Development Info 4th The Fall dev diary at RPGVault

[Spazmo]

Tags: Fall: Last Days of Gaia; Silver Style

<A HREF="http://rpgvault.ign.com" target="_blank">RPG Vault</a> has posted a <a href=http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/521/521967p1.html>fourth dev diary</a> about the digital antichrist, Silver Style's The Fall: Last Days of Gaia. In this one, lead artist guy <b>Jan Jordan</b> talks about art in the game.
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<blockquote>A small story I'd like want to mention: the medieval ages and everything related to them are a major hobby of mine. At some point, I even learned how to craft chain mail. We thought "Why not?" and worked that into the game as well. The player will be able to build this type of armor in The Fall provided he has the required 'ingredients'. There were interesting some item suggestions made by our community as well.</blockquote>
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Brilliant. I'm sure that'll come in real handy against bullets. I know I want to lug around 20+ pounts of dead weight when I'm running from some angry man with a machine gun.

 

[taks]

maybe it's just "medieval style" kevlar?

taks

 

[Kamaz]

Chain mails can actually become very handy from time to time even nowadays. I know of some people that were not killed or badly injured only because of chainmail they wore. [Yes, they are LaRPG freaks, yes, they fight with swords and yes they were returning from a game session.] But it depends of overall game-world, because if there's machinguns/jackhammers/rocket lounchers/rusty tanks so widely used, I am rather doubtful of necessity of this type of armour. But if those guns are pretty rare, it becomes important to protect one-self against knife-based attacs. And then chainmail is good solution because no other light-armour protects better from cuts than it. But, I repeat, it depends on game world design.

Even if there are lots of guns available, such chainmail as an item is not necessarily bad idea. Imagine that youire LaRPG freak in post-nuclear world and really really want to keep playing RPG. Cool, you got the equipment now .

 

[plin]

sounds ok

 

[Anonymous]

Where you going to find shit to make chain mail, and how are you going to learn how to make FUCKING CHAIN MAIL? If anything, it'd be 'how to put some junk together to protect your sorry hide' in a PA game, kinda like how deadEarth does it.

In it, there are different material types with values, and you basically find shit in the world, and put it on your body, and write down the material type and keep track. So you could tie aluminium siding to your front and back if you wanted, and make wooden shoulder pads out of logs.

 

[Seven]

sounds ok

Wow, you amaze us yet again with you extraordinary vocabularly. Hmmm... this is ironic all things considered.

 

[Greenskin13]

In it, there are different material types with values, and you basically find shit in the world, and put it on your body, and write down the material type and keep track. So you could tie aluminium siding to your front and back if you wanted, and make wooden shoulder pads out of logs.

I would like to see trash armor as well. One of the things that attracted me to the post apoc setting was the idea of patchwork buildings and clothesout of junk. I think it would be more interesting for the characters to wear AV cables for belts instead of a length of rope.

 

[plin]

sounds ok

Wow, you amaze us yet again with you extraordinary vocabularly. Hmmm... this is ironic all things considered.

yeah well suck it bitch, fuck off.

p.s. mother fucker

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Where you going to find shit to make chain mail, and how are you going to learn how to make FUCKING CHAIN MAIL? If anything, it'd be 'how to put some junk together to protect your sorry hide' in a PA game, kinda like how deadEarth does it.

In it, there are different material types with values, and you basically find shit in the world, and put it on your body, and write down the material type and keep track. So you could tie aluminium siding to your front and back if you wanted, and make wooden shoulder pads out of logs.

Chainmail is a long and tedious process to make, and I can't see there being that much of a benefit versus the time it takes to make a set of chainmail. Not when there's raiders to fend off, basic needs to meet, and so on.

Using heavy ass cast iron pieces and making an armor of that would be much better and quicker to make.

 

[Azael]

Chainmail can't even stop a decent crossbow bolt, so why would I want to use it when the opponent uses a Steyr AUG?

 

[Sol Invictus]

Chainmail can, in actuality, stop 9mm rounds and rounds of a similar low caliber, but it can't stop crossbow bolts, which, I have to correct you Azael, are of much higher caliber than most handguns and submachineguns, but not rifles.

However, as Saint replied, it is far too tedious a process to commit oneself to. It would simply be a lot easier to create plate-mail with cast iron or better yet, aluminum pieces and fragments. Aluminum would be only half the weight of a chainmail vest and it would probably offer twice as much protection against low caliber rounds.

Similarly, it wouldnt be hard to make a protective vest out of Goretex(tm) with clay plates inside... assuming there are any sports jackets left in post apocalyptic Earth.

p.s. have you seen a modern day tournament crossbow? Those ones made of composite wood and iron, and fiberglass? You can snipe with those.

 

[Anonymous]

The Fall seems less Post-Apocalypse like almost all the time, heh..

I imagine by the time it's done it's just gonna be 'Really hot day in the desert' setting.

 

[Easy]

Chainmail can, in actuality, stop 9mm rounds and rounds of a similar low caliber, but it can't stop crossbow bolts, which, I have to correct you Azael, are of much higher caliber than most handguns and submachineguns, but not rifles.

Actually, it can't even stop small caliber bullets. Chainmail is only fit to stop slashing and stabbing attacks (with a wide blade, some daggers had an extra slim blade to penetrate chainmail). A bullet - even of small caliber - has enough kinetic energy to shatter the iron rings. So, in addition to the bullet, now you also have some iron fragments penetrating your skin...

A nice article on the protection offered against modern crossbows and guns can be found here. It's in german, but the two pictures speak for themselves.

~Easy

 

[Azael]

Chainmail can, in actuality, stop 9mm rounds and rounds of a similar low caliber, but it can't stop crossbow bolts, which, I have to correct you Azael, are of much higher caliber than most handguns and submachineguns, but not rifles.

I'd like to see some sort of link supporting this, a 9 mm bullet has a lot more penetrative power than a crossbow bolt exactly because it is smaller and has a much higher velocity.

EDIT: Easy beat me to it. Like he said, if medieval style armor couldn't even stop the crude round bullets fired by the early firearms, they'd have no chance against the much improved modern counterparts.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Are you sure about that Azael? 9mm bullets cant even penetrate the skull from 20 ft, much less strength-bonded chain mail.

I'd like to see some sort of link supporting this, a 9 mm bullet has a lot more penetrative power than a crossbow bolt exactly because it is smaller and has a much higher velocity.

If that were true, people in medieval times would have still be using slingshots over bows, wouldn't they? It's not about size, Azael. It's about aerodynamics. Motorized Gliders are pretty slow compared to concordes, and concordes are exponentially heavier, not to mention bigger than motorized gliders. Well, I suppose it's unfair to compare a glider to a jet powered airplane, but 9mm guns aren't exactly Action Express, either.

 

[Azael]

Are you sure about that Azael? 9mm bullets cant even penetrate the skull from 20 ft, much less strength-bonded chain mail.

What? That's just absurd, 20 feet is about six meters, right? Are you telling me that a 9 mm bullet, fired from a standard handgun (let's say a Beretta 92 since that's what the US Army use) can't penetrate a human skull at that distance? This really calls for a link, unless you're pulling my leg.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I was pulling your leg.

 

[Azael]

I was pulling your leg.

Ah, good to know, I was afraid you had taken a sip of the stupid juice that appears to have been flowing freely here lately. Guess I had some too.

 

[Fez]

Chainmail can stop standard arrows as long as we aren't talking about giant English medieval longbows and bodkin arrows. So I suppose if people were attacking you with knives spears and bows then it could be useful. As for bullets and such I suppose it could help when at range when a bullet as already lost some energy, skin is always easier to penetrate than a thin layer of steel or iron there's always the story you hear a dozen times of bullets stopped by cigarette cases and bibles in pockets and such.

Though it is more likely that you'd buy something like that from someone else rather than actually crafting it yourself, due to the sheer time and effort required to create a set. Blacksmiths and armouries are a possibility for their world so I can't say it would be impossible to have different forms of old-style armours. Perhaps they player could get it from a museum collection or a private collector

While I don't mind what they include as it is their background they are creating and their game, I'd rather see more scrappy forms of protection, bits of metal recycled from the dump and reshaped, which is what I imagined the crude metal armours were in the Fallout games (reading Saint's words made me think of that scene in Back to the Future 3 with the cast iron stove door!). Perhaps more sophisticated plate could also appear at some point, though I find it hard to see any reason why people wouldn't make studded leather and such of people were willing to wear leather armour.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Leather is pretty easy to tan, so leather armor would doubtless exist in a post apocalyptic world.

 

[taks]

the last couple comments are right... thrown together armor based on things you can easily scrounge or make. i think you'd have to guage what was needed based on the most likely weapon on the streets, too.

taks

 

[Rayt]

I can somehow see how scavengers would hang pieces of steel, aluminium and such on their body to prevent themselves from getting hurt, but wouldn't a bullet go straight through a piece of metal? Unless it's really thick, but then it would weigh a truckload and hinder their movement and what not? It just doesn't seem very handy...cops wear those kevlar suits and that's already immensely heavy and cumbersome. Metal/steel/aluminium/tinfoil/whatever just seems nonsense. To me, that is.

 

[Greenskin13]

I wonder, but perhaps the metal would shield them from melee attacks, or at the very least unarmed. I'd be a lot less willing to punch a guy wearing some steel sheets than someone wearing rags. Plus there's the intimidation factor. A man in metal armor (like the one in Fallout) certainly demands more respect than someone wearing regular clothes.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I wonder, but perhaps the metal would shield them from melee attacks, or at the very least unarmed. I'd be a lot less willing to punch a guy wearing some steel sheets than someone wearing rags. Plus there's the intimidation factor. A man in metal armor (like the one in Fallout) certainly demands more respect than someone wearing regular clothes.

In reality, probably not. However, you can have a little bit of obstraction in a CRPG and get away with it. Most people might be willing to stretch that metal plating can stop a bullet - or at least deflect it. They might also be willing to accept that their character isn't going to have a heat stroke in that patchwork metal suit while roaming around the charred wastes of planet Earth.

However, chainmail is filmsy and hard to make. Say you made some chainmail out of some uber strong metal that the force of a bullet couldn't break. The way chainmail gives when you poke on it makes it really pathetic at stopping such a force, and even if it stopped the bullet from entering your body, you'd have all kinds of injuries from that bullet. If you got shot in the chest, even though the bullet didn't enter your body, most likely, those boney bits from your ribs would be dancing around all over your internal goodies. It would stop the penitration of the bullet, but it wouldn't absorb much of the impact either.

It's also not easy to make at all. You'd need lots of fine steel wire with a decent gauge. Then you have to be able to bend that in to loops and string them all together. Keep on stringing them and intertwining them until it looks like a shirt. That's a hell of a lot of work assuming you're provided with the steel wiring for it in the first place. If not, you have to make that wire yourself, which also wouldn't be fun.

If I were smelting up some steel, I think I'd go for the solid chestplate personally. If the bullet doesn't pierce that steel(YAY!), then the impact is distributed over the surface of the thing. It'll hurt, but you'll live.

 

[Greenskin13]

In reality, probably not.

Probably not what? That metal armor will protect some from a punch or that a guy in metal armor is more intimidating?