Rome II Raw DB files and Faction Modding Info

[Jack Lusted]

How do you plan to handle Heavy javelins that were designed to penetrate shield and hit men behind it like Pilum or Soliferrum (iron javelin)? Due to much better cross-section these javelins were quite good at penetrating shields, so they should have some bonus at hitting the shield i think, do you plan to introduce some bonus value in projectile files as well? (lots of questions, i know)

They will do more damage than other javelins. We can't simulate how those weapons worked as we don't have soldiers dropping shields in combat so higher damage is the best way to represent them.

[JaM]

i think its not that big issue, as per Military Historians Pilum didnt had that much higher chance to hit anyway, Romans during Civil Wars even sometimes didnt used it against other Legionaries because they didnt found it that much effective against Scutum. Average hit chance counted from casualty estimates are wide from 1/10 to 1/100 (10%-1% casualty chance for Pilum) Personally, i thought even without this new deflection mechanism, AP damage concept was fine to simulate Pilum, as AP reduced enough of HP for soldier that is being hit so he was easier to kill in melee, only problem was that too many men were hit, but could be reduced by adjusting accuracy and dispersion for javelins.

Anyway, its good to see you decided to reduce/remove AP from Arrows in patch4, together with reduced AP for javelins it makes Testudo work somewhat better, while with introduction of that new mechanic it would be even better, as currently sometimes there are still too many casualties if Unit in testudo is bombarded long enough for AP damage to kick in..


And a bit outside of this discussion, regarding melee weapon damage - I spent some time reading materials about swords and armor penetration and tests against different armor types, where overall conclusion was that proper rivetted chain mail was resistant to any one handed weapon. Celtic slashing sword would have a big problem to go through chainmail but it would still produce some blunt force trauma, where gladius didnt feared much better with its thrusting, anyway it was not supposed to be used to thrust into heavy armor but instead into gaps in armor like arm pit, neck, femoral artery etc.. Anyway from pure technical point of view,one handed thrusting attack was more lethal than one handed slashing attack. With thrusting, soldier didnt need that much energy to cause deep wound that was usually lethal, while with slashing there was a quite high chance to hit the bone and only produce nasty cut that was not incapacitating. Plus, slash required quite a lot of energy to deliver properly. (anyway i agree this is quite complex thing to simulate in a game properly.)

Thanks a lot for your answers Jack, keep up good work, patch4 was really a step in the right direction.

[Menumorut]

Just go directly at 1.13.58

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

http://youtu.be/Ega3dbE6b08?t=1h13m58s

[JaM]

i'm not sure to what exactly it that video, if it is regarding hit chance, my numbers were counted based on casualties reported during Civil Wars. Anyway, casualtes against unarmored barbarians would be much higher, as Pilum while good enough at penetrating shields would also cause wounds to men behind the shield, so unless that man had a chainmail shirt, he would end up being pinned to his shield which would definitely stop him from attacking further. Anyway, due to nature of the throw, not all throws would be effective, as sometimes with incorrect throw pilum would fall flat not causing any damage. Anyway even with pilum on the ground, it would still be quite distruptive to anybody running through, causing men to trip, disrupting the formation and causing the chaos just before charging unit would hit the Roman Line. (but there is already a morale penalty for being hit by projectiles in game, anyway it should be probably increased a bit to play bigger role)

[crzyrndm]

It's a field called missile_block_chance. It is not hooked up in patch 4, we unfortunately didn't have time to do that, but it will be in the next patch.

Well, that explains why I couldn't get it to make any impact

[redxavier]

Hi Jack, are there any plans to release a docudemons-style document containing all of Rome 2's lua scripting conditions, effects/commands, and events etc. with sample uses? This was perhaps one of the most useful modding resources for MTW2 and whilst there are a lot of legacy items in the files and some new ones, it would be great to have a compendium of them all to see what scripting possibilities the game has. I've been impressed with the new structure of the trigger scripts and whilst I've managed to compile a list of all used context elements in the game that act as the conditions for the trigger, it would be comforting to know whether I have them all. I'm also especially interested in finding out how the game gives skills and traditions to characters and whether this can be done via script. Cheers.

[Utumano]

Hey would you be able to direct me to all the relevant db files that concern the economics of Rome 2, I have been attempting to reconfigure the economic system.

[JaM]

They will do more damage than other javelins. We can't simulate how those weapons worked as we don't have soldiers dropping shields in combat so higher damage is the best way to represent them.

Jack: probably too late, anyway here is one idea how to handle new shield coverage system against heavy projectiles, that should go through - instead of applying shield coverage against every ranged projectiles, you can just add a check and compare potential damage of projectile against armor value of shield. If projectile damage is greater than shield armor, that projectile would hit the shield and go against armor checks for total damage caused, but if it wont pass that check, projectile would go against that new coverage setting to decide if it hit the shield and get blocked, or went through bypassing shield.

This way, Artillery projectiles with huge penetration will be able to overcome shields, as well as some specialized javelins like Pilum or Soliferrum...

[Silven]

It will be a simple mechanic, if a projectile hits from the front or left there will be a 0-100 roll against the value in that field. If the number rolled is greater than it, the projectile hit and goes through the current damage calculation. If the number is less the projectile is assumed to be blocked by the shield and does no damage at all.

So how exactly will AP damage calculate into this? Will the AP damage of the missile ignore whether or not the shield rolls a block? Or will it instead operate in the same way that AP damage of melee weapons works, which is completely stopped by a melee defense block?

[crzyrndm]

My understanding is that this is a total block. There really is no point in the addition if it isn't (as armour already has a % chance to block dependent on weapon damage)

[Logan509thSPS]

Hey Jack, you seem to know about his stuff and I haven't found an answer to the problem so I'll ask here and hope you can help. I'm running PFM 3.1.8 and ever since patch 7 and now on patch 8 there are files in the db that you use to be able to open and modify Example: Technology table I have one in a old file I made but now I need to be able to open a new technology table file with Cesar in Gaul but for now the PFM refuses to read it and gives me a message a mile long about the DBtable editor and on with some other things and I have the latest schema files and everything else seems to be fine other than a few other tables that use to open but don't now. Any Ideas? Please!!!!! LOL

This looks like a good place to put this so here go's I hope this helps some of you. I was having problems with PFM opening some of the DB files since patch 7 so now with Cesar in Gaul out and I'm up to my old tricks with that LOL what I have to do to get a working table in my mods is to go to the file that can't be read and do an export, this creates a file in binary so the only thing I have found that will open it and let me see inside is note pad, so with all said, once you open the file in note pad you have to just examine it a bit and then you will see the pattern of the file enough to start a table, now what I do is borrow a table from the old original rome 2 at the start and then delete everything but the first line, there is where you begin the tedious job of copy and pasting filling in the blanks, and yes some of it you really do have to interpolate to make it right, sometimes you have to go back to the original table and search for items that are close to the item your working on and see what settings or how it's coded for example: Technology table file has at the end (is_civil, is_engineering, is_military) so as with myself I had to go back to a table I could read and look for the same type of technology and see where it was assigned, this is important when you get in the game because this tells where these icons and technologies will be displayed when your researching them, and that they fall under the correct research category. So in short it's a pain some times especially with long files very time consuming but in the end you now will have a working table that can be used in the future or til someone comes up with a way to reopen these files that for some reason have stopped be able to be opened in the PFM. Again I hope this helps someone out there, cause I'm no great modder as most up here are and I'm no programmer just someone that refuses to let go in defeat LOL

[crzyrndm]

@Logan

You need to update the Rome2 schema for PFM so that it can understand the changes in table structure.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pack...1.zip/download

Unzip that into your PFM directory (it should ask to replace 5 files, ok all of them). Then you can edit all the red tables again.

[Logan509thSPS]

Thank you very much I thought I had the latest LOL I guess I was wrong

[Daruwind]

Hey guys, anybody by the chance got copy of this Day 1 DB? My HDD crashed

[Jake Armitage]

sorry, no, I'll ask DeI's devs, maybe someone has them.

[Daruwind]

I already asked Dresden, without luck. If you manage to get it, that would be great! I was using the building effects as control group for my economy overhaul moddel... Sadly no luck even with Honga.net academy.

[Dresden]

I may have a copy of the patch 17 data_rome2 pack but I think thats as far back as I have.

[Daruwind]

Thank you Dresden, but there was big overhaul to buildings and rest of the game with Emperor Edition which was patch 14. I was using for long time online encyklopedia, there was option to display old building effects, however they removed it with Rise of the Republic. http://r2enc.totalwar.com/en/buildings-old Day1DB was my backup until now...

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Hey guys, anybody by the chance got copy of this Day 1 DB? My HDD crashed

I'll give it a go later today buddy. Maybe I have something in my backup pc. I'll let you know either way

[Daruwind]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...uilding-System

scroll down, attached files are exactly what i was looking for :-D Sadly only my precious building effects, rest of DB ..no idea..