Creature size inconsistencies

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Ooh, give those size 11 dragons trampling too!

Seriously, with some characters such as the Titan pretenders, tweaking the size can be dangerous thanks to a certain pair of earth forged boots.

[Ewierl]

Lazy_Perfectionist said:Seriously, with some characters such as the Titan pretenders, tweaking the size can be dangerous thanks to a certain pair of earth forged boots.

With a few exceptions, the Titan pretenders are already size 6, and would generally stay that way under my revision. Looking back over the sprites, the Cyclops is indeed a bit smaller than the true Demigod types anyhow. All told, far more things need size reductions (Blood Fountain dragon-sized? Come on!) than need increases.

I'm not enamored of Trampling pretenders; I've seen them get fatigue-slaughtered by large armies even with huge reinvigoration. But that said, I'm well aware of how size increases can significantly beef up a creature with foot slots!

[Tuidjy]

I wish there was a way to _disable_ trampling on a commander. The main reason I
have never used the earth mother in multiplayer is that after the first few turns,
trampling becomes a liability.

[Saulot]

A better way of looking at this is, that many creatures are actually larger than size 6 but since size 6 is the limit, therefore, they're listed as 6.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

The problem with making a blood fountain smaller is that it makes it vulnerable to tramplers- and it doesn't have that many hitpoints to begin with.

[Kristoffer O]

Saulot is right on track!

I didn't expect stuff to be larger than the hydra when we first made dom-ppp. And the square limit of 6 sizepoints makes it a problem to change. Thus size 6 =max size.

Winged critters generally have sixe one higher than their actual size, and they have fx_ressize (might be called #ressize in modding) different from their actual size. Ressize is used to calculate resource cost and feedrates (IIRC).

Also size is more on the width than height of a unit, since it determmines how many units fit in a square.

Gryphon takes up more of a square than a horse - size=4 plus wings - size=5.

This makes fliers a bit better tramplers than they should, but on the other hand you might get buffed by wings perhaps.

[Shovah32]

Also wouldnt flying creatures be slightly better tramplers anyway? A big creature hitting you from above would be quite damaging after all .

[Edi]

Shovah32 said:
Also wouldnt flying creatures be slightly better tramplers anyway? A big creature hitting you from above would be quite damaging after all .

Yes, it would. Ever been on the receiving end of an owl's claws? I haven't personally, but my dad has been and the results weren't pretty. Half his face was swollen to twice the normal size, he nearly got a concussion and the only thing that saved his eyes were his glasses (thick frames and thick lenses), and the frames were a writeoff).

Mind you, this was a Ural owl, which weighs somewhere around one kilogram and it only hit him once. When you add anything the size of flying tramplers in Dominions... *shudder*

A flying trampler does not need as much mass as a non-flying one simply because Ek=½mv^2 and flying tramplers generally come at you much faster.

[Ewierl]

Kristoffer O said:I didn't expect stuff to be larger than the hydra when we first made dom-ppp. And the square limit of 6 sizepoints makes it a problem to change. Thus size 6 =max size.

Oh, I'm by no means proposing that the size list start going up to 7 (or 11). But if a lot of sizes are legacies from a slightly different scale, why not (have someone) go through and make sure everything is adjusted and balanced on the new scale? Just because there's a reasonable origin for a situation, doesn't mean it can't be improved.

Gryphon takes up more of a square than a horse - size=4 plus wings - size=5.

Bigger than a horse, for certain. But is it intended to be bigger than the size=4 pegasus? Or is the pegasus the undersized one?

[Sombre]

Ewierl said: But if a lot of sizes are legacies from a slightly different scale, why not (have someone) go through and make sure everything is adjusted and balanced on the new scale? Just because there's a reasonable origin for a situation, doesn't mean it can't be improved.

Oh dear. "Why doesn't someone do X?"

Here's the stock response: Why don't you do it? You're the one who wants it done.

It's easily moddable you know.