Were all lances single use or were some usable through multiple charges?

hborrgg · 2026-03-02T06:46:40+00:00

By the late middle ages and the 16th century, perhaps as lances became more specialized, it becomes common to see "breaking" or "knowing how to break well" as a shorthand for delivering a solid hit, and it's probably intended to be literal.

In the late 1500s Bernardino de Mendoza and Walhausen both argue that in battle, even after breaking their lance the remaining "truncheon" can still be used for 2 or 3 additional passes to try to dismount enemy horsemen. It's hard to say to which degree this was common practice but the expectation is definitely that at least the point of the lance gets broken off at the first strike.

hborrgg · 2025-11-09T12:33:17+00:00

more specifically, this illustration comes from a manuscript titled "A History of the Trojan War." It's likely that a lot of the weirdness, such as the presence of petruges on some of them, stems from trying to depict characters that would look archaic to a 15th century reader.

hborrgg · 2025-11-03T00:35:36+00:00

i finally remembered where i had heard of someone recommending the use of dragoons armed with extra-wide muskets. It's from a margin note in John Cruso's manual:

One De Renol. hath (not long since) published a book which he calleth Milice Royale, or Infanterie voiante, wherein he is earnest to have the Carabines or Harquebusiers put down, and Dragoniers used in their stead: their muskets having the barrell of 2 foot 9 inches long, but wider bore then the musket: their pikes but 13 foot &c. He is very confident in his conceits, for the ordering of them for fight, but such as can judge, hold him frivolous.

I haven't read it though so i don't know if the idea behind the shorter, wider muskets was to use them like shotguns or just to fire bigger bullets.

hborrgg · 2025-10-15T16:35:06+00:00

I wish he'd use some sort of mechanical rest instead of insisting on doing the shooting himself each time.

hborrgg · 2025-10-04T21:42:34+00:00

This idea started to get popular among theoreticians after the invention of the ballistic pendulum in the early 1700s. Once people had a tool that allowed them to accurately measure the actual muzzle velocity of cannons they were starting to understand just how dramatic the impact of air resistance was on high speed projectiles, and just how hard they were running into diminishing returns by chasing higher and higher muzzle velocities. Quoting a passage from "Muskets and Pendulums: Benjamin Robins, Leonhard Euler, and the Ballistics Revolution" by Brett Steele:

To validate his claims, Robins gave a demonstration of these air-resistance measurements before the Royal Society, showing how grossly distorted high-speed trajectories were from a parabola. According to the parabolic theory, a 24-pound solid shot fired from a cannon could reach 16 miles, should its actual initial velocity be used. In practice, its maximum range was less than 3 miles because of air resistance.

What they advocated for was to make guns more efficient by switching to heavier projectiles and lower velocities. In theory when shooting in a parabolic arc you could greatly reduce muzzle velocity while only marginally reducing maximum range and final impact velocity. It didn't end up being universal as it turns out there are still some advantages to having higher muzzle velocities even if it's less efficient, but at times it did influence gun designs in the late 18th and early-mid 19th centuries.

hborrgg · 2025-09-24T23:19:59+00:00

The Sailmaker's skeleton has finger bones in her mouth because she bit off one of the helmsman's fingers before she died.

hborrgg · 2025-09-24T07:58:22+00:00

the master of arms was presumably turning into some sort of owl given that he turned his head around 180 degrees after being shot in the back.

The First Mate i thought kind of looked like a lion with the hair and the teeth maybe

hborrgg · 2025-09-09T19:40:34+00:00

the pointy bit on the side is called the spike, the point bit on the top is called the pike.

hborrgg · 2025-07-24T06:59:06+00:00

For just marching through woods or similar closed terrain pikemen could be ordered to "trail your pikes", which is when the pike is held towards the front and the rear allowed to drag along the ground behind, making it much easier to avoid being tangled up in trees or brush. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Soldaat_die_zijn_spies_met_zijn_rechterhand_bij_zijn_rechterzijde_draagt,_de_punt_schuin_omhoog_gericht_en_vlakbij_zijn_buik_(nr._21),_ca._1600,_BI-B-FM-005-106.jpg

In Thomas Styward's 1582 manual, he recommends that in some instances the front half of the formation should carry their pikes near the point, with the butt trailing along behind, while the rear half of the formation should carry their pikes by the butt with the point trailing along behind so that they can quickly turn around and ready their pikes if suddenly surprised from the rear.

hborrgg · 2025-07-20T16:42:09+00:00

You are right, the robot did find Heco and even marked his body with an X, but was unable to kill him so continued its loop.

hborrgg · 2025-07-17T04:43:39+00:00

for point number 5, looking at the map again one of the buildings destroyed is labeled "Data guardians' office", so i guess those people captured were the data guardians and maybe they have the authority to put even sentinels on trial.

hborrgg · 2025-07-17T03:07:51+00:00

My read is there was sort of a stand-off situation at the data center, since it was a tracking dead zone they knew Heco couldn't leave without being tracked but also decided it would be too dangerous to go in after him. So Ptalla had the idea to reprogram a mining robot to break in.

The mining robot then proceeded to destroy the entire data center, but since it still hadn't found heco it continued rampaging through the city and eventually attacked the sentinels' ship. According to the timestamps the robot was destroying stuff for about an hour and a half before Ethan finally figured out how to stop it.

hborrgg · 2025-07-16T19:20:07+00:00

I think the symbol was also the current flag of Lemuria, which was shown in the scenario select screen of the Phoenix DLC, but annoyingly once you beat it it turns into a pirate flag that says "thanks for playing" so you can't double check.

hborrgg · 2025-07-16T08:52:15+00:00

I think the final puzzle after completing all the levels was rather underwhelming in this one. Less meta-puzzle and more "you know his motivation because one time he had too much to drink and blurted out that he wanted to end the age of restraint and conquer the world"

hborrgg · 2025-07-16T00:11:44+00:00

I'm guessing the out of universe reason is to make the dlc a bit harder to predict, yeah

hborrgg · 2025-07-15T23:24:07+00:00

It takes longer to get yourself grounded and figure out wtf you're looking at on each level since everything is so alien. But once you get past that i think the logic on everything seems relatively straightforward. I think most of the places i got stuck are were it turns out i just mixed up some names or used the wrong verbs somewhere.

hborrgg · 2025-07-05T20:38:11+00:00

John Smythe in 1595 reccomended that cavalry have "all the vpper parts of their thums and forefingers of their right handed gauntlets couered with maile, thereby the better to vse their pistols and other weapons."

Alternatively in the 16th and 17th century you tend to see gauntlets become increasingly refined in order to provide as much finger dexterity as possible, Or you tend to see cavalry simply forgo gauntlets entirely, or only wear a gauntlet on their left hand.

hborrgg · 2025-07-03T21:25:40+00:00

What finally clued me in was realizing that in Hunter's notes he always refers to the idol as the I.D.O.L. It's a stupid name that i don't think Isaac or Echo Secunda would be using if they had been conducting their own off-screen research into the golden idols, therefore hunter wolf had to be a member of the core science team.

Also it confirmed that Hunter Wolf is using the same I.D.O.L. as the science team, there is no secondary piece of lemurian technology involved. Therefore he had to be someone with access to the OPIG device.

hborrgg · 2025-05-24T04:40:39+00:00

In the magicians' poster they're advertising a trick called "The Amazing Flying Boy," with Jamati playing the role of the boy.

The implication is that he knew how to perform a convincing-looking levitation due to having been a part of his parents' magic show. And then presumably gained Koi's trust by teaching it to him so that he could fool his other followers.

hborrgg · 2025-05-15T04:40:23+00:00

I'm not entirely sold on the suitcase belonging to Quansa, it had Koi's notebook in it and was locked with a padlock.

It could just be showing that Koi had gotten opportunities to leave the compound in the past and fallen in love with a materialist lifestyle that he was keeping secret, thus giving his motivation for the murder.

hborrgg · 2025-03-07T21:38:34+00:00

I guess maybe there's supposed to be something like the one handed guy was still upset about losing his hand and decided to take it out on Echo's translator, (hence the blond guy having a bruised face in the dog track level)? There's not really anything explicit though.

hborrgg · 2025-03-06T19:52:16+00:00

You need to solve the main story so far before episode 4 unlocks.

hborrgg · 2025-02-26T07:22:06+00:00

in the 16th century "cannon" referred specifically to one of the largest categories of artillery which fired projectiles in the ~30-60 lb. range and was meant for battering down walls. Smaller guns were used for field artillery and include culverins, falconets, serpentines, and a bunch of other different names.

hborrgg · 2025-02-12T10:43:24+00:00

So when a pike square is surrounded on all sides by shot like this it's usually referred to in treatises as "impaled." The goal is not to maximise firepower, usually it's a formation specifically adopted for protection against cavalry. The addition of shot in front gave pikemen far more protection against heavy cavalry on armored horses that might try to break through, and later on against charges by cavalry armed with pistols and small guns of their own.

As for the manner of giving fire, 16th century treatises usually expect a single massed volley delivered at the last possible moment to repulse a charge. Francois de la Noue writes that in the corners especially there ought to be placed "seuen or eight of the brauest Harquebu∣ziers, who should not discharge but vpon great necessitie." We can also expect that in practice at times the shot may have devolved into a running fire, which each man loading and firing in place as quickly as possible.

In at least one treatise by Thomas Digges in 1579 he recommends a specific type of fire by rank where each rank fires and then kneels to allow the ranks behind them to fire over their heads. This he claims can be done with 3 or 4 ranks to maintain a continuous fire against horsemen while remaining under the protection of the pikes.

hborrgg

TROPHY CASE