Accuracy, Lethality and Power...?

[+DOC+]

Previously in STW we had simply accuracy and power for all projectile weapons, however, now we have lethality. How do these all fit together and if your were wantiong to increase the likelihood or archers killing their targets which one would we modify?

From the projectiles.txt file:
Quote
Accuracy
The accuracy of the projectile. 1 = best accuracy. Lower numbers are more erratic. Must be > 0. Affects ranging in for artillery.

Lethality
The base chance of a hit scoring a kill. This can greater than 1 as is multiplied by the base kill chance (by default 18%). However if the two multiplied together should not exceed 100%.

Power
The number of hits points damage done to a man or structure. Most men have only 1 hit points, but generals have more.[/QUOTE]

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Kraxis]

Accuracy: 1 = hit every time if target is standing still and it is not windy.

Lethality: The chance for a kill if target is struck. (I thought was was clear from the text)

Power: You do know that generals have more hitpoints than others right? Well, that is where it comes in. And if you look at the value for Arbs here, you will know why they are so good at killing generals.

So I think Accuracy is the one you want to improve since I guess you want to kill normal soldiers.

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[This message has been edited by Kraxis (edited 11-08-2002).]

[Prodigal]

Saw the title thought you must be talking about me...No idea about your question though, be interesting to find out. Maybe lethal refers to stones, etc from cat's & that.

[Kraxis]

For generally more effective archers give them a small increase in velocity... to 200 perhaps. That will lower the angle they fire at, giving them a better chance at hitting some thing.

You might also want to increase Lethality, but I guess it is much harder to balance that.

To top it off, I think it is strange that Longbows have a range of 120 meters... They could fire 300 meters (but that would make them outrange Ballistas and Catapults).

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[MonkeyMan]

Quote Originally posted by Kraxis:


So I think Accuracy is the one you want to improve since I guess you want to kill normal soldiers.

[/QUOTE]


really i would have thought from that description that increasing the leathality would be a good idea.

i.e. arrow is fired, we assume it hits ond then

x*0.18 = probability that this hit causes the POWER amount of damage. If not then nothing happens.

in practice a small increase in both would hugely improve a unit.

[Kraxis]

Quote Originally posted by MonkeyMan:
in practice a small increase in both would hugely improve a unit.[/QUOTE]

Yes, a small increase in both would do good. I was just careful, read my second post about the Lethality (it has the potential to make units increadibly overpowered).

Range is the one I would change first. Longbows firing 120 meters... BAH! Normal bows 100 meters... Both could fire longer than that. The drop in accuracy over distance would still make it worth it.

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[cart6566]

Very nice information here. Anyone know how valor increases affect these Accuracy/Power/Lethality stats? Valor increases do affect these, right?

[Kraxis]

Yes it does, but it is simply too little to bother with.

Puzz did a test of V4 Archers firing at pikemen and v0 Archers firing at pikemen. The results actually had the V0 have better kills. Naturally that was because of luck, but that just proved that V4 Archers are not any better than V0 Archers.

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[Winevil]

errr, i couldnt find this "projectile.txt" file in my MTW folder...any idea where is it?

Winevil

[Kraxis]

In the main directory...

The same place as the unitprod files.

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[Winevil]

oops, after doing a search in the forum, read something tat the projectile.txt file will only be available after the patching the game....

Winevil

[cart6566]

Quote Originally posted by Kraxis:
Yes it does, but it is simply too little to bother with.

Puzz did a test of V4 Archers firing at pikemen and v0 Archers firing at pikemen. The results actually had the V0 have better kills. Naturally that was because of luck, but that just proved that V4 Archers are not any better than V0 Archers.

[/QUOTE]

Man, that just doesn't seem right. The difference between 0 and 4 valor should be just as noticeable as with other units.

[tootee]

DOC,

From my understanding, the chance a normal missile kill a normal soldier is given by

chance-to-kill = accuracy * (0.18 * lethality).

There is no reason to have two variables to decide chance-to-kill, so they are there for certain reasons. My best guess is that even if a hit doesnt kill, it still inflict morale penalty on the receipt, or lower the armour rating of that man, or other things..

------------------
tootee the goldfish,
headmaster of Shogun-Academy
loyal roach of Clan S.G.
'Pa Si Buay Chao! Si Liao Ka Song!'
------------------

[Jagger]

tootee, where does the armor rating work into that formula?

[MonkeyMan]

i would have said it was

chance to kill = accuracy*shield*(armour+armour piercing ability)*(0.18*lethality)

where armour = (1 no armour .9 some .5 loads etc.)

armour piercing = (0 - 0.5) but when applied makes a maximum of 1.

Armour really sholdn't degrade when hit, the chances of hitting the same spot twice are tiny, and even if you did, it's a proven arrow deflecting spot. Also if the origional arrow was lodged there, it has even less chance of working.

form my games workshopping days, something of the order - roll to hit, roll to damage, on those hits that damage roll to armour save with modifiers applied to natural armour save.

of course i don't really know just makes sense to me like that.

[Puzz3D]

Despite what the description says, I suspect that "power" is the ability to penetrate armor. That's what that parameter did in STW. I would say you first have to determine if there was a hit, second determine if the hit penetrated the armor and third determine if the wound was lethal. It could very well be that "power" also determines how many hit points come off the general.

[cart6566]

Hi Puzz, since you have made an appearance here, let me ask an opinion of you. Is it possible that your test of V0 and V4 archers against pikes might have understated the effect of valor on archers due to the very low-tech vs. very high tech units? Perhaps improvements were imperceptible because archers of any (reasonable) valor wouldn't really do much against the pikes. Possible?

I might try to test this with arbs vs. pikes or chiv sgts. How did you run the test? Computer plays the archers and you run the spears in range and halt for a certain period of time?

Anyone else tested this?

[longjohn2]

Accuracy has nothing to do with chance to kill. It just determines where the missile goes. Basically the firer works out the exact angles he needs to hit the target. He then modifies these angles randomly based on the accuracy, and takes the shot with the adjusted angles.

Power has nothing to do with armour piercing ability. It does determine how many hit points of damage are done, but it's mainly there to set how much damage artillery units do against walls. You can make archers that knock down walls if you want.

There is a seperate stat that determines armour piercing ability.

[Kraellin]

umm, doc,

read the last words under 'accuracy' again. i think yer still thinking in terms of shogun. this aint shogun :)

K.


------------------

[Puzz3D]

cart6566,

My test on v0 and v4 archers just wasn't accurate enough to see a difference in total kills. Raise the valor on ranged units if you're concerned about them routing or if you wan't to use them in hth fighting. The improvement to accuracy from v0 to v4 must be rather small.


LongJohn,

Thanks for that clarification on ranged parameters.

[This message has been edited by Puzz3D (edited 11-08-2002).]