A very possible suggestion for LANCES and COUCHING

[Teeth]

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i feel your board and fist analogy is a false equivalence. the fact that one object is doing the piercing and the other receiving is not incidental, it's the whole point. i'm not sure you can just flip them around and have the same rules apply. in one case you're talking about damage dealt to the lance as it were, the fist, depending on whether or not the target itself shatters. then you're equating that with damage dealt to the target of a couch, or the board being punched. if the hand breaks after punching the board, the damage is already dealt and any loss of followthrough momentum and damage is probably negligible.

"If the lance breaks the impact will be as big as the lance itself could withstand, if it does not break the impact will be the maximal possible impact, which is as large as the forward momentum of the horse concentrated on the tip of the lance."

is this assuming the target is skewered on the unbroken lance and dragged along as mentioned in your next paragraph? or are you speaking purely about the moment of impact and acknowledging the op's suggestion of the target getting knocked down upon being couched. if it's the latter, the force of impact is still determined by the forward momentum of the horse and concentrated on the tip of the lance at the point of impact, whether it breaks or not after that point, which is what is in question with regards to determining damage dealt within the confines of this game. yeah, in real life a lance not breaking and going completely through a guy and then some by keeping moving forward is probably going to hurt more than if the lance broke and stopped penetrating after already having pierced the guts, but at that point  it seems purely academic. which is why, for gameplay considerations, it can be ignored and instead of a seemingly impossible mechanic of skewering foes on a lance, figuring out some sort of realistic amalgam of life physics and game physics that can be applied, a knockdown effect being a good example.

as far as the distinction between tincan and meatbag, i can see where the op is coming from but i agree it probably isn't a huge difference realistically, hence my suggestion of lance hp that reduces upon couching. but this would still require a way to determine how much hp gets drained against a given target being hit, and assuming a standard weight for a standard naked crpg man, anything above that in weight should probably have a relative increase in the amount of damage sustained by the lance if we're not going to go by just one amount for every possible collision. so it's not exactly something to overlook that extra 25 kilo worth of armor, if we're talking about how to implement a system of damage and destructability for lances that are couching them.

The analogy does work. Forces work the same both ways, a force is always counter acted by the same force going the other way. The same principle applies to punching wooden boards as to couching lances. I think your problem is that you differentiate the moment of impact with the moment of breaking. You state that a lance would break after delivering the impact, which is incorrect. It breaks on impact, not after, not before, it breaks on impact. If a force like a fast moving couched lance gets applied to a slower target, something has to budge to make room. Ideally the target would do the majority of the budging, by getting knocked away or pierced. If the lance breaks it is the lance that also does some or a lot of the budging, reducing the amount of budging (knocking away or piercing) on the target. In this case the lance was the weakest link.

Impact is only as big as the impact the weakest link can withstand. If it is the lance, the impact is lower than if the target would have been the weakest link.

[ForGO_of_Acre]

I believe this is a doable idea. I would like to see any man on this forum couch a armoured foe and be able to hold onto that lance! Thats alot of force riding up a single arm, kinda like holding onto a dashboard in a 30mph car crash. I know its a game but if tin cans can take 5 hits from pick then Isee no problem cav loosing a lance to a couch.

[Joker86]

If a lance hits a body, a certain amount of joule is being delivered from the lance to the body. If the lance breaks, then (a part of) this energy got delivered to the lance itself, instead of hitting the body.

Just imagine stabbing someone with an icicle. What do you think would have the better effect? The icicle going through and sticking in that body, and that icicle breaking? What do you think would be more likely to have delivered 100% of the energy?

Or to put it another way:

Modern firearm ballistics. There are armour piercing bullet, and ordinary bullets, often hollow jacketed or something similar. Now why would you even produce something else than armour piercing bullets? Because the ordinary bullets have a better wound effect. Both bullets can have the same speed and weight when fired (= trasporting the same energy), but if one bullets deforms on impact and stops in the body, you can be sure 100% of that energy has been delivered. This is the hollow jacketed bullet for example. Now the armour piercing one will most likely punch through the body and fly some distance, which means that after passing the body it has still energy left to fly. Which means it has delivered less energy.

So whenever something is hitting a body, and that thing has energy left to do something else, e.g. flying on (in the case of a bullet) or breaking (in case of a lance) not all of the impact's energy went into the target.

[Dooz]

The analogy does work. Forces work the same both ways, a force is always counter acted by the same force going the other way. The same principle applies to punching wooden boards as to couching lances. I think your problem is that you differentiate the moment of impact with the moment of breaking. You state that a lance would break after delivering the impact, which is incorrect. It breaks on impact, not after, not before, it breaks on impact. If a force like a fast moving couched lance gets applied to a slower target, something has to budge to make room. Ideally the target would do the majority of the budging, by getting knocked away or pierced. If the lance breaks it is the lance that also does some or a lot of the budging, reducing the amount of budging (knocking away or piercing) on the target. In this case the lance was the weakest link.

Impact is only as big as the impact the weakest link can withstand. If it is the lance, the impact is lower than if the target would have been the weakest link.

Hm, so in gameplay terms would this have to translate to a damage decrease when a lance breaks? Even if we go with the opponent getting knocked down every time they get couched? How would the weakest link here be determined? And even if the lance is breaking upon impact, does that assume the piercing was already done and sunk into the opponent, or does the break prevent that from happening in the first place?

[Teeth]

Hm, so in gameplay terms would this have to translate to a damage decrease when a lance breaks? Even if we go with the opponent getting knocked down every time they get couched? How would the weakest link here be determined? And even if the lance is breaking upon impact, does that assume the piercing was already done and sunk into the opponent, or does the break prevent that from happening in the first place?

A lance breaks if it has to withstand an impact beyond its breaking point, which in gameplay terms would translate best to a raw damage cap if you ask me. Let's say a lance would have a raw damage cap of 80. Raw damage would be damage rating + speed bonus before armor kicks in. If the couch does a 100 raw damage, the lance will deliver 80 raw damage and break. The impact is as big as the weakest link. Please note that when I said that breaking reduces impact, I meant compared to when the lance would have been stronger, in this case it would have done the full 100 raw damage for example. I don't think the breaking itself reduces damage compared to a similar impact just below the breaking point. If the couch does 79 raw damage, the lance will deliver 79 damage and not break, as it is not the weakest link.

Assuming you want lances to break, I think this would be a realistic way to do it. It doesn't add much to the gameplay though. Just a cap to the damage you can deliver and a cool visual effect

[Froto_the_Loc]

Too many novels to read in this thread.

I'm unsure if it's been mentioned, but I doubt anyone has the grip to slam a lance into an average man and not have it ripped from their hand.

[groenewoldr]

It's a game, I think that they should make it semi-realistic, but not like what you mentioned, just because that would be a serious nerf to lancers, and nobody would ever play them anymore.

[Stormcrow]

Lancers need some love. As an archer i find them pathetic now, I dont even move out of the way when they charge i just keep shooting

Also nerf longsword

[Smoothrich]

Lances werent meant to penetrate people, you drag it up across their chest and head in a rising slash movement, and they almost never broke or got stuck.. those are hollow tourney lances. Most people in this thread learned history from videogames and movies lol

also the shock of a couch is absorbed by approaching at a good angle and letting the energy go through their arm, down their back, and finally out their ass and legs with specially designed saddles/stirrups that made the whole procedure possible (or at least much easier)