===[COMMITTED]=== Siege Artillery Rework

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I'm freaking TELLING YOU THESE GIANT SIEGE ENGINES DO NOT FIT THE GAME WORLD.

[Alexandermb]

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I'm freaking TELLING YOU THESE GIANT SIEGE ENGINES DO NOT FIT THE GAME WORLD.

Just played a match to prove you are wrong, it does fit. They aren't MOUNSTROUSLY BIG enough to make a difference between buildings and scales.

1. Smaller than a Palm.
2. Small than the roman wonder, wich is a good comparisson having in mind wonder isn't real scale. Why i would compare roman ballista scale with Gaul houses or fortress? Every architecture has its own design and size and obviously romans had taller buildings wich are already seen in your mod with Insulaes, Also can be seen at every other roman building such as aqueducts or colliseum.
3. Isn't that big.
    

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@Stan` Any way to avoid this to happen in my configuration? (Low) I know i can avoid this enabling shadows but i don't have a graphic card to properly play at 30 FPS with or whitout shadows.

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This is probably the face of every player looking at lithobolos and ballista actually:

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Before it shots looking that small size:

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After it shots looking the damage:

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What i have changed with that?

Well, if you see those huge ballista aiming at your town you should have this expression based on the damage it would do, and the pyschological effect it has:

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So if the enemy already reached that knowledge/late game artillery, and you still at phase 2 you will assume you are done.

[Stan`]

@Alexandermb I'm not sure but it looks like a bug with the shader. @vladislavbelov or @Angen might know more.

[Alexandermb]

With the animations I've done with the ballista and lithobolod rotating the levers I can make a loop of it and use it on a crane. However I don't see where we can use cranes (visually speaking) properly.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Units must have different scale than buildings. This includes ships (not now or for now).

[Nescio]

1 hour ago, Alexandermb said:

 Isn't that big.

  Reveal hidden contents

Personally I don't mind having siege engines of different sizes, however, regardless of size, they all follow the same principles and ratios. The ones in those screenshots look way too tall and top-heavy, hence unstable. For stone-throwers the width ought to be 50% of the length and the height 30% of the length (i.e. a 10:5:3 l:w:h ratio).

[Alexandermb]

1 hour ago, Nescio said:

Personally I don't mind having siege engines of different sizes, however, regardless of size, they all follow the same principles and ratios. The ones in those screenshots look way too tall and top-heavy, hence unstable. For stone-throwers the width ought to be 50% of the length and the height 30% of the length (i.e. a 10:5:3 l:w:h ratio).

This reference show it has a rope holding the back zone though i have done it that way for use again the reload animation so i don't struggle making it specificly for roman ballista considering performance/space. 

I could make it a lil bit longer i belive.

 i was also thinking on place the rope, but didn't worth the polygons:

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Or maybe i could reduce a the height, but the main point is to keep the levers in the same place and same rotation to avoid making 3 more animations of 400 frames lenght for a single ballista.

[Silier]

sorry, cannot reproduce that, would you have replay ?

[Alexandermb]

12 minutes ago, Angen said:

sorry, cannot reproduce that, would you have replay ?

2019-12-04_0001.7z i belive is this one 

[Alexandermb]

Polybolos Done!:

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Smaller than before.

The arrow pops up about to be fired and falls from the rotating tray in the middle section as it should work IRL.

[Silier]

no, i cannot reproduce that, what graphic card do you have?

[Alexandermb]

Its so small it could fit a wall!

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[Alexandermb]

1 minute ago, Angen said:

no, i cannot reproduce that, what graphic card do you have?

HAHAHAHA "graphic card"

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Intel HD 4000 core i3 3110m Dual core, 6GB Ram Windows 10.

[Alexandermb]

Question: Polybolos ought to be used only by ptolemies or it should also be used by Macedonians and Seleucids? Oxybeles could be used by Athen and Spartans whitout Trouble.

[Nescio]

Here are ten technical drawings which might help:

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They're from H. Köchly and W. Rüstow Griechische Kriegsschriftsteller (Leipzig 1853-1855), which is fully scanned:

https://archive.org/details/griechischekrieg01kc/page/n5
https://archive.org/details/p1griechischekri02kc/page/n6
https://archive.org/details/griechischekrieg00kcuoft/page/n6

[Nescio]

3 minutes ago, Alexandermb said:

Question: Polybolos ought to be used only by ptolemies or it should also be used by Macedonians and Seleucids? Oxybeles could be used by Athen and Spartans whitout Trouble.

Personally I'd recommend:

• gastraphetes (handheld): only mace
• scorpio (small): only rome
• polybolos (repeating): only ptol
• oxybeles (normal bolshooter): cart and most greeks

[Alexandermb]

8 minutes ago, Nescio said:

Personally I'd recommend:

• gastraphetes (handheld): only mace
• scorpio (small): only rome
• polybolos (repeating): only ptol
• oxybeles (normal bolshooter): cart and most greeks

I don't see the problem with it. I like how every weapon is used maintaining the "light" artillery on its own way.

However i request some template changes on them.

Speed from 1 to 100 ratio.

Gastraphetes around 50-60%. 

Scorpio around 20-40%

Polybolos 100% with the actual attack speed. Though the range and accuracy should be lowered.

Oxybeles this is just like scorpio torsion and windlass, having to remove each  lever and introduce it again to reload so it requires a bit more time to reload and avoid looking strange. id say from 20-40%

[Alexandermb]

@Nescio what would be your personal recommendations on the roman ballista?

This is the mesh whitout idle/attack_ranged animations:

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One possible solution:

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Reduced Height, Here you can see the difference:

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Don't want to go too much lower because it will look similar to lithobolos and im trying to avoid that.

[Nescio]

10 hours ago, Alexandermb said:

@Nescio what would be your personal recommendations on the roman ballista?

[...]

Don't want to go too much lower because it will look similar to lithobolos and im trying to avoid that.

But why? As stated earlier, they all followed the same principles and Carthaginian, Greek, Roman engines were fundamentally the same. Wouldn't it be better to just design one good stone-thrower and then scale it to different sizes (e.g. five, let's call them tiny, small, medium, large, huge)?

[Alexandermb]

5 hours ago, Nescio said:

But why? As stated earlier, they all followed the same principles and Carthaginian, Greek, Roman engines were fundamentally the same. Wouldn't it be better to just design one good stone-thrower and then scale it to different sizes (e.g. five, let's call them tiny, small, medium, large, huge)?

Scaling it isn't that simple, each scale would require a different animation and animating a 400 frame lenght animation process on the infanty isn't that simple.

[Nescio]

Another useful drawing on torsion bolt-shooters (left) and stone-throwers (right):

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And some tables with dimensions of the different parts:

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Conversion of ancient measures:

Ratios for bolt-shooters:

Ratios for stone-throwers:

Source: E. W. Marsden Greek and Roman Artillery: Historical Development (Oxford 1969).

[Alexandermb]

@Nescio very usefull indeed, that will help when i'll make the Scorpio, that was my plan at first, following a design similar to that one but having the front, side and above plan is better.

At this moment i am animating the Oxybeles operators:

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Just Started.

[Alexandermb]

Question: Since im making operators for the bolt/stone artillery should i scale up Rams at least to have 6 men inside?

[Alexandermb]

Oxybeles Done!:

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[Alexandermb]

So far 5 artillery done. Next in my list is Scorpio, after that Medium Roman Ballista + Two lithobolos same size variants for carthage.

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