Since this site has so many questions about military topics, I would like to post an invitation here asking people to join an proposed StackExchange for military technology and military culture.
http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/99463/militaria
Is it okay to post an invitation here even...
It will have a high fantasy type setting. Currently it's all set in one city because it takes me ages to make new areas and I can't be bothered to make any until we have checked it all works.
Photo Jaime Cantero Dole (CC BY-SA 4.0)We can say that superficially, the stock fantasy world is defined by non-industrial technology and social systems; usually borrowing vaguely from the medieval period. Monsters and magic can’t be left out either, with allusions to fairy tales as well as Greek myth. And overall, there is something about fantasy that is very Western, with allusions to an idy…
ah. having a chuckle at Jasper's latest Universe Factory post, mostly because my Orcs are more herdsfolk than hunter (I had a quasi-random encounter scene in an aborted campaign that consisted of the party running into an Orc family driving a herd of sheep down the road)
also...I wonder what a dragon would think if he or she suddenly found themselves on an airport ramp
@Mithrandir24601 actually, I tend to think of them as semi-settled to nomadic herdsfolk (somewhat like open-range cowfolk in the American West or the Mongols of the Asian steppes)
which also happens to conveniently explain why they're a culture that prizes physical/combat prowess and honor -- you don't have niceties like guards or courts out on the range when stuff's trying to eat, steal, etal your livelihood out from under you)
Anyone knows if medieval war crossbows really did have flatter trajectory, or it's something made up recently for purpose of fake distinction in computer games?
@Mithrandir24601 -- sidenote: is it correct to say that within a first order, the time it takes to get in range to strike with a melee weapon plus the time it takes to actually strike with that weapon is constant? or how does that vary with the reach of the weapon in practice?
since I must have missed Mithrandir, oops...am I correct on my statement above that within a first order, the time it takes to get in range to strike with a melee weapon plus the time it takes to actually strike with the weapon is constant given a constant starting distance, but different weapons?
No, it's may be true if you use a constant material to get the weight ratio accurate but consider the range of a staff (high) and the speed you can move with one (moderate) compared to a sword with a lower range but a similar movement speed.
Or a knife versus a whip for another example.
Both the weapons with a longer range have a similar striking time to the shorter range weapon.
@Shalvenay It's a bit.. complicated to talk about in terms of maths, but I would say that, at a very basic level, there are three basic attack ranges that are within a single attack range: grappling - attack time is essentially 0 (because that's pretty much what you're doing :P ), close range strike attack time is small because it's weapon movement only - you're in range of attacking the enemy without having to actually move - this would vary between weapons. Also, this distance varies
Finally, can only attack within a step - you need to make a step to attack from here - this time should be roughly constant for similarly sized weapons, as the step is the slowest part of the attack
(however, as a longer weapon is, well, longer, the distance in this one varies for different weapons, so if you need to make 2 steps for a smaller weapon, it's going to be slower than for 1 step with a larger weapon)
(not that I have any love for weapon speed or similar notions -- playing casters in AD&D disabused me of that, as speed factor init goes all sorts of haywire for casting because of the deadlock-like issue it creates between where you get shoved in the turn order and deciding what to cast)
yeah... It's one of those things that's intrinsically relativistic in a weird sense - there's things like time of attack and distance, which are heavily interlinked
I've never used a warhammer and I can only find one source (in Latin, obviously :P), so can't say for sure, but I'd generally go with 'reasonably similar to a longsword'
Except it's a good bit shorter, so everything would have to be scaled down to size...
Since this site has so many questions about military topics, I would like to post an invitation here asking people to join an proposed StackExchange for military technology and military culture.
http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/99463/militaria
Is it okay to post an invitation here even...
The Factory Floor
The Factory Floor