Morale

[Knan]

Hey all.

 

Just added a lot of numbers to the Morale page on Ufopaedia - based on experiments. Has anyone done any experiments on morale loss when hurt? Morale loss from psi panic attacks should be checkable ... anyone have an advanced game, some psi-amps and care to help out?

 

And a hello to all the friendly neighbourhood x-com commanders.

[Zombie]

Umm... yeah. I did some research on this about a year ago. Lemme see *runs search*. Yup, here it is:

 

Morale vs. damage:

 

I did some trials this past August on the effect of morale against inflicted damage. Nothing major, just around 200 reloads or so. According to my results (with bravery being a constant) the amount of morale that gets deducted is directly related to the amount of health lost. For instance:

Morale Drop               Health Lost Range
     0           0,  1,  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  7,  8,  9 
     1          10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19
     2          20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29
     3          30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39
     4          40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49
     5          50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59
     6          60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69
     7          70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79

So let's say you lose anywhere from 10 to 19 health points. That equals a reduction in a units morale of 1 point. And so on and so forth. Interesting fact: Fatal Wounds do not affect morale loss, only a reduction in health does.

So according to my data, the general equation for morale loss would look something like this:

MoraleLoss = INT(HealthLoss/10)

(Note: health for normal soldiers caps out at 61. The maximum morale drop any soldier would experience due to health drop should be 6). HWP's have a maximum health of 90, but their morale doesn't drop when health is lowered. The only way to reduce a tanks morale is to have it kill a friendly unit.

 

As for Psi and morale loss, I thought that each successful Panic attack lowered morale by 30. I'll have to double check this though.

 

[Edit: Yes indeed, a single panic attack will only reduce morale a maximum of 30].

 

I'll take another crack at morale and report back. Welcome to the forums Knan!

 

- Zombie

[Knan]

Umm... yeah. I did some research on this about a year ago. Lemme see *runs search*. Yup, here it is:

So according to my data, the general equation for morale loss would look something like this:

MoraleLoss = INT(HealthLoss/10)

 

I suspect those numbers you report have been reduced by high bravery or high-ranking soldiers, because I'm pretty sure I've seen higher morale loss than that with my gang of rookies...

 

*rummage*

 

Yep, 3-6 points of morale loss for less than 10 points of damage. Not many tests though.

 

I'll take another crack at morale and report back. Welcome to the forums Knan!

 

- Zombie

 

Thanks!

 

Knan

[Bomb Bloke]

The only way to reduce a tanks morale is to have it kill a friendly unit.

 

It's been a long time since I've seen a tank panic... But I'm sure they panic in other circumstances... Not sure, actually, but you get what I mean. In order to panic, morale must be lowered, I'm assuming.

 

Hmm! Moral goes down as units are damaged... Which might explain why the med kit lets you raise moral on a basis of damage! I must look into that, I might decode some more offsets or something!

[Danial]

In order to panic, morale must be lowered, I'm assuming.

According to the OSG, a soldier's % chance of panicking = 100-(2 x Morale)

[Bomb Bloke]

So moral must be less then 50 in order for a unit to panic, and it's always gonna panic if it's 0.

[Danial]

According to the OSG, yes. Don't know if anyone here's tested or confirmed it.

[Zombie]

I suspect those numbers you report have been reduced by high bravery or high-ranking soldiers, because I'm pretty sure I've seen higher morale loss than that with my gang of rookies...

 

*rummage*

 

Yep, 3-6 points of morale loss for less than 10 points of damage. Not many tests though.

Sorry about that. Yep you are right. I figured out what the problem was though. In one word: bravery.

 

I spent the better part of the last two days collecting data for a soldier with 61 health and differing bravery levels. For a soldier with bravery illegally modified to 100, I got the following results:

 

Health Loss          Morale Loss
 0 to 19                   0
20 to 29                   1
30 to 39                   2
40 to 49                   3
50 to 59                   4
60 to 69                   5

 

But for the same soldier with 50 for Bravery, the results were much different:

 

Health Loss          Morale Loss
     0                    0
     1                    0
     2                    0
     3                    0
     4                    1
     5                    2
     6                    2
     7                    3
     8                    3
     9                    4
    10                    5
    11                    5
    12                    6
    13                    6
    14                    7
    15                    8
    16                    8
    17                    9
    18                    9
    19                   10
    20                   10
    21                   10
    22                   11
    23                   11
    24                   12
    25                   13
    26                   13
    27                   14
    28                   14
    29                   15
    30                   16
    31                   16
    32                   17
    33                   17
    34                   18
    35                   19
    36                   19
    37                    ?
    38                   20
    39                   20
    40                   21
    41                   21
    42                   22
    43                   22
    44                   23
    45                   24
    46                   24
    47                   25
    48                   25
    49                   26
    50                   27
    51                   27
    52                   28
    53                   28
    54                   29
    55                   30
    56                   30
    57                   30
    58                   30
    59                   31
    60                   32
    61                    ?

As you may have noticed, there are a couple question marks in the table. It's easy to explain why I couldn't get a health drop of 61: the soldier would be dead. However, even after 500+ reloads I was unable to reach a health loss of 37. That's not really a problem though.

 

So far, I have been unable to formulate an equation to describe these two scenarios. There are 3 variables involved: Health Loss, Morale Loss, and Bravery. Rank may also play a role, but for now I'm just going to focus on gathering more data. I'll keep you updated on any new progress.

 

- Zombie

[Bomb Bloke]

So, if bravery is 100, the formula is:

 

= (int)(( - 10) / 10)

 

That is, take the damage and subtract ten, divide the result by ten then round it down to the nearest integer, and you've got the morale loss. If the morale loss is negative, ignore it.

 

That's the easy bit.

 

Now, as damage nears infinity, the morale loss value will get closer and closer to 10% of the damage dealt.

 

In the second table where the bravery is 50, the morale loss is generally 50%. Sometimes lower, sometimes higher. Gah, the formula to generate that list is complex to say the least! But, I'm willing to bet the the division is 2:

 

= (int)(( - 2 + ) / 2)

 

The 'variable' gets higher as damage gets higher, very slowly.

 

Meh, I'm done for now. I'm assuming/hoping the next stat list is for a troop with 0 bravery?

[Knan]

So far, I have been unable to formulate an equation to describe these two scenarios. There are 3 variables involved: Health Loss, Morale Loss, and Bravery. Rank may also play a role, but for now I'm just going to focus on gathering more data. I'll keep you updated on any new progress.

 

- Zombie

 

I suspect having a sergeant+ around in the mission squad will foul up the morale loss numbers for you. (A sergeant in the squad seems to reduce all morale loss by 10%, higher officers respectively 15, 20 and 35%) Try to avoid that in the experiments?

 

- Knan

[Danial]

The OSG says that the percentage of additional morale lost when an officer dies are:

 

20% - Sergeant

30% - Captain

50% - Colonel

75% - Commander

 

"In other words, if your soldiers lose 10pts of morale when a rookie or squaddie dies, they lose 12pts when a sergeant dies, 13pts when a captain dies, 15pts when a colonel dies, and 17.5pts when a commander dies."

[Knan]

The OSG says that the percentage of additional morale lost when an officer dies are:

 

20% - Sergeant

30% - Captain

50% - Colonel

75% - Commander

 

Agrees exactly with my numbers at the Morale page from testing, too. How nice

 

Knan

[Bomb Bloke]

It suddenly occured to me that the odd way that a unit's bravery stat is stored is most likely relevant to the formula.

 

unitref[059] - Bravery = 110 - (value * 10).

 

So, if a unit has a bravery of 50, the offset will be:

 

50 = 110 - (offset *10)

offset * 10 = 60

offset = 6

 

A bravery of 100 produces an offset of 1, while a bravery of 0 produces an offset of 11. The game most likely uses these offsets for the calculations, not the bravery stats as we see them!

 

Here's a modified version of my previous formula.

 

= (int)((( - (10/offset) - (/10>)) / 10) * offset)

 

Does it work? No. Still a work in progress, I'm afraid.

[Zombie]

As for Psi and morale loss, I thought that each successful Panic attack lowered morale by 30. I'll have to double check this though.

 

[Edit: Yes indeed, a single panic attack will only reduce morale a maximum of 30].

After a good night of sleep, I awoke this morning with visions of testing in my head. I had only checked a few aliens (Snakemen, Sectoids and Floaters) to see how much morale they would lose after a successful Panic attack. They all had a drop of 30. But then it hit me like a ton of bricks: those aliens all have a bravery rating of 80. What would happen if you tried to panic an alien with a higher bravery level (90 or 100)? Would the morale drop be different?

 

First I checked a normal Chryssalid (Bravery=100). After one panic attack, it's morale dropped by 10 points. Interesting. Thinking ahead, I hypothesized that aliens with a Bravery of 90 should have a morale drop of 20. So I found a Celatid (Bravery=90) and used a panic attack on it one time. Result? Morale did indeed drop by 20 points. Feeling satisfied, I took a break for lunch.

 

Then I started to think of an equation to describe this data. Since max bravery in the game is 110, and an alien with 100 bravery had a morale drop of 10, that means morale drop due to panic attacks is found by the following equation:

 

Morale Drop = 110 - Bravery

 

For example, an alien with a bravery level of 90 has a morale drop of 110-90=20. That works. How about robots? They have a bravery of 110. What we have is 110-110=0. So aliens (Sectopods, Cyberdiscs and Zombies) with 110 bravery can't lose any morale if a panic attack is used. This checks out too as we all know that robots can't panic!

 

Now, I'd like to submit that this same formula is used when aliens attempt to panic your troopers too. Remember that rookies have a starting bravery level of 10 to 60? Well, from previous experience, I know for a fact that soldiers with a low bravery tend to panic more easily. Let's take a soldier with 10 for bravery. What would his/her morale drop be? 110 - 10 = 100! So a psi-alien that panics your soldier once will lower his morale to 0! This seems to check out too. (If I get the chance, I'll test this out to make sure).

 

So there you go. A complete understanding of how a panic attack affects unit morale. Bravery plays a role, as well as that infamous constant of 110. And it's all wrapped up into a neat little equation.

 

- Zombie

[Stun Grenade]

Excellent formula Zombie!

[Danial]

Morale Drop = 110 - Bravery

Excellent work as usual, Zombie!

 

With this formula, it means a soldier with 60 Bravery, when Panic Attacked, will lose 50 Morale. If they had the max Morale of 100, they would just be protected from panicking (0% chance @ 50 Morale).

 

Is it possible for a soldier to improve to 110 Bravery?

[Zombie]

Well, from the research I did into what the OSG says about Morale, soldiers can improve their Bravery rating as long as they are able to panic (or go berserk). I proved that for aliens, 100 Bravery is not enough to stop a panic attack from being effective:

 

Morale drop = 110 - 100

Morale drop = 10

 

You would need to use panic attack 6 times to lower morale of the alien to under 50%. Only when morale is below 50% will a unit panic or go berserek.

 

From this information, I would guess that the maximum Bravery an X-COM soldier could obtain is the games limit: 110.

 

However, I must warn that rank may or may not play a role in morale loss for X-COM soldiers when Panic attacks are being used. This still has to be tested. I'd assume rank doesn't play a role, but you never know.

 

- Zombie

[Knan]

any morale if a panic attack is used. This checks out too as we all know that robots can't panic! 

 

*nitpick*

Tanks panic/berserk if they do too much friendly fire, since that morale loss is not reduced by bravery

 

(however, last time I got a tank to go berserk, the game crashed)

 

- Knan

[Zombie]

I can nitpick too ya know. See my first post in this topic:

 

HWP's have a maximum health of 90, but their morale doesn't drop when health is lowered. The only way to reduce a tanks morale is to have it kill a friendly unit.

That quote you mention is taken out of context too. That entire post dealt only with morale loss due to Psionic Panic Attacks, nothing else. Let me be more specific: "This checks out too as we all know that robots can't panic via psionic panic attacks". Better?

 

- Zombie

[JellyfishGreen]

Formula has been wikified!

[Zombie]

Well, hold on to your shorts everyone. Zombie does it yet again!

 

Since I solved how much morale drops due to Psionic Panic Attacks, I decided to gather some numbers for morale loss due to damage. This time, I started a brand new game and just used the original squad of rookies for testing. Now all the variables (like rank) become constants. First up, I modified a soldier to have 100 for Bravery and began my tests:

 

Bravery = 100
Health Loss          Morale Loss
  0 to 9                 0
 10 to 19                1
 20 to 29                2
 30 to 39                3
 40 to 49                4
 50 to 59                5
 60 to 69                6

Next, I modified Bravery to 90 and did the test all over:

 

Bravery = 90
Health Loss          Morale Loss
  0 to 4                 0
  5 to 9                 1
 10 to 14                2
 15 to 19                3
 20 to 24                4
 25 to 29                5
 30 to 34                6
 35 to 39                7
 40 to 44                8
 45 to 49                9
 50 to 54               10
 55 to 59               11
 60 to 64               12
 65 to 69               13

Hmmm... a reduction in Bravery by 10 doubles the range (and morale loss). But this is only from 100 to 90. What happens from 90 to 80? Here again, I modified my test soldiers Bravery to 80 and did it again:

 

Bravery = 80
Health Loss          Morale Loss          Health Range
  0 to 3                 0                     4
  4 to 6                 1                     3
  7 to 9                 2                     3
 10 to 13                3                     4
 14 to 16                4                     3
 17 to 19                5                     3
 20 to 23                6                     4
 24 to 26                7                     3
 27 to 29                8                     3
 30 to 33                9                     4
 34 to 36               10                     3
 37 to 39               11                     3
 40 to 43               12                     4
 44 to 46               13                     3
 47 to 49               14                     3
 50 to 53               15                     4
 54 to 56               16                     3
 57 to 59               17                     3

Up until this point the range of health lost was always a constant: 10 for 100 Bravery, and 5 for 90 Bravery. But when I got to 80 Bravery, the range of health lost jumped between 4 and 3. Feeling lucky, I took the average of the Health Range column and got 60/18 = 3.333333. So the range goes from 10 to 5 to 3.333 as we decrease in Bravery from 100 to 80. That will come in handy.

 

Time to start work on an equation which explains all this. First thing I messed around with was the Bravery part of the equation. Figuring that magical 110 constant comes into play, I start with 110 - Bravery (or values of 10, 20 and 30). Now I tried dividing those numbers by the 10, 5 and 3.33. That produced 1, 4 and 9. Not too much good that did. Well, maybe multiplying the two numbers together will help: 10*10=100, 20*5=100, 30*3.333=99.999. Ah ha! A factor of 100 is needed somewhere. Now it was just a matter of combining stuff in the right order. After about 5 minutes I had my answer:

 

Morale Loss = INT( (110 - Bravery) * Health Loss / 100)

 

Does it explain all the data sets? It sure does. Yea! Improbable as it may seem, I had just produced a formula with 3 variables. Impressive. Unfortunately, this equation is only good for explaining what health loss would do to a rookies morale on an all-rookie squad in combat. But it is a start.

 

Part two is to collect data with either a: Sergeant, Captain, Colonel or Commander present to see how much morale drop would be lessened. Part three is to see what happens to morale when an officer is the one wounded. Yeah, I know some of this stuff is in the Wiki (and/or OSG), but I need lots of hard data to compare. In any event, I'll continue to work on this to see if I can formulate

• a single equation which explains everything, or
  
• a series of equations to explain each possible scenario.
  

The hard work is done. The only thing left is to factor in rank. That should hopefully be the easy part.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

I had a bit of time this week to do some more research into what role rank plays on morale loss due to a reduction in health.

 

Seems as though morale loss is the same if a Rookie gets injured with a Sergeant present or if a Sergeant is injured with a group of Rookies for backup. That's good news, because I won't have to formulate new equations for these scenarios.

 

I'm anticipating that the Leadership bonuses given by the wiki will be used somewhere in the new equations:

Sergeant: 10%

Captain: 15%

Colonel: 20%

Commander: 35%

From the data I've gathered so far, it might be the case. I'll keep you updated, though.

 

- Zombie

[Bomb Bloke]

I really can't think of any intellegent comments to make about all this.

 

A clapping smily will have to do.

 

Hang on... Where is the clapping smily?!

 

There is none!

 

*faints*

[Faskalia]

Sounds pretty interesting.

But what if:

 

Squad A:

 

3 Squaddies

1 Sargent

1 Captain

1 Commander

 

 

Lets say the captain dies. Does this affect all other soldiers in the same way? (assuming that they have all the same bravery)

[Knan]

Sounds pretty interesting.

But what if:

 

Squad A:

 

3 Squaddies

1 Sargent

1 Captain

1 Commander

Lets say the captain dies. Does this affect all other soldiers in the same way? (assuming that they have all the same bravery)

 

If all have the same bravery, yep, that's right. Since the leadership bonus from rank affects the whole squad equally, bravery is the only thing that differs from soldier to soldier.

 

So a Bravery 10 Commander can panic before all the others in his squad, no problem.

 

- Knan