possible bug reg Pritanoi skirmishers in campaign

[Not_a_Strategist_yet]

Hello and thanks for this truly amazing mod.

I started a campaign as Pritanoi and noticed some strange behaviour reg 2 units.
In battle the spear throwing animation plays but only a handfull of spears like 10 or 15 are thrown most of times and at times it seems no spears are thrown or they are invisible.

So far noticed this thing in skirmisher unit and sling-spear militia.But the 2nd could be a false positive because I saw it only once. It's definitely happening with the skirmishers though.

The weird part is that if I go to custom battle the spears are thrown just fine.

Could this be a minor bug or is it a problem on my end and I should start seeing if I installed things fine?
I use this mod above MTW gold, kingdoms patch 1.5.

Thanks

[Poppis]

Yeah skirmishers seem to be bugged for many people. I heard the devs are looking into it.

[Not_a_Strategist_yet]

Ok did some testing myself.

In the descr_projectile file I can see this at top:

; to calculate projectile parameters take
; d = shot distance from export_unit_descr.txt
; d = v^2 / g (at 45 deg) -> v = sqrt(d*9.81)
; check weapon ranges with angle ranges using
; d = v^2 * sin(2*a) / g

Not sure if this rule must always be followed or it is an entry that bares no importance. Anyway decided to give it a go.
Calculated a new speed of 23 based on those 2 equations and inputed it in javelin.

Now I can get the skirmishers to unlish their javelins at an okay range.
They will not fire them at point blank , eg when directly behind friendly troops,
but also I noticed when cavalry ran away and got out of the 40 range then the animation played but no javelins were fired.

Reverted the value back to original one on purpose in speed and javelins would not fire.

Is there a possibility therefore that the speed needs to be about right using these 2 equations for the javelins to fire at correct range?
I've been a modder for quite a few games but not for TW series appart from some fiddling. So my question is , does the MTW engine judge wether javelins are to be fired based both on projectile speed and range?
Then a speed of about 40 would give a range of 160 and as a result the javelins would not fire with a unit restricted to a range of 40.

If so this could be a possible fix but not sure if it is valid. just a thought
(hope you don't mind me tweeking some stuff and searching for a solution, crazy curiosity just got enabled )

[Ibrahim]

You asssessment regarding the unit's trajectory calculation is largely correct. we've been trying to get them to work at historical ranges--some of which are lower than 40 meters still, but have had great difficulty. will give your proposal a go.

@Tux we can add this to the possible list of fixes.

[Not_a_Strategist_yet]

Scratch the min and max speed values they only seem to increase spread in trajectory of projectiles for some reason.

I used these values:
pilum: speed 25
prec_javelin: speed 26
Javelin: speed 23
projectile_javelin: speed 23
cav_javelin: speed 29
cav_haevy_javelin: speed 22



The behaviour is pretty good, I order skirmishers to fire to enemy formations and this is the result(see pic). Bare in mind they're downhill so the real tragectory is not steep as appears in the pic. Damn those men how can someone take a nice screenshot if they don't synchronize their throw ! .

Only problem is when behind friendly forces and close to enemy attacking sometimes only a few will fire javelins. But I guess that's not such a big deal as firing javelins next to your own troops heads is not a good idea anyway.

[Not_a_Strategist_yet]

Now one final problem remains.
The stupid engine delays too much to fire the javelins. Although they get ready to fire once enemies get in range most of the time enemies manage to engage in melee long before the javelin is fired.
It is also a problem with kerns in Britania campaign but they have bigger range that's why they can fire before enemies are upon them.

I'll try play a bit with the delay and raising a bit the max range (like 10m) so they fire at least 1 voley.

I like what you guys have done with shorter range, I don't want to chnage it too much as it forces you to also flank with skirmishers and launch spears before melee. It's just that stupid MTW engine that delays firing too much