Hello. Have you ever wondered why you’d get a message along the lines of “you attempt to touch [somebody]” ? Have you ever wondered how to make the most out of melee combat ? Or perhaps you already know blocking superficially, but want to deepen that knowledge ? Well, you come to the right place, as I’m here to teach you about the wonders of Zesko-blocking (r).
Part 1 : Presentation and code dive of the mechanic
Blocking is something that happens in melee combat. It prevents shoving, grabbing, punching, and and melee attack, altough true damage from armed melee gets either converted to stamina damage, or damage the shield you’re blocking with, when you’re attacker is standing on a turf protected by your block. But how is that handled ?
A good portion of melee items in this game have two variables attached to them : block level (which is dictated by two other variables) and blocking power. Let’s explain these twos :
Block level
This dictates what turfs you block from. Let’s use the handy dandy graph in the PR that introduced blocking to illustrate :
You can see how different block levels can protect you from a wider range of turfs, but what defines the block level ?
Well, your weapon may have an innate block level, determined by
block_level, usually found in dedicated large melee (shields, swords…), and/or, more usually, a block_upgrade_walk variable that adds on to your innate block level (if there is no block_level to be found in a weapon’s variable declaration, that means the innate level is 0). So, for example, a riot shield as an innate level of 1, and a walking level of 2, so you can run willy nilly in maintenance, or stand behind a door way, but to form a shield wall in a main hallway or to deny a doorway by standing on it, you need to be walking. For another examples, items such as stunbatons, toolboxes or fucking iron rods have no innate block, but can block whoever directly in front of you whenever you’re walking.
Block power and shield integrity
This part will be written once I’m certain I understand all the math behind this, but the gist of it is : repair your shield with a welder, tanking hits, especially with shitty weapons, will eventually stamcrit your arms. And stam healing/anti stun drugs disrupts blocking, don’t try to be cheeky with those.
Misceallenous blocking flags
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BLOCKING_ACTIVE: Does the item need to be in hand to block ? -
BLOCKING_PROJECTILE: Does the item block projectiles -
BLOCKING_NASTY: If it parries a bare hand, will the attacker be hurt ? -
BLOCKING_HUNTER: Is the item more suited to fighting fauna ? (I need to do some research on that one, I’ll get back to this once I can describe more accuratly what it does)
This guide will be maybe expanded later with tactics on how to both utilise and counter blocking
Guide changelog
06/06/2021 : Original post
07/06/2021 : Corrected wrong walking level for the riot shield example and clarified the mundane item one.