine with stonehearth as they say it’s a simulation but the projectiles aren’t simulated.

This is why I can’t play games like dota or starcraft, they don’t simulate projectiles and in an RTS that is based on ranged units it’s a deal breaker for me.

I would much prefer a model where the archer fires an arrow in the air with a certain force (based off of the hearthlings body/muscle stat) the projectile then arcs using a gravitational force. And then collides with whatever is at the end of it’s trajectory instead of tracking the target even if it moves.
(The arrows path bending in the air as the archers target moves hurts my eyes every time it happens)

This model would instantly give archers on higher ground more range and would make ranged combat really dynamic and interesting. If it is implemented in the C++ of the engine it won’t even affect performance as these calculations are trivial compared to the Pathfinding algorithm.

[LeadfootSlim]

Simulated projectiles works better in RTS games when there’s a boatload of them, because trying to micromanage one unit on a field of dozens - hundreds - even thousands - is a frustrating task for most players. If you entire army has simulated projectiles and sweeping factors (cliffs, cover, buildings, etc.) affect them, then there’s granularity in the input/response feedback loop that makes it feel less bad if/when you miss a shot.

[Brendan]

It’s not obvious; but if you have a close look at both types of “bow” you’ll notice that there isn’t any string - they aren’t actually bows at all!

What they are is missile launchers that are cleverly disguised as bows. Because they aren’t bows they don’t fire arrows, they fire (self-propelled, short range) heat-seeking missiles that are cleverly disguised as arrows.

That’s why the missiles change course when the enemy moves, and why a beginner archer with no skill/experience never misses their target. It’s all perfectly normal.

[genboom]

related issue

http://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/r556-x64-archer-door-hax/23644

[wymsic]

Archers (as well as clerics and melee) definitely need a better mechanic for patrol/defend zones.

Rather than giving them a single flag (such as the current defense flag) that is predetermined in pathing/zoning; it would be better for the player to select a path/zone based on select/drag mechanic similar to the stockpile and farm zones. By adding this zone mechanic to military UI, you give the player more control on where defensive positions can be stationed and patrolled. This would allow the player to build defenses (walls, towers, keeps) to place archers and clerics, and gate houses for melee; knowing they can use ranged vs melee to greater effect along with structures for defensive support (choke points, retreat zones, elevation kill zones, etc…)

[jomaxro]

Hey @wymsic, welcome to the Discourse!

[sphr]

lol.

it is more than that. it is a conceptual weapon based on Casuality / Fate. It is already determined at the point of firing whether a projectile will hit or not, or how much damage is done, as if written into the stones of date. No amount of dynamic changes there after can alter it. The projectile doesn’t “track” (alter direction based on feedback). it simply flies “towards” the inevitable event of collision. That’s why it can fly through any obstacles, have unlimited “air-time” and “range” (which are physical concerns beneath its level of existence)

well, except a system crash… yup… Fate can be broken… though it will take the rest of the “world” with it… LOL.

Anyway, back to topic, I’ve actually tried modding range (and possibly damage) advantage into height, which is current ignored. but it got interrupted at some point due to dev updates and then a need for system migiration…

Although I don’t have the full picture yet, I think these are the issues that are involved:

• change the function in combat that actually checks for distance. I managed to do this part.
• changed the parts that actually make the AI start firing at a greater distance. somebody pointed this out to me, which is why in my experiment, the archers don’t start firing even if the targets are supposedly in range (yeah. I used a very large range for testing)
• line of sight visibility which is used to determine if a range attack can be made. This part is tricky as it is probably not exposed. What I suspect though is that it uses some block (1 voxel unit) based visibility that did not take care of edge cases in a fine enough manner. Which is why I found that the only way to get archer to fire from higher level, is to have the platform with nothing at the edge so that the archer can stand right up to the edge. This results in “strange” designs for the “battlements”… e.g.

• archer AI. The archer has a very strange AI that after a shot, it will have to do a dance. Think originally this was intended for skirmish combat, where the archer can retreat away from approaching enemies in between shots, but it just messes up archers meant to be stationary as after a shot, it may have moved out of line of sight/range, and then proceed to travel on foot out of your buildings to fight the enemies in the open.

• sentry ai. There is something that just doesn’t work with the sentry party command as the units in the party sometimes do not respond to enemy presense (until being attacked?)

we are probably still some way off from satisfying archer combat… but I hope we will get there some time.

[genboom]

for some reason I didn’t get the reply notification, replying a bit late
yeah currently I have been forced to place 1x1 stockpiles everywhere to force the game to not spawn enemies within the “area” of my main encampment. I said it when they first made the change and I’ll say it again- the way the game draws this is too precise and this ruins immersion and building plans and is unrealistic and unfriendly to the player. the sooner they update this and make spawning and combat actually good the better.