Ultima Online

This is how Ultima Online handles combat calculations: http://uo.stratics.com/content/arms-armor/combat.php

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Length of Attacks:

Theory:

We want attack speed to depend on 1) weapon speed and 2) dexterity so that positive weapon speeds and dexterities contribute positively to the speed of attack (or negatively to the length of the attack)

(i use the words positively and negatively not mathematically, but from player's perspective)

=1) weapon speed

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if there's not a system for weapon speed, you could simply make it inversely proportional to weight so that:

ws = c/w , where c is some constant (generally 1)

so bigger weighted weapons would be slower.

This might also need to be augmented by strength, so that heavier weapons are faster in the hands of stronger peoples.

perhaps:

ws = c*s/w where s is strength and w is weight of weapon, c a constant

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2) dexterity

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assuming a player with better dexterity will have a quicker swing, dexterities contribution could simply be the players dexterity multiplied by an arbitrary constant:

b*d (b constant)

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Swinging Speed

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swinging speed, denoted SS can then be equated to 1) and 2) by

SS = c*s/w + b*d

where c and b are constants that can be adjusted to balanced between strength-based characters and dexterity-based characters

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Length of Attack

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L = 1/SS

so that the Length of time is infinite when chracters have 0 swinging speed.

-Zao