Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2013 12:14 pm Post subject:
Weapons and Damage
Subject description: Need some things cleared
How exactly are the flags Range and Ranged treated when used in combination on both the weapon and projectile? I. e. does the Range value in the projectile overwrite the Range value on the weapon? Does the Range value on the weapon determine the max. range of the projectile if it's Ranged, or is this determined by the Range flag on the projectile?
Also, I recall the Sight of an object determines the max. range of auto-targeting, even if the Range of the object's Primary goes beyond the Sight. At least this seems true on defenses. Also, these same objects seem to be unable to automatically apply the range bonus that comes with placing them high above the target (e. g. on a cliff).
Thanks in advance. _________________ Last edited by Crimsonum on Wed Jan 30, 2013 8:49 am; edited 1 time in total QUICK_EDIT
Weapon
-Range: the max range the unit can shoot at. It will stop moving closer when the target is in this range and start shooting at it
Projectile
-Range: i doubt it works here (was probably a mistake by WW). Better use ProjectileRange on the weapon. Then this tells the game the range the projectile can fly. If Weapon range is higher, then the projectile won't be able to hit the target, as it simply explodes in midair before it has reached the target.
-Ranged (bool): this is meant to be used on homing projectiles (ROT>0), and tell the game if the projectile will explode after a while or fly until it has reached the target (e.g. to prevent missiles from chasing escaping aircraft back to their base)
However this key doesn't works reliable too and it is better to use ProjectileRange on the weapon again and set it slightly higher than the Range.
Crimsonum wrote:
Also, I recall the Sight of an object determines the max. range of auto-targeting, even if the Range of the object's Primary goes beyond the Sight. At least this seems true on defenses. Also, these same objects seem to be unable to automatically apply the range bonus that comes with placing them high above the target (e. g. on a cliff).
The sight usually has nothing to do with it. An artillery can aim and shoot perfectly fine on enemy units deep inside the shroud.
I think base defenses work the same here too. e.g. the TI Obelisk has a longer range than its sight and automatically aims and shoots fine on max range.
If something is restricted then there is most probably the GuardRange key used and set to a lower value than the weaponrange.
TS has no working height bonus for range and sight. The logic is broken and the values set so high, that you don't have any effect ingame.
LeptonsPerSightIncrease=2000
LeptonsPerFireIncrease=2000
These two don't work. The value is too high, thus they are disabled. Last edited by Lin Kuei Ominae on Wed Jan 23, 2013 12:33 pm; edited 3 times in total QUICK_EDIT
Thanks for clearing that up. What about the relation between weapon ranges and the Sight value? Is there any? See my original post for more info.
I have another question related to projectiles. What's the difference between High and VeryHigh? Does High only determine whether the projectile can cross walls or not? This doesn't really seem to work in TS. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
High: can fly over walls. But projectiles usually start and end low above the ground where they still hit walls (due to arcing or low altitude flight level)
I also think High works only on homing and not on arcing projectiles.
VeryHigh: not sure if this really makes a missile fly in a higher altitude. It might make homing voxel projectiles launch vertical instead of horizontal. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Actually I've proven the LeptonsPerFireIncrease does work. I once tested it by placing three artillery units (with Range=15 IIRC, or whatever is under [155mm]) on three different map height levels: 4, 8 and 12. I forced them fire as far to the West as they could. Each artillery unit could shoot exactly a cell farther than the unit below it. However, the ground they shot at was on height level 0 in all cases, so this could be what made the difference.
I also recall units on higher levels have higher sight than those on lower levels. However, this value is global and not restricted to, for example, standing near cliffs, which is kind of stupid.
The value 2000 propably represents the distance between 4 height levels (which is the height of a cliff). So approx. 500 leptons (512) is the height of a cell. This contradicts earlier observations of a cell's dimensions being 256^3 leptons. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
They do affect the value but they do not work correct.
Because these use the absolute height on which the object is standing and not the relative height between object and target.
Thus the player on the higher part of the map has units with longer range and sight than the player on the lower part of the map.
e.g. a flat map with Height 14 would cause all units to have the maximum sight of 10 while the same map on height 0 would cause all units to have the normal sight range.
A cell has from my experience a diameter of 256 leptons. The height however is different. I would assume about 64-128 leptons for one height level. Thus the 2000 matches like 15-20 height-levels, while a map can have only max 14. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
I have some questions regarding animations and damage. How is damage dealt; once every time the animation plays, or like the description in art.ini suggests, once in every X time interval (perhaps even related to the Rate key in the anim)? What does DamageRadius do exactly? I can't say I've noticed any effect even with huge values like 50 000.
Next, does the game deal floating-point damage values? A weapon with Damage=10 and Verses=5%,5%,5%,5%,5% in its warhead would deal 0.5 damage to all armor types. I have a feeling the game rounds these up to the closest integer. In base TS, the FIRE1-3 anims (IIRC) have a very low Damage value, something like 0.005. Yet, I'm having trouble where small looped flames cause significant and constant damage even on heavily armored vehicles, despite low damage and warhead verses. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
First, it deals the same damage every frame played. Not sure how that interacts with Rate. I think DamageRadius might be obsolete.
As for the second question, I am not 100% sure how TS handles this. In RA2/YR the values are truncated, so 0.5 would become 0. But I remember testing this sort of scenario in TS and it still dealt damage. It might be rounding it up to 1 or something. Either way I doubt game deals damage as a floating-point value, especially considering that Strength is integer value. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Difficult and complex question.
first there are differences between the rules.ini Damage key and the art.ini one.
rules.ini
Damage key works on integer value. I'm not sure but i think the real done damage can be floating point values when the armor Verses are applied.
In the [CombatDamage] section however exists the MinDamage key which is by default set on 1 and if it works as it should (not sure here), then a damage of 0.01 would be still rounded up to 1.
IIRC there are cases where even an object with Strength=1 would still need 2 or 3 shots from a damage=1 weapon to be destroyed, thus implying floating point damage values.
art.ini
2 different Damage behaviours.
Damage on debris works like rules.ini Damage
Damage on animations:
-it accepts floating point values and also works correct with them
-damage is done based on the Rate key. So only every time it goes to the next frame, the damage is applied (e.g. Rate=1 would play each frame for 1 minute and apply only every minute another Damage)
-when using values between 0 and 1, the damage isn't done at each frame anymore, but summed up until it reaches a full integer value:
e.g. Damage=0.5 would apply only every second frame 1 damage.
Damage=0.01 would apply only every 100th frame 1 damage, while during the 99 other frames no damage is done.
DamageRadius seems to be completely useless. I haven't noticed any difference on this one too. Though right now I notice that I always only tested it on debris and never on normal animations. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
art.ini animations behaviour is fact.
Only on the rules.ini damage i'm not sure, but there aren't many situations where you balance with the precision of a single hitpoint.
\EDIT
rules.ini damage tested
-works only on integer
-even after Verses, Pronedamage and Spread are applied only integer damage
-if after verses adjustments the damage goes below 1 and above 0, minimum damage is 1 (even if MinDamage=0 set in CombatDamage) _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
When damage is above 1 but reduced to something between 0 and 1 due to Verses, then it rounds up to 1.
If you explicit set Damage=0.x then it's 0. It simply truncates any value after the point. Damage=1.9999 would be truncated to 1 too, 2.9 to 2 etc _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Not too long ago I discovered the anim damage to be really awesome to choose. This damage over time can create barriers when an animations triggers another one and so forth or has spawn=yes. Another nice side effect is that you get to see buildings crumble instead of instantly blowing up. Also time bombs are possible when you left an invisible animation with no damage play for a long time and then ultimately spawn a new anim that deals lots of damage.
A new C4 where a timer anim appears in front of the building at the end coming up with an all obliterating anim. The possibilities are sheer endless.
Anim damage got a quite huge cellspread which makes it difficult for weapons since it will hurt infantry blobs. _________________ Free Tibed!
EA for worst company of the decade! QUICK_EDIT
Damaging animations also have disadvantages.
Since they are completely independent from the firing unit,
-they don't allow veterancy. (unit is never promoted to veteran/elite)
-attacked units don't retaliate. Especially against AI this can be abused a lot as the AI won't recognize the attacker and thus ignore it. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
The second one isn't a problem when your weapon deals 1 damage or more. Vet yes thats a problem but most mods and the normal game disregard veterancy anyway unlike RA2 where it would hurt. _________________ Free Tibed!
EA for worst company of the decade! QUICK_EDIT
Actually the first thing most mods do is activating veterancy, since it's so easy to activate and a cool feature.
OrangeNero wrote:
The second one isn't a problem when your weapon deals 1 damage or more.
Not if the animation is doing the damage over a long time, so it's more probable that the target is hit by the animation damage than the weapon.
Also problematic is, that normal animations with damage use the Fire2 Warhead and if you want to use a specific warhead you have to use debris. And spawning lots of debris for a constant damage field soon causes lags.
The kill statistics after a match will be wrong too and when you only use animations, all the player will only have losses but no kills, since it wasn't the player killing anything but the anims.
A C4 alternative using a timed animation would have some serious problems too.
-you can force fire on ground and thus kill units with it too
-multiple units can fire on the same building and place there multiple C4 charges, thus not only killing the building but also things around the building (especially the area effect of the animC4 would be problematic, since the normal C4 is a very precise weapon and you wouldn't expect your own units getting killed/damage next to the C4ed building too)
So damaging animations aren't the perfect solution. They do have some great benefits, but only when used right and not in a too excessive way. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
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Weapons and Damage
