This Week In Veloren 173

This week, modular weapons were merged, and we learn about some changes that will come from them. We also hear about how NPCs can now pick up items.

- AngelOnFira, TWiV Editor

Contributor Work

Thanks to this week's contributors, @Sam, @zesterer, @Corvella, @imbris, @xMAC94x, @Inojelis, @XVar, @chaserozon, @Euryn, @HugoPeixoto, @Slipped, @samuellm, @s.grupinski, and @UncomfySilince!

Modular weapons by @Sam

The modular weapons branch started a little over 10 months ago. What started as a plan to simply implement the initial prototype created by @aweinstock quickly expanded to require a rewrite the majority of the item code, and almost the entirety of the crafting code.

Further, I had substantially underestimated the amount of models that would need to be created (a total of 330 weapon models, and a few dozen more for the new items were needed, a big thanks to @Gemu for creating all of them). All in all, something that I had initially expected to take 3-4 months quickly came to require much larger changes than I had been expecting.

Changes

3 new stats have been added to weapons: energy efficiency, buff strength, and range. Energy efficiency reduces the energy cost and energy drain on abilities. Buff strength increases the strength of debuffs applied through attacks, and of buffs applied through auras. Range increases the range of melee attacks, the speed of projectiles, shockwaves, and beam segments; and the radius of explosions.

Most weapons have been migrated to new modular weapons. Modular weapons have two parts: a primary and a secondary component (for swords, the blade, and hilt respectively). The stats of the weapon depend on what components are used, for example using a sabre blade when making a sword will increase the power of that sword. The primary component is also made of some material, a kind of metal for swords, axes, and hammers; and a kind of wood for bows, staves, and sceptres.

You can now craft most weapons that are in the game. This is done by combining two components of the same toolkind at a crafting bench. Secondary components can be directly crafted while primary components are created by combining a material with a modifier (animal-related crafting ingredients, e.g. predator claw, strong pincer, and a few others). Different components will affect stats differently in the weapon.

NPC pickups by @Inojelis

My first big MR (for me at least, I'm not experienced in Open Source lol) was finally merged 🥳

NPCs will now pick up items lying on the floor if there isn't a threat. Thanks to this, players can now heal their pets with potions or food. Also, this removes the problem of using villages or travellers to get loot from hostile entities.