Combat Techniques Balancing mod for Kenshi

Goal: Differentiate speed, damage, and characteristic for each weapon types as well as rearranging 1 weapon into a sensible (to me, anyway) category. Or simply give you guys ideas of how you want to differentiate weapons to your own taste and preferences in your own mods.

Katana(s)-

Pro:
-Excellent against single targets.
-Fast Speed
-Great for killing enemies that are trying to running away.
-Light Weight
-Insignificant change in combat potential if you lose the left arm.

Con:
-Lacks range and arc against groups of enemies. If you want to survive with a Katana user, don't get surrounded.
-Low damage combo and attacks only.
-Cannot break guard

Sabers-

Pro:
-Good at against single targets and groups.
-Medium Speed
-Balanced combo with speed, arc, and damage.
- Guard breaking does 1/4 damage.

Con:
-Harder to hit fleeing enemies.
-Disadvantageous if used one handed.
-Medium Blocking Speed V2

Hackers-

Pro:
-Widest arc
-Great Against Groups
-Guard breaking does 1/2 damage.

Con:
-Medium to Slow Speed
-ineffective if used one handed
-Slow

Heavy Weapons-

Pro:
-OVERPOWERED
-NIGH UNBLOCKABLE: If an enemy tries to block an attack swung at them using a heavy weapon, they will break an arm or a leg, or both. When fighting NPCs with heavy weapons, best to micro manage the fight and dodge out of the way.

Con:
-Very Slow
-Only have 2 high damage moves: Heavy Swing and Heavy Downcut.
-No low damage combo.
-Cannot be used one handed.

These are my philosophy in trying to create a unique feel for each weapon. If you want to see the damage/speed and things like that, please look at the mod using the game modding tool. Reference the modding tutorial in the Kenshi forums.

Combat Techniques found in Kenshi version 0.42.0:

These techniques are the base animation used for each weapon. The speed, damage, etc are set differently for each weapon category. Some weapon can use all animation, some can't. Some have the same animation, but does different things. IE: The Katana cannot use heavy downcut/ heavy weapons cannot use downward combo. Saber Heavy attacks does different damage than Hacker Heavy attacks.

heavy swing
heavy downcut
chop down static
chop down
cut left static
cut left
block up
block left

High damage attack are Heavy Downcut and Heavy Swing. Katana have Heavy Swing, but does normal damage and cannot breaks guard.

*Guard Breaking*: These are just heavy swing or heavy downcut with 2 attacks in 1 animation. Meaning, the character swing once, yet deal 2 hits. However, the hits are spaced far enough apart that a skilled fighter can potentially blocks both hits. Saber deals 1/4 damage on the second hit. Hacker class 1/2 damage on the 2nd hit. Heavy Weapons Deal 100% on both hits, 0 on the 3rd since the game does not yet allows you to edit the 3rd attack.

Why did I do that? I think it is rather unsatisfying to see a character swing a massive fragmented axe at an enemy and the enemy just blocks it as if the fragmented axe is a pillow filled with feathers.

-REARRANGEMENT

-Topper haven been moved to hacker class.

Having the topper uses the katana setting was pretty OP. It had longer reach as well as higher damage. Besides, the flat topper is a hacking weapon. So should the topper.

-Ringed and Horse Chopper Saber size have been reduced by 10 percent.

KNOWN ISSUES:

-Instant hits against non-resisting enemies, even with a heavy weapon. Fixed since 0.40.5

This means that if you are next to a unarmed civilian and attacks him, he just drops dead and no animation is played. On the other hand, against an armed gate guard with a weapon, an attack animation will be played. However, this could be useful against enemies that have their right arm disabled and civilians. They stand still as long as you don't have them targetted. Stand next to them and right click "attack target" and the hit can be instantaneous. If they don't faint right away, they will start running. De-target them and they will stop running away. Repeat the process until dead.

-The need to overwrite the gamedata.base

It is not possible to disable the game's default combat techniques via the mod files. Therefore, you have to have a gamedata.base with a completely empty slate in the combat techniques subcategory. The mod still works with the default gamedata.base, but default techniques will compete with the mod and causes inconsistency.

HARP'S NPC MODS

Version 1

-Removed First Aid Kits from generic faction soldiers to prevent AI from healing in middle of a fight.

-Added Medics to all major factions

-Added weapons variety for various factions.

Version 2

-Citizens are slowed down so they are less annoying to chase.

HARP'S GLOBAL CONSTANT MOD.

Version 2
-Instantaneous Bleeding have been adjusted to make a character faint if ~4 non-vital body part reaches 0 hit points.

-Bleeding Rate have been adjusted so that if a character loses a right arm only, they will faint some time after if first aid is not recieved. It is to prevent NPCs from chasing an enemy that lost only their right arm around and around forever.

-BE ADVISED: You will bleed to death if you are alone!

-Global Damage have been increased to 1 from 0.75.

-Attack Slot have been increased from 3 to 4. It is to prevent the Katana from dominating in big group fights despite low arc and range.

Version 2

-Maximum damage to cause stumble is now 100 at maximum melee defense. The new speed of the Katana causes stun lock. Also, guard breaking can causes stun lock. This help resolves the issues and make combat much smoother.

Version 2.2

-Attack chance difference multiplier reduced to 0.25, further preventing katanas from dominating in group fights.

Harp's Weapons Mod

Version 2.2

These are simple manipulation of length, weight, damage values, etc. It is a simple way to add more variety to the game.

Added:

-Nodachi
-Slender Ringed
-Staff
-Straight-Katana extended
-Keen Katana
-Chopper
-Bone Breaker
-Horse Breaker

Available in shops as well as can be homemade. All manufracture now have a "Custom" designation for these weapons, ie "Truth Two Custom". Research tree included.

Please test this to see if you can craft it correctly and let me know.

WISHLIST:

-More weapon Categories

There are gaps and anamoly between the weapons. Such as short katanas, extended katana, and topper. Extended Katana and Topper have longer reach, but there is no way to make them have their own weapon speed. It is either katana or hacker, fast vs slow. Putting them into saber is not quite right either. Also the plank, it is not quite a hacker and not quite a heavy weapon. It does not look as convincing using the heavy weapon class speed and damage.

-More weapons

As of 0.42.0, clubs are in the game.

-The ability to make a weapon class or specific weapon defenseless.

Cannot make a class of weapon unable to block. Meaning, I wanted the Heavy Weapons class to go all out offense and cannot block incoming attacks. No matter what I tried, the heavy weapon class can still block incoming attacks. I did several testing with katana, sabers, as well as hackers to try to make them defenseless. They all go back to the standard blocking animation if you do not specify a combat techniques file or set "can block" values to "false" in weapons path.

-Switching Weapons between primary and secondary weapon without having to lose the right arm.

-Switching Weapons to the left arm, in case of injury or personal preferences or things like that. It is quite annoying to chase enemies down as well as standing there doing nothing cause you injured the right arm.

Please try it out, I would like to hear your suggestions and feedback.