What is your opinion on ATweak, specifically on part PnP elementals?
I remember that battles in Underdark against elementals were very difficult and entertaining, I was forced to revive half of party members after each elemental portal. But on the other side elementals are so strong that they can breeze throught the most of enemies in SoA. Cernd once casted two fire elementals and they cleaned whole Planar Prison (with SCS installed).
Atweak elementals were probably a little too challenging/ irritating, there were also some unfortunate bugs so I haven't installed the component in a long time.
Are there any advantages in a negative speed factor, or is 0 the lower limit?
The wiki states that the monk fist has a speed factor of 2. Does that decrease as the fist gets +1, +2, etc...?
I agree that you can't go below 0 as a base. That means you can never offset the random initiative factor (which adjusts the base value within a range - making it worse by up to 3 or better by up to 2) to ensure you actually attack at speed 0. No matter how quick your weapon you can't therefore entirely rule out retaliation by someone else with a reasonably quick weapon. There's a detailed discussion of the impact of initiative on weapon speed here.
That is a good idea, though I normally pelt the whole room with so many webs that no one without free action is going to save against spell long enough to do anything.
However, I'm curious if that would cause problems with Winski? I know in my last run I attempted to shield the real dukes with Otilukes (a white/neutral spell) and Winski decided that was out of bounds. Invisibility is a blue/defensive spell, though, so perhaps it's considered okay.
I agree that you can't go below 0 as a base. That means you can never offset the random initiative factor (which adjusts the base value within a range - making it worse by up to 3 or better by up to 2) to ensure you actually attack at speed 0. No matter how quick your weapon you can't therefore entirely rule out retaliation by someone else with a reasonably quick weapon. There's a detailed discussion of the impact of initiative on weapon speed here.
Thanks. I'd seen the term initiative before but didn't know how the mechanic worked. I thought I was misplaying, but that explains why some enemies were able to retaliate. Is my understanding correct that speed factor only affects the timing of the first attack in the round?
On another note, a monk gets 2 fist attacks at level 6, so I would attack with Icingdeath (1 APR, 3/2 APR at level 7) then immediately switch to fists (2 APR), which would allow me to squeeze an extra attack in over just using Icingdeath. I haven't tested it yet, but this should allow an initial attack with The Chesley Crusher, then immediately switch to another weapon to get a second attack in that round.
I agree that you can't go below 0 as a base. That means you can never offset the random initiative factor (which adjusts the base value within a range - making it worse by up to 3 or better by up to 2) to ensure you actually attack at speed 0. No matter how quick your weapon you can't therefore entirely rule out retaliation by someone else with a reasonably quick weapon. There's a detailed discussion of the impact of initiative on weapon speed here.
Thanks. I'd seen the term initiative before but didn't know how the mechanic worked. I thought I was misplaying, but that explains why some enemies were able to retaliate. Is my understanding correct that speed factor only affects the timing of the first attack in the round?
On another note, a monk gets 2 fist attacks at level 6, so I would attack with Icingdeath (1 APR, 3/2 APR at level 7) then immediately switch to fists (2 APR), which would allow me to squeeze an extra attack in over just using Icingdeath. I haven't tested it yet, but this should allow an initial attack with The Chesley Crusher, then immediately switch to another weapon to get a second attack in that round.
Correct that speed factor only directly affects the timing of the first attack in a round. However, indirectly that and APR also affect other attacks - as all attacks must take place within the round. For instance, there are 10 segments in the round and only a single attack can take place each segment - thus, if you activate GWW, you will attack each segment, irrespective of weapon speed or initiative.
Against opponents with slow weapons, like 2-handed swords or halberds, it's easy to get caught out by repeated attacks. If an opponent has APR 2 and is using a 2-handed sword, you might expect there will be a significant gap between attacks, but that will tend not to be the case. If the combination of initiative and weapon speed were that a first attack is due in segment 10 for instance, that attack will instead be forced to segment 9, with the second attack coming immediately afterwards in segment 10.
It is certainly possible to get 'bonus' attacks by switching weapons within a round, but it's not always easy to do in practice and you won't reliably get benefits due to the impact of the random initiative factor. You can do this whenever you switch to a weapon with higher APR. You're therefore correct that switching from Icingdeath to fist attacks gives you a chance for higher damage, but depending on just what initiative rolls were you may find that you don't actually get the expected bonus attacks in the round. Note that switching to darts is often good for BG1 characters as their 3 APR means they're more likely to squeeze in a bonus attack before the end of the round. If you want to do this I would suggest turning on autopause: end of round, so you know when to switch weapons and don't miss out on attacks in the following round. Doing that though would mean accepting some slow down in combats even in solo and would be a considerable hassle with a party (every character operates within their own personal combat round, so you would have a lot of pausing and unpausing going on).
This behavior can be exploited in some cases. For instance, you may know that an opponent has only 1 attack per round, but has a faster weapon than you. In that case standard tactics of trying to get an attack in and then retreat before the opponent can retaliate won't work well. However, there is an alternative, i.e. come very briefly into melee range and then retreat before your opponent can strike. That starts their combat round, but not yours (as you were not trying to attack). If you come back into range after, say, half the opponent's round has completed they have missed their opportunity to attack in the round - leaving you several seconds to get a free attack in yourself. You then retreat and keep out of range until the round counter has expired and then do the same thing again. Note though that this tactic is of far less use when opponents have higher APR as the combination of that with the random initiative factor means it's no longer possible to accurately predict a period when the opponent will not be able to strike at you.
Against opponents with slow weapons, like 2-handed swords or halberds, it's easy to get caught out by repeated attacks. If an opponent has APR 2 and is using a 2-handed sword, you might expect there will be a significant gap between attacks, but that will tend not to be the case. If the combination of initiative and weapon speed were that a first attack is due in segment 10 for instance, that attack will instead be forced to segment 9, with the second attack coming immediately afterwards in segment 10.
the round timer (which I agree is about 6 seconds if you're playing at 30 fps) for weapons commences at the point you order an attack while in range with the weapon being used
So kiting with a slow weapon is still possible, albeit more difficult than a fast one. The options appear to be that you can
1) Like you describe, enter their melee range to begin their round, back out to let their attack pass, then move back in to attack.
2) Begin your round early. The most obvious is to use a range 2 weapon to begin your round before they can enter their range, step back briefly, then land your attack. I haven't had a chance to test it yet, but it should be possible to use a ranged weapon to start the round, switch weapons before firing, and land an attack as they enter melee range. I'm not 100% sure on this, as I'm not sure how speed/initiative apply on weapon switch.
The other thing it makes me think is that if you had more than 1 APR and a slow weapon, you could begin your round early, back out, and land multiple attacks at the end of your round. This could make it worthwhile to carry a plain Two-handed Sword, as it has the slowest speed factor of 10 (Edit: 8-10 with initiative). This would also depend on how speed/initiative apply on weapon switch like #2 above.
From the image: "Second attack expected to occur halfway between first and end of round, but rolls initiative 1."
Is this how multiple APR is scheduled? Speed/initiative determines the first attack segment, then the remainder is divided between that segment and the end of round segment? If so, would attacking with a fast weapon and immediately switching after the hit to a slower weapon cause the slower weapon to attack faster than it would have by itself?
I realize that a lot of this is less important as APR increases, but I've yet to successfully complete SoD and spend a lot of time in BG:EE.
Is this how multiple APR is scheduled? Speed/initiative determines the first attack segment, then the remainder is divided between that segment and the end of round segment? If so, would attacking with a fast weapon and immediately switching after the hit to a slower weapon cause the slower weapon to attack faster than it would have by itself?
You're pushing at the boundaries of my knowledge I'm afraid. I've played a lot and I imagine my game style pays more attention to the intricacies of weapon combat than most people - but I'm still limited to practical experience without any knowledge of the game engine in theory. The random initiative factor makes it difficult to test more complicated situations, but my impression would be that you probably wouldn't gain an advantage in the above situation as the game would recognize the switch of weapons and adjust for that. Give it a go though and see how you get on (remember you would need an APR of at least 2 to give it any chance of working) .
Going to test this, but would like to set up a 20s round to have a half segment per second. Would someone mind checking my math? If 30fps is a 6s round, 60fps is a 3s round, and 15fps is a 12s round, then 9fps should be a 20s round.
Does anybody know how casting a level-dependent cleric spell like Holy Power (which gives a base THAC0 of a Fighter of the same level) would work for a dual-classed Cleric -> Mage?
E.g., for a Cleric (9) -> Mage (15), should the new base THAC0 be:
@Stromael: Since Holy Power is a cleric spell, it will be cast at the cleric's level. A cleric who duals at level 9 will get 12 base THAC0 from Holy Power, regardless of how many fighter, mage, or ranger levels it might have after dual-classing. Naturally, this will not raise the THAC0 a dual-classed character who already has base THAC0 below 12. A Cleric(9)->Fighter(13) will have 8 base THAC0 both before and after casting Holy Power at level 9.
However, priests of Tempus cast Holy Power as an innate spell; not a cleric spell. Thus, it is cast at the character's average level. A Cleric of Tempus(9)->Mage(15) will cast Holy Power at level 12 and set his or her base THAC0 to 9 after casting it.
Tenser's Transformation works the same way: it is cast at the character's mage level rather than its average level, since it's a mage spell rather than an innate spell.
Wait, I don't understand anymore. Suppose I have 4 apr and wield a weapon with speed 10, given the round is 10 units, then when do all attacks take place?
Wait, I don't understand anymore. Suppose I have 4 apr and wield a weapon with speed 10, given the round is 10 units, then when do all attacks take place?
The first attack should be forced to segment 7, then the rest occur on 8, 9, and 10.
I wanted to establish round length before investigating further, and here are some initial findings. Auto-Pause on End of Round has been enabled. The first count is from pause, initiate attack, unpause and start timer, to auto-pause and stop timer. The remaining counts are from auto-pause, unpause and start timer, to auto-pause and stop timer.
BG:EE doesn't allow a frame rate below 10.
30 FPS, which should give a 6 second round:
7.01, 6.97, 6.92, 7.05, 7.02, 6.95
10 FPS, which should give an 18 second round
20.48, 20.58, 20.45, 20.41, 20.53, 20.38
15 FPS, which should give a 12 second round
13.78, 13.61, 13.61, 13.61, 13.55, 13.57
18 FPS, which should give a 10 second round:
11.33, 11.48, 11.40, 11.45, 11.35, 11.47
45 FPS, which should give a 4 second round:
4.85, 4.71, 4.78, 4.83, 4.71, 4.73
60 FPS, which should give a 3 second round:
3.56, 3.55, 3.56, 3.60, 3.58, 3.52
I was also thinking about speed factor. Speed factor of 1 to 10 could be 10 segments, but if a speed factor of 0 is allowed, there could be 11 segments in a round. This would partly depend on if the engine uses zero-based numbering and if the [0:10] range is inclusive or exclusive.
Wait, I don't understand anymore. Suppose I have 4 apr and wield a weapon with speed 10, given the round is 10 units, then when do all attacks take place?
The first attack should be forced to segment 7, then the rest occur on 8, 9, and 10.
I never knew that. So it pays off to use end of round pause after all, before you redirect a character who is still attacking in his or her round.
This gives us the following average attack times:
1.59
3.48
5.30
7.07
8.85
10.79
12.55
14.42
16.09
17.95
19.23
And if we divide by 3 to get the timing for 30 FPS:
0.53
1.16
1.77
2.36
2.95
3.60
4.18
4.81
5.36
5.98
6.41
It turns out that there are 11 distinct attack points in a round. Also, by looking at the speed 0 and speed 10 weapons, it's actually -3 to +2, so initiative can make the speed factor better by 3 or worse by 2.
I haven't tested multiple APR yet, but I did do some initial testing with swapping weapons of different speeds. If you initiate combat in range with a Quarterstaff so that the console reads "Charname: Attacks Target" then switch to a Two-handed Sword and attack again, the Two-handed sword will attack in the segments of the Quarterstaff, and vice-versa.
The only issue comes if the attack would begin in the first segment (zeroth segment?), the switch will cause a cosmetic attack but no hit roll will occur in the console. This means my earlier idea of using a fast ranged weapon to initiate combat and then switching to a slow one to hit late in the round doesn't work. There are still some interesting prospects for this though, like using a Throwing Axe (sf 4) to initiate combat from slightly out of range, then switch to another weapon and getting a hit as they enter range.
@jessejmc 11 attack slots lines up with what's shown in the "RBF" files. I don't know how they work, but my understanding is they are related to when in the round the attack animation plays.
If your timing from the attack roll display, you will be slightly behind the actual value, as the attack cycle begins when the animation starts, while the attack roll is usually delayed until the half-way mark of the animation (when the weapon would visually make contact).
The only issue comes if the attack would begin in the first segment (zeroth segment?), the switch will cause a cosmetic attack but no hit roll will occur in the console.
If you have cosmetic attacks disabled, it's likely not a cosmetic attack, but something else. The difference being it will satisfy the "Attacked()" trigger, as well as end invisibility/sanctuary, while a true cosmetic attack would not.
If your timing from the attack roll display, you will be slightly behind the actual value, as the attack cycle begins when the animation starts, while the attack roll is usually delayed until the half-way mark of the animation (when the weapon would visually make contact).
The animation does begin before the attack roll displays in the console, but after a few quick tests, if you move while the animation is playing but before the roll displays, it cancels the attack.
If you have cosmetic attacks disabled, it's likely not a cosmetic attack, but something else. The difference being it will satisfy the "Attacked()" trigger, as well as end invisibility/sanctuary, while a true cosmetic attack would not.
I do have cosmetic attacks disabled, so it must be something else. I had just assumed that cosmetic attacks sometimes played incorrectly every now and then and wasn't aware that there was a difference. Perhaps the attack animations get out of sync, the one that should be playing and the new one after the weapon switch, as there was no attack roll before the end of round auto-pause.
Good stuff @jessejmc. Putting the range of your results onto a graph may make it easier to see when you have a decisive weapon speed advantage. For instance in your example the dagger +2 will always attack before the flail and the quarterstaff always attack before the 2-handed sword.
It would be interesting to know if there is an equal probability for each initiative value. Your sample size is too low to give strong indications, but it suggests there may not be an equal probability - or at least that that is so when the initiative roll would take the results outside the standard round period if the range were not constrained.
No such luck when giving Yoshimo higher APR by tweaking the standard shortbow APR. I can edit the right field in Near Infinity as a decimal to make it set APR to 11 or higher,* but no matter how high it is, it just sets base APR to 4.5 (displayed as 9/2).
If I make it increment APR instead of set APR, it just drops APR to 1 (or maybe 0.5 or 1.5; I don't remember). The funny thing is, if you set APR to 4.5 by using a decimal of 11 or higher, haste has weird effects on it: while Improved Haste will properly double APR from 4.5 to 9, regular haste will actually decrease APR: the Record screen will say 5 APR, but your actual APR goes from 4.5 to 2.5!
If I make it set percent of APR and, say, crank it up to 1000% of one's regular APR, the Record screen will display 5. Haste it and you get a Record screen saying 6 APR, with an actual APR of 3.
I don't know where exactly the overflow is going here, but opcode 1, the APR opcode, can't break the 10 APR limit. Higher values appear to just cut your APR in half.
*In that field, values 0 through 5 just mean 0 to 5 APR, but values 6 to 10 are for fractional APR: 0.5, 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, and 4.5.
@lroumen: It sets your APR to 5 via opcode 1, then doubles it using an alternate haste opcode (which exists to bypass free action) which is set to improved haste. Energy Blades does the same thing, but with 4.5 APR instead of 5 for a total of 9 APR.
I'm loving how the IE is so rich and complex that we can actually perform experiments on it, and discover new things all the time! This 11 distinct attack points per round thing is really surprising. I wonder if it's due to some coding mistake where it was forgotten that in computer terms counting starts at 0 instead of 1?
Otherwise the way it's coded seems to ignore purposefully the D&D stipulation of 10 attack segments per round.
I'm loving how the IE is so rich and complex that we can actually perform experiments on it, and discover new things all the time! This 11 distinct attack points per round thing is really surprising. I wonder if it's due to some coding mistake where it was forgotten that in computer terms counting starts at 0 instead of 1?
Otherwise the way it's coded seems to ignore purposefully the D&D stipulation of 10 attack segments per round.
The problem relates to trying to translate rules that pay little attention to time to a real time game:
- in AD&D there was no sub-division of rounds into segments. The intention to have 10 segments to a round may have been a reflection of the rule of 10 rounds in a turn in P&P, or perhaps just seemed about right as an upper limit on attacks per round (APR are generally rather lower in P&P than in BG).
- weapon speeds were only an optional rule in P&P and speeds could go above 10 for some weapons. That wasn't a problem in P&P as the speed just helped determine initiative, but speeds of greater than 10 probably seemed odd in BG once the restriction to 10 segments in a round was decided - so no weapons were included with greater speeds.
- speed 0 initiative was implemented with an attack in the segment 0-1, but while that may have seemed an obvious choice it's a bit inconsistent with having only 10 segments and weapons with weapon speed of 10 (which, all other things being equal, would be expected to attack in the segment 10-11). My guess would be that rather than delete some weapons, change their speeds from the ones given in P&P, or treat initiative differently for speed 10 weapons, Bioware decided to introduce an 11th segment.
Comments
I know what should happen, but it isn't. The Druid as supposed to tell me to give a message to Martin, but doesn't.
Martin won't talk to me without that script firing.
Does anyone know the variable responsible for this and hopefully what the variable should be.
EDIT
I think that the variables are in the image below. If anybody can elucidate, I would be grateful.
It is clear that the relevant variable is: BHFELWINSPOKEOFMARTIN. Any ideas what the variable should be, or other info that could be of use?
I FOUND THE ANSWER.
I HAD TO SET THIS GLOBAL TO GET ALMAX TO SPEAK TO ME AGAIN.
C:SetGlobal("BHAlmaxSpeaks","GLOBAL",4)
I remember that battles in Underdark against elementals were very difficult and entertaining, I was forced to revive half of party members after each elemental portal. But on the other side elementals are so strong that they can breeze throught the most of enemies in SoA. Cernd once casted two fire elementals and they cleaned whole Planar Prison (with SCS installed).
The wiki states that the monk fist has a speed factor of 2. Does that decrease as the fist gets +1, +2, etc...?
I agree that you can't go below 0 as a base. That means you can never offset the random initiative factor (which adjusts the base value within a range - making it worse by up to 3 or better by up to 2) to ensure you actually attack at speed 0. No matter how quick your weapon you can't therefore entirely rule out retaliation by someone else with a reasonably quick weapon. There's a detailed discussion of the impact of initiative on weapon speed here.
However, I'm curious if that would cause problems with Winski? I know in my last run I attempted to shield the real dukes with Otilukes (a white/neutral spell) and Winski decided that was out of bounds. Invisibility is a blue/defensive spell, though, so perhaps it's considered okay.
Thanks. I'd seen the term initiative before but didn't know how the mechanic worked. I thought I was misplaying, but that explains why some enemies were able to retaliate. Is my understanding correct that speed factor only affects the timing of the first attack in the round?
On another note, a monk gets 2 fist attacks at level 6, so I would attack with Icingdeath (1 APR, 3/2 APR at level 7) then immediately switch to fists (2 APR), which would allow me to squeeze an extra attack in over just using Icingdeath. I haven't tested it yet, but this should allow an initial attack with The Chesley Crusher, then immediately switch to another weapon to get a second attack in that round.
Correct that speed factor only directly affects the timing of the first attack in a round. However, indirectly that and APR also affect other attacks - as all attacks must take place within the round. For instance, there are 10 segments in the round and only a single attack can take place each segment - thus, if you activate GWW, you will attack each segment, irrespective of weapon speed or initiative.
Against opponents with slow weapons, like 2-handed swords or halberds, it's easy to get caught out by repeated attacks. If an opponent has APR 2 and is using a 2-handed sword, you might expect there will be a significant gap between attacks, but that will tend not to be the case. If the combination of initiative and weapon speed were that a first attack is due in segment 10 for instance, that attack will instead be forced to segment 9, with the second attack coming immediately afterwards in segment 10.
It is certainly possible to get 'bonus' attacks by switching weapons within a round, but it's not always easy to do in practice and you won't reliably get benefits due to the impact of the random initiative factor. You can do this whenever you switch to a weapon with higher APR. You're therefore correct that switching from Icingdeath to fist attacks gives you a chance for higher damage, but depending on just what initiative rolls were you may find that you don't actually get the expected bonus attacks in the round. Note that switching to darts is often good for BG1 characters as their 3 APR means they're more likely to squeeze in a bonus attack before the end of the round. If you want to do this I would suggest turning on autopause: end of round, so you know when to switch weapons and don't miss out on attacks in the following round. Doing that though would mean accepting some slow down in combats even in solo and would be a considerable hassle with a party (every character operates within their own personal combat round, so you would have a lot of pausing and unpausing going on).
So kiting with a slow weapon is still possible, albeit more difficult than a fast one. The options appear to be that you can
1) Like you describe, enter their melee range to begin their round, back out to let their attack pass, then move back in to attack.
2) Begin your round early. The most obvious is to use a range 2 weapon to begin your round before they can enter their range, step back briefly, then land your attack. I haven't had a chance to test it yet, but it should be possible to use a ranged weapon to start the round, switch weapons before firing, and land an attack as they enter melee range. I'm not 100% sure on this, as I'm not sure how speed/initiative apply on weapon switch.
The other thing it makes me think is that if you had more than 1 APR and a slow weapon, you could begin your round early, back out, and land multiple attacks at the end of your round. This could make it worthwhile to carry a plain Two-handed Sword, as it has the slowest speed factor of 10 (Edit: 8-10 with initiative). This would also depend on how speed/initiative apply on weapon switch like #2 above.
From the image: "Second attack expected to occur halfway between first and end of round, but rolls initiative 1."
Is this how multiple APR is scheduled? Speed/initiative determines the first attack segment, then the remainder is divided between that segment and the end of round segment? If so, would attacking with a fast weapon and immediately switching after the hit to a slower weapon cause the slower weapon to attack faster than it would have by itself?
I realize that a lot of this is less important as APR increases, but I've yet to successfully complete SoD and spend a lot of time in BG:EE.
You're pushing at the boundaries of my knowledge I'm afraid. I've played a lot and I imagine my game style pays more attention to the intricacies of weapon combat than most people - but I'm still limited to practical experience without any knowledge of the game engine in theory. The random initiative factor makes it difficult to test more complicated situations, but my impression would be that you probably wouldn't gain an advantage in the above situation as the game would recognize the switch of weapons and adjust for that. Give it a go though and see how you get on (remember you would need an APR of at least 2 to give it any chance of working)
E.g., for a Cleric (9) -> Mage (15), should the new base THAC0 be:
12? (for the 9 Cleric levels)
9? (for the average level of the character)
or even 6? (for the 15 Mage levels)
or something else entirely?
However, priests of Tempus cast Holy Power as an innate spell; not a cleric spell. Thus, it is cast at the character's average level. A Cleric of Tempus(9)->Mage(15) will cast Holy Power at level 12 and set his or her base THAC0 to 9 after casting it.
Tenser's Transformation works the same way: it is cast at the character's mage level rather than its average level, since it's a mage spell rather than an innate spell.
The first attack should be forced to segment 7, then the rest occur on 8, 9, and 10.
BG:EE doesn't allow a frame rate below 10.
30 FPS, which should give a 6 second round:
7.01, 6.97, 6.92, 7.05, 7.02, 6.95
10 FPS, which should give an 18 second round
20.48, 20.58, 20.45, 20.41, 20.53, 20.38
15 FPS, which should give a 12 second round
13.78, 13.61, 13.61, 13.61, 13.55, 13.57
18 FPS, which should give a 10 second round:
11.33, 11.48, 11.40, 11.45, 11.35, 11.47
45 FPS, which should give a 4 second round:
4.85, 4.71, 4.78, 4.83, 4.71, 4.73
60 FPS, which should give a 3 second round:
3.56, 3.55, 3.56, 3.60, 3.58, 3.52
I was also thinking about speed factor. Speed factor of 1 to 10 could be 10 segments, but if a speed factor of 0 is allowed, there could be 11 segments in a round. This would partly depend on if the engine uses zero-based numbering and if the [0:10] range is inclusive or exclusive.
1 APR Dagger +2, speed factor of 0
1.59, 1.50, 1.56, 1.62, 1.58, 1.55, 1.68, 1.63, 1.65, 1.48, 1.68
3.56, 3.43, 3.36, 3.42
5.20, 5.38, 5.05, 5.24
1 APR Quarterstaff, speed factor 4
3.51, 3.49, 3.56
5.40, 5.45, 5.37
7.05, 7.14, 7.01
8.95, 8.91, 8.85, 8.83, 8.97
10.70, 10.73
12.50, 12.50, 12.55
1 APR Flail, speed factor of 7
8.61, 8.81
10.83, 10.84, 10.85
12.66
14.42, 14.33
18.02, 17.95
1 APR Two-handed Sword, speed factor of 10
14.49, 14.48, 14.39
16.09
18.03, 17.91, 17.92, 17.87
19.53, 19.18, 19.29, 19.03, 19.13
This gives us the following average attack times:
1.59
3.48
5.30
7.07
8.85
10.79
12.55
14.42
16.09
17.95
19.23
And if we divide by 3 to get the timing for 30 FPS:
0.53
1.16
1.77
2.36
2.95
3.60
4.18
4.81
5.36
5.98
6.41
It turns out that there are 11 distinct attack points in a round. Also, by looking at the speed 0 and speed 10 weapons, it's actually -3 to +2, so initiative can make the speed factor better by 3 or worse by 2.
I haven't tested multiple APR yet, but I did do some initial testing with swapping weapons of different speeds. If you initiate combat in range with a Quarterstaff so that the console reads "Charname: Attacks Target" then switch to a Two-handed Sword and attack again, the Two-handed sword will attack in the segments of the Quarterstaff, and vice-versa.
The only issue comes if the attack would begin in the first segment (zeroth segment?), the switch will cause a cosmetic attack but no hit roll will occur in the console. This means my earlier idea of using a fast ranged weapon to initiate combat and then switching to a slow one to hit late in the round doesn't work. There are still some interesting prospects for this though, like using a Throwing Axe (sf 4) to initiate combat from slightly out of range, then switch to another weapon and getting a hit as they enter range.
If your timing from the attack roll display, you will be slightly behind the actual value, as the attack cycle begins when the animation starts, while the attack roll is usually delayed until the half-way mark of the animation (when the weapon would visually make contact). If you have cosmetic attacks disabled, it's likely not a cosmetic attack, but something else. The difference being it will satisfy the "Attacked()" trigger, as well as end invisibility/sanctuary, while a true cosmetic attack would not.
The animation does begin before the attack roll displays in the console, but after a few quick tests, if you move while the animation is playing but before the roll displays, it cancels the attack.
I do have cosmetic attacks disabled, so it must be something else. I had just assumed that cosmetic attacks sometimes played incorrectly every now and then and wasn't aware that there was a difference. Perhaps the attack animations get out of sync, the one that should be playing and the new one after the weapon switch, as there was no attack roll before the end of round auto-pause.
It would be interesting to know if there is an equal probability for each initiative value. Your sample size is too low to give strong indications, but it suggests there may not be an equal probability - or at least that that is so when the initiative roll would take the results outside the standard round period if the range were not constrained.
If I make it increment APR instead of set APR, it just drops APR to 1 (or maybe 0.5 or 1.5; I don't remember). The funny thing is, if you set APR to 4.5 by using a decimal of 11 or higher, haste has weird effects on it: while Improved Haste will properly double APR from 4.5 to 9, regular haste will actually decrease APR: the Record screen will say 5 APR, but your actual APR goes from 4.5 to 2.5!
If I make it set percent of APR and, say, crank it up to 1000% of one's regular APR, the Record screen will display 5. Haste it and you get a Record screen saying 6 APR, with an actual APR of 3.
I don't know where exactly the overflow is going here, but opcode 1, the APR opcode, can't break the 10 APR limit. Higher values appear to just cut your APR in half.
*In that field, values 0 through 5 just mean 0 to 5 APR, but values 6 to 10 are for fractional APR: 0.5, 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, and 4.5.
Otherwise the way it's coded seems to ignore purposefully the D&D stipulation of 10 attack segments per round.
The problem relates to trying to translate rules that pay little attention to time to a real time game:
- in AD&D there was no sub-division of rounds into segments. The intention to have 10 segments to a round may have been a reflection of the rule of 10 rounds in a turn in P&P, or perhaps just seemed about right as an upper limit on attacks per round (APR are generally rather lower in P&P than in BG).
- weapon speeds were only an optional rule in P&P and speeds could go above 10 for some weapons. That wasn't a problem in P&P as the speed just helped determine initiative, but speeds of greater than 10 probably seemed odd in BG once the restriction to 10 segments in a round was decided - so no weapons were included with greater speeds.
- speed 0 initiative was implemented with an attack in the segment 0-1, but while that may have seemed an obvious choice it's a bit inconsistent with having only 10 segments and weapons with weapon speed of 10 (which, all other things being equal, would be expected to attack in the segment 10-11). My guess would be that rather than delete some weapons, change their speeds from the ones given in P&P, or treat initiative differently for speed 10 weapons, Bioware decided to introduce an 11th segment.