Hi, I seen Roma Surrectum pull this off to some degree and I'm interested in doing this in my SS submod as well... essentially I want swords to actually be side arms... aka most "swordsmen" unit will start with a spear as primary then switch to sword in battle.
I experimented to some extend over the last couple days and seen some interesting effect... some very positive but not all.. I'd like to really figure out what is up.
first off, I had orignially thought that for something like this to work I should use this sort of entry in BMDB.
4 None
10 MTW2_Spear
10 MTW2_Sword 2
18 MTW2_Spear_primary
14 fs_test_shield 2
18 MTW2_Sword_primary
14 fs_test_shield
But this ended up not working at all, in fact the unit will just kinda stand there and not fight after the initial charge.
I got it to work for the most part using this line
10 MTW2_Spear
15 MTW2_Non_Shield 1
18 MTW2_Spear_primary 1
18 MTW2_Sword_Primary
Odd but whatever works works I guess.
Though this in itself didn't make it work properly, they were still always fighting with spear unless I use alt-attack. so I checked the descr_skeleton for difference between the melee spear and mounted spear (which obviously do change very effectively) and I notice that the primary difference seem to be these lines.
in_awareness 135.0
in_zone 135.0
in_centre 45.0
After adding this line to the MTW2_Spear entry it started to work, after adding it to both this and the MTW2_Swordsmen entry it worked even better.
However, I had first expected it work just like the mounted version, where the unit will just charge (or absorb charge) with the primary weapon and then melee with the secondary, however that didn't turn out to be the case.
This of course, is even better in logical / historical context, as only some of the guys at the front will use sword while most still use spear. reflecting how swords were usually only pulled after the spear is gone perfectly.
However, the situation still isn't quite perfect, and I really have no clue on what exactly the various entries in descr_skeleton does and my discovery mostly comes via comparaing different animation and testing the difference...
Main issue I notice right now.
A. There is often a ackward glitch when this unit charge, it starts with spear.. charge a few step, stops, all men pulls out swords and charge again. and then after fighting with all sword for a few moment began to turn into that picture above, where most use spear and a few use sword.
B. I tried mimicking this effect with pike animation but gets no real luck (aka 2h spearmen with a sword/shield secondary.) it has the same problem as #1 but also don't seem to consistently change back to mostly long 2H Spears.
Possible reasons with this ...
I'm guessing first off that
in_awareness 135.0
in_zone 135.0
in_centre 45.0
these lines have something to do with how the unit behaves in this matter... can someone actually explain what these 3 things does? the in_awareness SEEM to be the distance where the unit will start pulling up his weapon but the MTW2_Spear was having this effect even without the entry anyway... I searched through the forum but can't seem to find a more concrete answer on what exactly these figures do.
The second aspect would be the strike_distances figures I guess. would this effect how the unit chose to use his weapon? but I lowered the sword down b a very low figure and it didn't seem to have much of a impact.
Question and experimentation on duel melee weapon unit.
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