A Path Beyond Unit Damage Data

[des1206]

Hey guys, because I was bored and got some spare time on my hands, I decided to test out unit damage vs. vehicle and buildings in the game. Check it out:

Interesting to note that:

 

1. Officer superior than Kapitan

 

2. Shock best vs. MCT

 

3. Flamer/Shock sucks vs. building exterior, even worse than RPG

 

4. Grenadier sucks vs. buildings, MCT or not

 

5. Volkov = RPG vs. building

 

6. Light tank damage is not bad vs. medium tank

 

7. Gunboat really effective vs. vehicles

Edited March 4, 2016 by des1206

[Pushwall]

I have a spreadsheet sitting around covering all weapons vs all vehicles/buildings that I keep up to date when adjusting stats to make sure nothing absurd slips through the cracks. It deals with DPS vs health and damage modifiers though rather than ingame seconds to kill, but the difference isn't significant except with things with really long reloads (Volkov and arty-type units).

 

Here's a column that's relatively unimportant as an example: time to kill supply trucks.

 

 

Light Tanks may not look that bad compared to Medium Tanks but the difference comes in against vehicles with "super-heavy" armour (mammoths, MADs, ore trucks). Light shells take a 20% damage penalty against heavy vehicle shields and a 40% penalty against super-heavy vehicle shields, while Medium shells are unpenalized. Light Tanks have a lot of trouble scratching mammoths unless their armour is stripped. As you can see from this supply truck snippet, Lights actually kill supply trucks FASTER than Mediums do - this holds true for all light vehicles. Problem there is how many Soviet vehicles count for that? Tesla tanks, which eat up light tanks due to the range difference (unless they get flanked), V2s which can't defend against anything that flanks them anyway, and of course, supply/demo trucks which are dead anyway. So lights are not as amazing as they look, but they definitely have their uses if you're good enough or the map presents a lot of flanking opportunities.

 

Captain outperforming Kapitan is a conscious decision because Allies don't have very many good field infantry compared to the Sovs. You're sure Captains kill buildings from the outside nearly twice as fast as Kapitans though? LevelEdit claims they have the same warhead (i.e. collection of damage bonuses/penalties to various targets).

 

Volkov doing that well against buildings is an error (yeah, good job on my part). Next release Kovtillery DPS to building exteriors will be comparable to Flamethrower's.

Also the numbers in my sheet are based on the upcoming patch so it's not 100% accurate to the current game, though the only things that have changed (as far as damage to vehicles goes) are kovtillery getting weaker, the slug getting stronger, and the Depth Charge rows becoming even more irrelevant for ground vehicles than they normally are, to the point that I forgot to update them. Gee I wonder what that could mean

[Raptor29aa]

... According to this data an RS can kill a barracks 17 seconds after than a gunboat. So increase the time gap for larger buildings and... whole new reason to use a naval transport

Edited March 4, 2016 by Raptor29aa

[Pushwall]

So increase the time gap for larger buildings

 

?

[des1206]

 

So increase the time gap for larger buildings

 

?

 

He means it will take the gunboat even longer to kill a building with more health than barracks, therefore we should use the naval transport and attack (i.e subpen) building with infantry instead.

 

 

 

 

Also, anyone else bothered by the fact that a $300 RS/RPG anti-armor / anti-air unit does more damage to building exterior than Shock/Flame/(soon-to-be) Volkov?

Edited March 4, 2016 by des1206

[Pushwall]

a building with more health than barracks

Which is only two buildings: the construction yard and the advanced sub pen. Both of which are on only 1 naval map.

 

Also, anyone else bothered by the fact that a $300 RS/RPG anti-armor / anti-air unit does more damage to building exterior than Shock/Flame/(soon-to-be) Volkov?

Shock/Flame do much more to MCTs though. That's the point. And Volkov is meant to be the opposite of Tanya: great in the field, poor for base assaults. Flamethrower was considered "too strong" against exteriors before.

[ganein14]

 

Shock/Flame do much more to MCTs though. That's the point. And Volkov is meant to be the opposite of Tanya: great in the field, poor for base assaults. Flamethrower was considered "too strong" against exteriors before.

 

Volkov can be great in base assaults if he's supporting the attackers. Say, mammoth tanks filled with shockies and was protecting them from rockets and helping kill tanks?

[Pushwall]

 

Shock/Flame do much more to MCTs though. That's the point. And Volkov is meant to be the opposite of Tanya: great in the field, poor for base assaults. Flamethrower was considered "too strong" against exteriors before.

Volkov can be great in base assaults if he's supporting the attackers. Say, mammoth tanks filled with shockies and was protecting them from rockets and helping kill tanks?

 

I meant by himself, or only with other Volkovs. Previously people just used to spam nothing but Volkovs because he was a jack AND master of all trades (except arguably AA), and I'd rather discourage that. Allowing the infantry that actually have good MCT damage a chance to shine might help. Don't want to give engineers enough time to react and flood the MCT room? Then rush it with starshinas, flamethrowers, shocks, even kapitans, almost anything but Volkovs.

[Raap]

Volkov's damage against structures was extremely obvious on KotG. It absolutely needed adjusting.

 

That said, with Demo Trucks now killing them, and their anti-infantry capacity reduced as well as their anti-structure capacity reduced, I'm finding it difficult to place Volkov's intended role. Perhaps to offset these 'nerfs', his primary AT weapon should be doing increased damage to base defenses, since he is extremely bad at destroying those right now (but in that case, his weapon warhead would have to be un-linked from the Gunboat).

[Pushwall]

His role is to be a jack of various trades, but missing some important aspects so he ISN'T a master. The AP shotgun and napalm essentially make him a Starshina/Flamethrower with no anti-MCT power, the AT cannon essentially makes him an RPG Trooper with no super-ranged AA option, and the Kovtillery... right now there's not really anything to compare it to but when the next hotfix comes and improves the Grenadier, the Kovtillery essentially makes him a Grenadier (minus the splash damage, but that's covered by the napalm instead). And on top of all that he has unmatched durability unless you're careless enough to get directly hit by tank shells, so he makes a great field sentry compared to Shocks who have much less health and speed and regen slower.

 

Demo Trucks may kill them now but they have much more leeway with how close they can safely be than other infantry; they have 100 health and 120 nuke damage to contend with while everyone else except Tanya has much less health and everyone else except Engineers has 160 nuke damage to fight against.

[Einstein]

Volkov's damage against structures was extremely obvious on KotG. It absolutely needed adjusting.

 

I remember

[Raptor29aa]

So volkov is like a flamethrower indoors with an anti-building artillery aimed at the MCT.

So volkov is like a v2 or tank, damaging the exterior of a building from a great distance

So volkov is like an anti-tank Unit with an anti-infantry secondary and can't be run over.

If he is able to survive an abomb truck...

So what is his downside?

I mean a Tanya isn't an anti tank unit. She can't harm aircraft, or the outside of a building and she can be run over.

[Isaac The Madd]

Tanya can break up tanks by placing a c4 on them, but I never see anyone do this.

[Raptor29aa]

Tanya can break up tanks by placing a C4 on them, but I never see anyone do this.

With a supply truck this might be a viable strategy (unless they aim at the truck)

[Einstein]

All true, but they also have totally different intended roles as well...

[Pushwall]

So what is his downside?

 

The fact that his "anti-building" artillery is in fact the worst weapon the Soviets can possibly use against buildings, except for small arms against exteriors, and (currently) grenadiers?

[des1206]

@Pushwall

Can we talk about the Heavy vs. Med? Currently the Heavy:

 

Pros:

1. Does ~5% more damage vs. buildings, but same damage as med vs. other vehicles (IF all its shots connect, see #3 below)

2. A bit better vs infantry (?)

 

Cons:

1. Slower than the medium

2. Can not aim backwards

3. Easier to miss when shooting (due to double barrel and lower ROF)

4. $50 pricer

 

So the heavy tank is essentially a slower, less wieldy, more expensive and less accurate medium tank. I feel this tank could use a slight buff of some kind. Technically Heavy should > Medium.

Edited March 8, 2016 by des1206

[Pushwall]

What, do these pros of the Heavy just not matter?

• Having 115m range compared to the Medium's 110m - making it pretty great at kiting in spite of the speed difference
• Using the same "bad armour tolerance" damage type as the Light Tank, so it's actually getting a ~15% boost against light vehicles compared to the Medium - that means the Ranger, Artillery, Phase Tank and MGG, among other less important ones. Granted, Mediums don't have many light vehicles to fight where their "doesn't care about armour class" damage typing rears its head, but well-protected Tesla Tanks are one of their bigger worries. The only Allied ground vehicle the Heavy's damage type has to worry about (minus ~15% dps)? The Ore Truck. Oh no Except every other Soviet AT unit (which are all either infantry or costlier than a heavy) doesn't have that penalty.
• Having a harder-to-hit weakpoint due to the rear being partially covered by the fuel barrels which are damage neutral, and the front actually having some plates protecting its underbelly.

Not to mention all the crap I've been hearing about how the Heavy is sooooo much better than the Mammoth. Also this is how the Heavy's been since the dawn of APB, except before 3.0 it was $150 pricier than a medium and had harsher turret restrictions. Soviets already have better anti-tank infantry than the Allies, does their MBT really need to be that much better considering they already have a decent win rate?

[SarahNautili]

I still think it's silly that the heavy doesn't have full turret traverse because of those silly barrels. Like, it doesn't even feel like much of a balancing thing, just one of those things someone decided was a good idea and hasn't been changed.

 

but that's slightly off topic

Edited March 8, 2016 by SarahNautili

[des1206]

What, do these pros of the Heavy just not matter?

• Having 115m range compared to the Medium's 110m - making it pretty great at kiting in spite of the speed difference
• Using the same "bad armour tolerance" damage type as the Light Tank, so it's actually getting a ~15% boost against light vehicles compared to the Medium - that means the Ranger, Artillery, Phase Tank and MGG, among other less important ones. Granted, Mediums don't have many light vehicles to fight where their "doesn't care about armour class" damage typing rears its head, but well-protected Tesla Tanks are one of their bigger worries. The only Allied ground vehicle the Heavy's damage type has to worry about (minus ~15% dps)? The Ore Truck. Oh no Except every other Soviet AT unit (which are all either infantry or costlier than a heavy) doesn't have that penalty.
• Having a harder-to-hit weakpoint due to the rear being partially covered by the fuel barrels which are damage neutral, and the front actually having some plates protecting its underbelly.

Not to mention all the crap I've been hearing about how the Heavy is sooooo much better than the Mammoth. Also this is how the Heavy's been since the dawn of APB, except before 3.0 it was $150 pricier than a medium and had harsher turret restrictions. Soviets already have better anti-tank infantry than the Allies, does their MBT really need to be that much better considering they already have a decent win rate?

Didn't know the increase effectiveness vs. non-medium armor. Point taken.

[Einstein]

Well for the Heavy, I'm assuming that the model design was the original reason but there might be a little more to it now....

[Pushwall]

Pushwall, what is going on with this? How come the Heavy and Tesla tank can't rotate its turret 360 degrees? No ones actually given me a reason in the past.

 

And I'm not the person who originally made those decisions so you'll be left in the dark.

[Raptor29aa]

I don't notice the issue of turret restriction with the HT it has a decent turn rate.

It's the Tesla Tank I keep getting annoyed with. The top is a dome yet it has what seems to be an arbitrary aiming limitation. I mean nothing about the model hints at a limited firing angle. (Unlike the HT's back oil drums.)

[Pushwall]

How about if we went full RAtard and gave the tesla tank zero degrees of aiming? Phase tanks would need quite the rebalance if TTs could just instantly fire behind themselves and annihilate them.