Sledge Expansion and Refactor

[Xanmyral]

Summary

SUMMARY: Content "Sledge Expansion and Refactor"

Purpose of change

Sledge hammer currently in the game had a volume that was out of bounds to an actual 8lb sledge of typical handle length (3ft).

The rest is adding new sledge hammer variants that exist in life as alternatives for smaller tasks and portability, or on the other end of the spectrum, heavier tasks to demolition harder to disrupt objects. Some of these tools are used for entry in dangerous situations with an emphasis on their portability, so it seemed fitting that a survivor may want something similar.

Describe the solution

• Based the in game sledge on an actual 8lb sledge of 3ft length with a wooden handle
• Created an 8lb sledge with a 2ft handle meant for portability
• Created an 4lb engineer's hammer with a 1ft handle meant for smaller, more mobile demo work. Can potentially clip in a belt if it was appropriately strong enough.
• Created a 20lb sledge with a 3ft handle meant for the harder demo tasks such as taking out sturdier walls or potentially roads/concrete/sidewalks.
• Added a forging recipe for the three new sledges and a recipe to trim down the existing sledge
• Updated everywhere a sledge was dropped to potentially drop a variant (where it made sense, normal people wouldn't use a 20lb sledge or the engineer's hammer as a weapon)

Describe alternatives you've considered

Just fix the existing sledge and miss out on the fun variants
Make more sledge variants for a 10, 12, 14, and/or 16 pound heads
Toss out the 20lb sledge and leave the other smaller variants

Testing

Loaded up a game with the changes and confirmed ability to spawn in all sledges
Confirmed recipes with debug existed and used one to shorten the existing sledge to the short sledge variant
Bashed walls, floors, furniture, and people to ensure that the bash values appeared to work appropriately

Additional context

8lb Sledges and 20lb Sledge Dimensions and Weight
4lb Engineer's Hammer Dimensions and Weight
Typical Handle Diameter Source (Thanks Canadian OSHA)

Math as follows [(Cylinder Head Volume) + (Cylinder Haft Volume)] / Conversion:
Regular: [(π x (0.9)² x 6.8) + (π x (0.75)² x 33.2)] / 61.024 = [17.304 + 58.669] / 61.024 = 1.245L ~ 1.25L
Short: [(π x (0.9)² x 6.8) + (π x (0.75)² x 21.2)] / 61.024 = [17.304 + 37.463] / 61.024 = 0.897L ~ 0.90L
Engineer: [(π x (0.9)² x 5) + (π x (0.75)² x 13.4)] / 61.024 = [12.723 + 23.680] / 61.024 = 0.597L ~ 0.60L
Heavy: [(π x (1.25)² x 9.5) + (π x (0.75)² x 32.5)] / 61.024 = [46.633 + 57.432] / 61.024 = 1.705L ~ 1.7L

Stat Reasonings
Short: According to the GAME_BALANCE design doc it would be basically the regular sledge hammer but with a foot of length missing in the handle, thus making it harder to use. That only constituted a -1 drop to its stats. No Wide because of the lost length. Lost some bash due to losing some helpful lever action.

Engineer: Basically a short sledge but shrunk by 50%, honestly, so I presumed it would conserve the same accuracy ratio. No combat techniques because it is too short and unwieldy to properly have them, although I could see arguments for the two turn stun technique. Only has a bit more than half the bash of the regular sledge, as it is scaled down, although I could see arguments to drop it further to 20.

Heavy: Too heavy to really block with, and too unwieldy to sweep the legs adeptly I would figure. Exceedingly heavy and unbalanced so -4, although I could see arguments to up this to -6. 80 Bash because it is more than twice the weight, head wise, than the regular sledge. Wasn't concerned about overdoing the bash damage because you would need extremely mutated strength or hydraulic cybernetics to come close to using this at proper efficiency, in which case you aren't really baseline human strength anymore. From personal testing, it performed worse than a regular sledge in combat with typical human strength.

[wapcaplet]

Looks like a great set of tools, and well supported by math and research. I’m looking forward to seeing these in game!

I wonder if the item group drop rates might be too high though. They are almost as frequent as the Halligan bar in the firefighter group, and a bit disproportionate in the plumbing group too. For balance, I think the total of new sledges in item groups should be closer to the original sledge totals.

[Xanmyral]

That's a fair point and a good metric to set it to. Give me a second and I'll make the change.

[SirPendrak]

Looks good but there is one thing I dont get: Why there is this strange push lately to apply exact real volume to weapons. If we apply this logic to all weapons then we will get 0,25l longswords and 0,1l bayonets.
In the past their volume was made bigger to pervent strange things like putting 60 swords into small backpack and for ballance reasons to make DPS right.
Edit: I think its fine to give items their exact or almost exact real volume if their shape is very simple and not "elongated". Boxes and tin cans and stuff. But weapons come often in more complex shapes, and that often makes them less appropriate for storage than volume of raw materials used in them would suggest.

[Xanmyral]

I agree that it can lead to some strange situations as you could technically fit, say, the 20lb sledge into the small runner pack or even cargo pants. But you could have fit the regular sledge in there as well... Our volume system doesn't really handle odd shapes currently and it lumping together all of the volume given by clothing makes it odder as well. Some of this may be solved with the upcoming inventory refactor.

If we aren't to base it on reality, however, what should we base it on? Reality is a good metric for finding a common ground in at least a starting position to work from. We can make comparisons to existing items more accurately with this foundation, and possibly determine other methods to address a problem.

Also, throw away comment that DPS (or more accurately damage per time unit I guess) is more based on weight than size from what I saw. The sledge hammer, despite having almost half the volume of the prior mark, still attacked just as slow because the weight wasn't really fiddled with (it was pretty on point). The heavy sledge, for example, takes 250 time to swing once.

[anothersimulacrum]

Yeah, just use displacement volume, longest dimension will be added with inventory work coming up, and fix some of the issues with that.

[kevingranade]

Why there is this strange push lately to apply exact real volume to weapons.

Because that's the guidance ofvthe gamevasca whole, arbitrary values cause inconsistencies, and prevent the values from settling down.

In the past their volume was made bigger to pervent strange things like putting 60 swords into small backpack and for ballance reasons to make DPS right.

This was a mistake, it's the game system that needs to be fixed rather than pinning weapons to arbitrary values

[Xanmyral]

Fun fact, the 2x4 is 2.7ft long. While not technically long enough by itself to make the haft, it is rather easy to assume that the crafter would split it in half to have twice that length to work with. Leaves a rather messy amount of splinters as from unused wood, though, but I'm not sure if you'd have much in the way of workable scrap wood afterwards. The engineer's hammer and short sledge would technically have a full half of the 2x4 (2x2 now, really) untouched but I wasn't sure how this would be modeled: a long stick?

[I-am-Erk]

Fun fact, the "plank" item with id 2x4 is an abstract plank of intentionally unclear precise dimensions, but if it's dimensional 2x4 then it's probably about 50" long