View Full Version : Bug - Possibbile Ribualt/Monster Ribualt bug?
I don't really know if this is a bug, but it looks like it might be one all things considered.
The possible bug? Ribualts have bp (Body-Piercing), listed as one of their weapon attributes in the EDU file. However for it to fully work, the projectile in the Descr_Projectile file must ALSO have bp listed as an attribute. The projectiles for Ribualts/Monster ribualts do not have this.
The real question is: Is this actually a bug?
Their are two arguments here:
1. Ribualts/Monster Ribualts are extremely poor anti-infantry weapons when you consider their advertised role, (specelists anti-unit artillery), as things stand, about a 100 kills with all ammo expanded is norm for me with Monster Ribualts on Small unit sizes.
2. Ribualts/Monster Ribualts with bp are perhaps just a Little TOO good, with average kills now being in the 200-3900 region, raising to almost 700 in 1 volley in a worst case scenario seige situation. (20 units lined up 4 ranks deep one behind the other with the Monster Ribualt firing through the lot, so 80 kills per hit average). My biggest worry however would be bridge battles with say 7v1. in those situations it could be quite easy to get 10,000 men packed on top the bridge, a single volley of Monster Ribualt fire from 4 units would clear almost the entire bridge, end to end, that many routing units would then kill everyone else morale and mass rout the entire enemy force, when coupled with a few culverins for softening up and Ribualts for aid at really short ranges it would be possible to build a mostly artillery half stack that would be able to rip apart 7 full stacks of the best melee infantry in existence. Thats a pretty bad situation, and worries me somewhat.
However, I'd like others opinions, (particularly of those able to run the bridge battle i mentioned or test full stack armies on Huge, as at small size they have an advantage as they don't get any extra engines as unit size increases, and I can't run above 3000 men total).
Does anyone else feel it's a bug, and is the cure worse than the problem?
TevashSzat
02-13-2007, 00:54
I would probably say that ribaults are fine the way they are right now. They are pretty powerful against infantry, but if you are playing on small unit sizes it might be hard to notice. They are more effective at larger sizes since there is less chance that some of the projectiles will miss due to the larger target. Dont include bp though since it would be way too powerful. I have played 7v1 against medium ai bridge battles. Even now, ribaults just wreak havoc on the crazy numbers of infantry on the bridge and kill easily get 500 kills on large
Even now, ribaults just wreak havoc on the crazy numbers of infantry on the bridge and kill easily get 500 kills on large
It sounds to me like I may have a borked Descr_projectile file to begin with here guys.
I say that because without bp a missile weapons maximum possible number of kills is limited to the total number of shots it fires, Ribaults only have 108 shots per engine (or 216 for a unit, as a unit has 2 engines). to get 500 kills you HAVE to have bp on, can also tell you that even with exhausted ammo I've NEVER seen more than 100 kills from Ribaults, even in bridge battles with pretty dense packing. On the other hand, further tests have shown that Monster Ribualts (even with bp in the Descr_projectile file), tend to run out of ammo at about 500 kills. This sounds really weird guy.
Random question Xdeathfire: Are you running with an unpacked Descr_Projectile file, or have you deleted the files you aren't using? It could be that the bp in the EDU overrides the Descr_Projectile file if it's reading it from the data packs, but not when reading from the unpacked files.
This is puzzling me, what kind of kill totals is everyone else getting with Ribualts/Monster Ribualts in vanilla as I'm struggling to top 100, (p.s. Ribualts have fixed accuracy, unit size/range has no effect on how many hit, trust me, I've tested with other units).
pike master
02-13-2007, 03:38
ribaults are supposed to use javelin like bolts but when freezing the gameplay they look like cannon balls.
but they are supposed to be similiar to what edward 3 used at crecy. those fired javelin sized bolts. so they should be able to penetrate multiple targets like a ballista.
i see what you mean now. ca needs to fix that so it will be in agreement with the unit card description. so it would be a bug.
Not all organ guns fired bolts, many fired balls later on. But really, they weren't just a bunch of musket barrels tied together (like some 19th century guns). They were light cannon barrels. Probably something like 1 pounders. Still, in any case, they should be going through more than one person.
I think the issue is the reload time should be longer. But that presents a problem... the game engine always loads then fires. But firearms and crossbows should fire then load. If the weapon fired then loaded, it would be feasible to make the reload time appropriately prolonged and balanced. But right now making the load time any longer would make the weapon almost useless.
But I do think the shots should be going through more than one target. Attacking a ribault head on in range should be suicide. The best approach should be to have to shoot it down from outside its range with other artie, or swarm it while it reloads.
Thinking about it, a decent solution might be actually tightening its shot pattern. It seems a bit wide, and in field battles where there aren't deep columns it would really limit the usefulness.
TevashSzat
02-13-2007, 04:10
Ill try to do a 7v1 bridge battle and post the battle statistics after it
i haven't a clue whats being said here guys - but these rebault with hp things sound awesome :smash:
How do i get some? :)
Ill try to do a 7v1 bridge battle and post the battle statistics after it
Thanks.
i see what you mean now. ca needs to fix that so it will be in agreement with the unit card description. so it would be a bug.
hat was kind of my Point, the Descr_Projectile and EDU files don't match up on weather it should be bp or not, theirs clearly some kind of bug going on.
My real concern was weather it would be balanced with bp enabled. Based on the figures i'm getting and what others are getting with defualt Ribualts it looks like theirs an issue with my Descr_Projectile file, allthough others may well be suffering from it too. It's my geuss that it stems from running an unpacked Decr_Projectile file.
i haven't a clue whats being said here guys - but these rebault with hp things sound awesome
How do i get some? :)
:laugh4: You'll need to follow the Unpacker readme to set up a working modding system and have unpacked files.
Then find the Decr_projectile file and open it, then find these lines:
;*********************************************
projectile ribault_shot
effect ribault_shot_set
end_effect ground_impact_ribault_set
end_man_effect man_impact_small_set
end_package_effect wall_impact_small_set
end_shatter_effect ground_impact_ribault_set
end_shatter_man_effect man_impact_small_set
end_shatter_package_effect wall_impact_small_set
damage 5
damage_to_troops 10
radius 0.3
mass 0.1
area 1.0
accuracy_vs_units 0.04
accuracy_vs_buildings 0.0625
accuracy_vs_towers 0.025
min_angle -15
max_angle 30
velocity 90
ground_shatter
;bounce 0.01 0.01 0.93 0.5
display aimed
;effect_only
; Stuck model not used at the mo, shatter effect is better, but adding some shatter debris for ground impact would be good?
;stuck
model data/models_effects/none.CAS, max, max
model data/models_effects/none.CAS, 40.0
model data/models_effects/none.CAS, 80.0
model data/models_effects/none.CAS, max
;*********************************************
projectile monster_ribault_shot
effect monster_ribault_shot_set
end_effect ground_impact_ribault_set
end_man_effect man_impact_small_set
end_package_effect wall_impact_small_set
end_shatter_effect ground_impact_ribault_set
end_shatter_man_effect man_impact_small_set
end_shatter_package_effect wall_impact_small_set
damage 5
damage_to_troops 5
radius 0.3
mass 0.1
area 1.0
accuracy_vs_units 0.040
accuracy_vs_buildings 0.0625
accuracy_vs_towers 0.025
min_angle -15
max_angle 30
velocity 90
;bounce 0.01 0.01 0.93 0.5
ground_shatter
display aimed
;effect_only
; Stuck model not used at the mo, shatter effect is better, but adding some shatter debris for ground impact would be good?
;stuck
effect_only
and replace them with:
;*********************************************
projectile ribault_shot
effect ribault_shot_set
end_effect ground_impact_ribault_set
end_man_effect man_impact_small_set
end_package_effect wall_impact_small_set
end_shatter_effect ground_impact_ribault_set
end_shatter_man_effect man_impact_small_set
end_shatter_package_effect wall_impact_small_set
damage 5
damage_to_troops 10
radius 0.3
mass 0.1
area 1.0
accuracy_vs_units 0.04
accuracy_vs_buildings 0.0625
accuracy_vs_towers 0.025
min_angle -15
max_angle 30
velocity 90
ground_shatter
;bounce 0.01 0.01 0.93 0.5
body_piercing
display aimed
;effect_only
; Stuck model not used at the mo, shatter effect is better, but adding some shatter debris for ground impact would be good?
;stuck
model data/models_effects/none.CAS, max, max
model data/models_effects/none.CAS, 40.0
model data/models_effects/none.CAS, 80.0
model data/models_effects/none.CAS, max
;*********************************************
projectile monster_ribault_shot
effect monster_ribault_shot_set
end_effect ground_impact_ribault_set
end_man_effect man_impact_small_set
end_package_effect wall_impact_small_set
end_shatter_effect ground_impact_ribault_set
end_shatter_man_effect man_impact_small_set
end_shatter_package_effect wall_impact_small_set
damage 5
damage_to_troops 5
radius 0.3
mass 0.1
area 1.0
accuracy_vs_units 0.040
accuracy_vs_buildings 0.0625
accuracy_vs_towers 0.025
min_angle -15
max_angle 30
velocity 90
;bounce 0.01 0.01 0.93 0.5
ground_shatter
body_piercing
display aimed
;effect_only
; Stuck model not used at the mo, shatter effect is better, but adding some shatter debris for ground impact would be good?
;stuck
effect_only
That should do it.
What kind of kill rates does everyone else get from their Ribualts then anyway? Is anyone else getting better than 200 kills reguarly?
Hmm... interesting discussion here. Has anyone actually stopped to make sure Carl's impression of bp is the right one though? It wouldn't make any sense at all for bp to be modelled such that a single shot could kill 80 or more men: physics dictates that the shot loses energy and velocity the more matter it passes through, meaning you probably couldn't make it kill more than maybe 5 men in a row. I also wouldn't assume that CA models bp as a strict "ignore any bodies and pass through" ability. Most games that I've seen model body piercing do so as merely a chance to pass through one target and continue into a presumable next target, not an automatic thing. The wording in the file is "bp = body piercing. Missile can pass through men and hit those behind." This doesn't really help make the distinction at all, as saying a missile "can" do something doesn't mean it necessarily always does. Granted it could be an automatic thing since it is applied exclusively to artillery, but it seems to me like a question worth considering in any case.
The only question is how the hell to figure out which way it is...
Also since I saw some discussion of shot pattern... does anyone know exactly how the projectile's accuracy entries affect outcomes? Do they represent percentages of success, or distances (maybe average miss amount?), or what? Note that I don't have the benefit of a projectile file in front of me ATM.
@Foz:
From what I can see a bp weapon will pass through EVERY man in it's path inflicting a hit as it goes, it then determines weather that hit kills or not. I've sen bp shots go through people and not kill them, but still hit the guy behind.
Since Ribualts have over 60 attack on each shot and AP it's a near 100% chance of a kill with every shot, so pretty much every hit is a kill. On the other hand, the velocity is so low that at maximum range it it's nearly at the floor, and 20 units 1 behind the other are only just in range. The shot spread also tend to hit the center of the unit more than the flanks of it, I've seen a ribualt, (with bp activated), rip the middle third of the unit to pieces and leave the third on either side fine.
Regarding shot pattern and fixed accuracy:
Fixed accuracy is exactly what it sounds like, as long as the shots don't hit the ground or another obstacle they can't pass through they will hit as often as the accuracy dictates, it is totally unaffected by range, thats why Musketeers are so insane against lose formation units of units at long range, with an accuracy of 93.5% they nearly never miss. they are also almost totally unique amongst units in having a fixed accuracy.
f a shot misses it will miss totally, it's specifically aimed too high/low. However lower accuracy values DO seem to result in more shot spread, although I'm not sure why.
2 possibilities:
1. Ribualts have very small elevation and depression angles, so it may be that it's often impossibbile for a shot to miss.
2. Having something less than 100% accuracy results in the shots spreading out side to side, the lower the accuracy, the more spread.
Two is the most likely IMHO, as the miss rate isn't high for Ribualts anyway, so the unable to miss probably doesn't apply as even a full volley of 72 shots from 2 Monster ribualts will only produce 3 misses.
TevashSzat
02-13-2007, 22:58
Carl, i believe you are right in your assesment on max kills of the ribaults.
In a 7v1 match, I used one of the bridge maps where there is a stone bridge and had medium ai. I was milan and had 6 monster ribaults as well as 6 halberd militia to hold the bridge in spear wall. Everything was at max upgrades. All 7 of my enemies had 20 units of peasants with no upgrades. What happened was that all of the peasants would cover the bridge and my ribaults started to fire. The rate of killing did not seem particularly impressive. After all of my ribaults ran out of ammo, i quit the battle and found that they all had around 120 kills. Did this 3 more times with more or less the same results.
Feeling that the monster ribaults were not firing from ideal distances and angles, i did another battle where i would have 20 units of peasants against an enemy with one fully upgraded monster ribault. I would put guard mode on my peasants and told all of them to form a dense block right in front of the enemy's monster ribault. After the enemy ran out of ammo, I consistently had about 140 deaths. With just normal ribaults, the kill count was lower at around 100 deaths.
I can conclude that one projectile from a ribault can only kill one person and as a result, they are not as awesome as people would previously think. There overall killing power is not particularly impressive and the only thing that good about them is that they seem to kill alot quicker and with more accuracy than other siege weapons. If I was to be in a bridge battle where there would be huge concentrations of troops, i would much rather to use siege weapons with area of effect damages such as the serpentine since they would be able to kill at least 50 units in an okay shot.
@Xdeathfire: thanks for that, thats was pretty much what I was getting TBH.
A minor point, I've never been able to get ammunition to bounce properly on a bridge, however flaming and exploding shot works well so, no issues.
As you say, their primary advantage seems to be in their ability to do their damage very quickly, Serpentines for example, when placed at the limits of range, are just as effective, but they take rather longer. Culverins and Basilisks are even more powerful, but again, rely on being placed well back. You can place a Ribualt well forward and be sure of it doing just s well, and in less time.
My biggest worries are:
A) It's supposed to be dedicated anti-unit artillery and isn't too good against building as far as I know.
B) if it is given bp it gets a bit crazy against units, 500 kills being easily possible before it runs out of ammo, more if the situation is right.
I'll let people test it and tell me what they think.
Here's (http://www.savefile.info/download.php?id=F486DA57) a link for a modified Descr_Projectile file, it installs just like my ProblemFixer.
Tell me what you think and if people think it's OK in the altered form, then it's probably a case of a forgotten line in the file.
Either way I do think it needs reporting as the EDU and Projectile files are not matching up ATM, but which was intended I'm not sure.
TevashSzat
02-14-2007, 00:08
I fear that adding pure BP would be too much since it would kill too much units is a very short amount of time. Is it possible somehow to limit the penetration power of the projectiles so that it only pierces through 2 or 3 units and then stops at the next one? That way, you can get up to 360-480 kills with monster ribaults which i would say is much more reasonable.
I'll use your changes and see how the new system works.
Is it possible somehow to limit the penetration power of the projectiles so that it only pierces through 2 or 3 units and then stops at the next one? That way, you can get up to 360-480 kills with monster ribaults which i would say is much more reasonable.
You couldn't do it directly, but if you lowered the attack/accurracy you'd get much the same effect.
I'd like you to try the 7 on 1 bridge battle again as I just ran it (my PC can handle it really, it just crawls along at about 1/6th the normal pace and the camera is jerky, so it's a bit boring), and 5 Ribualts with 5 catapult behind them all set to fire at will bassicclly held of 7 full stacks, kills 6600 of them. All the Ribualts had about 700 kills, except for 2 that managed 1700 each!
Okay, as i noted before, the nature of bridge battles produces EXTREME bunching, probably why projectiles can't bounce on a bridge, and that defintlly favours the ribualts immenssly since every time they fired they tottally cleared the bridge from one end to the other with ease due to their abilitioy to go through so many ranks and the dense packing meant they could decimate an entire stack nearly every volley if enough units where on the bridge so it is somthing a a rigged test.
n the other hand, whilst it isn't really possibbile to get those kind of results outside bridge battles, it's a worrying statistic. I agree, that somthing need to be done to beef up Ribualts as they are pitiful all things considered ATM, but at the same time, with just bp added on they feel a bit too good.
TevashSzat
02-14-2007, 02:05
In your battles, are you positioning them at the mouth of the birdge or do u have pikemen holding the bridge while the ribaults fire from the sides
At the mouth of the bridge with the Catapults as close behind as I dare. Catapults where using flaming rocks and I did nothing except sit their with them on fire at will.
TevashSzat
02-14-2007, 02:14
That sounds better then with ribualts at the mouth of the bridge, but still i dont know about it. I can just picture armies made out of 10 ribault units just shreading any army without decent missle support. I'll make up my mide when i test out the changes out tomorrow i guess
Yeah I think this is a physics problem. BP is established as an all-or-nothing thing. It's too bad you couldn't model the projectile to have a reducing possibility of continuing on after each soldier it went through. So after going through 1 guy, it had a 100% chance of continuing, after 2 guys a 75% chance, 3 guys 50%, etc. That might be unnecessarily mathematic, but could allow for some flex in the performance... every once in a while little would happen, on rare occasions they'd be utterly devastating. But I don't see a way to do that with the engine...
The ribault projectiles should go through 3 or 4 people most times before stopping. I wonder if simply tripling the number of rounds fired each shot, and tripling the ammo supply as well, would make it more appropriately balanced without BP?
TevashSzat
02-14-2007, 02:34
The advantage of the ribault is not that it can do extremely crazy amounts of damage, it can be easily beaten by serpentines and good shots, but that it does so in a short amount of time. Increasing the ammo size will not affect it a large amount and thus will leave it just about at the same effectiveness
That sounds better then with ribualts at the mouth of the bridge, but still i dont know about it. I can just picture armies made out of 10 ribault units just shredding any army without decent missile support. I'll make up my mind when i test out the changes out tomorrow i guess
I wouldn't worry too much about Field battles, a ribualt in a Field battle can only shred some of he unit with each volley and will only get 2 volleys against anyone running across the gap. Monster Ribualts can almost do what you described by firing one ordinary volley followed by a barrage volley, but thats because they literally shred any units in front of them during barrage fire, which typically means a third of the enemy army.
The reason they are so insane in bridge battles is that they reload faster than the enemy units can run across the bridge, and anything on the bridge when they fire will lose 90% of it's men and rout, (if their are enough Ribualts set up anyway, you need at least 5), so until they run out of ammo it's impossibbile for any infantry to make it across, and even Cav have to be well timed. (Hence why i say it's a rigged test, anything with that many shots per volley that are bp would have the same effect). Fortunately, any unit with the "Long Range Missiles" tag out-ranges them by at least 5 point, throw cheap stuff at them to stop them moving up and you can shot them down, especially with Musketeers. Fire arrows are also good as they can burn the engines.
On the flip side, a good enfilade shot at the right moment on a flattish battlefield could easily decide a battle. Frankly, without more experience I've zero clue how much is TOO much unless it's blindingly obvious as it is in bridge battles.
The ribault projectiles should go through 3 or 4 people most times before stopping. I wonder if simply tripling the number of rounds fired each shot, and tripling the ammo supply as well, would make it more appropriately balanced without BP?
You can't increase the number of shots fired per volley unfortunately, or decrease the reload time~:(. That would be the best answer.
TevashSzat
02-15-2007, 13:57
Carl, I have tried to use your change to the ribaults, but when i start with your shortcut, i get to the very first loading screen and a message box comes up saying that there was an unspecified error and i just exit the game. I can play vanilla M2TW fine though so what am i doing wrong?
The advantage of the ribault is not that it can do extremely crazy amounts of damage, it can be easily beaten by serpentines and good shots, but that it does so in a short amount of time. Increasing the ammo size will not affect it a large amount and thus will leave it just about at the same effectiveness
true enough, the issue is that all that doesn't really mean anything, all that matters in a battle is it's ability to do damage in total, if it had more range so it was doing damage for longer periods of time, it might be useful without bp. As it is their are plenty of other units that equal or outperform it overall against troops and are much better against buildings. The issue is that it might do damage quickly, but regardless of that, it's still outperformed overall by many other units. Considering it's supposed role and many disadvantages, that's clearly an issue IMHO.
Hows the testing gone, i've done some 10 ribualts vs. full stack tests and how well they do seems to be dependent on the type of unit. Units with 60 men tend to do poorly, whilst those with 48 do well. My best guess is that the morale penalty per man lost is the same regardless of weather it's 48 or 60 men base and thus the greater losses per volley of the 60 man units produces routing before they make melee. 48 strong suffer damage but do okay in my experience, and don't tend to rout before making melee.
What about you, what did you think?
Carl, I have tried to use your change to the ribaults, but when i start with your shortcut, i get to the very first loading screen and a message box comes up saying that there was an unspecified error and i just exit the game. I can play vanilla M2TW fine though so what am i doing wrong?
Scratch that, give me a moment and I'll get on it and tell you.
Here's (http://www.savefile.info/download.php?id=7E0DFEC4) a working one, I tried it and it wouldn't work for me, so re-did it from scratch and it worked fine, not sure what i did wrong TBH.
pike master
02-15-2007, 15:09
have you guys seen the history channel episode on bullets where they showed a ribault like weapon that could fire a million rounds a minute. it is a modern prototype of a weapon that has multiple shots lined up in each barrel.
bit off topic but neat i thought.
Yeah, I've seen it, and whilst it does have a fire rate of a million rounds a minute, it's only got a couple of thousand rounds as far as i remember. If I remember right it's basically about 500 40mm tubes with some special grenade launcher style projectile in, dozens of them stacked into each tube so as to give massive numbers of shots. Useful for providing large area, low lethality, (compared to a Mortar anyway), barrage that lands everywhere near simultaneously.
Metal Storm. I've seen a lot of hype but it's far from ideal. The issue is with the barrels... To reload the weapon, you have to replace the entire barrel(s). It doesn't appear that the barrels can be rifled either. So there is a weight and range disadvantage. Not great for prolonged firefights.
As for the million rpm one, it was a 9mm prototype. There are 40mm grenade launcher versions but of fewer barrels. Getting all those barrels to line up parallel enough for decent range but still be replaceable in the field could be extremely difficult as well.
I do think there is a good use for it though... it could be a great system for direct fire from an aircraft. With the right recoil management system, it could be superb. Aircraft don't have to worry about prolonged firefights, dropping all their shots in one pass and then reloading at the airfield is fine for them.
pike master
02-16-2007, 01:36
why not just use a huge bore loaded with flachettes. kinda like a shotgun.
why not just use a huge bore loaded with flachettes. kinda like a shotgun.
Somewhat poorer ballistics, and flechettes are more expensive to manufacture accurate versions than bullets. Plus their wounding capacities are heavily velocity dependent; the fins make them shed velocity quickly though. But true, for ground based applications I would find a cannister/flechette loaded recoilless gun much more useful than a Metal Storm "machine gun".
But back to topic, arguably the reason ribaults disappeared likely had to do with grapeshot loadings being made for cannon. Makes a much more versatile weapon.
My only issue with ribaults is that when you scale up to huge unit sizes, their killing power doesn't scale up, and they simply can't handle the numbers involved. On small or medium I'm sure a ribault crew could wipe out an entire unit in one volley. But on huge, they don't make that kind of a dent.
Basically, at that point, a unit of musketeers, with 120 guns, does significantly more damage, so there's no reason for me to ever bring a ribault.
My only issue with ribaults is that when you scale up to huge unit sizes, their killing power doesn't scale up, and they simply can't handle the numbers involved. On small or medium I'm sure a ribault crew could wipe out an entire unit in one volley. But on huge, they don't make that kind of a dent.
Basically, at that point, a unit of musketeers, with 120 guns, does significantly more damage, so there's no reason for me to ever bring a ribault.
I had been considering this as well, and it seems like a strong pointer toward ribaults being bodypiercing - if they body-pierce, then the kills should scale at least somewhat with the unit size, as larger continuous chunks of men will theoretically die due to the increased unit depth and breadth.
The real question is, will this be in line with how other artillery operates? I think it may. Most other artillery falls into the category of aimed shots that cause area damage. While it is true that the area damage caused by a single shot will not scale along with unit sizes, I think another factor may largely make up for this: aimed shots. Aimed shots, if I understand the mechanic correctly, do not hit or miss with specified percentages - rather, they apply some kind of drifting that seems to account primarily for bad aim on the part of the firing unit. If I understand this correctly, then it leads to one very applicable point: a larger unit represents more area, and thus has a higher chance of being hit by drifting shots. So while any given hit is the same no matter the unit size, we might reasonably expect a higher hit percentage from area affect artillery as the unit size is raised.
Another applicable point may be that larger unit sizes mean units have more interior area where enemies completely surround a given spot. To illustrate this, let's consider one group of 9 men and another of 25:
XXX
XXX
XXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
For simplicity, we'll simplify the battlefield to a grid and say an artillery shell kills any men in the square it hits and any adjacent square: 9 men at most. What situation does each unit find itself in?
12321
24642
36963
24642
12321
1233321
2466642
3699963
3699963
3699963
2466642
1233321
I've charted the number of kills we'd expect from a shell landing at each position. The positions occupied by men in each case are in bold, while those not bold are shells that land outside the group but near enough to cause a few kills. Notice how the unit that is size 25, though it is less than 3 times larger than the 9 man unit, has a maximum kill zone (the 9s) 9 times the size. The area represented by 6s (still a very good hit) is a 12 to 4 comparison, 3 times as much. The small unit has 25 possible hits, 5 of which are very damaging (6 or more kills). That's 20%. Contrast this with the large unit having 49 possible hits, with 21 being very damaging. That's ~42.8%. Granted this is an extreme case since one unit is thrice the size of the other, but the fact remains that mathematically the larger the unit is, the greater the percentage of hits that are very damaging will be, which translates into a higher kill rate per hit against larger units.
So not only is it easier to hit a unit that is larger and takes up more space on the battlefield, but the unit's extremely vulnerable area also increases along with the unit size, and therefore we can surmise that the number of hits and average kills per hit should both increase for area affect artillery as the unit size increases. In short, though artillery do not experience stat benefits from increased unit sizes, they do gain performance benefits due to the physics of having a larger target unit, and so can be said to scale appropriately with unit size.
That being the case, it seems appropriate that ribaults too should scale with unit size, which can be accomplished with body piercing (again due to physics that I outlined in the first paragraph). Whether their stats will then require modification is of course a separate matter entirely, but I think what I've outlined is a big enough point to necessitate ribaults having body-piercing ability.
pat the magnificent
02-16-2007, 10:40
i'm sorry i only had time to skim the bottom half of the replies but here's my idea on how to fix them.
leave BP off.
increase ammo capacity
increase rate of fire (very slightly)
increase spread (perhaps by changing the radius? i'm not sure what exactly all those numbers mean)
increase rate of fire (very slightly)
You can't do that unfortunately. If you want it to fire more volleys as the enemy closes you have to give it a longer range.
increase spread (perhaps by changing the radius? I'm not sure what exactly all those numbers mean)
This is accuracy related, but could easily be done.
@Musashi, thats been my opinion too, in fact I feel they're actually weak even on small as they struggle to kill more than about 20-30 advancing pikes, so they're pretty bad all round.
Yet another bug has turned up. This time with exploding ammo.
Actually it's a group of bugs so I'll list them in order:
1. Exploding ammo does not explode on contact with troops as you'd expect, it simply plows through like a normal cannonball would. Then explodes when it hits a building/the ground.
2(a). Exploding shot uses the Descr_Area_Effects.xml file to determine it's effects rather than the data listed in the exploding shot entry., the effects of this are detailed in entries 2(b) and 2(c) in this list.
2(b). Cannons, Culverins, and Basilisks all use the same entry in the Descr_Area_Effects.xml file meaning that their exploding shot is identical, rather than getting steadily more powerful as you move through each tech level.
2(c). The area of lethality of exploding shot is a fraction of that used by ordinary shot, thus as a result ordinary shot if it hits does more damage even without the bounce, (Basilisk exploding shot is about one-fifth the area of effect of normal shot).
These 3 points explain perfectly why exploding shot is so poor, I personally think it's a bug and needs looking into TBH. The values listed in the Descr_Projectile file ARE too big, (I tried them), but theirs clearly something not right going on, I just don't know what TBH. My best guess is they never tested exploding shot much and didn't notice how weak it is so it never got corrected.
Lastly Rockets are also interesting as they too have an Area Effect entry, but it's exactly 1 unit across so it can only ever affect 1 or 2 people at a time, which is completely inconsistent with it's graphic, and probably explains why the things are so dam poor.
Lastly, the damage values in the Descr_Area_Effects.xml probably override those in the Decr_Projectile file which messes things up nicely.
The more I look the more convinced I become that they never really finished sorting out artillery, particularly the gunpowder type as Ballista, Catapults, and Trebuchet all do as well if not better than Cannon, Ribualts, and Rocket Launchers.
People have suggested that the lack of spread fire from ribaults is annoying, and I very much agree. It seems that an accurate shot from a ribault always passes directly through the center of the enemy unit. You can pretty much verify this by setting their accuracy against units to 0, and watching all the bullets go through the exact same point. The trouble is, to fix it, we must decrease the accuracy of the ribault shot. Doing so causes the ribault not only to spread more left/right, but also to pick up this nasty habit of firing a ton of shots that are short of its target. The bullets spread left-right about as much as I wanted at the 8% or 10% miss range, but then almost none would hit the target unit at all due to falling short. This led me to a commented out ability listed in the ribault shot section: bounce. It took an awful lot of playing with values before I got them working reasonably close to what I expected... but the end result is that the shots spread in a much wider range over the target unit, and that most of them arrive at targets. A bunch end up bouncing off the ground, but unless you are watching for it you might not even notice. The only problem I can foresee is if there are units in between the ribault and the target (they probably try to fire higher but will then miss horribly instead of bouncing the shots)... but you'd have to be suicidal to try to shoot over your own units with a ribault even with it unmodified, so I'm not really concerned. The best solution I've found ends up being some values I expected to do entirely unreasonable things:
;*********************************************
projectile ribault_shot
effect ribault_shot_set
end_effect ground_impact_ribault_set
end_man_effect man_impact_small_set
end_package_effect wall_impact_small_set
end_shatter_effect ground_impact_ribault_set
end_shatter_man_effect man_impact_small_set
end_shatter_package_effect wall_impact_small_set
damage 5
damage_to_troops 10
radius 0.3
mass 0.1
area 1.0
accuracy_vs_units 0.10
;accuracy_vs_units 0.04
accuracy_vs_buildings 0.0625
accuracy_vs_towers 0.025
min_angle -15
max_angle 30
velocity 90
ground_shatter
bounce 0.01 0.01 1.0 1.0
;bounce 0.01 0.01 0.93 0.5
body_piercing
display aimed
;effect_only
; Stuck model not used at the mo, shatter effect is better, but adding some shatter debris for ground impact would be good?
;stuck
model data/models_effects/none.CAS, max, max
model data/models_effects/none.CAS, 40.0
model data/models_effects/none.CAS, 80.0
model data/models_effects/none.CAS, max
Yes, I believe that bounce line says it comes off the ground with same velocity and same vertical velocity. That sounds really weird... but then again, the vertical component of a ribault shot can never be very much, the shots are largely on a rope. Anyway, I highlighted my changes in bold. The bodypiercing may turn out to be overkill, but I'm not convinced: it's supposed to be a dedicated anti-infantry piece, so any number of men right in front of it pretty much SHOULD get blown to smithereens. If anything I'm inclined to lower its attack value to make men have a reasonable chance to live, rather than remove the BP ability that allows it to cause some reasonable kills and scale with unit sizes.
I also note that as compensation for the killing power I've given it, it has ridiculous drawbacks: it's slow to setup, will easily be destroyed by any quick flanking maneuver (b/c it can't turn, setup, and fire before it's over-run), it requires a very clear shot at the enemy, and has a very slow reload time as well. Even with BP one unit of ribault (as outlined above) is only taking enemy units down to 1/3 strength by the time they close the distance, so my vote is that it's okay like that since its usefulness is so slim a thing.
Anyway, hope all that helps someone out.
Lastly Rockets are also interesting as they too have an Area Effect entry, but it's exactly 1 unit across so it can only ever affect 1 or 2 people at a time, which is completely inconsistent with it's graphic, and probably explains why the things are so dam poor.
I actually find that extremely strange... At distance rockets do very little damage... But a rocket launcher barrage at point blank can literally kill 100 men with one volley, and that's just firing into one unit, in the field, in normal formation...
Lastly Rockets are also interesting as they too have an Area Effect entry, but it's exactly 1 unit across so it can only ever affect 1 or 2 people at a time, which is completely inconsistent with it's graphic, and probably explains why the things are so dam poor.
Thanks for pointing this piece of text out, Musashi. I assume, Carl, that all the numbers you're discussing come from the xml file you mentioned? If that is the case, then please note that all measurements are for radius of the affect, not diameter. Therefore the rocket shot in question is 2 units wide, which should mean it can kill at least 4 men if it falls in the right place.
Two more things:
1. Carl, can you explain what all that crap in the area effects xml file is? I can't imagine how impulse, effective, and kill variables are all applied. That's if you have any idea, of course. Anyone else can feel free to explain it too :smile:
2. I speculate that this can be easily fixed by hunting down all things currently using area_effect tags in the descr_projectile.txt file and simply commenting those lines out. All the other shot types seem to do this already and don't use the area effects xml file at all, and so doing this should make the game use the stuff you see in the projectile txt file.
Carl, when you say "the values in the projectile file are too big," can you go into more detail? What exactly were the exploding shots with those values doing to the enemy unit? I only ask because I've long felt that gunpowder artillery is weaker than traditional catapults and trebuchets in the game currently. Exploding shot in particular is a frightful invention, as evidenced by the fact that it continues to be in service to this day... and as such, I think some better representation is required, even if the one outlined in the projectile file proves to be too powerful.
Edit - discovered something else pertinent: exploding projectiles do not explode when they hit men, because they have bodypiercing ability. The header of the file explicitly says this should be the case (read the ground shatter description), so one can only surmise that human bodies must not be hard enough to make exploding projectiles do so. As there is no mechanism to make the thing explode and it presumably relies on sheer force to shatter it, this behavior actually seems to make some amount of sense.
All right, I'll try to answer your posts guys, but go easy, I'm running on 6 hours sleep and feel like something the cat dragged in:laugh4:, so if I seem incoherent, don't be surprised.
First, interesting results Foz, to get better spread I'd just delete the accuracy value myself, i haven't tested it to be sure, but I'd expect a similar spread to that of Archers, which with such a flat trajectory is usually spread amongst the whole enemy unit a fair bit, but gets most of the shots to hit too.
Second, how effective are you finding your modified Ribualts compared to other units, as thats my biggest concern right now. Like most artillery they give up mobility, (useful for retreating behind friendly melee units), and missile resistance when compared to foot missile units, but lack the normal advantages of other artillery in that they are ineffective vs. walls and don't have a long range. They also have less total ammo than a full missile unit and as a result can struggle in really prolonged battles.
Thus I'm worried because I'm pretty sure most of the "good" missile units could easily match or exceed the kill values you are claiming, and have few, if any, of the disadvantages of a Ribualt. On the flip side, if you just give Ribualts bp, it's probably just the wrong side of the IMBA "line". What's needed is something without the ability to clear a bridge from end to end, or wipe out anything coming through a gate, but with much better troop killing power than almost anything else. Thats a very awkward combination to achieve with multiple bp projectiles.
I'm also interested when you say it has a long setup time and reload time, I've found that most gunpowder and artillery units are unaffected by the "stat_fire_delay" line.
Regarding your second post:
Thanks for the reminder regarding Radius instead of Diameter, plus at short range you'll usually get most of the 72 rockets fired in each volley to actually hit.
1. As far as I can tell, Kill radius is pretty obvious. Effective Radius I don't have much clue about, but things caught in that area don't seem to drop dead so I'm lost TBH. Impulse radius is the radius out to which units will be effected by the throw effect. Anything hit but not killed that is inside that radius will get thrown up in the air. It will then fall down as if dead, but if you watch for a few seconds, it will then get back up and rejoin it's unit.
2. This would work OK for some, but Rockets and Naptha Bombs don't have an area listed so they would have to have it added.
As to too effective, if it lands in the midst of an enemy line, (you know how the AI tends to have a line that is 3 units deep and several across, that sort of line), then it will typically totally destroy the unit it hits as well as those directly in front and behind it, it will also normally damage any units to the sides of the unit originally hit. Strangely, despite bouncing balls having only slightly smaller area of effects they don't tend to be quite so destructive, my best guess as to why is that if it doesn't have ground shatter, it will only affect models on either side of the ball, given the inaccuracies and short bounce distances, it's pretty hard for it to hit more than one unit, and it rarely does more than clip said unit, which is probably why we don't notice it. With exploding shot you get it causing kills over far too big a radius IMHO.
Regarding your edit- I did point that out in my last post:smash: don't worry about it though, it could easily be missed.
First, interesting results Foz, to get better spread I'd just delete the accuracy value myself, i haven't tested it to be sure, but I'd expect a similar spread to that of Archers, which with such a flat trajectory is usually spread amongst the whole enemy unit a fair bit, but gets most of the shots to hit too.
Tried that first, the shots still largely group around the center. I don't know if center targets are preferred and so the outside guys are never targeted, or if a default value of accuracy against units is assigned and so keeps the grouping tight, but it just didn't work how one would hope. The modified ones even get shots out as wide as the general sometimes from long range (I adjusted the spread for long range, because doing so for short range was making long range awful, not to mention making a lot of shots go over the head of the target unit.
Second, how effective are you finding your modified Ribualts compared to other units, as thats my biggest concern right now. Like most artillery they give up mobility, (useful for retreating behind friendly melee units), and missile resistance when compared to foot missile units, but lack the normal advantages of other artillery in that they are ineffective vs. walls and don't have a long range. They also have less total ammo than a full missile unit and as a result can struggle in really prolonged battles.
Well, they slaughter about 20 men in a 60 man unit of dismounted knights on the first volley. The second is often about the same, sometimes a little better or worse. Usually something like 20 knights left end up at the ribaults to slay the team. They also will punch holes in anything behind the target, as the projectiles just continue bouncing along the ground, lopping off legs and such. So overall I'd say they're more effective than any archer unit, at the least. Comparing to gunpowder infantry, arquebusiers got off 3 rounds before the knights closed, where musketeers got off 4. Arquebusiers kill ~half the enemy unit, or 30. Musketeers typically get about 40, which makes the ribault about on par with them, of course assuming it's not also splashing units behind the target with damage.
I'm also interested when you say it has a long setup time and reload time, I've found that most gunpowder and artillery units are unaffected by the "stat_fire_delay" line.
I mean the animations are long, so consequently there are long stretches of time where men are turning the ribault, parking it, and loading the barrels... and so it is useless during all of that time.
Regarding your second post:
Thanks for the reminder regarding Radius instead of Diameter, plus at short range you'll usually get most of the 72 rockets fired in each volley to actually hit.
1. As far as I can tell, Kill radius is pretty obvious. Effective Radius I don't have much clue about, but things caught in that area don't seem to drop dead so I'm lost TBH. Impulse radius is the radius out to which units will be effected by the throw effect. Anything hit but not killed that is inside that radius will get thrown up in the air. It will then fall down as if dead, but if you watch for a few seconds, it will then get back up and rejoin it's unit.
2. This would work OK for some, but Rockets and Naptha Bombs don't have an area listed so they would have to have it added.
Thanks for the explanation of all that BS in the file :smile:
As to too effective, if it lands in the midst of an enemy line, (you know how the AI tends to have a line that is 3 units deep and several across, that sort of line), then it will typically totally destroy the unit it hits as well as those directly in front and behind it, it will also normally damage any units to the sides of the unit originally hit. Strangely, despite bouncing balls having only slightly smaller area of effects they don't tend to be quite so destructive, my best guess as to why is that if it doesn't have ground shatter, it will only affect models on either side of the ball, given the inaccuracies and short bounce distances, it's pretty hard for it to hit more than one unit, and it rarely does more than clip said unit, which is probably why we don't notice it. With exploding shot you get it causing kills over far too big a radius IMHO.
Yeah I tried it with culverin recently. Like 5 shots in a row missed horribly, then the 5th wiped the entire enemy unit out. LOL. Not what I was expecting. It probably shouldn't even be wide enough to kill 1/4 of a unit, let alone a whole one.
As for the bouncing balls, I was actually thinking that radius listed in the projectile file was the determining factor. Maybe it's supposed to represent the width of the shot? Arrows have something ludicrously low like 0.05. It seems to me at least that when a 0.3 radius ball passes through a unit, it typically affects an area about 0.6m wide.
Tried that first, the shots still largely group around the center. I don't know if center targets are preferred and so the outside guys are never targeted, or if a default value of accuracy against units is assigned and so keeps the grouping tight, but it just didn't work how one would hope. The modified ones even get shots out as wide as the general sometimes from long range (I adjusted the spread for long range, because doing so for short range was making long range awful, not to mention making a lot of shots go over the head of the target unit.
Thanks for that info Foz, I was hoping it would work out, but never mind~:(.
Well, they slaughter about 20 men in a 60 man unit of dismounted knights on the first volley. The second is often about the same, sometimes a little better or worse. Usually something like 20 knights left end up at the ribaults to slay the team. They also will punch holes in anything behind the target, as the projectiles just continue bouncing along the ground, lopping off legs and such. So overall I'd say they're more effective than any archer unit, at the least. Comparing to gunpowder infantry, arquebusiers got off 3 rounds before the knights closed, where musketeers got off 4. Arquebusiers kill ~half the enemy unit, or 30. Musketeers typically get about 40, which makes the ribault about on par with them, of course assuming it's not also splashing units behind the target with damage.
That actually sounds similar to what I'd hope, I just tend to be able to get 3 volleys in, and it sounds poor for 3 volleys, for 2 it's quite Kay. I think I'd better add at this point that to help ensure clear weather all the time without a stupid amount of frustration I now use Palm Beach as my Missile Test Map.
I mean the animations are long, so consequently there are long stretches of time where men are turning the ribault, parking it, and loading the barrels... and so it is useless during all of that time.
Ahh, sorry, my misunderstanding. Compared to other Artillery, Ribualts have quite fast animations in the regard, but compared to most missile infantry, they are pretty quick, so point taken.
Thanks for the explanation of all that BS in the file
That's OK, also, Cow Carcasses would have to keep using that file as the morale penalty is handled in their, as is the Morale benefits of Carrico Standards/Great Crosses.
Yeah I tried it with culverin recently. Like 5 shots in a row missed horribly, then the 5th wiped the entire enemy unit out. LOL. Not what I was expecting.
:laugh4:, that conjures up such a funny image of you sitting their watching the shots with a look of boredom on your face, and then WHAM shock horror as the unit just ceases to exist:smash:, your face must have been a picture, (I know mine was LOL).
As for the bouncing balls, I was actually thinking that radius listed in the projectile file was the determining factor. Maybe it's supposed to represent the width of the shot? Arrows have something ludicrously low like 0.05. It seems to me at least that when a 0.3 radius ball passes through a unit, it typically affects an area about 0.6m wide.
That actually makes sense as if you make the radius too big the loading crew are killed every time it fires, try it, it's so much fun to watch :laugh4:.
I also agree, about a 1/4 of the unit with exploding shot is more than enough.
p.s. for some reason I feel wide awake ATM~;p.
That actually sounds similar to what I'd hope, I just tend to be able to get 3 volleys in, and it sounds poor for 3 volleys, for 2 it's quite Kay. I think I'd better add at this point that to help ensure clear weather all the time without a stupid amount of frustration I now use Palm Beach as my Missile Test Map.
You can get 3 shots in provided the target unit doesn't lose many units on the first one. There seems to be some threshold for losses, at which point the enemy unit will break into a run. It looks to me like it's 6 for a 60 man unit, so probably ~10%. The ribaults when performing badly often got off 3 shots. Improved, they do not, b/c the AI starts running sooner. 3 volleys probably would nearly wipe out the enemy unit, and at the very least is almost a guaranteed rout.
That's OK, also, Cow Carcasses would have to keep using that file as the morale penalty is handled in their, as is the Morale benefits of Carrico Standards/Great Crosses.
Yeah that's fine... I don't hear anyone complaining about those things anyway :smile:
:laugh4:, that conjures up such a funny image of you sitting their watching the shots with a look of boredom on your face, and then WHAM shock horror as the unit just ceases to exist:smash:, your face must have been a picture, (I know mine was LOL).
Oh yes, it must've been funny. I almost started laughing myself when I realized the entire unit fell over, from such a dinky looking explosion.
That actually makes sense as if you make the radius too big the loading crew are killed every time it fires, try it, it's so much fun to watch :laugh4:.
I also agree, about a 1/4 of the unit with exploding shot is more than enough.
LOL about the loading crew. sounds like fun. If you make it big enough, they should be able to kill the other crew of their unit, too! Since it's presumably spherical (as opposed to 2D), they may even be able to kill the entire rest of their unit with a single shot. Btw, can anyone hep my poor mortar team find their freaking gun? The guy loading the shot drops it to the right of the barrel, and the guy on the left side rams home the air on that side of the barrel. Or maybe he's trying to polish the gun with that awful dirty ramrod he's got. Magically, the weapon still manages to fire. Don't ask me how though. :inquisitive:
Also, most of the shot seems to be 0.3 radius. Is it just me, or does a 0.6m wide shot seem excessive? That's a cannonball that's like 2 feet wide. I'd have thought about half as wide would be more accurate, but then again I'm no cannon expert.
As for killing 1/4 of the unit... let's get on it! I'll post more once I'm at home :smile:
Okay, continuing where I left off...
So lets assume we're trying to set the area of an exploding artillery shell to encompass at most 1/4 of the unit it lands in. How do we do this? I'm going to base this on normal unit sizes, and a typical 60-man unit. I could just tell everyone what to do... but frankly I'm thinking about it right now, and it will help me to type it out.
at most 1/4 means we want an area that encompasses 15 men if it is placed for maximum coverage, i.e. in the exact middle of those 15 men. So starting from the end of the unit which I'll assume to be in the default 3-line formation, we count off 15 men, and arrive at a 3 row x 5 column block. Troops are placed 1.2m apart in default formation, meaning this block is 2.4m x 4.8m, and measures ~5.37m corner to corner. Thus, we should select a value at least 5.37m to be the diameter of our area effect, so it can encompass the men at the far corners of our 3 x 5 block of men. For the upper bound, consider that the shortest distance to encompassing an additional man is directly left and right. At a diameter of 6.0m the effect can be positioned to include at least one extra man across, so this becomes the upper bound. In that range, 5.5m diameter is probably the nicest number to work with, and represents a compromise between the bounds as well. This means we put 2.75 as the area in the file (I'm assuming area is a radius entry for the area of effect, since a 15.0 diameter would not even cover an entire unit, where a 30.0 diameter easily does, which is what we observed). It's worth noting that this area effect will be more potent against units arrayed more than 3 lines deep, but this should only further serve to scale the fire along with increased unit sizes that typically cause such spillover into extra ranks.
For a comparison between regular shot and this, consider this: regular shots generally list area 2.0, which corresponds with ~12.56m^2 of area. 2.75m area corresponds to ~23.75m^2 of area, so we've nearly doubled the affected area by changing the radius of affect by only 0.75.
For those curious, the regular shot will have a 4.0m wide affected area. If we assume again that the target unit is in a 3 line formation, and let x be the width covered in meters, then the pythagorean theorem gives us this: x^2 + 2.4^2 = 4.0^2 since we know the depth will be 3 men (2.4m) and the hypotenuse is limited to 4.0m by the effect diameter. 4.0^2 - 2.4^2 = x^2 = 10.24. sqrt(10.24) = x = 3.2, which tells us that a block 2.4m x 3.2m is the maximum a regular shot (radius 2.0) can cover. 3.2m / 1.2m ~ 2.67, meaning it can cover 2 gaps between men and part of a third gap in width. Thus, 3 men wide should be the most it successfully covers, meaning a 3 x 3 block of men = 9 total men is the most it should ever be able to kill in standard formation. Judging from the area calculations above, this seems like a reasonable result.
Now all that's left is for people to decide if this is enough of an advantage for exploding shot to have (given that it fires less accurately), and test it out and give feedback :smile:
Yea the solid shots do look far, far too big and are far, far too effective against infantry. They should see a straight line of soldiers in front of the gun fall over, not guys standing next to each other or in a circular area falling down. It doesn't rattle the earth that much...
pike master
02-18-2007, 06:13
:dizzy2:
pat the magnificent
02-18-2007, 08:40
For those curious, the regular shot will have a 4.0m wide affected area. If we assume again that the target unit is in a 3 line formation, and let x be the width covered in meters, then the pythagorean theorem gives us this: x^2 + 2.4^2 = 4.0^2 since we know the depth will be 3 men (2.4m) and the hypotenuse is limited to 4.0m by the effect diameter. 4.0^2 - 2.4^2 = x^2 = 10.24. sqrt(10.24) = x = 3.2, which tells us that a block 2.4m x 3.2m is the maximum a regular shot (radius 2.0) can cover. 3.2m / 1.2m ~ 2.67, meaning it can cover 2 gaps between men and part of a third gap in width. Thus, 3 men wide should be the most it successfully covers, meaning a 3 x 3 block of men = 9 total men is the most it should ever be able to kill in standard formation. Judging from the area calculations above, this seems like a reasonable result.
*insert self-deprecating algebra related comment*
Also, most of the shot seems to be 0.3 radius. Is it just me, or does a 0.6m wide shot seem excessive? That's a cannonball that's like 2 feet wide. I'd have thought about half as wide would be more accurate, but then again I'm no cannon expert.
It might sound big, and for a non-Bombard weapon it is, however it's worth noting that a fast moving cannon ball can kill you without touching you, (supposedly, it sounds a bit weird to me), the air pressure change as it passes can actually slice you open if it's close enough, still, 0.6M seems excessive, (it's only supposed to work if it comes within a couple of inches), but I doubt it would have any chance of affecting more than one person if it was smaller so...
As to your estimation of the area, I was going to suggest starting at 4.5 as the current Impulse radius AoE looks quite good if you can make the shot hit often enough.
It might sound big, and for a non-Bombard weapon it is, however it's worth noting that a fast moving cannon ball can kill you without touching you, (supposedly, it sounds a bit weird to me), the air pressure change as it passes can actually slice you open if it's close enough, still, 0.6M seems excessive, (it's only supposed to work if it comes within a couple of inches), but I doubt it would have any chance of affecting more than one person if it was smaller so...
No... that doesn't work out like that. I can guarantee you it can't possibly do that in the subsonic velocity range, where pretty much all medieval era gunpowder falls. If you are hitting the hypersonic range with specially shaped projectiles, it could be quite doable then... but that's not the situation we're talking about.
It takes the human body of its own accord too much time to react to a pressure change. So a wound wouldn't open itself up welling out of the decreased pressure as it passed; human bodies can survive instant exposure to hard vacuum without bursting anywhere... especially if it's brief... like a couple seconds. That's an eternity compared to what we are talking about.
Now completely externally, the impact by the pressure front of a cannonball would be similar to the cannonball itself; simply larger, softer, and wavelike. Even given the friction involved, a near miss goes by so fast even if the air around it was in the thousands of degrees, it wouldn't expose you long enough to burn you. It's not that hot, and the pressure front just isn't the right shape or intensity to harm you by itself. The pressure of compressing the air in front of the cannonball is naturally several orders of magnitude less than that of the muzzle blast of the cannon that fired it; if the pressure around the cannonball was as bad as that, the crews wouldn't have stood anywhere near as close to the muzzles as they did... because even a foot behind the muzzle, the pressure blast is much higher than that around the cannonball could ever be.
If someone was cut by a near miss from a cannonball, it had nothing to do with the pressure itself. In all likelihood, there was some irregularity on the surface of the ball... be it a trailing piece of fuse, remnants from powder bag, patching... any number of things. Anything like that flaring from the surface of the ball would zip you open like the fastest, sharpest sword on earth. However, that would be a very rare exception, not the rule.
There was a story of a guy in the Civil War having some sort of swelling in response to a "near miss" cannonball... however, he was also "unable to speak" and was removed from fighting. Many Union 0soldiers didn't want to fight that war... a quick fall in a campfire becomes an opportunity to get out when it's backed up by a story and a symptom literally anyone can fake. Given the anecdotal nature, it might not have happened at all... there was enough artillery fired on Union positions at Gettysburg, injuries like this wouldn't have been uncommon even if the cannonball had to come within an inch. And that war produced plenty of apocryphal tales.
Are you accounting for Bernoulli's principle in your assessment, JCoyote? When Carl started talking about near misses injuring you, that was the first thing I thought of. The idea is that fluid (in this case air) passing through a narrow space is caused to speed up tremendously, thus dropping the pressure in that area. This in turn can cause a tremendously strong force acting to draw the objects together, toward the sharp low pressure area. One famous example of this is with oil tankers and other such similar large seagoing vessels. If they pass too close to each other, the water between them speeds up due to being forced through a narrow area, and the tankers will actually hit each other even when steering a course that would not make them hit. I can easily see how this application of Bernoulli's principle could literally drag your body into the cannonball if it is near enough (though it would look to an observer like it missed you, it would happen so fast) or possibly that the intense force drawing your skin toward the ball in that brief instant could actually puncture it.
In other news... sorry about all the math, guys. I'm an engineer, so to me everything starts to look like a math problem, lol.
As for fixing things, I now think we should continue to use the area effects file to modify the exploding shot. It allows for knockdown out to any given radius, and also for "effective" damage to be applied in a larger radius than kill damage. It seems this is the purpose of effective area - to differentiate the area that's inside the inferno of explosion from the area that is simply being hit with shrapnel and debris (lethal to men to be sure, but not to a wall that might get hit with only effective area). The effective radius usually uses damages of 2 or 1-point-something, meaning it still kills standard troops and may or may not kill bodyguards, depending on which shot type it is. If you want to differentiate further between the shots of various high level cannons, it's quite simple to just fabricate new entries in the xml file and refer the correct cannon shots in the projectile file to those new entires (instead of their old ones).
As for 4.5m radius to areas of effect, I think it is a bit of a stretch. That makes 63.59m^2 of affected area. As a man takes up 1.44m^2 of area in dense formation, this could cover about 44 men. It seems very unlikely that shrapnel could tear through so many consecutive men in order to reach the ones all the way at the outside. A 3.5m radius affected area would cover about 26 men, and is about the largest I think we could reasonably make the effect without it seeming ridiculous or being overpowered. The other real possibility is to use 20 men, which if I've done the math correctly should correspond to a 3.0m radius. In either case I'd be all for leaving the impulse radius set to 4.5m since it's nice for some guys to be knocked over but not dead from the explosion. The only piece I'd really consider for using any larger effect is the mortar - it's pretty bad at hitting walls and towers, and seems to have a considerably wider barrel than anything else, so a larger explosion may be in order, since its primary use is firing for effect against enemy troops.
Rather than making the explosions having exceptionally large area effects, I'd rather just make them a bit more accurate so the shots don't end up all over the place.
Does anyone happen to know if exploding shot really should make the projectile less accurate than a solid shot? I have no idea what would've been involved in getting a cannon ball to do this, and so no real idea how to assess the situation.
As for 4.5m radius to areas of effect, I think it is a bit of a stretch. That makes 63.59m^2 of affected area. As a man takes up 1.44m^2 of area in dense formation, this could cover about 44 men. It seems very unlikely that shrapnel could tear through so many consecutive men in order to reach the ones all the way at the outside. A 3.5m radius affected area would cover about 26 men, and is about the largest I think we could reasonably make the effect without it seeming ridiculous or being overpowered. The other real possibility is to use 20 men, which if I've done the math correctly should correspond to a 3.0m radius. In either case I'd be all for leaving the impulse radius set to 4.5m since it's nice for some guys to be knocked over but not dead from the explosion. The only piece I'd really consider for using any larger effect is the mortar - it's pretty bad at hitting walls and towers, and seems to have a considerably wider barrel than anything else, so a larger explosion may be in order, since its primary use is firing for effect against enemy troops
I was going off visual evidence for the suggestion actually, not maths:smash:. So it WOULD have to be tested to see what it's like.
Are you accounting for Bernoulli's principle in your assessment, JCoyote? When Carl started talking about near misses injuring you, that was the first thing I thought of. The idea is that fluid (in this case air) passing through a narrow space is caused to speed up tremendously, thus dropping the pressure in that area. This in turn can cause a tremendously strong force acting to draw the objects together, toward the sharp low pressure area. One famous example of this is with oil tankers and other such similar large seagoing vessels. If they pass too close to each other, the water between them speeds up due to being forced through a narrow area, and the tankers will actually hit each other even when steering a course that would not make them hit. I can easily see how this application of Bernoulli's principle could literally drag your body into the cannonball if it is near enough (though it would look to an observer like it missed you, it would happen so fast) or possibly that the intense force drawing your skin toward the ball in that brief instant could actually puncture it.
It would be nice to know either way, i can't really say I totally trusted the source anyway, it's a piece of fiction based off historically accounts, (although it matches up in almost every respect with all the actual historical accounts I've read, which is why i mentioned it, if I thought it was historically inaccurate I wouldn't have mentioned it). However, both the fiction and historical accounts are set in the Napoleonic era so it's possible that advancements in gun tech could have made it possible. Velocities would have naturally been higher and these where shots fired from very large caliber guns at point blank range over open decks that where supposed to be capable of doing it, so that might account for it too, at that short range the velocity would be considerably higher than long downrange.
p.s. interesting you should mention Intestines Foz as thats what it's claimed to do, slice open the stomach area and leave your innards hanging out, so you've at least given a reasoning that matches with the descriptions.
Anyway, back to testing:smash:.
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