Slinger projectile visibility issue

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

It’s always bothering me why the slinger uses the same bullet projectile as gunpowder units. It has neither visual clarity nor aesthetics on them.

The bullet projectile is barely visible, but gunpowder units have the trace effect, and an explosion effect when hitting the target. Slinger has no effect at all. Just look at this comparison:

What’s annoying me more is that, slingers did have a proper rock projectile when DE was launched! Look at their appearance in NAC3:

Devs could you give us back this projectile graphic?

EDIT: A showcase of the desired graphic

20250616210820_1
20250616210820_11920×1119 293 KB

6 Likes
2

It seems to be a visual mod.

2 Likes
3

No it’s not. Slinger uses exactly the same projectile as HC, meaning that when you replace slinger’s projectile graphic, you replaced it for HC as well. To do it for slinger only, you have to do a data mod.

Screenshot 2025-06-15 213252
Screenshot 2025-06-15 2132521075×982 49.9 KB

2 Likes
4

What about the projectile used for the Slinger in Return of Rome?

5

Maybe lower the size a little bit, it looks like he’s throwing a full football ball.

Thinking about it, that would be a funny event mod, replace some projectile by sports balls.

2 Likes
6

I’m using the smallest existing rock graphic, which is the same as mangonel rocks. Also that’s the default one when DE launched (check NAC3 video in the post). If you make it smaller it would be barely visible.

Are you suggesting to use their projectile for aoe2 slinger? Note that the issue is we first have to have a dedicated slinger projectile graphic file, rather than sharing it with gunpowder units.

1 Like
7

I like this idea. Getting this event mod would mean that we have the ability to mod it too!

1 Like
8

As a general rule reskins are the easiest mods to do, all you need is getting to the file you want and replace it.

9

No, as I said multiple times above, replacing slinger projectile would replace HC as well. Otherwise I would have done it years ago.

2 Likes
10

If there is a ROR slinger rock projectile, it should be extended to slingers in AOE2DE (Incan).

11

I think every ranged unit should have separate projectile files, even if the graphics are shared. That would allow for far greater modding potential (you could do stuff like an Organ Gun that fires actual organs, or a Plumed Archer that fires plums, or a Throwing Axeman that throws axemen, and so on).

3 Likes
12

Or at least throw an axe better designed for throwing than a dwarven double battleaxe that they use to fight mammoths.

13

Oh wow I had forgotten that’s what Slinger projectiles used to look like. I gotta admit that’s pretty cool, why was it ever changed?

1 Like
14

Yea I mean this is the main reason shared assets suck in this game. It really limits modding. Imagine if all the civs graphic assets had unique files even when the graphics are shared, then we could mod them to our heart’s content. Now everyone’s gonna come in and say “but that would make the game size HUGE!!!” Yawwwwwwn… :yawning_face:

1 Like
15

I always wondered why shared assets have to require data mods. If visual mods could work, why not create a mapping .json file that’s moddable, which contains info like

{
  internal_name: projectile_slinger,
  standing_graphics: projectile_mangonel
}

And we simply mod this json file, without having to duplicate assets. Of course it requires some refactoring to the .dat file type, it now has to read variables rather than constants in the “graphics” field. But the benefit is huge.

The same way, we can mod any civ’s architecture to whatever we want.

1 Like
16

Now that slinger has become a regional unit, it would be a crime not to bring back the original rock projectile!