projectile accuracy & distance problem

[holycow]

I've been modding Bigmap and been having trouble w/ arrow acc and mortar distance/accuracy.

Specifically, changing the acc # in projectile file does not seem to affect accuracy, still get the same shotgun effect from arrows - What I want to do is to decrease the diameter of arrows that fall - get a smaller grouping. I also looked at the missle accuracy # in config battle file and can't seem to make sense of .79, changed that number up and down and still no difference.

Also, changed mortar distance and vel and acc (and also changed angle when nothing else seemed to work) the mortar will fire at x distance no matter how far away but land short of targeted unit each and every time in the exact same spot. The mortar will hit the exact spot over and over but will not hit any unit or a single soldier. In fact it seemed like mortar is deliberatly missing.

Does anybody know what is going on, I didn't have this problem w/ 1.01 or currently with any other unit types ie, serpentine, basilsk, etc.

in 1.01 changed the arrow acc to .0001 and all the arrows will nail the flag bearer. and distance did not affect mortar acc.

So I'm thinking that there has to be a default acc # somewhere, or something else affecting accuracy in 1.02.

[FactionHeir]

If changing acc in the projectile file does not affect accuracy at all, then your switch is not working.

[holycow]

no that's not it, evey other change works, I can't figure it out, the bodkin acc is already at 0.00001! yet bodkins are not that accurate. Does anyone know what the numbers in battle config file mean? I've tried changing them and it does not seem to affect anything.

[FactionHeir]

Accuracy of 1 means the impact of the projectile is completely due to chance. (100%)
Accuracy of 0 means the impact of the projectile is completely due to aim, i.e. always hits a static target at the dead center (red column) of the formation.

The values in between are varying degrees of accuracy.
Note that when accuracy is fairly low (i.e. the actual accuracy is high), such as lower than the default for arrows, they are actually miss more often against units using the shooting/cantabrian circle ability.
Also, at low accuracies, the arrows will land where the unit will move to next, so against a moving target, arrows are more likely to hit in front of the direction of the target.

In general, the spread of particles hits around the target decreases with decreasing accuracy.

[edit]
Ah, you mean the accuracies in the battle_config. I believe, as indicated by the header, that this is an additional modifier added to the calculated accuracy from the projectile file to determine whether a projectile hits (or possibly whether its count may be lethal). The numbers make sense in that infantry are more likely to be hit and cavalry less likely - there are more infantry, i.e. easier to target and they tend to be relatively slow. Although admittedly, you'd imagine an elephant being easier to aim at than a horse, but I believe that since you only get 6 elephants to 32 horses, that factor was needed to not make elephants too easy to kill.

[CannonBall]

i don't know about the arrow problem, but i had a silimar problem with mortars.

change the projectile file - mortar velocity -

remove the prefer high velocity part and un-comma the velocity so it looks like:

30 55

or whatever velocity you like it to be.

[nikolai1962]

Not sure about mortars or velocities but with the other siege equipment it seemed to me the only thing accuracy_vs_buildings (and i assume the other settings) affects is how much the accuracy *degrades* with distance.

So if you test a change in custom battle with the artillery at the same distance you sometimes won't see much difference if the artillery is set up well within its max range. So, for example, a lower accuracy for flaming projectiles won't make any difference at short range but a big difference at max range.

[CannonBall]

Not sure about mortars or velocities but with the other siege equipment it seemed to me the only thing accuracy_vs_buildings (and i assume the other settings) affects is how much the accuracy *degrades* with distance.

So if you test a change in custom battle with the artillery at the same distance you sometimes won't see much difference if the artillery is set up well within its max range. So, for example, a lower accuracy for flaming projectiles won't make any difference at short range but a big difference at max range.

?huh? if you mod your projectile to .00001 accuracy, arrows an exception for some reason, it will be dead on target irregardless of distance if the velocity is high enough.

[nikolai1962]

?huh? if you mod your projectile to .00001 accuracy, arrows an exception for some reason, it will be dead on target irregardless of distance if the velocity is high enough.

Yes. That's the point. If the accuracy number is very low it means they are accurate regardless of the distance. The number represents how much the accuracy degrades with range so a very low number means the accuracy hardly degrades at all from short range to long range.

But if you're messing with siege equipment and testing in custom battle with a unit that has a much longer range than the distance the unit is set up at, then changing the accuracy stat doesn't have much effect. You can change from 10.0 to 0.00001 and you'll hardly see any difference. But, if you move it to it's maximum range and then change the accuracy stat you see a big difference. At max range a unit with 0.00001 accuracy will still be pretty accurate. A unit with 10.0 will miss all the time.


edit: the formula must be something like:

final accuracy = base accuracy - (accuracy stat in projectiles * range)