# Feedback on Combat **URL:** \ **Category:** Development\ **Created:** [June 27, 2014, 9:55pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433 "2014-06-27T21:55:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3

**Author:** ![nischu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/41988e/32.png) [@nischu](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/nischu)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2014, 8:46pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433/41 "2014-07-01T20:46:39Z")

im not sure but it might also effect on getting goblins if you have near no resources lying on the ground… iv noticed in my games that i have no goblin attacks if i dont put my little workers to cut down half of sherwood before stockpiling them… ---

**Author:** ![sdee](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/sdee/32/65441_2.png) [@sdee](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/sdee)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2014, 6:40pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433/42 "2014-07-03T18:40:42Z")

Just an update. With your feedback, I’m playing with the combat frequency, squad size, and the goblin AI/motivation system. I might have gone overboard. ![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/uploads/stonehearth/original/3X/6/a/6ad3ca6d02287c5f3108fb9e592570d0bdc01f4f.jpg) ![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/uploads/stonehearth/original/3X/a/f/af8832677e4b96eab1610dc91d581c24dfd3826d.jpg) ![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/uploads/stonehearth/original/3X/f/2/f2f4976b5b4af86421b6cb7e47e68633870b73f8.jpg) ![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/uploads/stonehearth/original/3X/1/b/1be7915f0fa5f03b8e09dbd37aefc216229910af.jpg) Possible titles: Stonehearth: Helm’s Deep Minus Gandalf Edition Stonehearth: Survive Till Dawn Stonehearth: Goblin Faucet …I have the best job ever. 😉 P.S. Though we eventually will implement some more directed AI for your footmen, right now you can get them to patrol in a certain area by putting a stocpile there. If the stockpile is set to empty, or none, then your workers won’t put stuff there, but the footman will still patrol it. If you play with that mechanic subbing in for patrol paths, how does it work out? ---

**Author:** ![BloodW0lf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/bloodw0lf/32/11846_2.png) [@BloodW0lf](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/BloodW0lf)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2014, 6:48pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433/43 "2014-07-03T18:48:09Z")

Epic love it! 😄 and yes you do have the best job ever ---

**Author:** ![SteveAdamo](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/steveadamo/32/13955_2.png) [@SteveAdamo](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/SteveAdamo)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2014, 6:58pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433/44 "2014-07-03T18:58:49Z")

> [@sdee](#): > > I might have gone overboard congratulations… you’ve just cemented your entry in the “understatement of the week” awards… 😄 loving that third pic, and the _perfect_ capture of the fleeing unit… 😊 > [@sdee](#): > > If you play with that mechanic subbing in for patrol paths, how does it work out? will test it out this weekend… seems like a perfectly acceptable stopgap… 👍 i mean, who knows what might _eventually_ end up on that stockpile, right? just shut your yapper and patrol Mer! ---

**Author:** ![EpicDwarf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/epicdwarf/32/44085_2.png) [@EpicDwarf](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/EpicDwarf)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2014, 6:59pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433/45 "2014-07-03T18:59:49Z")

That gives me a suggestion. There should be a Mode where instead of building your City and exploring, you have to defend yourself against hordes of enemies. ---

**Author:** ![Teleros](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/teleros/32/63349_2.png) [@Teleros](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/Teleros)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2014, 9:41pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433/46 "2014-07-03T21:41:05Z")

Sounds like good material for a scenario or mod, @EpicDwarf 🙂 . I imagine the scenario design stuff will let us implement that fairly easily 🙂 . ---

**Author:** ![Geoffers747](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/geoffers747/32/12249_2.png) [@Geoffers747](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/Geoffers747)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 10:01am UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433/48 "2014-07-04T10:01:34Z")

Indeed, some sort of tower/ wave defence. Warcraft III multiplayer anyone? ---

**Author:** ![SteveAdamo](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/steveadamo/32/13955_2.png) [@SteveAdamo](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/SteveAdamo)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 1:55pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433/49 "2014-07-04T13:55:54Z")

> [@Geoffers747](#): > > Indeed, some sort of tower/ wave defence. 😄 👍 from the [5/27 live stream](http://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-livestream-5-27-ask-questions-here/6198): > **Will be be able to control your military units?** > Not directly. Footmen already patrol your village. You’ll be able to set patrol paths and defend zones. You’ll be able to defend your town using static defenses and these troop options. Aka elaborate tower defense game but much more complex ---

**Author:** ![Wombat85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/65b543/32.png) [@Wombat85](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/Wombat85)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 1:46pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433/50 "2014-07-07T13:46:11Z")

@sdee I know I am asking a lot, but how do you up the frequency? it seems terribly unpredictable to me with one game getting attacked on day 3, and in another save nothing after 5 hours of game play on fast forward. Im working on a combat mod and its making testing very hard. ---

**Author:** ![sdee](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/sdee/32/65441_2.png) [@sdee](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/sdee)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 6:01pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433/51 "2014-07-07T18:01:16Z")

> [@Wombat85](#): > > I know I am asking a lot, but how do you up the frequency? Right now the built-in-frequency is derived by the dm\_service and the combat\_pace\_keeper and relies on a number of other factors, including the military strength score of your town. This turns out to be a bit opaque to tune, even for us devs! We want to make it much easier to modify (and mod), so the easiest thing to do at this point is probably to hang back for a release or two and wait for us to figure out how best to expose all the knobs and levers. If you are feeling adventurous, though, here’s a brief overview of the system, and you are welcome to tinker to your heart’s content (with the full understanding that this may all change soon): - each set of dudes who come to attack your town are part of a scenario. For examples, you can look at goblin\_thief.json/lua and goblin\_brigands.json/lua. - Scenarios are spawned by a combination of the dm\_service, the dyanamic\_scenario\_service and the combat\_pace\_keeper - These three guys have strong rules inside of them that determine how often is “too often” and how many scenarios is “too many”. These rules are a bit opaque from the outside, and that’s what we hope to change. You’re free to muck around with the numbers inside them though, and see what happens. 😉 As a complete and total hack, you can also spawn a scenario by calling this function from anywhere in the code: stonehearth.dynamic\_scenario:force\_spawn\_scenario(‘name of scenario’) Combine this with timers and your own services/components to spawn scenarios whenever you want. **Edit** : for example, you could make a “goblin attractor component”, stick it on something the carpenter makes and then use timers such that every hour that the item lives in the world, it calls goblins to it. The sky’s the limit, really. 😉 ---

**Author:** ![Wombat85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/65b543/32.png) [@Wombat85](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/Wombat85)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 9:41pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433/52 "2014-07-07T21:41:01Z")

Thanks @sdee you are awesome. Used the above hack to discover that the decompiler had broken my events and so nothing was going to ever happen. Fresh load and things are working again, thank you. On that note what software do you use to compile and decompile the luac files? It seem the user created versions have reliability issues. ---

**Author:** ![sdee](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/sdee/32/65441_2.png) [@sdee](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/sdee)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 9:44pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433/53 "2014-07-07T21:44:27Z")

> [@Wombat85](#): > > On that note what software do you use to compile and decompile the luac files? It seem the user created versions have reliability issues. Well, we don’t decompile the files, so I have no suggestions in that department. 😉 @RepeatPan shares your pain. In the end, when the mod infrastructure is fully working, our hope is that most people write their own lua files and plug them in via the mod infrastructure rather than changing existing files. ---

**Author:** ![RepeatPan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/repeatpan/32/46418_2.png) [@RepeatPan](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/RepeatPan)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 9:56pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433/54 "2014-07-07T21:56:53Z")

> [@sdee](#): > > @RepeatPan shares your pain. Actually, when I’ve recompiled Unwrp some time ago with a newer built of unluac, lots of these phantom errors were gone - except thread.lua I believe. Thread.lua is evil. It’s possible that newer updates have fixed that too - but as I have no reason to mess around with that file, I can just keep its compiled form. ---

**Author:** ![Wombat85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/65b543/32.png) [@Wombat85](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/Wombat85)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 12:23am UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433/55 "2014-07-11T00:23:51Z")

> As a complete and total hack, you can also spawn a scenario by calling this function from anywhere in the code: > stonehearth.dynamic\_scenario:force\_spawn\_scenario(‘name of scenario’) > Combine this with timers and your own services/components to spawn scenarios whenever you want. > Edit: for example, you could make a “goblin > attractor component”, stick it on something the carpenter makes and then > use timers such that every hour that the item lives in the world, it > calls goblins to it. The sky’s the limit, really. I have tried inserting this code into a table in numerous ways, how exactly would it look in a json file? ---

**Author:** ![Avairian](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/avairian/32/47084_2.png) [@Avairian](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/Avairian)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 1:54am UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433/56 "2014-07-11T01:54:11Z")

> [@Wombat85](#): > > I have tried inserting this code into a table in numerous ways, how exactly would it look in a json file? I’m fairly certain she is implying sticking it inot lua code seeing is that it is a function. ---

**Author:** ![2\_Zons](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/2_zons/32/43518_2.png) [@2\_Zons](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/2_Zons)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2014, 4:52am UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433/57 "2014-07-12T04:52:49Z")

I got on this thread late, I tried to read as much as I could so I hope I’m not repeating. I think it’s a bit early to judge weather or not there is too much or too little combat yet. The game is not really a game yet. It’s only a place where we can test out what has been built so far. To adjust combat to the game based on it’s current state would be a mistake in my opinion. In the complete game I think that combat cannot be what you spend most of your time doing. To me this is a building / designing / town sim game. The motivator for the game for most I would think, is to build and design your dream town. Combat needs to be a threat, to make building your town a challenge. The design philosophy presented by the team so far seems perfect to me. The Game Master adjusting content to how your playing, which I would read as “makes it appropriately challenging and interesting”. If there was a constant parade of baddies coming in to your town it would play more like an RTS than a building game. You would only be placing buildings to get more stuff to fight MOB’s with. You would take little time in their placement, just get them as quickly as possible. This would be too much combat. If there was only a few weak baddies every once in a while then you wouldn’t even pay them much attention, just make a few soldiers and carry on. There would be no challenge, no reason to plan how your town grows, with appropriate defenses along the way. You should have to consider defense at every stage of your town’s progress. As you expand later in the game, with stronger enemies you should have to secure and defend an area before building it up. If done properly it should be challenging but still allow you to design your town the way you see it in your mind, and not just have to put things down as quickly as you can to prevent losing the game. I kind of envision building a small quick perimeter on first arrival. After it’s complete, during the day send out work parties to start construction of an expanded perimeter with guards to protect the workers. While you are doing this you might have to recall everyone to your original perimeter if a strong enemy comes by. Fight him from where you can defend yourself better, then go back out and repair the damage and continue. Once you have an expanded perimeter workers can work without guards and productivity can increase. The idea of the enemies having their own little stories, goals, and even their own towns is a real juicy bit of awesomeness. This add’s so much flavor to the game compared to random enemies spawning on the map and attacking you. or just static random enemies that you bump into. ---

**Author:** ![sdee](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/sdee/32/65441_2.png) [@sdee](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/sdee)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 5:45pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433/58 "2014-07-15T17:45:14Z")

> [@Wombat85](#): > > I have tried inserting this code into a table in numerous ways, how exactly would it look in a json file? Yes, @Avairian is totally right, when I said “anywhere” I meant anywhere in the lua code. Sorry for the misunderstanding. For a look into the lua modding universe check out this post here: [http://stonehearth.net/2014/03/18/desktop-tuesday-farming-and-other-mysteries/](http://stonehearth.net/2014/03/18/desktop-tuesday-farming-and-other-mysteries/) ---

**Author:** ![HolyCheese21](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/holycheese21/32/12535_2.png) [@HolyCheese21](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/HolyCheese21)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 11:27pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433/59 "2014-08-16T23:27:46Z")

> [@sdee](#): > > Was there combat in your game? yes > [@sdee](#): > > How did you feel about the amount of combat? Too little? Too much? too little, only a few goblin attacks. granted I didn’t play a very long game > [@sdee](#): > > Did you actively pursue combat? no > [@sdee](#): > > Other thoughts and recommendations? This [game](http://rimworldgame.com/), similar to Stonehearth in a way, I feel has a combat system less similar to ‘plain hit-points’ that can be used to influence and modify Stonehearth’s combat system. Here’s how it works: •Each person has a list of body parts that can be damaged individually and a pain level◦Each injured body part contributes to the pain level and will also affect a person’s performance – Example: If a person gets their leg sliced by a sword they may be limping and therefor move slower until healed ◦When the pain level gets to high the person may die (cumulative injuries are too much to handle by the body) ◦The person can also die from injuries. – Example: Stabbed in the heart / bleed to death ◦Some injuries may become permanent if left untreated or are too severe Because of this you may need a doctor-type class who can heal certain injuries or reduce the pain level of a citizen. ---

**Author:** ![Teleros](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/teleros/32/63349_2.png) [@Teleros](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/Teleros)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 8:18pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433/61 "2014-08-16T20:18:22Z")

Yeah, I’d like to see a DF-style system too, but at the same time my concern is that it’s too complicated. Regardless of the combat system though, healers would be a great addition to the game later on. ---

**Author:** ![EpicDwarf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/epicdwarf/32/44085_2.png) [@EpicDwarf](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/EpicDwarf)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 8:28pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433/62 "2014-08-16T20:28:20Z")

This would be a good and nice idea that I would like to be in the game. [Previous page](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433.md?page=2) [Next page](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/feedback-on-combat/6433.md?page=4)