Armor Upgrades Work Properly

[Lusted]

Units have mortality factor 0.6 right now, so even if unit has no armor at all it will not die immediatelly if hit. (it ignore 40% of hits)

Im guessing CA set it as that because of the armour system that is in game, and is working based on the test results shown here. I'll go and do some tests if you want to see if i can reproduce the results the opening poster got.

[JaM]

Lusted, you can still chceck that message i send to you, it was really about explanation how armor upgrade works. I can resend it to you if you already deleted it

[JaM]

Try this, use archers against Billmen with 0,1,2,3 upgrade and then do the same against Heavy Billmen.(plate armor)

[Lusted]

Well i've found a pm from you asking me to ask the CA devs how it works. No explanation or anything.

[JaM]

For more information about Point Blank EDU check this: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=82671

[FactionHeir]

Another thought.
Ever tried peasants with 7 armor and nothing else vs an upgraded pike unit with true armor of 7 (unit card may show something else) vs a missile unit with 7 armor and nothing else?

It could well be that the type of unit may react differently?

[JaM]

You can have different results due to a different formations units use. Arrows are not that good for tests, lots of them didnt hit anything. I suggest use crossbows for tests, (ofcourse remove AP ability...) and use very low attack values. if you will use damage 1, unit with armor 7 should be quite resistant, right? much more than unit with armor 1...

[JaM]

Well i've found a pm from you asking me to ask the CA devs how it works. No explanation or anything.

Yea, because at that time, there was lots of unknown, so i wanted you to ask them if there is any background system behind armor upgrades.

[Lusted]

Well im almost half way through my tests,and everything points to armour upgrade system working properly despite what the unit card says. I'll post the full test results when im done.

[Foz]

Alright, I've set out to settle this stupid debate. In the first test, we have longbows vs italian militia modded to have 7 armour. The second will feature italian militia (copied a second time into the file w/ a tweaked name) modified to have 0 armour and given 3 armour upgrades, which the OP has speculated should confer them the same 7 armour the first unit has. Results follow.

7-armour unit losses:
35
36
36
31
30
---
168

3 upgrade 0 armour unit losses:
27
36
35
35
34
---
167

As anyone can readily see, this result cannot in any way be explained if the armour upgrades only grant +1 each, as the unit stat sheet says they do. The units suffered practically identical losses, which is extremely strong evidence that the OPs assertion is the correct one: the armour upgrades function exactly as they are described by type (4 for leather, etc), and not as the stat sheet reports them as simple plus 1s for any given upgrade. As it turns out this makes the leather shop a ridiculously important upgrade since it adds a full +4 to all applicable units.

[JaM]

Why dont you ask developers about that, they can confirm it or deny it, everything will be clear after that...

[JaM]

Alright, I've set out to settle this stupid debate. In the first test, we have longbows vs italian militia modded to have 7 armour. The second will feature italian militia (copied a second time into the file w/ a tweaked name) modified to have 0 armour and given 3 armour upgrades, which the OP has speculated should confer them the same 7 armour the first unit has. Results follow.

7-armour unit losses:
35
36
36
31
30
---
168

3 upgrade 0 armour unit losses:
27
36
35
35
34
---
167

As anyone can readily see, this result cannot in any way be explained if the armour upgrades only grant +1 each, as the unit stat sheet says they do. The units suffered practically identical losses, which is extremely strong evidence that the OPs assertion is the correct one: the armour upgrades function exactly as they are described by type (4 for leather, etc), and not as the stat sheet reports them as simple plus 1s for any given upgrade. As it turns out this makes the leather shop a ridiculously important upgrade since it adds a full +4 to all applicable units.

Well im almost half way through my tests,and everything points to armour upgrade system working properly despite what the unit card says. I'll post the full test results when im done.

Did you removed the shields?

[Lusted]

In my tests, im doing billmen, berdiche axemen and heavy bilmen, all upgrade levels. All units without shields.

[JaM]

FOZ: As i told, i'm using EDU with 12 armor levels. Developers had just 6. that would mean PB levels are not hardcoded,so how do you explain that they actually work?

About your test: Longbow has AP arrow, that means only half of armor counts, so 3.5+6 vs 1.5+6 is not that big difference, especially if 40% hits are ignored.

To test it correctly you need to remove all special abilities as AP bonus, because they a re creating a lot of confusions.

[JaM]

Try that metod i mentioned earlier : arrow damage 1, unit with armor 4 leather, unit with armor 1 (after upgrade to leather), that means damage 1 needs to overcome 4times greater prottection than against 1.

[Lusted]

Here are my test results.

All battles Very Hard difficulty, Spanish plains at midday with clear weather. All done with unmodified M2Tw with me controlling the non-missile unit. All tests done v peasant archers.

Units tested were Billmen, Berdiche Axemen, Heavy Billmen.

They have the following armour levels:

Billmen:
Flesh(0)
Leather/Padded(4)
Light Mail(5)

Berdiche Axemen:
Light Mail(5)
Heavy Mail(7)
Partial Plate(9)

Heavy Billmen
Heavy Mail(7)
Partial Plate(9)

So there is an overlap between the different armour levels to see whether armour upgrades do give more than the +1 indicated on the unit card.

Test results(number is men remaining):


Billmen:
Flesh(0) 3 8 4 6 4 Average 5
Leather/Padded(4) 22 14 15 18 26 Average 19
Light Mail(5) 34 28 41 38 36 Average 35.4

Berdiche Axemen:
Light Mail(5) 40 37 33 30 34 Average 34.8
Heavy Mail(7) 62 60 55 58 59 Average 58.8
Partial Plate(9) 74 81 85 76 79 Average 79

Heavy Billmen
Heavy Mail(7) 59 64 63 56 54 Average 59.2
Partial Plate(9) 82 78 82 85 79 Average 81.2

So as you can see Berdiche Axemen unupgraded, and Billmen with level 2 upgrade have basically the same amount of men left, which is what should happen as both have the same armour level.

Same with Berdiche Axemen level 1 upgrade and Heavy Billmen, and Berdiche Axemen level 2 upgrade and Heavy Billmen level 1 upgrade.

So armour upgrades are working properly, just an incorrect value is shown on the unit cards.

[Foz]

Did you removed the shields?

Yes. As I invented the shield fix, my units have been without shields since the first version of said fix was out. Sorry I didn't make that explicitly clear, but you can assume it's always the case when I test.

Very nice testing Lusted. I call that... definitive. I now consider the matter closed, as there's a mountain of evidence that it works correctly and only unfounded comments suggesting it does not.

But hey... it's nice that the armor upgrades do in fact work like they are supposed to.

As for your 12 levels of upgrades, JaM... I'm gonna guess that they're whacked out beyond belief. Your first 6 levels may in fact give the bonuses that the 6 levels in the vanilla game are supposed to give (which are wildly different than just +1)... and who knows if your top 6 levels work at all, and in what amount. I suppose this is what happens when people go about changing things before they actually know how they operate.

Of course it's also possible that when a different number of levels are used, the game ignores the predetermined setting of what the values of the levels should be, but I certainly wouldn't count on that.

[SMZ]

thanks muchly Pat, Foz & Lusted for confirming my results

the reason I didn't go back and mod the pike militia to 7 armor, was just I was getting tired of testing, and I thought the testing I'd already done was sufficient, lol - I know it wasn't scientific neccessarily, but the further results you guys got should be scientific enough for anyone.

To the people still mentioning different results from melee contests, allow me to repeat - Melee has MANY factors to determining who wins. It is much harder to isolate a single factor, such as armour upgrades. As I said, something as simple as where the general is standing can make all the difference in a melee contest, if he lands in the midst of a group of the enemy, he'll proceed to slay all the weaker men around him - if he lands out on the edge, he might spend the whole battle trying to slowly sidle around the flank, and maybe get approached by only one or two enemy, while in the mean time the enemy general is slaughtering away

doing a missile test in the fashion I described removes almost all variables except the unit defense of the target - the killing power of the archers will be generally the same each time - you can isolate your variable (defense) and figure out clearly what it's doing

the results are clear over and over, the unit with the better armor has a definitive difference in men surviving, as they should

[JaM]

Dont wanna be so negative, but: your test didnt proof one base thing: Armor values are ignored, only type of armor counts.

Unit without armor is overmatched by any attack value 100% so even attack 1 overmatches it. Thats why you see unit with armor 0 to be killed so much.
All you need to try is use two same units, one with armor 4 leather and second with armor 1 leather. attack it with missile 1. If your teory is right, both units will take similar looses. If I'm right, unit with armor 1 will take more looses. easy like that.

[JaM]

i'm in work right now, but i will post my tests very soon.

[SMZ]

huh? I wouldn't expect a unit with 4 armor to take similar loses to one with 1 armour - i'd expect the 4 to take less casualities... that's three more points of armor

I think you're either slightly confused about my conclusion from these results or about the issue at hand...

Armor values are ignored, only type of armor counts.

4 people have now done indepentent tests establishing that units both with armor upgrades and manually set armor values have the same defense... what more do you need? getting the first 3 armor upgrades and manually adding 7 points of armor to a unit do the same exact thing - as proved, over and over

are you playing with the shield fix? and why would you expect your play experience to establish anything as regards to vanilla when you're using a customized upgrade system?

[JaM]

Here is my disscusion with Olmsted:
JaM1977
Registered User
Posts: 2
(1/18/07 1:55 pm)
Reply Armor Upgrades
Can someone from Developers explain how armor upgrades are coded in game? There are some units that have base armor much higher than if unit became upgraded to the same armor type - Italian militia - leather armor 4, Town Militia after upgrade to leather armor 1. Is there a some secret code and all unit with leather armor have the same protection or upgrades just add+1 point?

Thanks

Olmsted
Admin
Posts: 7298
(1/18/07 2:32 pm)
Reply Re: Armor Upgrades
Upgrades just add 1 point to the armor value. The more advanced method that would have made more sense was never fully implemented.

JaM1977
Registered User
Posts: 4
(1/22/07 7:46 pm)
Reply RE Is there a plan to fully implement new system for upgrades? (that with " ; " in EDU)

Olmsted
Admin
Posts: 7482
(1/22/07 8:57 pm)
Reply Re: RE We don't know. We can only hope for those changes...

[Lusted]

If your teory is right, both units will take similar looses. If I'm right, unit with armor 1 will take more looses. easy like that.

No my theory is that armour upgrades work correctly, which they are.

You may be right in that armour value is being ignored, but the main point is that the armour upgrade system works.

JaM, Olmsted is not a CA employee. He is an admin at the official forums who works for free in his spare times. He has less contact with the devs than i do.

[SMZ]

Well, I'd like to see his comments on the test results from 4 different people which have led each person to come to the same conclusion.

Considering that CA devs themselves were unaware of some of the habits of their engine (ie: shield bug), whatever Mr Olmsted thinks was going on, isn't neccesarily the same thing as what is actually going on... well, anyway - I'm not going to argue about it - I don't see the point - it's like arguing about how many registered users are on this board or something... the numbers are there - you can't argue with numbers

[JaM]

I'm not confused. All you are talking is that unit with armor 4 leather has same protection like unit with armor 1 leather (after upgrade)

The whole method you are suggesting is quite hard to implement from code perspective> Just imagine - game has specific file for units, there are values for protection of unit,but it is not used, instead of this there is some other table where upgrade 1 means armor 4, upgrade 2 armor 5 etc... That dont make sense. Right now we know file structure quite well. Darth can confirmed that there is no bonus for armor upgrades in animation file.

I spend a mounth playing a game with EDU where all attack and armor,shield defence values were halved. (because with that metod +1 armor add means same amount as if you add +2 to normal vanila unit) With that table in mind, all my spearmens upgraded to armor 1 with upgrade 1 had armor protection 4 instead 1 that was displayed. But those units were not ! They were as storng as those with base armor 1. no benefit 3 more points!

[Lusted]

Im not quite sure what you are getting at JaM. What we are saying is that the armour upgrade system works. So that despite the unit card only showing an increase in defense of 2, a unit going from flesh to light mail will infact have an increased armour factor of 5.

So armour upgrades are working properly, just the incorrect details are shown on the unit card.

The whole method you are suggesting is quite hard to implement from code perspective> Just imagine - game has specific file for units, there are values for protection of unit,but it is not used, instead of this there is some other table where upgrade 1 means armor 4, upgrade 2 armor 5 etc... That dont make sense.

It actually makes quite a bit of sense, as it allows them to define an armour system seperate of the unit stats, with the armour values in the edu allowing for more initial variety.

[JaM]

No my theory is that armour upgrades work correctly, which they are.

You may be right in that armour value is being ignored, but the main point is that the armour upgrade system works.

JaM, Olmsted is not a CA employee. He is an admin at the official forums who works for free in his spare times. He has less contact with the devs than i do.

I'm not telling that armor values are ignored. I'm just pointing, that if your idea works, it means armor values are ignored!

Olmsted is admin for MTW II AI discussion and Code feedback , so i think he must have atleast some connection to devs too. (why he is admin in section for code feedback...)

My opinion is that armor upgrades just add +1 and nothing more. Units with armor 0 are heavily overmatched by any attack value, thats why they took such looses. Its because from mathematical point of view 1/0 = 5/0= 100000/0, but 1/1 = 1/4 ?

[SMZ]

All you are talking is that unit with armor 4 leather has same protection like unit with armor 1 leather (after upgrade)

well, actually armor 7 flesh (what moded pike militia have) ends up being the same as armor 3 (*7) breastplate (what upgraded pike militia have) - which shoots your whole theory to pieces

Just imagine - game has specific file for units, there are values for protection of unit,but it is not used, instead of this there is some other table where upgrade 1 means armor 4, upgrade 2 armor 5 etc... That dont make sense.

have you even looked at the file? there IS such a table! look, right below stat_pri_armour, is ;stat_armour_ex in which the values to use after upgrades are listed - we know those values aren't just for display, because the display doesn't use them - the display uses +1, +2 & +3... so what are those values for? answer: the game mechanics

type             Pike Militia
dictionary       Pike_Militia      ; Pike Militia
category         infantry
class            spearmen
voice_type       Light
banner faction   main_spear
banner holy      crusade
soldier          Pike_Militia, 60, 0, 1
attributes       sea_faring, hide_forest, can_withdraw, free_upkeep_unit, pike
formation        1.2, 1.2, 2.4, 2.4, 4, square, phalanx
stat_health      1, 0
stat_pri         4, 2, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, spear, 25, 1
;stat_pri_ex      0, 0, 0
stat_pri_attr    spear, long_pike, spear_bonus_8
stat_sec         0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 25, 1
;stat_sec_ex      0, 0, 0
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  0, 1, 0, flesh
;stat_armour_ex   0, 4, 5, 7, 1, 0, 0, flesh
stat_sec_armour  0, 0, flesh
stat_heat        2
stat_ground      1, -2, 3, 2
stat_mental      3, normal, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 10
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        1, 150, 125, 75, 60, 150, 4, 30
armour_ug_levels 0, 1, 2, 3
armour_ug_models Pike_Militia, Pike_Militia_ug1, Pike_Militia_ug2, Pike_Militia_ug3
ownership        france, hre, spain, portugal, milan, venice, papal_states, sicily
;unit_info        7, 0, 1

[Lusted]

Olmsted is admin for MTW II AI discussion and Code feedback , so i think he must have atleast some connection to devs too. (why he is admin in section for code feedback...)

I've spoken to Olmsted, he does have less connections to the devs to me, im not sure if he has any. Just because he is an admin at the official forums does not mean he is talking to the devs.

My opinion is that armor upgrades just add +1 and nothing more.

And you've been shown to be wrong. The test results definitely show otherwise. For instance despite the fact the armour upgrade level 2 billmen only have 2 armour according to their unit card, they take the same amount of losses as unupgraded Berdiche Axemen with 5 defense. So the billmen must have the same defense.

[AussieGiant]

You guy's are very scary...

...and I love your work!!!

Great job all