Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

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Bethrezen
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

Flamers are way too powerful. I started a new campaign and in alpha 02 flamers are running through the scavenger defenses like the defenses don't exist. And that before the upgrades you get in alpha 02. And also against hard structures in later levels.
True enough but keep in mind the changes for the flamer are intended to be used from alpha 5 onwards against the new paradigm so I'm well aware that they would be to strong on the earlier levels for right now I'm just trying to figure out how much damage it should do and then once I know that the changes will get moved to the flamer damage artefact on alpha 5 so flamers being overpowered on the earlier levels wont be a problem, for a fair test of the flamer you should try them on alpha 6, against the new paradigm units.

According to the testing I did to day the flamer with the current values

Damage 46
Periodic damage 16
Rate of fire 34

should do around 1400 damage per minute vs a new paradigm scorpion halftrack medium cannon that’s around 700 impact damage per minute and around 700 burn damage per minute now obviously that depends on how many shots miss the target so it may be a little less or a little more but on average it should be around 1400.

Now I'll grant you that is stronger than the medium cannon but that's irrelevant since the medium cannon is underpowered and needs buffing because right now the lancer is a good deal stronger then the medium cannon as you can see from my calculations and in game test data

Lancer
Damage per shot 150 x 2
Rate of Fire 10
Accuracy 60%
Scorpion body with composite alloys 16 kinetic, 12 thermal
Propulsion Modifier Halftracks 120%

(Damage Per Shot x Propulsion Modifier - Target Armour) x Rate of Fire x Accuracy

(300 x 1.2 - 16) x 10 x 0.6 = 2064 damage per minute

Now since I was unsure how much damage per minute the lancer should do I increased the health of the target a Scorpion Halftrack Medium Cannon by 5000 to make sure that it had enough health to survive taking 10 hits i also made sure to apply the composite alloys armour upgrade to make sure that the armour value was the same as the new paradigm units.

I then force fired on the target 10 times and noted down the damage after each test you can see the result below

7442 - 5966 = 1476
7442 - 5638 = 1804
7442 - 6130 = 1312
7442 - 4818 = 2624

The first value is the starting health, the second value is the remaining health after taking 10 hits from a single lancer the third value is the total damage done for that test so you can see that your calculations for the lancer are completely wrong and the lancer is in fact doing between 1312 and 2624 damage per minute depending on how may rounds actually hit the target.

which by extension means that the balancing for the medium cannon is also wrong, and in fact the medium cannon should be doing something like 3 times the damage it is currently if its supposed to be a viable alternative for the lancer.

This is normally the way I verify my calculations because even using the right formula due to the fact that accuracy adds an element of randomness to the damage done you will never be able to exactly calculate the damage per minute the best you can do is an approximation this is still helpful mind you and is a lot faster then doing in game testing but while in game testing is slower its also more accurate especially if you run the same test multiple times I find 4 or 5 times is usually a good enough sample size to figure out what i need to know.

In alpha 06 the Bunker Buster becomes as powerful as the Medium Cannon. That shouldn't be. A calculation against a tracked Scorpion body NP unit. Armor of the Scorpion body with one upgrade 15.6. For my calculation, I round up.

Medium Cannon
Damage: 64
ROF: 30
Accuracy: 50

Bunker Buster
Damage: 120
ROF: 10
Accuracy: 70

Damage formula from Bethrezen: (Damage Per Shot x Propulsion Modifier - Target Armour) x Rate of Fire x Accuracy

Medium Cannon
(64 x 100% - 16) x 30 x 50% = 720

Bunker Buster
(120 x 100% - 16) x 10 x 70% = 728

That would make the Medium Cannon obsolete. Generally, I'm no friend of making the Bunker Buster too useful against tanks. To make them no longer totally helpless we can increase the weaponmodifier to 50 and increase the ROF a bit. But the Bunker Buster is a specialized weapon against structures and that's what he should stay.
to be honest since the balancing on the medium cannon is wrong as i have just proven this is irrelevant, and actually around 700 to 800 damage per minute against enemy units for the bunker buster is in fact quite reasonable but if you still think its to much then you could reduce the modified to say 80 which would make the damage per minute around 500 to 600 vs enemy units certainly i don't think it should be lower then this or the bunker buster wont be-able to inflict sufficient damage to defend it's self

again here are some calculations and in game test data i took for the bunker buster to day

Bunker Buster
Damage per shot 120
Rate of Fire 10
Accuracy 70%

Scorpion body with composite alloys 16 kinetic, 12 thermal
Propulsion Modifier Halftracks 100%

(Damage Per Shot x Propulsion Modifier - Target Armour) x Rate of Fire x Accuracy

(120 x 1 -16) x 10 x 0.7 = 728

The math predicts a damage per minute of 728 so let's test that to see if it's right.

942 - 110 = 832
942 - 110 = 832
942 - 6 = 936
942 - 214 = 728

once again the the first value 942 is the starting health of the target, the second value 110 is the remaining health after taking 10 hits from the bunker buster, the third value 832 is the total damage inflicted after shooting 10 times.

so we can see that the in game test data agrees with the damage calculation so we know that it's correct.

With the weight changes for the Medium Cannon and the tracked propulsion, all units become too fast. In alpha 06 the Medium Cannon is running with MaxSpeed both with half-tracks and tracks. Also the Lancer. And that before the engine upgrade. That's too soon to run with MaxSpeed.
I have tried different permutations but currently its not possible to have the medium cannon run at about 75% speed on both tracks and half tracks

if you make the medium cannon heavier to make it slower on half tracks then its to slow on tracks if you decrease the weight to make it faster on tracks then its ends up being a bit to quick on half tracks unfortunately there is nothing that can be done about this but I don’t have an issue with the medium cannon running at full speed on half tracks since it looses some of the extra protection that tracks provide

A medium cannon on a cobra body and half tracks only has 750 hp on but on tracks its has 1000 hp so loosing health but gaining speed is an acceptable trade off.

It looks for me that messing around with weight values for changing unit speed is more complicated than it looked at first glance. So I'm of the opinion that we should concentrate us on making several weapons valuable choices and wait with speed changes after we finished that.

Depends on how you look at it if you assume that heavier units like cannons should move at about 75% of there top speed on tracks due to the fact they gain more durability then gaining speed at the expense of durability is an acceptable trade off, so the fact that stuff like the medium cannon runs at full speed on half tracks is ok because it looses that durability due to the fact half tracks are faster but more lightly armoured.

also berserk cyborg already alerted me to the fact that the weight balancing on the medium cannon needed adjusting so i already adjusted this in the last build i posted, the medium cannon will still run at full speed on half tracks but will only move at about 70% of the top speed on tracks so i think how i have things should be a reasonable compromise.

OK, I accept your arguments. But I think the weapons are still too cheap so I suggest the following costs:
Medium Cannon: 100
Lancer: 125
Heavy Cannon: 125
Currently for a lancer on a cobra body and halftracks it costs 200, for a light cannon on half tracks and a cobra body the cost is 162, for a medium cannon on half tracks and a cobra body the cost is 181 which is half way between the lancer and the light cannon.

I don’t think it’s a good idea to make them more than about 200 per unit or you won't have the resources to use them, because usually when I get to alpha 6 I only have around 3000 power and with that I have to upgrade my tank factories, build the command relay centre and research the command turret so I can build commanders build repair bays upgrade my units to medium bodies, and that’s all before I get the first artefact and have to spend a bunch more resources researching everything so any more than 200 a units and I cant use them there to expensive even at 200 a unit I usually run out of resources before I'm able to build a full squad of 18 units because 18 x 200 is 3600, now I'll grant you that you do get some resources back when you recycle and it’s a good job to or I'd only be able to upgrade 1 squad

For the research order to the Lancer, we can make the MRP the prerequisite of the Lancer and the Bunker Buster so that you get the Lancer and the Bunker Buster immediately after the MRP is researched. I still like the idea with the new artifact "Rocket Technology" but because Berserk Cyborg don't like it I think this would be a good compromise.
I'm not a big fan of doing that it makes no sense to me to have to research 1 weapon to get another, I'd much prefair to be able to just research the lancer and bunker buster and ignore the mini rocket pod, and medium cannon since both of these still need work

You are doing the same mistake as twice (if I'm right) before. A ROF for the Lancer of 10 shown in the screen in the game means that the Lancer is shooting 5 times 2 rockets per minute. Not 10 times two rockets as in your calculation. Also, you have to subtract the armor from every rocket. So the calculation becomes this:

(150 x 1.2 - 16) x 10 x 0.6 = 984

I calculated above the damage for Medium Cannon and Bunker Buster against a tracked unit and do it here for comparison again for your half-tracked unit.

Medium Cannon:

(64 x 1.05 - 16) x 30 x 0.5 = 768

Bunker Buster:

(120 x 1 - 16) x 10 x 0.7 = 728

As you can see the Lancer isn't so much more powerful.

I'm surprised that your testing in the game confirmed your wrong calculation so please explain to us what you exactly did for this tests. Maybe I made a mistake but I'm pretty sure that I calculated right.
well I'm afraid this is where you are wrong as i already explained above the lancer is in fact doing between 1312 and 2624 damage per minute depending on how may rounds actually hit the target, and the in game test data backs this up

7442 - 5966 = 1476
7442 - 5638 = 1804
7442 - 6130 = 1312
7442 - 4818 = 2624

The first value 7442 is the starting health of the target
the second value 5966 is the remaining health after taking 10 hits from a single lancer
The third value 1476 is the total damage done for that test

so once again you can see that your calculations for the lancer are completely wrong which means that the balancing for the medium cannon is also wrong as is everything that you have based off of this, this is why you should always verify your calculations to make sure that they match with what is actually happening in game.

in case you don't believe me try testing the damage of the lancer in game your self build a target dummy that has lots of health make a note of the health before starting then take a single shot at the target if both rockets hit the damage should around 300 if only a single rocket hits the damage should be around 150 then against your target dummy again note down the starting health value take 10 shots and then note down the remaining health subtract the remaining health from the starting health and that will tell you how much damage was done then rinse and repeat 4 or 5 times to get a decent sample size.
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alfred007
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

Lancer
Damage per shot 150 x 2
Rate of Fire 10
Accuracy 60%
Scorpion body with composite alloys 16 kinetic, 12 thermal
Propulsion Modifier Halftracks 120%

(Damage Per Shot x Propulsion Modifier - Target Armour) x Rate of Fire x Accuracy

(300 x 1.2 - 16) x 10 x 0.6 = 2064 damage per minute
Once again your calculation is definitely wrong. The Lancer is shooting 5 times 2 rockets per minute and not 10 times as you calculated. Take a stopwatch to secure that you give the Lancer only one minute. If this calculation is confirmed in your tests I'm sure that you didn't check the time and gave the Lancer two minutes for this damage.

To remember you look at this post.
And also a few posts before you confirmed my calculations in this post. Read your answer:
Bethrezen wrote:Just double checked this and timed it using my stop watch and indeed you are correct it only fires 5 salvos per minute for a total of 10 rockets, however I still maintain that the info on the design screen for lancers and similar is incorrect see for every other weapon that fires only a singe round per salvo you can look at that and know what damage each shot does and how many shots that weapon is going to do per minute, assuming 100% accuracy of course, however this is not the case for lancers and similar.
to be honest since the balancing on the medium cannon is wrong as i have just proven this is irrelevant, and actually around 700 to 800 damage per minute against enemy units for the bunker buster is in fact quite reasonable but if you still think its to much then you could reduce the modified to say 80 which would make the damage per minute around 500 to 600 vs enemy units certainly i don't think it should be lower then this or the bunker buster wont be-able to inflict sufficient damage to defend it's self
No, it's not irrelevant because your damage calculation of the Lancer is wrong.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to make them more than about 200 per unit or you won't have the resources to use them,..
Of course, you have because I proofed it in several tests several times.
...because usually when I get to alpha 6 I only have around 3000 power...
That's your personal problem. Try to do better energy management and you will have enough power even with my suggested values.
I'm not a big fan of doing that it makes no sense to me to have to research 1 weapon to get another, I'd much prefair to be able to just research the lancer and bunker buster and ignore the mini rocket pod, and medium cannon since both of these still need work
As I wrote in a post before, in this case, you would have to take four artifacts into the scavenger factory. Oner for the MRP, one for the Medium Cannon, one for the Lancer and one for the Bunker Buster.
well I'm afraid this is where you are wrong as i already explained above the lancer is in fact doing between 1312 and 2624 damage per minute depending on how may rounds actually hit the target, and the in game test data backs this up
I'm sure as I wrote above that you didn't check the time and gave the Lancer two minutes.
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xNEXTx
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by xNEXTx »

Went through the entire alpha company of the insane difficulty + mod camBalance(downloaded 1.02.19).
There are some points i that drew attention.
Scavengers are very evil steel, power is very small, but you can play.
And now a little about the damage and weapons:
1) the machine Gun has lost its damage. Accuracy of 50% leads to the fact that he often misses than hits the target.
When I got the flamethrower stopped using the machine gun in full ( not effective).
2) Flamethrower against scavengers is very strong. High rate of fire + 90% accuracy + large radius. It destroys everything at the beginning of the game. Used until the emergence of easy cannon.
3) Light cannon shoots like a "machine gun", 60 rounds per minute. I think it's too fast.
4) The medium cannon is not used. Units crawling like turtles, crowded and interfere with each other to depart for repairs.
5)" Mini-Rocket Artillery " having studied this technology. Used only its. A large number of units can withstand the army and defense of the enemy.
6) Heavy cannon - as and the average. Tried and refused.

Missions:
The only problems were alpha 3 and alpha 12.

Alpha 3:
A large number of flamethrower towers (they are very dangerous).
10 units against scavengers was really hard.
Overplayed 4 times. In end has passed using: 8 flamethrower units +2 repair unit.
Alpha 12:
Passed using cyborg (Lancer + flamethrower).
Tried to play tanks, but they interfere with each other + the enemy is too many units.
In this mission I really lacked power.

Now stopped at the mission in beta 4. I only play Lancer cyborgs - they destroy everything.
I think they need to be corrected.
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alfred007
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

@nNEXTx
Thank you for testing the mod. Did you download the mod from Bethrezen or from Berserk Cyborg? The latest mod from Bethrezen is an experimental one where he tried to make flamers more powerful. As you can read in my last post I think he made flamers too powerful for the early level. It's not necessary to try these mods further than Alpha 10 because for the later levels the balance isn't adjusted at the moment. So here's my feedback to your points:

1) It's intended to make the Machine Gun a bit less powerful. We felt the Machine Gun too powerful after Alpha 01 and staggered the damage upgrades.
2) If you used Bethrezens mod: Yes, they are at the moment too powerful. He's working on it.
3) Yes, it's a bit fast. But that's what modern cannons can do and it's part of the rebalancing of all cannons. Do you feel it over- or underpowered or it's "just" the feeling it's too fast?
4) What propulsion did you use? Try the half-tracked propulsion. And the lower speed for the tracked propulsion is the price for higher hitpoints.
5) A little bit surprising to me. I never used the MRA because I found them not very useful. How large was your combat group?
6) As I wrote above, the balancing with the mod from Berserk Cyborg is tested until Alpha 10 and the Heavy Cannon is given in Alpha 11. Nevertheless, to help us please be a bit more precise. How did you use the Heavy Cannon, what propulsion did you use and what are the reasons why you refused it?

Alpha 03: It was intended to make Alpha 03 more "interesting".

Alpha 12: For this mission, the balancing is not yet adjusted.

If you want to continue helping us please use this mod from Berserk Cyborg and play the Alpha campaign again until Alpha 10. The mod from Bethrezen is an experimental one and it's not clear at the moment which changes from him will become a part of the new balance and which not. Please play the levels with different weapons. From the beginning with the Machine Gun, with the Flamer and also with mixed combat groups and tell us what you notice. From Alpha 06 on use Lancer, Medium Cannon and MRP (later also MRA) with different propulsions. Please be as precise as possible. A "Tried and refused" gives us no hint what we should change. And give us feedback after every level. Thank you in advance.
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xNEXTx
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by xNEXTx »

I played with a mod from Berserk Cyborg.
I am ready to continue to help with tests mod.

1. I agree it is less strong, but he now need a little bit to increase the accuracy. Now he is weak and inaccurate.
2. Still observed that the speed flight of the flame (round) a flamethrower the slow.
3. They shoot fast. but you can reduce the rate of fire and slightly increase the accuracy. They will be slower to shoot but also to hit to give damage. Now they shoot often but the accuracy of 50%.
4. Yes used I tracked propulsion.
5. I completed 9 missions (transport mission: synaptic link) using 19 units. Python+MRA+tracked propulsion and 1 Builder.

Later I'll play again and write for each mission .
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

Once again your calculation is definitely wrong. The Lancer is shooting 5 times 2 rockets per minute and not 10 times as you calculated. Take a stopwatch to secure that you give the Lancer only one minute. If this calculation is confirmed in your tests I'm sure that you didn't check the time and gave the Lancer two minutes for this damage.
I'm sure as I wrote above that you didn't check the time and gave the Lancer two minutes.
Ok so I just double checked this and it seems that the lancer is indeed only firing 5 times in 60 seconds having said that even with that the lancer was still did 1280 damage, which still makes my point about the bunker buster valid with the settings I proposed the bunker buster is not even remotely closer to being better than the lancer, it matches the lancers damage if the lancer misses a lot as you can see below.

Lancer
7442 - 5966 = 1476 / 2 = 738
7442 - 5638 = 1804 / 2 = 902
7442 - 6130 = 1312 / 2 = 656
7442 - 4818 = 2624 / 2 = 1312

Bunker Buster
942 - 110 = 832
942 - 110 = 832
942 - 6 = 936
942 - 214 = 728

But the bunker buster is in no way better.

With regards to the lancer specifically I'm still of the option that the lancer was nurfed to much, don’t get me wrong it needed nurfing but to go from doing the damage it did right down to less than 1500 damage a minute is a bit much and I would probably have the upper limit for the lancer set at around 1800 damage per minute because otherwise that doesn't leave much room for manoeuvre when you are trying to balance the other weapons.

Then I'd adjust the medium cannon and mini rocket pod to around 1650 to 1700 damage per minute, because mini rockets and the medium cannon should be less powerful than the lancer but stronger than the machine-gun and flamer but still be a viable alternative next I'd set the flamer and the machine-gun set at around 1400, because through my experiments with the flamer I have found that if you set the damage much lower then the flamer doesn't do enough damage to be viable vs the new paradigm, then of course you have the bunker buster which should do about 700 damage per minute vs enemy units because anything less and they don't inflict enough damage fast enough to be able to defend them selves and even then that's only effective if there are only a couple of enemy units and there are like 18 bunker buster all focusing firing on 1 target.

for the machine-gun perhaps we could increase the accuracy by 10% taking it from 50% to 60% and increase the damage from 30 per shot to 50 per shot that would bump the heavy machine-gun damage up to around 1400 per minute and might make the machine-gun feel less weak.

balancing the mini rocket pod though that's going to be tricky due to the rate of fire upgrades, but i supposed we can adjust the other weapons first and then come back to the mini rocket pod.

As I wrote in a post before, in this case, you would have to take four artifacts into the scavenger factory. One for the MRP, one for the Medium Cannon, one for the Lancer and one for the Bunker Buster.
Not really because there is now and has always been only 1 artefact in the first scav base on alpha 6, I know you moved some of the tech around but on my end I still see only 1 artefact, so all I'm doing is altering the required research on the bunker buster and lancer so that I can research them right away instead of having to research other weapons first as you can see in the change list

Changed Fast Fire Mini-Rockets required research

from ["R-Wpn-Rocket-Damage02"]
to ["R-Wpn-Rocket05-MiniPod"]

Changed Fast Fire Mini-Rockets Mk2 required research

From ["R-Wpn-Rocket-ROF01","R-Wpn-Rocket-Damage02"]
To ["R-Wpn-Rocket-ROF01"]

Changed Lancer AT Rocket required research

From ["R-Wpn-Rocket-Damage01"]
To ["R-Struc-Factory-Module"]

Changed Bunker Buster Rocket required research

From ["R-Wpn-Rocket01-LtAT"]
To ["R-Struc-Factory-Module"]
Now of course you could change

Changed Lancer AT Rocket required research

From ["R-Wpn-Rocket-Damage01"]
To ["R-Wpn-Rocket05-MiniPod"]

Changed Bunker Buster Rocket required research

From ["R-Wpn-Rocket01-LtAT"]
To ["R-Wpn-Rocket05-MiniPod"]

So that you have to research the mini rocket pod first but I'm not a fan of doing this because to me it makes no sense, now of course the ideal thing to do here is to just remove the required research from the lancer and the bunker buster, trouble is that doesn't work because i already tried that and if you do that then the Lancer AT Rocket & Bunker Buster Rocket don’t show up at all, which is why I though having the factory module as a pre request would make most sense, because its kind of the same idea as requiring the factory module to make medium body units.

having said that i do see the problem that this presents in that it lets you research the lancer and bunker buster on alpha 5 which is not correct, evidently they would need something else as well to stop you from researching them on alpha 5.

I guess this is one of them things where there is no easy solution, because what i have right now is not really viable since it lest you research the lancer and bunker buster on alpha 5 which is not right, berserk cyborg doesn't really want to make a new rocket technology artefact and i really don't like the idea of having to research the mini rocket pod before i can research the other weapons, so I'm not sure is there is a way round this.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

The machine Gun has lost its damage. Accuracy of 50% leads to the fact that he often misses than hits the target.

When I got the flamethrower stopped using the machine gun in full ( not effective).
As Alfred already mentioned the Machine Gun was nurfed because they where to strong, having said that I do agree from alpha 5 onwards Machine Guns are to weak vs the new paradigm units, so like the flamer they need a bit of a buff

Flamethrower against scavengers is very strong. High rate of fire + 90% accuracy + large radius. It destroys everything at the beginning of the game. Used until the emergence of easy cannon.
If you used my experimental build then the flamer would be to strong on the earlier levels because right now I'm just trying to figure out the damage require for the flamer to be an effective choice vs the new paradigm units, doing that is just easier when you play with the base settings once we have agreed what damage the flamer should do vs the new paradigm the base stats will be reset and the modifications done via damage upgrades so the flamer doesn't end up being to strong on the earlier levels

Light cannon shoots like a "machine gun", 60 rounds per minute. I think it's too fast.
This is deliberate because if you have ever seen footage of modern light cannons this is how they work, go on to you tube and have a look for your self.

The medium cannon is not used. Units crawling like turtles, crowded and interfere with each other to depart for repairs.
With regards to pathing issues there is nothing we can do about that via a mod that would require changes at the source level and would require implementing a new pathing algorithm I think there is some work to that effect going on but it is still at a very early stage so wont be ready for quiet some time.

With reguards to unit speed again this is a know issue and if you look at a couple of the changes I made in my experimental build of the mod I did try to address the speed issue for units which are excessively slow like the medium cannon.

Tracks
Weight reduced from 13,000 to 10,000 ("weight": 650 to "weight": 500)
Base speed increased from 125 to 128
This gives tracks a speed of 1.00, with light turrets like the lancer and machinegun but heavier turrets like the medium cannon will be a bit slower of course tracks are meant to be slower due to the fact they afford better protection

Medium Cannon
Weight reduced by 20% from 5000 to 4000
On half tracks the medium cannon will more or less move at full speed, but looses the extra protection gained from tracks, on tracks a medium cannon will only move at about 0.70 on but is more durable this was about as fair a compromise as I was able to come up with ultimatly the problem here is the way speed is currently calculated and the way engine upgrades are currently implemented, this needs fixing, but obviously there is some disagreement about this.

A large number of flamethrower towers (they are very dangerous).
10 units against scavengers was really hard.
That’s kind of the point because for insane difficulty the default set-up for alpha 3 was way way way to easy, having said that alpha 3 is far from unbeatable, although if you where using my experimental build when you tried alpha 3 I'm not surprised you would have issues because my experimental build is only meant to be used on alpha 6.

Alpha 12:
Passed using cyborg (Lancer + flamethrower).
Tried to play tanks, but they interfere with each other + the enemy is too many units.
In this mission I really lacked power.
As Alfred already mentioned the balancing changes only go as far as alpha 10 so far but I decided to pick up where I left off at alpha 6 because I still think that the balance changes for alpha 6 need work, the flamer and machine-guns are to weak for a start, and there are a bunch of other little details that need working out as well.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

Ok so I'm having another bash at altering the research order for the first artefact on alpha 6 since changing the required research for the lancer and buster buster to the factory module as i did previously allow you to research the bunker buster and lancer on alpha 5 which is not correct.

So I went in to research.json and I removed

Lancer
"requiredResearch": ["R-Wpn-Rocket-Damage01"],

Bunker Buster
"requiredResearch": ["R-Wpn-Rocket01-LtAT"],

Now as I already mention previously, when you do that the lancer and bunker buster vanish from the research list, now I had assumed that i simply needed to to add R-Wpn-Rocket01-LtAT and R-Wpn-Rocket03-HvAT to camSetArtifacts({...}); in cam1c.js

So I then went in to cam1c.js and changed

Code: Select all

 camSetArtifacts({
		"ScavSouthFactory": { tech: ["R-Wpn-Rocket05-MiniPod","R-Wpn-Cannon2Mk1"] },
	}); 
to

Code: Select all

camSetArtifacts({
		"ScavSouthFactory": { tech: ["R-Wpn-Rocket05-MiniPod", "R-Wpn-Cannon2Mk1", "R-Wpn-Rocket01-LtAT", "R-Wpn-Rocket03-HvAT"] },
	}); 
However when I try this the lancer and bunker buster still don’t show up in the research queue, so my question is why ? what am i missing ? clearly there is something I'm over looking.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Berserk Cyborg »

Bethrezen wrote: 06 Feb 2019, 17:19 However when I try this the lancer and bunker buster still don’t show up in the research queue, so my question is why ? what am i missing ? clearly there is something I'm over looking.
Worked for me. Make sure you load into Alpha 6 from Alpha 5 cause artifact technologies are initialized when first entering the mission.

I'll upload a new mod soon.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

Bethrezen wrote:Ok so I just double checked this and it seems that the lancer is indeed only firing 5 times in 60 seconds having said that even with that the lancer was still did 1280 damage, which still makes my point about the bunker buster valid with the settings I proposed the bunker buster is not even remotely closer to being better than the lancer, it matches the lancers damage if the lancer misses a lot as you can see below.
I never said that the Bunker Buster is better than the Lancer. I only said that with your values the Bunker Buster is as good as the Medium Cannon.
Bethrezen wrote:With regards to the lancer specifically I'm still of the option that the lancer was nurfed to much,...
Did you play Alpha 06 with Lancer tanks with the current values? Because in my tests I never had the feeling that we nurfed the Lancer too much. You are talking about several suggested damages per minute and for me, it's not clear what you exactly mean. Theoretical damages per minute before the subtraction of the enemy armour doesn't say anything about resulting damage the weapon does in the game. As you can see with the three Cannons, they have all a theoretical DPM of 1200 with their base values but as soon as you calculate the damage against a specific unit you see that the Heavy Cannon is doing more damage than the Medium Cannon and the Medium Cannon more damage than the Light Cannon. So for the upcoming discussion about damages, I suggest a reference enemy unit that we use to calculate the damage against. Because we are at the moment discussing the damages in Alpha 06 I suggest a half-tracked Scorpion body unit with an armour of 16. This will make all damage values that we will be talking about in the future comparable. If you want to use a different unit just suggest one.

And here is as an example the damage the Lancer is doing in the current master version.
Bethrezen wrote:So it seems that for calculating the damage this is the correct formula to use in order to get accurate damage per minute calculations.

(Damage Per Shot x Propulsion Modifier - Target Armour) x Rate of Fire x Accuracy
Damage: 160
ROF: 10
Accuracy: 60 %
Propulsion modifier 115 %
(160 x 1.15 - 16) x 10 x 0.6 = 1008

And this is the damage of an overpowered weapon.

So you can see, when you are talking about the Lancer should have a damage per minute of 1800 why I'm a little bit confused.

Bethrezen wrote:Not really because there is now and has always been only 1 artefact in the first scav base on alpha 6, I know you moved some of the tech around but on my end I still see only 1 artefact, so all I'm doing is altering the required research on the bunker buster and lancer so that I can research them right away instead of having to research other weapons first as you can see in the change list
No, at the moment you have 2 artifacts in the Scavenger factory. One for the MRP and one for the Medium Cannon. The Medium Cannon artifact has neither in v1.10 nor in v3.1.5 be there because you got the Medium Cannon in these two versions in Alpha 05. For the new balancing, we moved the Light Cannon into Alpha 04 and the Medium Cannon into Alpha 06. And you need an artifact to research the Medium Cannon if you don't want to make the MRP a prerequisite of the Medium Cannon.

Code: Select all

	camSetArtifacts({
		"ScavSouthFactory": { tech: ["R-Wpn-Rocket05-MiniPod", "R-Wpn-Cannon2Mk1"] },
		"NPResearchFacility": { tech: "R-Struc-Research-Module" },
		"NPCentralFactory": { tech: "R-Vehicle-Prop-Tracks" },
		"NPNorthFactory": { tech: "R-Vehicle-Engine01" },
As you can see in the code for Alpha 06 you have two artifacts in the Scavenger factory. The brackets are code-related and don't mean that this is one artifact with two weapons included. So if you want to make the MRP, the Lancer, the Medium Cannon, and the Bunker Buster researchable at the same time you have to include four artifacts into the Scavenger factory. And that's what you already did with your code change in your previous post. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm fine with that but that are four artifacts you put into the Scavenger factory. :wink: I know, I'm a bit (maybe more than a bit) pedantic. :)
Bethrezen
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

Worked for me. Make sure you load into Alpha 6 from Alpha 5 cause artifact technologies are initialized when first entering the mission.

I'll upload a new mod soon.
Ohhhh bet ya that’s why its not working because I was just loading an alpha 6 save I didn’t load alpha 6 from alpha 5 DO'H!!!! well I'll give that a go and see.

[edit]
Yup looks like that was the problem when i loaded alpha 6 from alpha 5 everything worked as expected.

I never said that the Bunker Buster is better than the Lancer. I only said that with your values the Bunker Buster is as good as the Medium Cannon.
Perhaps but if you look back a bit you will see my comments about the lancer where in response to Berserk Cyborg saying that with my proposed settings the bunker buster was better then the lancer which is clearly incorrect, also I'm pretty sure you did say that with my preposed settings the bunker buster would be better then the lancer though i'd need to go back a few pages and look to be sure :P

Did you play Alpha 06 with Lancer tanks with the current values? Because in my tests I never had the feeling that we nurfed the Lancer too much. You are talking about several suggested damages per minute and for me, it's not clear what you exactly mean.
Ok so lets see if I can make this a bit clearer, currently if you calculate out the damage per minute for Heavy Machinegun, Flamer, and Light cannon

The Heavy Machinegun does around 348 damage per minute
The Flamer does around 723 damage per minute
The Light Cannon does around 528 damage per minute

Even taking into account that the damage done in game is usually slightly higher then are calculations all of these weapons are to weak vs the New Paradigm therefore to correct the problem I recommend the damage on them be increased to around 1200 to 1400 damage per minute which is somewhere in the region of about double the damage they are doing currently

Now if we assume that the minimum damage that a weapon needs to do to be effective again new paradigm units is around 1200 damage per minute, and we assume that medium weapons such as the Mini Rocket Pod and the Medium Cannon should be stronger then light weapons such as the Heavy Machinegun, Flamer, and Light Cannon.

Then it follows that if the Heavy Machinegun, Flamer, and Light Cannon are doing around 1200 to 1400 damage per minute then the Mini Rocket Pod and the Medium Cannon should be doing around 1400 to 1600 damage per minute, if we then further assume that heavy weapons like the Lancer should be stronger again then it follows that the Lancer should be doing between 1600 and 1800 damage per minute, which means that currently the lancer would need to have its damage slightly buffed.

Now a realise that the margin for doing this is quite slim because if you buff it too much then its going to end to being to strong, but the logic here is to try and keep everything on par, now of course you could always adjust this scale a bit and maybe do

1200 to 1300 damage per min for Heavy Machinegun, Flamer, and Light Cannon
1300 to 1400 damage per min for Mini Rocket Pod and the Medium Cannon
1400 to 1500 damage per min for the Lancer

But if you do that I'm not sure there would really be sufficient difference between light weapons and medium weapons and medium weapons and heavy weapons

Which is why I though it might be better to have a slightly bigger variance, but any way hope that makes things a bit clearer.

So for the upcoming discussion about damages, I suggest a reference enemy unit that we use to calculate the damage against. Because we are at the moment discussing the damages in Alpha 06 I suggest a half-tracked Scorpion body unit with an armour of 16. This will make all damage values that we will be talking about in the future comparable. If you want to use a different unit just suggest one.


What i have been basing all my testing off of is a half-tracked Scorpion medium cannon with composite alloys which gives the correct kinetic armour value of 16 as this seems to be there most common and strongest unit on alpha 06.

No, at the moment you have 2 artifacts in the Scavenger factory. One for the MRP and one for the Medium Cannon. The Medium Cannon artifact has neither in v1.10 nor in v3.1.5 be there because you got the Medium Cannon in these two versions in Alpha 05. For the new balancing, we moved the Light Cannon into Alpha 04 and the Medium Cannon into Alpha 06. And you need an artifact to research the Medium Cannon if you don't want to make the MRP a prerequisite of the Medium Cannon.

As you can see in the code for Alpha 06 you have two artifacts in the Scavenger factory. The brackets are code-related and don't mean that this is one artifact with two weapons included. So if you want to make the MRP, the Lancer, the Medium Cannon, and the Bunker Buster researchable at the same time you have to include four artifacts into the Scavenger factory. And that's what you already did with your code change in your previous post. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm fine with that but that are four artifacts you put into the Scavenger factory. I know, I'm a bit (maybe more than a bit) pedantic.
I think there is a little language confusion here, what is written in the code is research topics not artefacts, artefacts are the little boxes that you pick up when you destroy an enemy base, and that's what I'm talking about when i say artefacts I'm referring to the little boxes that you pick up after blasting the enemy structure that contains it and unless something has changed in later master builds there is now and has only ever been 1 at the first scav base on alpha 6, now what research that artefact grants has changes where on v1.10

the artefact would grant the following research

Mini Pod Rockets
HE Mini Rocket
HE Mini Rockets 2
HE Mini Rocket mk3
Mini Pod Rocket Guard Tower
Lancer AT Rocket
HEAT Rocket Warhead
HEAT Rocket Warhead 2
HEAT Rocket Warhead 3
Fast Fire Mini Rockets
Fast Fire Mini Rockets mk2
Fast Fire Mini Rocket 3
Bunker Buster Rocket
Lancer Hard Point
Lancer Bunker

On master the same artefact grants the following research.

Medium cannon
Medium cannon hard point
Mini rocket pod
Mini Rocket Guard Tower
HE Mini Rockets
HE Mini Rockets 2
Fast Fire Mini Rockets
Fast Fire Mini Rockets 2
Fast Fire Mini Rockets 3
Lancer AT Rocket
Bunker buster rocket
HEAT Rocket warhead
Lancer Bunker
Lancer Hard Point

Now when we compare the 2 lists we can see the following changes

Medium cannon
Medium cannon hard point

Have been added

HE mini rocket 3
HEAT rockets 2
HEAT rockets 3

Have been removed

So once again you can see all I'm doing here is simply playing with the research order because the first artefact on alpha 6 always gave you

Mini Pod Rockets
Lancer AT Rocket
Bunker Buster Rocket

So given that fact your objection if I'm understanding it correctly is groundless because I'm not actually adding anything to the artefact I'm simply making it more accessible by playing with the research order so that you no longer have to research a whole bunch of other stuff before you can research the Lancer AT Rocket and the Bunker Buster Rocket.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

Ok so been playing with the flamer a bit more trying to figure out how the burn damage is calculated because every time I tried I couldn’t get the calculation to match with what happened in game but then I realised that’s because my test methodology was flawed, see what I was doing before was just firing 34 times making a note of the damage done now while that works fine for working out impact damage this is not the correct method to use for working out the burn damage.

To work out the burn damage what you need to do first is set the impact damage to 0 now even with the impact damage set to 0 the flamer will still do 1 damage per hit.

Next we need to know how long a burn cycle lasts having timed this with a stop watch it comes out at about 15 seconds

Third we need to know how much damage is done in 1 burn cycle and we need to know if the burn damage is always the same and since we don’t want that 1 point of damage messing with are calculations I'll also increase the accuracy of the flamer to 100% as well.

942 - 876 = 66 - 1 = 65
942 - 876 = 66 - 1 = 65
942 - 876 = 66 - 1 = 65
942 - 876 = 66 - 1 = 65

Ok so we can see from are in game testing that the burn damage always does 65 damage.

65 x 4 = 260

Which means that in 1 minute the burn damage should always be 260

942 - 676 = 266 - 4 = 262
942 - 675 = 267 - 4 = 263
942 - 677 = 265 - 4 = 261
942 - 677 = 265 - 4 = 261

So even with 100% hit rate there seems to be some slight variance but its small enough that we can ignore it

Ok so now we need to know how much damage the burn will do per tick when all 3 flamer damage upgrades are applied.

looking in research.json we can see that

High Temperature Flamer Gel - 20%
High Temperature Flamer Gel Mk2 - 20%
High Temperature Flamer Gel Mk3 - 90%

Looking in Weapons.jsom tells us the base damage is 14

14 / 100 x 20% = 2.8 + 14 = 16.8 round up to 17
17 / 100 x 20% = 3.4 + 17 = 20.4 round down to 20
20 / 100 x 90% = 18 + 20 = 38

Ok so now we know the damage per tick we can try and calculate the burn damage

(Damage Per tick x Propulsion Modifier - Target Armour) x Duration

(38 x 0.75 - 12) x 15 = 247.5

So we see that is slightly off so maybe the duration is slightly longer so let's increase the duration to 16 seconds

(38 x 0.75 - 12) x 16 = 264

That's better now that more or less matches what we see in game ok so lets add the burn damage and impact damage together now

(Damage Per Shot x Propulsion Modifier - Target Armour) x Rate of Fire x Accuracy

(36 x 0.75 - 12) x 34 x 0.9 = 459

Impact damage 459 + burn damage 264 = 723 damage per minute

Ok so I've calculated this correctly the flamer should do around 723 damage per minute so lets test that to see if its right

942 - 169 = 773
942 - 166 = 776
942 - 168 = 774
942 - 167 = 775

Ok good seems I've calculated things correctly so it looks like the correct formula for working out the burn damage is

(Damage Per tick x Propulsion Modifier - Target Armour) x Duration
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

Ok so I think I may have just come across a crazy weird bug.

I was trying to work out how much I would need to alter the High Temperature Flame Gel mk3 upgrade in order to translate the damage changes and I noticed this weird anomaly I can't explain.

Currently the upgrade values for each of the damage upgrades are like this

High Temperature Flame Gel mk1: 30%
High Temperature Flame Gel mk2: 15%
High Temperature Flame Gel mk3: 150%

Now when I do the calculations for the first 2 damage upgrades everything checks out and the damage value of the flamer does indeed increase to 16 and 18 respectively, however when I try to do the calculations for High Temperature Flame Gel mk3 things get weird.

After applying High Temperature Flame Gel mk3 the flamer has a damage value of 36 but if the upgrade value of High Temperature Flame Gel mk3 to 150% then the damage value should be 45 not 36 as you can see below.

12 / 100 x 30% = 3.6 + 12 = 15.6 round up to 16
16 / 100 x 15% = 2.4 + 16 = 18.4 round down to 18
18 / 100 x 150% = 27 + 18 = 45

so my question what is going on is this a bug ?!?! why is the damage value is only increased by 100% when you apply High Temperature Flame Gel mk3 instead of 150% as it says in research.json
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xNEXTx
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by xNEXTx »

You're wrong about everything.
We are changing the 12 damage by a certain percentage.

12x1,3=15,6 ~16
12x1,45=17,4 ~18
12x2,95=35,4 ~36

or
12+12x0,3=15,6 ~16
12+12x0,45=17,4 ~18
12+12x1,95=35,4 ~36

damage + damage x ((mk1+mk2+mk3)/100)= total damage
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

Bethrezen wrote:1200 to 1300 damage per min for Heavy Machinegun, Flamer, and Light Cannon
1300 to 1400 damage per min for Mini Rocket Pod and the Medium Cannon
1400 to 1500 damage per min for the Lancer
Bethrezen wrote:What i have been basing all my testing off of is a half-tracked Scorpion medium cannon with composite alloys which gives the correct kinetic armour value of 16 as this seems to be there most common and strongest unit on alpha 06.
If you really want to apply these dpm's to a half-tracked Scorpion body unit they are way, way, way too high. As I calculated in my last post, the currently overpowered Lancer in the master version is doing a dpm of 1008 against this unit. And now you want to apply a 50% higher damage for the Lancer. That makes no sense. If these values are the base damages per minute before you apply it against a unit than these values are saying nothing. Let me show you what I mean:

Three theoretical weapons of the same weaponEffect and same accuracy. The propulsion modifier is set to 100 for easier calculation.

Weapon 1
Damage 200
ROF 10
Accuracy 50%
DPM 2000

Weapon 2
Damage 100
ROF 20
Accuracy 50%
DPM 2000

Weapon 3
Damage 40
ROF 50
Accuracy 50%
DPM 2000

As you can see all three weapons are having the same DPM. Now let us see what happens when they shoot at a Scorpion body unit with one metal upgrade (armour = 16)

Weapon 1
(200 - 16) x 10 x 0.5 = 920
Weapon 2
(100 - 16) x 20 x 0.5 = 840
Weapom 3
(40 - 16) x 50 x 0.5 = 600

As you can see, the same base damage per minute but a different effect against a Scorpion body unit. That's why I suggested in my last post that all damages should be calculated against a reference unit. Because only these values are comparable and give us a hint of the real effect in the game. Base damage per minute says nothing. Especially when we are talking about weapons with different weaponEffects.

Regarding our discussion about how many artifacts are in the scavenger factory, I think we can stop it now. It's just an academic discussion with no effect to gameplay. We should focus on important things. :wink: :)
Bethrezen wrote:Ok so I think I may have just come across a crazy weird bug.
As xNEXTx wrote, the upgrades are additional. When you have for example three upgrades of each 30% it's calculated 1 + (30 + 30 + 30)/100, so that the resulting value after the upgrades is 90% higher than the base value. It's not 1.3 x 1.3 x 1.3. That would result in a 120% higher value.
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