Armour Upgrades Discovery

[JeffBag]

Over in the mod chat forums, nipinghan1984 has posted a semi-complete extract of the export_descr_unit of M2TW, and it seems that there are different values for different levels of armour upgrades. There are also two values of shield.

Taken from that page,
; stat_pri_armour Details of the man's defences
; m tat_armour factor
; m tat_defensive skill factor (not used when shot at)
; m tat_shield factor (only used for attacks from the front of left)
; m tat_sound type when hit = flesh, leather, or metal
; stat_armour_ex Details of the man's defences
; m tat_armour factor. 4 values. First for base value, then 3 upgrade levels
;
; it a
; i
defensive skill factor (not used when shot at)
; m tat_shield factors. First for melee, second for missile fire
;

Example of a unit, Mailed Knights

type
t
Mailed Knights
dictionary
; Mailed_Knights
; Mailed Knights
category
; cavalry
class
; heavy
voice_type Heavy
banner faction main_cavalry
banner holy
; crusade_cavalry
soldier

Mailed_Knights, 32, 0, 1
mount

heavy horse
mount_effect elephant -4, camel -4
attributes
sea_faring, hide_forest, hardy, can_withdraw, can_formed_charge, knight
formation
2, 4.4, 3, 6, 3, square, wedge
stat_health
1, 0
stat_pri

10, 6, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, spear, 25, 1
;stat_pri_ex
0, 0, 0
stat_pri_attr no
stat_sec

11, 4, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, sword, 25, 1
;stat_sec_ex
0, 0, 0
stat_sec_attr
no
stat_pri_armour 5, 5, 4, metal
;stat_armour_ex 5, 7, 0, 0, 5, 4, 4, metal
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat
; 4
stat_ground
0, -2, -4, 0
stat_mental
9, low, trained
stat_charge_dist 45
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food
t60, 300
stat_cost
; 1, 680, 250, 120, 95, 680, 4, 170
armour_ug_levels 2, 3
armour_ug_models Mailed_Knights, Mailed_Knights_ug1
ownership

england, scotland, france, hre, spain, portugal, milan, venice, papal_states, sicily, slave, normans
era 0

y,england, scotland, france, hre, spain, portugal, milan, venice, papal_states, sicily,
era 1
y,
england, scotland, france, hre, spain, portugal, milan, venice, papal_states, sicily,
era 2

ndscotland
;unit_info
10, 0, 14


I believe the Zeroes mean that you cannot upgrade it to second or third level.
After looking at this I did some tests with custom battles; very hard, on grassy plain.

Billmen with no armour upgrade vs Croat Axemen, Billmen with stats of 15-3 and Croat Axemen with stats of 15-7, and Billmen got spanked.

Billmen with 1 armour upgrade vs Croat Axemen, Billmen with supposed stats of 15-4 and Croat Axemen with 15-7, battle ended because Billmen ran, while Croat Axmen were wavering, both commanders dead. End result 75 billmen dead, 75 Croat Axemen dead.

If this really works, and the +1 armour in the stats is just a mistake, then leather tanners will be the best buildings in the game; 600 dollars for a massive +4 padded armour to all your crap units. Yet another example why the stat system in this game doesn't tell anything.

[BigTex]

Bless your heart. Off to mod chat.

I have to understand what is wrong with those darn 2hd axemen.

[Shahed]

That is GREAT ! If this is accurate then the screen is wrong which is GREAT !!! You 100% sure ?
In custom battle it also gives you +4 armor ? You'd have to test it in campaign I'd say.

If correct, you should post in the other thread as well, where there was an armor discussion taking place:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...t=72958&page=2

[BigTex]

Very good post. It seems that he only has up to the cavalry and ships unpacked though.

Interesting stat though, seems there are heavy, barded, mailed, and armoured mounts for heavy cavalry.

[Derfel von Saljeth]

So, if i understand what are you saying, militia pikemen with 3 armor upgrade actualy wear plate armor even if their stats say they have 3 armor value?
And unarmored troops with 1 upgrade will wear padded armor (4) and not just 1 armor value?

[Derfel von Saljeth]

ok i've understood :) So if JeffBag is right, we should report this as a bug cuz stats pannel don't show the real values of an upgraded unit

[Kobal2fr]

Hmmm doesn't a line starting with ; mean it's a commentary, or old code not longer used but kept just in case ?

[Quickening]

Eh could someone explain to me in laymans terms what the deal with the armour is? All of the above may as well be in Atlantean

[geala]

Hello, Quickening, this is a selftest for me wether I have understood it. (being a laymen, too).

If you upgrade an armour lets say from nothing to leather (padded cloth would be a better term) the description in the unit panel changes from "armour: 0" to "armour: 1". This is suspected to be buggy because padded armour normally gives +4 armour at least for the units which start with padded armour. So your upgrade should give also +4 to your troops starting with no armour but wearing padded armour after it.

Now it seems that not the real upgrade is buggy but only the description in the unit panel. If you upgrade an unit from no armour = description "armour 0" in the unit panel to padded armour = description "armour 1" in the unit panel your unit received the true "armour +4" bonus as intended. The description in the unit panel still shows "armour 1" instead of "armour: 4" but that then would be a minor bug.

[dopp]

But now it seems that the code was commented out and the game uses the old RTW +1 armor per upgrade level. A crying shame. And perhaps a major bug/balance issue.

[Maizel]

Im pretty sure someone will mod it in soon

[dopp]

Hmm then maybe it is broken after all, a new feature that they could not get to work properly. There also seem to be two new lines at the bottom describing the level of amorsmith required for upgrades. And why are the unit costs commented out as well? Is there a separate file for those now?

In fact, a lot of the code looks kind of funny. Many typos. Perhaps it was imperfectly extracted? The code for armor levels is not commented out for Druzhinas, nor is it for Katatanks.