Specialized Container - Spear Bag

[LordAnubis]

Idea is to implement a container that, when worn, provides more slots than a container of similar tech level, but can only hold spears.

Maybe give the Hunter class a class-specific spear bag that can be crafted earlier than normal.

Edited November 4, 2024 by LordAnubis

[Krougal]

Not that I'm against the idea but I really don't see how it would be useful other than early game.

Basket stage? Sure. Hunters pack? Yeah. Leather backpack with 6 slots? Nah. I don't see myself ever carrying 6 or more spears, and I wouldn't give up the flexibility at that point. I'm not going to talk about the sturdy pack.

Even if they added iron and steel spears, I don't see myself carrying THAT many. I may be biased towards the bow though. No, who am I kidding, I am most definitely biased towards the bow.

Hunter class design seems to be more focused on archery, I think a spear bag if implemented, would be more suitable for general population.

[Maelstrom]

A quiver for spears would definitely be early game.  I prefer blackguard and generally don't bother with bows, but early game spears are the way to go.  I'll stock up on 12 spears for temporal storms until I get steel armor; so a quiver for spears would be appreciated early game.  A reed quiver for 3 spears sounds about right.  A hunter quiver for 4 feels right as well.  After that?  not gonna waste resources on it.

[Krougal]

2 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

A quiver for spears would definitely be early game.  I prefer blackguard and generally don't bother with bows, but early game spears are the way to go.  I'll stock up on 12 spears for temporal storms until I get steel armor; so a quiver for spears would be appreciated early game.  A reed quiver for 3 spears sounds about right.  A hunter quiver for 4 feels right as well.  After that?  not gonna waste resources on it.

What would be the point of that? They would need to be AT least 4 and 5 slots or you are better off just having the flexibility of the regular container, but more like a single 6 slot and call it done.

[Maelstrom]

I forget how many slots reed handbaskets have.  I think 3?  So yeah, it'd need to be 4 to make it attractive if a quiver takes up a backpack slot.  Now if it could be in the off-hand slot instead, then 3 is definitely the right amount.

Edited November 5, 2024 by Maelstrom

[Thorfinn]

Welcome to the forums, @LordAnubis

I would not want to give up a backpack slot for a dedicated spear quiver (similar to mining bag) except in special circumstances. The only time I load up on spears is when I'm hunting or clearing out the wolves and bears from my AO. And then I just unload everything but a knife and spears so I have room for everything. When I get filled up, I'm leaving spears behind, so those slots need to be usable for general inventory.

Alternatively, bags in bags? Maybe. Not sure what I think of that. Mostly I'm in the camp that by design, this is an inventory management game. Spears have massive thrown damage because they take up one space in inventory. You would need to reduce spear damage to compensate for having more spears available. And I don't know about you, but I think things like double headed drifters already take enough spears to kill.

[Maelstrom]

Bags in bags?  only if one of those bags is empty.  Otherwise it nerfs inventory management.

[Thorfinn]

Sure. Might not be too bad if you are limited to carrying a single three-slot quiver in your inventory, essentially converting your hand basket into a linen sack whenever you are carrying at least 3 spears. The existence of linen sacks doesn't nerf inventory management. Don't know about off-hand. During daylight on the surface, I'm starting to warm to the shield, believe it or not.

Alternatively, one could let spears stack to 3 (or whatever) and give them a break percentage like arrows, rather than durability. If my math is right, about 2.8% breakage would be about right for a flint spear, though that does mean it's possible that all your spears could break on the first throw, which would not be fun in a storm...

[idiomcritter]

replacing/placing a quiver (or 2) in the backpack slot might be nice.

For temporal storms, my weapon of choice, early, mid, and late game has always been an inventory of spears (black bronze).   (suited in gambson)Tossed/thrown Spears seem to do the most damage per hit then anything else in the game while allow a certain distance just out of reach of the mobs. 

late game semi auto grinder? gawf  i'm in the arena lets go 

Edited November 8, 2024 by idiomcritter

[Maelstrom]

To make a spear quiver AT LEAST as good as a backpack, it would need to hold 6 for a leather quiver, 5 for linen, 4 for a pelt (hunter pack).  And even THAT would be pointless because that's how many slots there are for the items I listed.  So to make it worth the while the quiver would have to hold at least one more than the numbers I provided, which seems a bit OP.  That is why I suggested a quiver for the off hand instead of an backpack space.

Edited November 11, 2024 by Maelstrom

[Thorfinn]

I don't think that would be OP. I wouldn't even consider it for less than 2 extra spaces. The mining bag adds 4 spaces, as it's almost certainly replacing a leather backpack, and that is a questionable tradeoff.

[Maelstrom]

Shouldn't be too hard to mod a spear quiver for anyone with the modding know-how.

[Thorfinn]

No, shouldn't. Probably look at the mining bag, or even tweak the Lumber Sling mod, assuming that still works.

Personally, I wouldn't use it. Probably not even if it gave 20 extra spear slots. There are far better ways to do it that do not limit your inventory spaces. 

[LadyWYT]

How about an atlatl instead? That way instead of carrying more spears, you just do a bit more damage with the ones you already have, thus not requiring as many(assuming you're a decent shot). It'd also help extend the usefulness of spears as a weapon, with what we currently have.

In reality though, I'd prefer iron and steel spears, or even full-fledged pikes, rather than an atlatl or spear sling. It's nice to have the option to keep the enemies at a longer poking distance, even if the damage is lower than what a falx sword might provide. Bow and arrows still makes more sense for ranged damage, as arrows stack much more efficiently, with greater range and accuracy than spears. For forging/casting metal spearheads(really should be a thing if it's not already), I'd probably also increase the yield to two per ingot. After all, the general point(no pun intended) of a spear is to keep enemies further away from you, while being very cheap to make.

[Hammerweld]

I really like the feeling of chuckin' spears at my enemies. Anything to boost its viability as the ages progress would be cool with me. I am surprised we can't produce a better spear outside of raw damage values.  It's weird we've got this bowstave that's only used for longbows, so you'd think we'd be able to craft a similar staff for spears, providing at least an accuracy bonus that is currently lacking in the standard metal spears. Could call them "Javelins" to avoid confusion.

But I worry that might be tangential to the core suggestion here, which isn't about making spears more viable in the late game, but being able to carry a lot more of them in the early game, no?

[Thorfinn]

For those questioning the viability of spears through the ages, my goal this next RA is to see if he can be taken with rock spears. Granite, andesite, etc., not flint or obsidian. I'm pretty sure he can. Last time through, I'm pretty sure he was taking damage when I used the 4 I brought with. Time to put it to the test bringing only that.

[Hammerweld]

Perhaps "Viable" is the wrong word to use then.

How about just "Cooler" or "At pace" with other weapon options.

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

For those questioning the viability of spears through the ages, my goal this next RA is to see if he can be taken with rock spears. Granite, andesite, etc., not flint or obsidian. I'm pretty sure he can. Last time through, I'm pretty sure he was taking damage when I used the 4 I brought with. Time to put it to the test bringing only that.

 

[LadyWYT]

6 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

For those questioning the viability of spears through the ages, my goal this next RA is to see if he can be taken with rock spears. Granite, andesite, etc., not flint or obsidian. I'm pretty sure he can. Last time through, I'm pretty sure he was taking damage when I used the 4 I brought with. Time to put it to the test bringing only that.

I feel like we need a Top-Gear or Mythbusters style intro for this.

[LordAnubis]

Hi all, thanks for the discussion into this topic. Krougal mentioned being biased toward bows. That's fair. In a game without magic, where all the enemies are primarily only dangerous at close range, ranged weapons reign supreme. We really only have two options for ranged combat (I don't consider throwing stones a viable option, nor beenades as a primary weapon): bows+arrows and spears. Bows are obviously very powerful, and while arrows do have a break chance, it's easy to stack hundreds of arrows in the player's inventory while only taking up a few inventory spaces. Maybe in order to bring spears more in line with ranged weapon balance, arrows shouldn't stack more than a few per inventory slot. Would that be incentive enough to implement a quiver? The quiver could be two-fold: hold more spears and allow arrows to stack in higher quantities in these special slots (if possible).

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, LordAnubis said:

In a game without magic, where all the enemies are primarily only dangerous at close range

Not true anymore. Though I also wonder if it was ever really true to begin with, given how many I've seen take issue with drifters and their rocks.

1 hour ago, LordAnubis said:

We really only have two options for ranged combat (I don't consider throwing stones a viable option, nor beenades as a primary weapon)

Don't forget the sling; it's available to malefactors, or if you remove the class restriction from recipes. It's not as good as a bow, of course, but the upside is it's really easy to find rocks for ammunition.

1 hour ago, LordAnubis said:

Maybe in order to bring spears more in line with ranged weapon balance, arrows shouldn't stack more than a few per inventory slot. Would that be incentive enough to implement a quiver? The quiver could be two-fold: hold more spears and allow arrows to stack in higher quantities in these special slots (if possible).

Heavily disagree here. Realistically, you're not going to fit a huge number of arrows into a quiver to begin with; spears will be much harder to fit into the same space. Using videogame logic, I suppose it works, but even with a change like this...why would you even bother with spears at all when arrows are still better? Even if you nerf how many arrows can stack in a slot without a quiver, it will still be more than one spear, and thus a more attractive option. The other issue with nerfing arrow stacking to make spears a more attractive choice, is that it would probably nerf to the point that either no one is going to bother with arrows at all, or they're just going to rush to acquire a quiver and ignore spears anyway. I will also note that nerfing arrows like this also nerfs one of the hunter's special niches in the early game--the crude bow and arrows.

I still maintain that a spear is best suited for melee combat to control space and keep enemies at a more comfortable distance. You don't really want to be throwing it if you don't have to. And as someone else mentioned earlier--throwing spears are technically a different weapon, known as the javelin.

The main advantage to using spears in Vintage Story, in my opinion, is the fact that they're cheap, can serve double-duty as both melee and ranged weapons, and can yield many more shots per spear than the arrows. In the later stages of the game spears lose a lot of that advantage, since the player will have access to higher quality arrows for ranged combat, and higher quality blades and shields for melee.

[idiomcritter]

best bow(recurve) + arrow(steel) = 6.5 hp damage

best thrown spear (black bronze)= 8 hp damage

If I could shoot more than one arrow at a time, or an option to double shot, bow and arrow would be my choice.

as it is, with leather backpacks, packing 15 spears (+knife, falx, food, poultices), sill leaves inventory room to pick up the loot (flax, rusty gears both stack.  temporal gears, jonas bits don't stack) during a temporal storm. 

Doubleheaded drifters sit at 54 health, thats 7 spears (no misses and no double hits).  (more than 1 doubleheaded drifter can and has spawned in at the same time) 

do arrows fire faster?  can I shoot 8+ arrows faster than tossing 7 spears?

Spear bag would free up more loot space. 

that said, usually the area I choose to take on the storm, has a few pillars with tool racks loaded with extra spears..

because sometimes it gets a bit crowed with drifters to double back and pick up the tossed spears, and easier to reach one of the pillars to reload spears...

A spear bag could help, or increasing the damage done by arrows, i'm not sure what the development path is with regards to ranged weaponry(?)

[LordAnubis]

6 minutes ago, idiomcritter said:

best bow(recurve) + arrow(steel) = 6.5 hp damage

best thrown spear (black bronze)= 8 hp damage

8 damage for one inventory slot vs 6.5 damage for a stack of 64. There is not enough inventory space in the game to carry enough spears to do 6.5 * 64 damage all while kiting. Not even in the same ballpark.

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, LordAnubis said:

8 damage for one inventory slot vs 6.5 damage for a stack of 64. There is not enough inventory space in the game to carry enough spears to do 6.5 * 64 damage all while kiting. Not even in the same ballpark.

Isn't that one of the tradeoffs though of spear vs bow/arrows? Given the numbers that @idiomcritter supplied, a spear would be better value for single target damage, assuming that you can land your shots. A bow and arrows would be better value when you need more projectiles to shoot, or are shooting over longer ranges.

The other advantage spears hold, that I forgot to mention earlier--they're a lot easier to find after you throw them, especially in snow. If the target is kiteable, you don't need that many spears to take it down; you just need to pick up the ones already thrown without taking too much damage in the process.

1 hour ago, idiomcritter said:

that said, usually the area I choose to take on the storm, has a few pillars with tool racks loaded with extra spears..

This is what I picture in my head, when using spears as a ranged weapon for something other than basic hunting.

1 hour ago, idiomcritter said:

because sometimes it gets a bit crowed with drifters to double back and pick up the tossed spears, and easier to reach one of the pillars to reload spears...

Is also an advantage I see of picking arrows over spears; spears are easier to see to retrieve and do a bit more damage per hit, but you can carry more arrows and thus use them a little more liberally before you have to worry about retrieving any of them.

[Bumber]

On 11/13/2024 at 7:28 PM, LadyWYT said:

The other advantage spears hold, that I forgot to mention earlier--they're a lot easier to find after you throw them, especially in snow. If the target is kiteable, you don't need that many spears to take it down; you just need to pick up the ones already thrown without taking too much damage in the process.

You can absolutely still lose them in trees and bushes, and each loss is much more costly.