Dorrin wrote:Might be neat but can cause all kinds of problems. Unless the weaponless people bleed out there they run around all over for days doing things like distracting nearby town guards. I'm not sure how far the town guards will go from their towns, but in one of my games i saw a Holy Servant with no weapon or armor running for something like 2 game days with a bunch of the Samurai guys chasing after him. Same thing later with several Jounin i had fully looted and turned in for a bounty. Do the players care if an AI town is left undefended for a few days while the guards chase unarmed bandits? Probably not until the player tries leading a swarm of angry bandits to that towns guards, or realizes it could be their own towns guards running off chasing a single unarmed bandit for a few days.
Some kind of script to kill various squad members that have no weapon after X time or at a set time each day could be a solution to the above, but it would only be fair if it is applied like all other things in Kenshi. What happens to the npcs happens to the players. Imagine having your squad killed off by the game at a set time period or after so long of being disarmed.
This is a problem that already existed in Kenshi. It happens when you have enemies incapable of fighting; either from being looted of their weapon, or from getting into a battle that ends with them crippling their arm(s) to the point that they cannot wield their weapon. When this occurs, you'll see them running for dear life from any opposition that attempts to initiate hostility. Dust Bandits and Starving Bandits are now even coded
(although it's buggy at the moment) to flee once their numbers begin getting torn to shreds. Starving Bandits themselves will typically stand around doing absolutely nothing in the aftermath of a lost battle
(if they survive), due to their leader currently being unconscious or dead. Due to their decreased numbers and injuries, some may even be prone to fleeing from any hostiles that attempt to engage them.
That being said, however, it's not a particularly major issue anymore; at least, not as it was a few years ago. For one, town guards no longer pursue bandits to the ends of the earth. They will pursue them a fair distance out of town, but they will not pursue them far into the desert wastes, and will be back before the day passes
(Although if you make them particularly angry by damaging them a lot, individual guards may decide to pursue you further. His/her fellow guards however, will not. And this isn't a likely feat for any common bandit to accomplish.) Victims from battle are also much more prone to death than they were in the past, especially bandits
(with their limited armor), the majority in the battle's aftermath tending to die from blood loss or trauma to critical areas of their body. The ones that manage to survive are prone to being snuffed out by wandering patrols due to their battle wounds
(Especially ones that involve a crippled leg). Failing that, the ones that do manage to be chased by their pursuers into the far off horizon are never seen again; Kenshi will typically despawn squads or individual members that have lost their leader once the player has sufficiently lost focus of them. The wandering patrols that give chase to these lucky survivors should not be of any concern, as their only purpose is to wander the desert wastes and engage enemy factions, or chase down survivors. In which case, they're performing as they should.
The only reason this was a problem in the first place is because of two issues:
A.) The combat system is not equipped to deal with chasing down enemies. You may have seen your squad or other AI squads attempting to chase down that pesky surviving bandit only to reach them, go into a "fighting stance", and try to "circle" around them for some reason. Within this time frame, said bandit is easily able to give their combat-initiated opposition the slip, and the chase resumes; repeating this pattern in a loop.
B.) Currently, EVERYONE
(NPC and PC alike) in Kenshi starts with the same athletics skill level
(That is, 0.) This prevents there being any difference in speed to allow the AI pursuers to easily catch their prey, or for the prey to outrun them and give them the slip. The player's squad is constantly running around everywhere, so they end up being able to outrun anything at some point. AI patrols and town guards, who are either only walking around or standing idle, are not so lucky. Now, when enemies engage each other and run towards each other, or if they end up fleeing/pursuing targets/from enemies, they are slowly training their athletics skill. However, it's not enough to make any noticeable differences, and often resulted in those seemingly infinite chases you'd see in the past (Especially when combined with problem A).
If those two issues are solved (and I'm sure they will be at some point during development), the chase issue will become almost non-existent.
In any case, it's unlikely that adding scavengers to the mix will cause any more problems than there already are
(And this issue is close to being irrelevant as it is, due to the AI upgrades in recent updates). Worst-case scenario will result in spawned faction squads (Holy Nation / United Cities / Imperial Lords) losing their weapons, and patrolling around without them. These will not distract town guards of any faction, and if they end up being chased around by bandits, that's their problem, isn't it?
If the player's squad ends up relieved of their hard-earned armor/weaponry, then it'll be a hard-earned lesson to approach things with a little more caution. They would simply need to buy more weapons or loot them from the dead in battlezones.
I suppose there is the theoretical problem that town guards could end up unconscious with a squad of scavengers arriving to loot them of their defenses, but this would only really be a possibility with player intervention anyway (either from the player attacking a town themselves or leading a giant squad of bandits to town.) In which case, looting those town guard of their weaponry/armor was probably their goal anyway, if it wasn't to outright kill them in the first place. Kenshi currently isn't developed enough to deal with a player hell-bent on eradicating a town and their guard anyway, so...
Bring on the scavengers.
