Weapon blows

[dhegler]

Also, I know there is a reason someone put in fractional blows, i.e. 2.3 blows with this weapon. But, this can be misleading...

Take a Main Gauche 1d5 with 4 blows - should calculate avg damage per round of 10. Now take a battle axe with the same character, assuming 1.8 blows per round, 2d8. It calculates average damage per round of 16/2*1.8 = 14.4. However, practically, you only get 1 blow per round and it should be 8.

This system makes no sense to me and seems misleading. Why not round down the decimal in blows per round and calculate that way? It gets even more out of order (and the player can make bad decisions), on egos and artifacts.

Think of a 4 blow dagger that does avg 150 HP per round, then a 1.8 blow cutlass that does 180 HP per round. Practically, you are only going to get 100 HP per round.

Maybe the disconnect is that I am thinking in terms of "attacks" rather than "rounds"?

[d_m]

Take a Main Gauche 1d5 with 4 blows - should calculate avg damage per round of 10. Now take a battle axe with the same character, assuming 1.8 blows per round, 2d8. It calculates average damage per round of 16/2*1.8 = 14.4. However, practically, you only get 1 blow per round and it should be 8.

I think you are mistaken. With the axe you will usually get 2 attacks (4 out of every 5 turns) but occasionally get 1 attack. Also, your math is slightly wrong. To be clear:

1d5 produces average damage 3
2d8 produces average damage 9

4 attacks at average damage 3 -> 12 expected dmg/turn
1.8 attacks at average damage 9 -> 16.2 expected dmg/turn

On any given turn with the axe you will either expect 18 damage (if you get 2 swings) or 9 (if you get 1 swing), but over 5 turns this will average out to (18 + 18 + 18 + 18 + 9) / 5 = 16.2

Hope this helps!

[Derakon]

I can see how this can be misleading, because the "1.8 attacks/round" doesn't actually equate to "80% of the time, you will see two attack messages in succession".

Taking the example of the battle axe with 1.8 blows/round: this means that each blow uses 100/1.8 = 55 energy. Remember that you need 100 energy to take an action, and the rate at which you gain energy depends on your speed (10 energy/game turn at normal speed, 20 if you're at +10 speed, etc.). You need 110 energy to get both attacks with the axe at the same time, but if you're at normal speed, this will never happen! As soon as you get to 100 energy, you get a turn, and since you only get 10 energy/game turn, you can't go from "not enough energy to get 1 turn" to "enough energy to get 2 blows" in the same game turn. You attack until your next attack would give you negative energy -- that means that you only get one attack. Then you're left with whatever energy was not used, 45 in this case.

In order to see two blows in a single "pass", you need to be able to accumulate at least 11 energy in one game turn (to go from 99 energy to 110), which requires speed of at least +1.

Now, fighting this way gets you turns much more often than if you were using your entire energy budget each time, so your average damage is still accurate. It's like how extra shots doesn't cause you to fire two arrows every time you use the 'f' command, but instead slows enemies to a crawl so long as you're using your bow. In fact, generally this is preferable to using all of your blows in one go, since you get more reaction opportunities -- for example, if you use your one blow, then get blinked into LOS of a horde of time hounds, then less time will pass before you're given the opportunity to mash your eject button, compared to if you had used two blows.

[Magnate]

In order to see two blows in a single "pass", you need to be able to accumulate at least 11 energy in one game turn (to go from 99 energy to 110), which requires speed of at least +1.

Now, fighting this way gets you turns much more often than if you were using your entire energy budget each time, so your average damage is still accurate. It's like how extra shots doesn't cause you to fire two arrows every time you use the 'f' command, but instead slows enemies to a crawl so long as you're using your bow. In fact, generally this is preferable to using all of your blows in one go, since you get more reaction opportunities -- for example, if you use your one blow, then get blinked into LOS of a horde of time hounds, then less time will pass before you're given the opportunity to mash your eject button, compared to if you had used two blows.

This is correct, and it's interesting that nobody has raised it in the months that fracblows has been around. The in-game help (attack.txt) says only this:

"Your attacks per round with a weapon are
displayed as a decimal, e.g. 2.3 or 3.4 etc. The fractions take the form
of unused energy which is carried over to your next turn."

I felt this was all the detail worth going into, since it is difficult to describe the true situation any more concisely than Derakon has done - but very happy to improve the help text.

I think most people prefer the damage per round figure as it is now, though opinion has changed about archery. Originally people wanted to be able to compare archery with melee, so they were both calculated as per round, but recently some have indicated a preference for damage per shot.

We could always have another couple of display options, of course.