Zombie Posted April 11, 2009 Report Share Posted April 11, 2009 (edited) I was having problems deciding on what Knife/Melee weapon I should use so I started collecting stats. Well, one thing led to another and next thing you know I'm adding items to my soldiers inventory with the "getitem" code to get a full listing. So here it is, all the listed stats: Item# Item Name Damage Attack Crit Hit Max AP Cost 1st Breakpoint 129 Mine Shovel 15-35 10 25 16 23/24 236 Kappmesser 5-25 12 15 18 34/35 237 SSA Dagger 10-33 20 30 18 34/35 240 Ka-Bar 20-40 20 22 22 23/24 241 M3 10-30 33 21 16 23/24 242 Combat Dagger 20-35 17 19 14 23/24 243 Luftwaffe Machete 7-30 14 23 18 34/35 244 Machete 25-40 18 33 22 23/24 245 Katana 33-66 7 50 21 19/20 246 Billy Club 5-15 0 5 18 34/35 247 Black Jack Club 5-20 0 5 18 34/35 248 Smatchet Lge Comb. 10-30 15 20 18 34/35 249 Khukuri 12-37 12 27 18 34/35 250 M1917 10-25 25 35 14 23/24 365 Wood Chopping Axe 15-45 5 40 18 34/35The AP cost is the number listed when you hover the cursor over the attack icon, not the actual cost to attack so this is apparently like the "base" which is then modified up or down by specific soldier stats. Anyway, hope you guys find this useful. The Katana is way out there though. It seems like this shouldn't even be in the game due to the ultra high damage range as well as the critical hit bonus. Kinda far-fetched like Panzerkleins if you ask me. Should require specialized training to get those damages as a regular schmoe off the street would probably end up hurting himself more than the enemy. - Zombie Edited May 3, 2009 by Zombie Updated Max AP costs, 1st Breakpoint. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted April 12, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 12, 2009 (edited) And here are the throwing knife stats as well: Item# Item Name Damage Crit Hit Max AP Cost 1st Breakpoint 192 Dart Arrow 1-5 0 1 N.A. 230 Throwing Knife (Axis) 12-22 20 8 46/47 231 Shuriken 8-24 30 10 17/18 232 Chakra 15-30 10 12 17/18 233 Throwing Knife (Allied) 8-18 19 10 23/24 234 Finnish Knife 10-25 25 12 23/24 235 Pukke Knife 10-30 15 14 17/18 239 Fairbairn Sykes 5-20 20 12 27/281 AP to throw the Dart Arrow? Still, it doesn't provide any critical hits and the damage is pathetic. Although, if you have enough of them you would probably be able to do more damage than any of the other throwing weapons (per AP). If you notice, there are two types of throwing knives. The first looks rather shiny while the second variety is dark in areas. Obviously, the first variant is better because it does more damage and critical hits, plus it takes less APs to throw. - Zombie Edited May 3, 2009 by Zombie Added Fairbairn Sykes knife stats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kizmiaz Posted April 12, 2009 Report Share Posted April 12, 2009 1 AP to throw the Dart Arrow? Still, it doesn't provide any critical hits and the damage is pathetic. Although, if you have enough of them you would probably be able to do more damage than any of the other throwing weapons (per AP). If you notice, there are two types of throwing knives. The first looks rather shiny while the second variety is dark in areas. Obviously, the first variant is better because it does more damage and critical hits, plus it takes less APs to throw. Nice tables there Zombie.I can't remember I've seen a dart arrow in the game? The only darts I've seen are the ones for the air guns.Or are they only obtainable by the "Get item"-command, like the DeLisle?Nasty weapons really. The dart arrows I mean. They could punctuate your skin and cause a nasty infection eventually. Btw, the shiny throwing knife is the Axis variant, and the other is the Allied version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted April 12, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 12, 2009 Nice tables there Zombie.I can't remember I've seen a dart arrow in the game? The only darts I've seen are the ones for the air guns.Or are they only obtainable by the "Get item"-command, like the DeLisle?Nasty weapons really. The dart arrows I mean. They could punctuate your skin and cause a nasty infection eventually. Btw, the shiny throwing knife is the Axis variant, and the other is the Allied version.Thanks Kizmiaz I haven't seen the Dart Arrows either, although I'm barely a few missions into the game. They are probably only obtained via the "getitem" command. (All lowercase letters BTW, any uppercase or spaces in the command and it will not work). Here, I grabbed a screenie of it: Looks exactly like the darts used for playing the game of darts. Any dartboards in Silent Storm? They might be found near that otherwise. One thing is for sure, they are the best throwing weapon in the game as I just found out. Max damage I witnessed was 19 (with a scout) so that's quadruple the listed damage. Really doesn't matter if you stumble upon an enemy with only 15 APs to spare as you can throw 15 darts in that time with very good accuracy (better than throwing stars: Shuriken). That's (on average) 150 damage points being dished out! Per AP, the Dart Arrow cannot be beat, plain and simple. Ah, thanks for clearing up the throwing knife issue. I knew the darker variety was present in the backpack of some of the Allied characters, but since I only ran a couple missions on the Axis side with my main character, I didn't get a chance to look in the characters there. I updated the table in my previous post with the correct info. - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kizmiaz Posted April 12, 2009 Report Share Posted April 12, 2009 Ah, thanks for clearing up the throwing knife issue.No biggie. When you get the the Fast throw perk the AP cost doesn't matter that much any longer as you can see on the attached pic. The description is a little weird though, it says it will reduce the AP cost by 25% but reduces it to 25%. But I guess that's already been covered in some other thread. https://www.postimage.org/aV1PVSpJ.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted April 13, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 13, 2009 Wow, that's a big improvement! I'm a little confused though. 25% of 10 APs = 2.5 AP. Rounded up, that's 3. Your listing says 4 APs. - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kizmiaz Posted April 13, 2009 Report Share Posted April 13, 2009 I'm a little confused though. 25% of 10 APs = 2.5 AP. Rounded up, that's 3. Your listing says 4 APs. I can see why you're confused.This is what happens when you don't research stuff before you post conclusions. I really haven't botherd too much with knives before, so I assumed that from 12 AP:s to 4 AP:s must be a glitch somewhere. Damn, I wish I had been drunk so I at least could blame intoxication.Now I've reloaded some old saves and the AP cost before the Fast throw perk was only 5 AP:s. Not quite sure why it is so low but it is the same for both types of knives, but the Axis version seems to have a shorter range? Edit: I found an Excel-sheet that lists the weight of the items and the Ger_ThrowingKnife is listed as 500, while the UK_ThrowingKnife is 400 and Ger_Shuriken 250. Quite logical. But now I wonder about the AP cost. I reloaded an older save when the squad is only lvl 3 and the AP required is only 9, except for Taras who have the Fast throw perk. https://www.postimage.org/aV1R8htr.jpg https://www.postimage.org/aV1R8Lp9.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted April 13, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 13, 2009 I really haven't botherd too much with knives before, so I assumed that from 12 AP:s to 4 AP:s must be a glitch somewhere. Damn, I wish I had been drunk so I at least could blame intoxication.Now I've reloaded some old saves and the AP cost before the Fast throw perk was only 5 AP:s. Not quite sure why it is so low but it is the same for both types of knives... But now I wonder about the AP cost. I reloaded an older save when the squad is only lvl 3 and the AP required is only 9, except for Taras who have the Fast throw perk.I'm starting to think that class, level, perks, and/or stats play a role in AP cost. It's highly doubtful that the low numbers are due to a bug, but rather a lack of understanding on our part on how the throwing mechanics are programmed. Ran a few trials just now. Dexterity and Intelligence play no role in throwing AP cost, that's for sure. It appears that the Throwing stat mostly determines the AP cost while strength determines accuracy. As for distance, I have a few numbers I just jotted down now from the console, but I'll need to compare that to the actual weights of the items in question to come to a conclusion. It's a start though. Edit: The following throw data is from a typical Soldier having 29 Throw and 9 Strength: Item Name Weight Min Min% Max Max% Dart Arrow 80 30 37.50% 45 56.25% Shuriken 250 17 6.80% 25 10.00% Pukke Knife 300 15 5.00% 22 7.33% Chakra 350 14 4.00% 21 6.00% Throwing Knife (Allies) 400 13 3.25% 19 4.75% Finnish 450 12 2.67% 18 4.00% Throwing Knife (Axis) 500 11 2.20% 16 3.20%The Min and Max are numbers (assumed to be raw distances) pulled directly from the console after throwing the item. From that I'm guessing that Max throw distance is calculated off of the min: Max = INT(Min*3/2). Depending on the programming, a reverse equation is also possible: Min = Round(Max*2/3), but it seems less likely. The Min and Max % columns are based off the weight of the item, however, I can't formulate an equation with this tiny sample size. - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knan Posted April 14, 2009 Report Share Posted April 14, 2009 Skill determines AP cost, yep. For both melee and throwing weapons - not grenades. Reduced by 1 every 10 skill or so, if I remember rightly - perhaps 15 or 20, not sure. (Probably some limits in there, though) /me is back from easter vacation Skill determines throwing range too, I think. It's been a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kizmiaz Posted April 15, 2009 Report Share Posted April 15, 2009 Ah, that would explain things.I checked the stat in my previous post and the throwing skills ranged from 24-38. the exception being Taras with a throwing skill of 49. When they're fresh out of recruiting room the AP cost for for Abala and Oleg were 10 AP and they had a throwing skill of 18-20.The rest was 9 AP and they were over 20 in skill. (Reservation for for Jerzey who managed to get himself killed in the rush. He will be missed.) So my guess is that 20 skill points intervals is the AP reducer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted April 16, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 Not too sure on this. See, I had 3 soldiers with a throwing stat of 29 and they all used 9 APs to toss the Allied knife. Skills of 20 and 22 required 10 APs. So the breakpoint lies between 22 and 29. Maybe it's 25 instead of 20? - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kizmiaz Posted April 16, 2009 Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 We're getting closer to the solution. I loaded some old saves. Here you can see Abala with a skill of 24; https://www.postimage.org/aV27BQor.jpg And a bit intrigued, I loaded a save where the skill had increased; https://www.postimage.org/Pq26Mdh9.jpg https://www.postimage.org/Pq26MpKS.jpg As you can see, the breaking point between 8 and 9 AP:s lies between 46 and 51 skill points. If we presume the skill point is constant, what would it be? A nice even number like 24?This is guessing game at its best! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted April 24, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 24, 2009 As you can see, the breaking point between 8 and 9 AP:s lies between 46 and 51 skill points. If we presume the skill point is constant, what would it be? A nice even number like 24?This is guessing game at its best! Aye, 24 AP's is the start breakpoint for the next level. Had Zinaida (Starting throwing skill of 23) toss an allied knife and it was 10 AP's. When I trained her to 24 throwing, the AP cost for the knife decreased to 9 AP's. So it's logical that multiples of 24 Throwing are the breakpoints for lower AP costs. Without the fast attack perk, it would take you a really long time to decrease the AP significantly: Throwing AP Cost 0-23 10 24-47 9 48-71 8 72-95 7 96-119 6 120-143 5Odd how the designers chose 24 instead of a nice round 25 but whatever. At least we know what it is now. I should also mention that this breakpoint is not a constant for all throwing weapons (at least not from what I've seen so far). The only other weapon which has a 24 breakpoint is the Finnish Knife which drops from 12 APs at 23 Throwing to 11 APs at 24 Throwing. I'll see if I can gather some more numbers on this soon. Edit: yup, just like I thought. Ok, what I did was to hire soldiers with 17-20 for throwing and then sent them in battle with the throwing weapons. The Dart didn't change it's AP cost of 1 down to 17 throw, and without being able to mod soldiers I can't really get a lower throw number than this (maybe the Axis has some crappy soldiers in the list?). For the Axis throwing knife the AP cost is 8 out to 34 for throwing. May be a constant like the dart, or it could drop someplace after that. Dunno, as I don't have anyone with a higher number than that in my later games without the throwing perk in-place. There are 3 knives which have their AP breakpoint between 17 and 18: Shuriken-10/9, Chakra-12/11 and the Pukke-14/13. Like I said earlier, the Allied knife and the Finnish have their breakpoint between 23 and 24: Allied Knife-10/9 and Finnish Knife-12/11. So that gives us a near complete understanding of AP cost breakpoints. - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted May 1, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 1, 2009 Edit: yup, just like I thought. Ok, what I did was to hire soldiers with 17-20 for throwing and then sent them in battle with the throwing weapons. The Dart didn't change it's AP cost of 1 down to 17 throw, and without being able to mod soldiers I can't really get a lower throw number than this (maybe the Axis has some crappy soldiers in the list?). For the Axis throwing knife the AP cost is 8 out to 34 for throwing. May be a constant like the dart, or it could drop someplace after that.Just used the setxplevel cheat to nuke Yves (who normally has a throw of 17 at L1) down to a throw of 14 at L0. When he tried to use the Allied throwing knife, his AP cost was still 8. So that's about as low as I can get for a throwing stat without modding a soldier's skills manually. I also used the setxplevel cheat to progressively raise Yves' character level up to see where/if the AP cost for the Axis throwing knife decreased. At L9 (46 throw) his AP cost was still 8. When I pumped him up to L10 (49 throw) his AP cost dropped to 7. So between 46 and 49 throw the AP cost for the Axis throwing knife decreased. Throwing is very difficult to train at that high of level (you need to throw tons just to make a dent in the bar), so trying to narrow it down will take some time and about 15 random encounters. Edit: 46/47 is the breakpoint for the Axis throwing knife! In other words, at 46 throwing it takes 8 APs to throw the knife, while at 47 throwing it takes 7 AP's. Whew, that was a lot of work! To double check, I cranked my soldiers up to L20. At throwing 92 (2x46), the AP cost was still 7. At throwing 94, it dropped to 6 APs. So the breakpoint is massive for the Axis throwing knife. Fortunately, it has the lowest AP cost of any of the throwing knives. This means your soldiers with the worst throwing stat possible can throw the Axis knife just as fast as an uber L19-20 soldier. The Allied knife has a breakpoint of 23/24 (half the breakpoint of the Axis variant), but because it's AP cost starts at a base of 10 APs, by the time you get out to L20 the speed is identical. So it boils down to this: if you have a good quantity of Axis throwing knives, by all means use it before the Allied variety. If you don't, well, use the Allied variety until you recover enough of the other kind to supply a soldier (6-8 would be a sufficient quantity if you get the familiarity of it up to 10 or so). - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kizmiaz Posted May 1, 2009 Report Share Posted May 1, 2009 Quite some work there, Zombie. Now you got us all wondering about the Axis throwing star... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted May 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 2, 2009 Quite some work there, Zombie. Thanks, it took a while but I think it really paid off as we now have a good understanding of what is going on "behind the scenes" so to speak. It's fortunate that the setxplevel cheat modifies stats too, otherwise none of this would be possible without lots of manual testing. Anyway, I have this feeling that few people actually use throwing weapons in a combat situation so this will just be a curiosity to most. But, it's good info to know if you are thinking of using them. Now you got us all wondering about the Axis throwing star... I sure hope there isn't another variant of the throwing star. It wouldn't surprise me if it did in fact, exist though. BTW: updated my table above to include the revised Max AP usage and 1st Breakpoint. - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knan Posted May 2, 2009 Report Share Posted May 2, 2009 I'd like to point out that the Fairbairn Sykes is a thrown weapon. My grenadier uses a bunch of them for excercising. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted May 3, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 3, 2009 Thanks for pointing that out, Knan. It's listed in the wrong category in the old S2HQ site, that's why it was in my melee table instead of the throwing. Turns out the Fairbairn Sykes has a max AP cost of 12 with it's first breakpoint at 27/28. Quite a high breakpoint and low damage potential. There are a number of better choices than it. - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted May 3, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 3, 2009 Spent a better part of last night and this afternoon determining the Max AP cost and 1st breakpoint stats for the melee weapons in the game (just like I did for the throwing weapons). You can see the stats in my first post in this topic. So instead of the throwing stat determining AP cost like in the throwing weapons, Melee determines AP costs in the Knives/clubs (obviously). Here again, the Katana is way out there: has an ultra-low breakpoint of 19/20 melee, so anyone can excel with this weapon. It's Max AP cost is a little high (24) but that's understandable. I still like the Combat Dagger. It has a very low AP cost and does a lot of damage even on a poor roll, so you can be sure it'll be draining health for every hit. I don't really know how the Attack bonus or Critical hit stats work to make a totally accurate assessment though. Still, I'd sacrifice all the critical hits for more damage and lower AP costs, wouldn't you? These are Melee weapons, so you need to be right on top of an enemy in order to use them. Critical hits aren't going to help you any if the enemy is still alive after you run out of APs - all he will do is shoot you at point blank range. - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knan Posted May 4, 2009 Report Share Posted May 4, 2009 Well, critical hits increase the damage caused by a variable amount when they kick in ... so there's a tradeoff. I like the SSA Dagger, for some reason - probably its seductively high critical stat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted May 5, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 5, 2009 Let's compare the SSA to the Combat Dagger for a second. Say your scout has 62 APs and an enemy is right around a corner. You'll only be able to attack 3 times with the SSA while the Combat Dagger gets 4 attacks. Knife Min Max Crit AP Attacks SSA Dagger 30 99 90 54 3 Combat Dagger 80 140 76 56 4Because of the SSAs greater damage range and lower min, it actually falls short of the Combat Dagger 41% of the time. In other words, 41% of it's hits do less damage overall. The Combat Dagger will actually overperform the SSA's max 12.5% of the time due to it's smaller range and 2 point higher max. The SSA does 18% more critical damage in this scenario, so is that a deal breaker? Don't know. One thing is for sure though, both knives will "miss" the same number of times. In this case, the nod has to go to the combat dagger because you can usually attack one more time with it. (If you get out to, say, 126 APs, then the difference is 2 attacks). Of course, this all depends on if you have a choice between the two knives. Most of the time you are going to be stuck with what you've got until enough missions have been run to recover the other knife. In my recent Axis campaign, all I had to pick from initially was the SSA and the Black Jack Club, so it's a no-brainer that the SSA was chosen. On my most recent random encounter I found a Khukuri which is basically equal (or superior) to the SSA in almost every category (except for the Attack bonus). One of my scouts is now training on this weapon so only time will tell if it does the job. - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knan Posted May 5, 2009 Report Share Posted May 5, 2009 Obviously I don't have a combat dagger yet. And fast melee -25% AP cost equals the field, too. Only thing I really stick to is that less talented meleers get whatever has the biggest attack bonus, so they have a chance of hitting. (Or, more commonly, a SMG, subtility be damned) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted May 19, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 19, 2009 And fast melee -25% AP cost equals the field, too. Only thing I really stick to is that less talented meleers get whatever has the biggest attack bonus, so they have a chance of hitting. (Or, more commonly, a SMG, subtility be damned)Hehe, power over finesse is sometimes a better choice. I have been using scouts on and off now for my last 4 campaigns or so and more often than not the scout gets a melee knife of some sort and about 6 throwing knives. Seems to work pretty good overall. Initially they also get a Nagent revolver just in case range is a factor (like getting spotted). Here's hoping that my team runs across a silenced weapon soon, I like the silenced weapons for drawing attention to the general location of my scout, then letting my heavy weapon folk/snipers blast the enemies away. By the way, I added the knife melee stats to a StrategyCore site page here. It's just the knives so far, but hopefully I'll get some time to add the throwing weapons too. Hope you guys find it useful. - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted June 4, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 4, 2009 Throwing weapon stats are now up on the same page. Hopefully I didn't make too many mistakes. - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FullAuto Posted June 5, 2009 Report Share Posted June 5, 2009 I've just learned more about melee and throwing weapons in this thread than in years of playing the game. Thanks chaps. Time to break out the cutlery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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