heroes

[Swan]

1)There is a database like edi's one but with heroes?
2)There is a 4 handed weapon? if not, there is a way to create it?

[Ink]

Two-hands on a weapon is beneficial due to the increased control surface and distance between the control points (the arms); much like it is harder to do a push-up with one arm than with two (even if, suppose, the single arm were made to be as strong as two).

Given this, a four-armed being couldn't really wield a two-handed weapon with two arms from the same side of its body and receive any benefit. Similarly, a 'four-handed' weapon wouldn't really be feasible, or much use, unless the being had such a shape that the four arms were set upon its body in such a way that each provided a significantly different angle from the other arms.

A humanoid would probably never achieve the necessary body shape. An insectoid might because an exoskeleton provides the sorts of hardpoints necessary to place appendages along the body were having many of them provides an actual benefit. However, an exoskeleton on a thing larger than an insect is itself a problem.

Despite what your suitors may have told you, size does matter.

[Swan]

i still think about bigger as a synonym for better but ok

[Quitti]

If you want to check out heroes, there is a map called heroview or something similar, that has all the heroes listed. I Don't know how outdated it is though...

[Stavis_L]

You might want to have a look at this thread I started on multi-heroes (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=40996). Not definitive, but it's got some additional information.

I don't think there's any comprehensive list of vanilla game heroes specifically, but the units themselves are listed in Edi's DB and in lch's wiki. You can make some assumptions by perusing the AllUnits tab; if the unit name is Hero, assume it is. Some are documented in the Notes of that tab. Some you can infer by the fact that they have a unique name.

If you're using CBM, many more heroes are added by the "Worthy Heroes" portion of that, so you can see them documented in the mod text.

If you're up to the task of doing the documentation, it would be a nice resource :-)

[Swan]

eh, i had the idea about a guide for all the heroes, but if i have to manually search any single of them it's not worth it

[chrispedersen]

Two-hands on a weapon is beneficial due to the increased control surface and distance between the control points (the arms); much like it is harder to do a push-up with one arm than with two (even if, suppose, the single arm were made to be as strong as two).

Given this, a four-armed being couldn't really wield a two-handed weapon with two arms from the same side of its body and receive any benefit. Similarly, a 'four-handed' weapon wouldn't really be feasible, or much use, unless the being had such a shape that the four arms were set upon its body in such a way that each provided a significantly different angle from the other arms.

A humanoid would probably never achieve the necessary body shape. An insectoid might because an exoskeleton provides the sorts of hardpoints necessary to place appendages along the body were having many of them provides an actual benefit. However, an exoskeleton on a thing larger than an insect is itself a problem.

Despite what your suitors may have told you, size does matter.


Being able to fire two crossbows would be of significant advantage. Or four.

I also don't agree with the rest of the analysis. Arms evolved to be useful - the same would likely be true for two armed creatures as much as 4.

As someone that once upon a time could do 300 one armed pushups -it wasn't significantly 'harder' than doing two handed pushups. Once you can do that many it is casual effort to do them either one handed or two.

[Ink]

two crossbows (or four) wouldn't be an advantage because it takes one whole body to reload and cock them. If you had two of them you'd spend twice as long getting them both ready to fire again (probably longer, since you'd have to prepare one, set it aside, prepare the other, pick them both up, aim them...). Also, since cocking a crossbow is done by the whole body, having four arms wouldn't help with that at all.

Finally, since there is no known vertebrate with more than four limbs, it is safe to assume that four arms would not, in fact, evolve to be useful.

[rdonj]

Hmm, wasn't there a 4 armed human baby born recently? I don't know if all the arms were fully functional or not, but since then they've had surgery and should only have 2 arms now. Guess we'll never know how useful it would have been.

I agree that it would be hard to use more than one crossbow at a time though, at least without being significantly stronger than a human.

[Calchet]

Finally, since there is no known vertebrate with more than four limbs, it is safe to assume that four arms would not, in fact, evolve to be useful.

Just because something hasn't happened to evolve naturally, that doesn't mean it couldn't be useful - evolution, as far as I know, doesn't work with 'what would be useful to aim for' so much as 'what happens to come around and turns out useful', or we might see flying sharks with friggin' lazer beams for eyes. Those would be really useful.

And also really awesome. But I digress.

[Squirrelloid]

well, acquiring 4 *functional* arms would be really hard for a vertebrate, since hox gene screw-ups are generally fatal.

The indian example was a co-joined twin, and thus the extra limbs were almost certainly non-functional.

Now, in 50 years we might be able to build (genetically) something with 4 functional arms. Whether its actually useful or not probably depends on what else we can do.

[Sombre]

What you're forgetting is that a wizard did it.

[kianduatha]

What you're forgetting is that a wizard did it.

So you're saying...Intelligent Design?

[Swan]

we all like freedom of speech, but this kind of offtopic should go to the official dominions 3 spam thread, so i can post the austin powers freaking shark's video.

[theenemy]

Two-hands on a weapon is beneficial due to the increased control surface and distance between the control points (the arms); much like it is harder to do a push-up with one arm than with two (even if, suppose, the single arm were made to be as strong as two).

Given this, a four-armed being couldn't really wield a two-handed weapon with two arms from the same side of its body and receive any benefit. Similarly, a 'four-handed' weapon wouldn't really be feasible, or much use, unless the being had such a shape that the four arms were set upon its body in such a way that each provided a significantly different angle from the other arms.

A humanoid would probably never achieve the necessary body shape. An insectoid might because an exoskeleton provides the sorts of hardpoints necessary to place appendages along the body were having many of them provides an actual benefit. However, an exoskeleton on a thing larger than an insect is itself a problem.

Despite what your suitors may have told you, size does matter.

why are you over-analyzing a game? it's a fantasy world, anything is possible

[Peter Ebbesen]

why are you over-analyzing a game? it's a fantasy world, anything is possible
Probably because trying to understand how something can conceivably work, or not as the case might be, is as interesting and fun to some people as inventing something our of whole cloth without considering its practical implications is to other people?

Some people when confronted with the idea of a millipede with shoes think it is the best thing since sliced soup and dualwielding shotgun sized gunblades, other people consider the need for a shoemaker, possibly specialized shoe shops with extra patient personnel, and confront the issue of the socio-economic impact on shoeshiners. Wouldn't the world be boring if we all just waved away all critical thinking with the "a wizard did it!" rationale?

[Sombre]

Since the OP expressed displeasure at this off topic discussion 2 posts ago, maybe leave it at that or make a new thread?

[Swan]

i didn't expressed displeasure, i invite everybody to the official dominion 3 spam thread, so i could post the austin power freaking sharks' video