Formulas

[JellyfishGreen]

In the pursuit of inconsequence, I have taken this data gathered by NKF into Excel for some analysis. (I did receive your previous data, and tried gathering some on my own, but not rigorously.) If I understand your data correctly, the first number in brackets is the number of tiles before we get the out-of-range flag, and the second number in brackets is the number of tiles that the object could actually be thrown. (due to ceiling effects?) I also assume these were all non-diagonal throws and that "F" or field refers to the 10x10 tile groups. I just used raw tile count.

 

I used a "Sandbox" formula of (Distance = Tilefactor * Strength / Weight) and got a pretty good fit to the Range data with a Tilefactor of 2.5, with a 1 or 2 tile error here or there.

 

I'm not sure if the programmers would have done it all in integer math or how they rounded off, which would account for some of the difference.

 

 

Object Weight Throw Soldier Str Distance Sandbox floor ceil round

C 8 FALSE 10 4 3.13 3 4 3

B 5 FALSE 10 6 5.00 5 5 5

C 8 FALSE 20 7 6.25 6 7 6

A 3 FALSE 10 8 8.33 8 9 8

B 5 FALSE 20 10 10.00 10 10 10

C 8 FALSE 35 11 10.94 10 11 11

A 3 FALSE 20 16 16.67 16 17 17

B 5 FALSE 35 16 17.50 17 18 18

C 8 FALSE 70 22 21.88 21 22 22

A 3 FALSE 35 27 29.17 29 30 29

B 5 FALSE 70 35 35.00 35 35 35

A 3 FALSE 70 58 58.33 58 59 58

 

 

A 3 TRUE 10 8 8.33 8 9 8

A 3 TRUE 20 16 16.67 16 17 17

A 3 TRUE 35 24 29.17 29 30 29

A 3 TRUE 70 33 58.33 58 59 58

B 5 TRUE 10 6 5.00 5 5 5

B 5 TRUE 20 9 10.00 10 10 10

B 5 TRUE 35 16 17.50 17 18 18

B 5 TRUE 70 27 35.00 35 35 35

C 8 TRUE 10 4 3.13 3 4 3

C 8 TRUE 20 7 6.25 6 7 6

C 8 TRUE 35 11 10.94 10 11 11

C 8 TRUE 70 21 21.88 21 22 22

 

* Maximum Range data is where THROW is FALSE. Throwable distance where THROW is true. I did my work on Range data only. I substituted 58 for the unknown max strength/max range distance.

[NKF]

A brief interlude on the grenade discussion.

 

In the spirit of using this thread as a repository of game formulas and other interesting stuff that's bogged down by numbers, I'll just include the 'current reaction' formula discussed in the how to impove reactions thread.

 

The 'Current' reaction formula

 

The formula is calculated for every unit as follows:

 

Current Reaction = Reactions * (TU current / TU Max )

 

This means that the current reactions for a unit is determined by the percentage of the unit's remaining time units.

 

Note: This is not reflected in the stat screen. You have to find this out yourself, as the calculation is all done internally. (The good art of information hiding, folks.)

 

How is it used? There are two inherently identical uses. During your turn, and at the end of your turn.

 

During your turn, when your soldiers are given orders, each unit's current reaction score is directly compared with the current reaction score of any alien within visibile range (20 tiles or so, I think). The alien must actually be able to see the unit - i.e. is not looking the other way and has no obstructions.

 

Given these conditions, the game constantly checks the unit's reaction score against the alien's. The one with the largest reaction score can keep making moves uninterrupted. But the moment the other unit has the higher score, that unit will be able to get an 'opportunity' move. Hence we have reaction fire.

 

At the end of your turn, your positions are reversed. Now, the aliens get to move, and if their reaction scores are below yours, you get a reaction shot - if you are able to. (Note, during the alien's turn, they are allowed to use auto-shots, as it is their turn. Reaction shots are performed with snap-shots.)

 

 

Now, a working example:

Werner Okamoto has a modest reaction level of 30. He has 60 time units in total. He is armed with a laser rifle, which can fire snapshots at 25% of his time units per shot (or 15 TUs a shot). He ends his turn without spending any of his time units.

 

Generic Nasty Alien Shaped Thing has a massive reaction score of 70, and 50 time units. For fun, it's carrying a heavy plasma! It fires snapshots at 30% TUs per shot, or 15 time units. It is exhausted and only has 50% of its TUs left (25/50). He is staring right at Werner.

 

The turn is ended. The aliens now get to choose what to do. Naturally, since the alien can see the soldier, it will attempt to attack.

 

Move 1:

Werner = 30 * 60/60 = 30 * 1 = 30

GNAST = 70 * 25/50 = 70 * 0.5 = 35

 

The alien takes a shot.

 

Move 2:

Werner = 30

GNAST = 70 * 5/50 = 70 * 0.1 = 7

 

Not only does the alien not have any time units left for the shot, it fails its reaction score. Instead, Werner takes a shot.

 

Move 3:

Werner = 30 * 45 / 60 = 30 * 0.75 = 22  (Werner shoots again)

GNAST = 7

 

Move 4:

Werner = 30 * 30 / 60 = 30 * 0.5 = 15 (Ditto)

GNAST = 7

 

Move 5:

Werner = 30 * 15 / 60 = 30 * 0.25 = 7

GNAST = 7 

 

Now, although equal, Werner can still make the shot, but the alien cannot. As this move exhausts Werner's TUs to 0 / 60, the exchange of shots ends right here.

 

Notes: This is how reactions are calculated in general. Health percentage and the critical wound scores have not been taken into account.

 

- NKF

 

P.S: Boy, is this thread a bit messy. Some day we're going to have to go through what we've collected so far, order them logically, and clear off all the extraneous information (like this entire paragraph, for example. )

[cyrus]

The NKF-sensei's CRF does make sense.

 

In fact this is a step beyond what was in Laser Squad. There you had the opportunity to fire, if you had enough TUs. In UFO, reactions of both combatants are taken into account.

[Pumpkinhead]

You guys are all so learned

 

The only formulas I know come from the OSG...

[JellyfishGreen]

Not so much learned as learning, this is all experimental evidence and theories...

 

A report from the field backs up the reaction fire ideas above - not as scientific as using a game editor, but here it is anyway -

 

A powersuited trooper, rated high reactions, stopped at base of landing ramp with enough TU's for a snapshot left. Another 'average' trooper had to stop in the 'Ranger with most of his time units, personal armor, and a laser pistol.

 

A snakeman showed up and shot the powersuit (armor saved him) and then there was a flurry of fire from the laser pistol. The snakeman retreated before the powersuit could get off a shot.

 

The lesson is that a camping trooper with full TU's has a better chance of reaction fire than a highly rated trooper on the last of his TU's.

[Pumpkinhead]

I was just wondering if any of you guys can help me understand something here...

 

I did my own little experiment yesterday with my own men while they were still standing in the Avenger...

 

The 2 men I was using had Flying Suits and Plasma Rifles and were facing each other in adjacent sqaures...

 

Okay, so what I did was get one to shoot the other... The first 3 shots did absolutely nothing... No armour or health damage at all, and then the 4th shot killed him :dontgetit:

 

Anyways, I then made him shoot another man and ended up losing only 2pts of health and 10pts of armour... And when I got that guy to return fire, the original guy only lost 1pt of health and 6pts of armour... Why are these values so low?? :dontgetit:

 

A Plasma Rifle is rated at 80pts of damage, right, so why did my men only lose 12 at the most... That's pretty weird if you ask me!

[NKF]

Flying suits, right? I take it you were testing with the front plates? What was that? 110, I think.

 

X-Com units take double damage from plasma, so that raises the plasma rifle damage to 160. It won't do that much damage, but it will do a random amount of damage between 0 and 160. Although there's an equal chance of having any value, I'd say that the actual damage level would hover around the middle value of 80 or so damage.

 

Anyway, the game rolls a number betweeo 0 and 160 (or rather 0 to 80 and then doubles the result) and then subtracts the armour level away from it. The game must produce a damage value greater than the armour level in order to cause any damage.

 

If it causes damage, it subtracts the remaining damage level away from health and then does some damage to the armour level (I'm not sure how this is calculated, but I guess it's a random number between 0 - 5)

 

- NKF

[Pumpkinhead]

So let me get this straight, for any damage to be done to a Flying Suited soldier, the random number must be above 110, and if the average is 80 in this case, that would explain my "non-damage" hits...

 

Also, does this mean that a Plasma Pistol with 104 damage (52x2) cannot possibly hurt a Flying Suited soldier from the front?

 

Ps - It must be between 0-10 for the armour because I lost 10 on one guy and 6 on the other...

[Pumpkinhead]

I'm not counting bravery (it moves in 10 point increments)

So is there no maximum for bravery then?

[NKF]

Regarding the plasma pistol ... well, it would seem that way wouldn't it? It only really seems to get you if it strikes other parts of your flying suit.

 

As for bravery -- it is limited, but I'm not sure what it is as I've not really checked to see.

 

It's mostly because I pay very little attention to the bravery stat.

 

- NKF

[NotDefault]

As for bravery -- it is limited, but I'm not sure what it is as I've not really checked to see.

It's limited to 110 due to the odd way in which it is stored. The bravery stat seen in the game is equaled to 110 - 10 * the stat stored in the files. That's why it moves in increments of 10, and since it is stored as a byte, it means bravery can't go above 110 (there may be a cap on improvement below that number).

 

A suggestion about armour: you say that the damage to the armour appears to be between 0 and 5 randomly. Perhaps this is some percentage (about 10% ballpark) of the damage the armour absorbed.

 

Now a question about armour: is the damage to the armour carried over from mission to mission, or does it just affect the armour in the mission where it is damaged?

[NKF]

No, everything in the battlescape is repaired by the next mission (except the condition of your soldiers). Same goes for HWPs. I guess it's because all these battlescape elements are recreated every time the mission starts, and the game doesn't keep track of everything (they're just remembered as quantities, not as unique individual pieces).

 

- NKF

[NKF]

I thought I'd just follow up regarding the plasma pistol vs. power suit matter.

 

I gave it a shot, and from tests so far, it does indeed appear to consistently ignore the damage as long as it hits the front plates.

 

I did get hurt at one time, but only once. In this case, I think it was because the sectoid had moved away a bit and fired off its shot at an angle, causing the shot to hit the side armour. Otherwise, the only damage the soldier got later were from the critical wounds.

 

So, yeah, your flying suit front plates are practically immune to plasma pistol bolts.

 

On that same note, that should make hovertanks immune to plasma pistol bolts, as it has 130 all-round armour and 100-under armour. You'd need the rifle or heavy plasma to hurt it.

 

- NKF

[the_dead]

I'm not counting bravery (it moves in 10 point increments)

So is there no maximum for bravery then?

It doesn't really matter, once any of my soldiers have had at least 40 bravery they have never panniced or gone beserk no matter how bad the situation has got.

[Pumpkinhead]

Dave Ellis doesn't agree with you, NFK, I hate to say... The OSG says that the damage percentage modifier for "Power Suit/Flying Suit" is 100% for everything except Incendiary and Stun, being 0% and 80% respectively... Where did you get the 200% from in your calculations?

 

I'm not saying you're wrong or anything, I was just wondering where all these different numbers come from 'cause I'm getting confused

 

It also says that the Flying/Power Suits and Silacoids aren't effected by fire at all and then on the opposite page states, and I quote, "Armor, no matter what type, provides no protection against fire, although certain units and aliens are more or less susceptible than others."

 

Sheesh, make up your mind, Dave

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

 

On a different note, he also says that damage is taken off the armour first before effecting the health, which I think we all know is rubbish because it means you wouldn't take any health damage until your armour was all gone :dontgetit:

[BreakMage]

The 200% comes from the fact that X-Com units take twice as much damage from Plasma based weapons than say, Terran Projectile weapons like Rifles and Pistols.

 

Your units are supposed to drop like flies, evidently. And in the beginning of the game, they do.

 

To make this equation related... did you know that E=(MC)^2?

[NKF]

Let's put it this way. I lowered my soldier's armour to 0, increased health to 100 and then started blasting away at the soldier with a rifle. I took statistics for how much damage was done for every shot.

 

Rifle bullets do 30 damage according to the ufopaedia.

 

All the damage levels I was getting was between 0 - 60. That's a 0% to a 200% increase of the base value. I was getting similar results with lasers and plasma weapons.

 

That is pretty much the method I use to obtain my values.

 

I'm not saying that the OSG is wrong, I'm just posting my findings, is all.

 

---

 

As for fire - if you are standing in flames, the armour does seem to help stop you getting any damage (don't quote me on this one). However, if you've caught fire (i.e. the flames are on you), you get damage every turn, regardless of armour.

 

---

 

And finally, if you look at the damage calculation I put up a few pages back, armour does get subtracted from damage before it affects health.

 

Let's say you fire a plasma rifle. It does 50% its listed value (this is the randomness in play), giving you 40 damage. Now, the target only takes half damage from plasma. This leaves us with 20. Let's say the armour you hit has a value of 16. 20 - 16 = 4. The unit will only take 4 damage. This gets subtracted from health, and there's a small chance that the armour section that was hit will be reduced somewhat.

 

 

- NKF

[Pumpkinhead]

That is pretty much the method I use to obtain my values.

 

I'm not saying that the OSG is wrong, I'm just posting my findings, is all.

Maybe there's another unknown modifier in the equation that we are unaware of :dontgetit:

[Pumpkinhead]

Just so everyone's aware of the damage modifiers I'm referring to, here's the list...

 

Basically, everything's 100% except the following:

 

Soldier/Civie/Sectoid/Celatid/Floater: HTH-120%, Acid Spit-160%

Personal Armour: Fire-80%, Stun-90%

Power/Flying Suit: Fire-0%, Stun-80%

Tanks: Fire-40%, HE-75%, HTH-90%, Acid Spit-40%

Snakeman: Fire-70%

Ethereal: Fire-70%, Stun-80%

Muton: AP-60%

Silacoid: Fire-0%, HE-130%

Chryssalid: Fire-80%, Stun-90%

Reaper: Fire-170%

Sectopod: HE-80%, Laser-150%, Plasma-80%

Cyberdisc: AP-80%, HE-60%

Zombie: AP-60%, HE-80%, Laser-70%, Plasma-70%, Stun-0%

 

I find it amusing that Celatids are vulnerable to their own spit

[NKF]

If I get some time, I'll run a set of tests on all the aliens and the various damage types. Just to find out for sure.

 

I won't test fire impact damage effects, as fire impact damage behaves very oddly in X-Com. (I mean, I shoot one unit with it, and then fire at another with an autoshot, and instead of the second unit dying, the first unit dies. It's buggy!)

 

By the way, I noticed that the zombie is listed as taking 0% stun damage. I've shot them up with stun bombs and after a few hits, they they hatch their chryssalid. Unless it means that it takes 0 physical damage -- But no units take physical damage against stun. Ah well.

 

- NKF

[BreakMage]

Maybe once the Zombie reaches an Unconscious state instead of Death the Chrysallid hatches. Not sure how to rationalize this except that once the host body becomes incapacitated, the larva can then grow and take over... Or something.

[Pumpkinhead]

I'm not sure what the "stun" column refers to exactly... He doesn't go into much detail about the damage modifiers at all...

 

Imagine how cool it would be to get our hands on the original design doc

[Alitorious]

*casts necromancy*

 

Sorry for dragging this up from the depths, but I'm curious as to something.

I have a friend who claims that the OSG states that damage is random between 0-200%, not between 0-100%. (I say 'claims' because I'm not fortunate to have the OSG myself) That's in addition to resistance modifiers.

 

Is this true? Maybe you can test by firing against modified aliens in the same manner?

[NKF]

This, depends on the unit's resistance modifiers vs. certain damage types.

 

X-Com units, for example, take 200% from everything. Okay, so you won't get extreme values of 0% and 200%, but it will be close enough. Yes, that's right, I said 200% from everything. Well, not quite. I don't know about smoke and flames. But against HE, AP, Plasma and laser, it's definitely 200%.

 

A heavy plasma bolt, which can do damage between 0 - 110 damage, will actually be able to do between 0 - 220 to an X-Com soldier. A sectopod takes double damage from laser. So, a laser pistol, which does 46 damage will be able to deal between 0 and 92 damage to it. Sectoids seem to take double damage from a number of weapons as well.

 

If you are resistant to a damage type, you will only take 0 - 50%.

 

One good example of this is the TFTD lobsterman. It halves the total possible damage for almost every bullet type. Gas cannon AP shells, which do 60 piercing damage, will only be able to do 0 - 30 damage, tops. But that has not even taken into account the lobsterman's armour, which is 24. So the bullet will only be able to do damage between -24 and 6. Anything negative is treated as 0, by the way.

 

Since we have double damage and half damage, it's safe to say that some units may take normal damage.

 

- NKF

[BladeFireLight]

NKF: do you know were the resistance modifier is stored? is it part of the stats or hidden in tactical.exe?

 

I may have to asign a lobsterman skin to aquatoid stats to find out but it's easyer to folow in some one elses footsteps.

 

-Blade FireLight