Build 139 (win 10 x64): Arrow weight handling [RESOLVED]

[Prester Lewin]

This has been around for some time, not new to this build. I know there have been fixes in this area in the past, but not the full history. So this is what is happening to me now.

I have a bundle of 1457 arrows on my cart. If I hover the mouse over, it says they weigh 364.25 kg (i.e. 1457 * .25 kg). My cart is nearly fully weighted after a dungeon trawl, but the weight is other stuff my recent victims donated to me, not the arrows. So, I am able to take all 1457 out at no weight penalty and cart weight is still shown as 732.27 kg, but, if I try to put the arrows back, a popup says I can only put a max of 70 back, because it's clearly calculating their weight at .25 kg each. This can be circumvented by typing in 1457 at the popup, as the limit of 70 is then ignored. But it's inconsistent and potentially confusing to noobs.

Please say if you need a game save, but I think it's easy to replicate.

[pango]

Thanks for the report! Those pesky weightless 250g arrows
I submitted a PR to fix that
Also, there's already a fix to prevent typing amounts greater than the max.

[Prester Lewin]

There's clearly a design issue for any fantasy RPG of how to deal with weight of missiles. Should they weigh a "realistic" weight (250gm is making it very hard for archers) or do you just make them weightless? Most games I've seen go the weightless route, although some classic dungeon crawlers only allow you a small stock of missiles, anyway. I expect the devs have been all through the pros and cons of that one!

[pango]

I expect the devs have been all through the pros and cons of that one!

The goal for Daggerfall Unity is usually to match Daggerfall classic, and this is the case here; I didn't believe it, but you can check that those 250g arrows weight nothing in plain Daggerfall either.

[Prester Lewin]

Not to mention that you get arrows of different materials that can really catch you out for cost with a new character, but they then all get merged together in your inventory... But no, I am definitely not proposing that they be kept separate (unless they do different damage).

[Hazelnut]

You can get arrows with different materials? Really? I had no idea, thought it was just bows. I assume classic made the weight of arrows not count against your encumbrance so as not to disadvantage archers. You lose any that don't hit a target, so you need to carry quite a few around.

[Prester Lewin]

I had some red-tipped arrows in my inventory last night (daedric, not bloody!), but, on rebooting the game today, they had reverted to grey tips, so I can't prove it. I've had green tips and different greys (silver or elven, for example). That's all in DFU and I'm fairly sure the price in shops reflects the material. Perhaps it's only an unintentional ghost effect, i.e. happens at creation of the item in shop/enemy inventory and is soon lost.

It's easier to see the material in DFU than in classic, of course - if you ever could tell the material in classic.

I think that, in terms of the way they handled arrow loss and weight in Daggerfall, Bethesda were fairly kind to archers, although that was more than outweighed by the, as someone put it "papier mache" bows.

[Hazelnut]

I did not realise that was happening - would explain why sometimes arrows are eye-wateringly expensive.

I'm starting to feel like doing an archer re-balance mod...

[Hazelnut]

This is now fixed with PR just submitted, shops no longer stock arrows made from different materials. I believe this now matches classic, certainly I could find no instances of arrows with different materials and I think it was just overlooked when DFU code was written.

Note there's also a minor cosmetic issue that affects existing stacks of arrows caused because the starting arrows are set to iron which makes the arrowhead coloured a very dark grey. Drop/use all arrows and subsequently you will find new stacks bought retain the more visible lighter grey arrowheads like classic. New games will not have this issue as the material is ignored from the start.

So, no more stacks of arrows costing hundreds of gp! Thanks for raising this.