How explosions work in the battlescape

[Hobbes]

Sure you do! Remember our little discussion about HE blockage numbers, armor and the amount of damage it takes to destroy a brain segment in Cydonia? It's on page 3 of the Two Quick Questions thread.

 

Blockage numbers are used to determine how much damage must be inflicted to a tile before it is displayed as "destroyed". It shouldn't have any effect on the damage modifier tests. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Constitution is used to determine how much damage must be inflicted before the tile is destroyed. HE Blockage determines how much the strength of a blast is reduced as it passes by a tile. Ground tiles HE Blockage is usually very low, but walls Blockage is significantly higher: if you didn't had HE Blockage you could have situations where the blast wouldn't affect the wall but it would inflict damage on the units on the other side of it.

[Bomb Bloke]

So you mean (more or less) that HE won't damage a ground tile (eg burn grass) if the blast passes over it?

[Hobbes]

So you mean (more or less) that HE won't damage a ground tile (eg burn grass) if the blast passes over it?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I am going to try to explain it with an example. As you know each explosion has a blast radius, with the biggest strength at the center of the blast, and decreasing as it moves away from it and according to the HE blockage of the objects within its range. Imagine you have a wall with a 70 constitution and a 40 HE blockage and there's an explosion next to it with a 60 strength. Since the blast strength is lower than its constitution, the wall will be left intact but since the HE blockage is 40, the blast would be greatly reduced as it passes by the wall(60-40 =20). Any objects/units standing behind the wall would suffer the effects of a 20 blast, as opposed to a 50 or 40 blast if there was no wall.

 

Now this applies to walls, which usually have HE blockage but concerning ground tiles the situation is different. Most ground tiles HE blockage setting is 0 so they won't reduce the blast. But some ground tiles, like one of the barn grounds that has a value of 25 will actually reduce the strength like i mentioned above. And, if there's walls/objects in addition to the tile then those will reduce it too (if the HE blockage setting is different from 0).

 

In other words, the HE blockage reduces the strength of the blast as it passes by a tile, if greater than 0. The constitution determines if the object is left intact if the strength of the blast is lower than its value. If blast > constitution than the object is destroyed (and I would say it reduces the blast's strength as well that passes to the adjacent tiles.

[MikeTheRed]

Hobbes, we noticed from MapView that UFO outer walls have "consitution" (MapView calls it "armor" I think - same thing, would you know?) of 100 and HE Block of 100. It's takes a blaster bomb to make a hole in it - and it's exactly 1 tile wide. Blaster strength is 200, on average.

 

To make a long story short, do you know if HE Block is "instantaneous"? Already reducing the blaster to 100 as of the point it hits the wall, so that effectively it makes the wall "200 armor" (to kill it with a blaster)?

 

Another thing... if you can say any more words about tile damage reducing a blast, even on common tiles (without HE Block) that'd be great. Zombie has some interesting numbers showing blast diameters from different explosives vs. different types of terrain. Generally the diameter correlates with HE rating, but there are still some headscratchers. Sometimes stronger-rated weapons have a slightly smaller blast pattern than slightly weaker explosives. I am kicking around whether it might be due to, the stronger exposive having enough umph to take out both the "initial tile" and the "death tile", thereby sopping up some of the blast's energy, and thus giving the "stronger" explosive a slightly smaller blast size, sometimes. Zombie and I are going back and forth about explosions - he's doing some great work!

[NKF]

You're referring to the HC-HE shell -vs- the grenade blast areas, aren't you, when you mean a strong explosion damaging less tiles compared to the weaker version? I recall One of them deals a about 4 more tiles worth of serious damage to the tiles than the other while being slightly weaker.

 

My opinion on that it is that it's simply a matter of the game trying to work perfect circles into a low resolution (i.e. a bunch of large squares). Think of it this way, the battlescape's playing field is essentially a bitmap.

 

The shape of the circle that covers the blast area may change its shape ever so slightly that it barely touches these extra tiles when the damage increases slightly. When it's weaker, the circle is blockier, and ends up passing through these edges, thus causing damage to them.

 

edit: To see what I mean, try opening MS-Paint. Go to view, zoom, custom, 800%. Select the paintbrush brush and set it to the smallest brush possible. Now, make a dot. Now use the + key to increase the size by 1 point. Make a dot. Increase it again, make another dot. Repeat as many times as necessary. Note, for Win XP's Paint, it appears that you now need to hold down control for the brush size to be changed. Rather a bother, that, as you used to be able to change the brush size as you were drawing.... ah well. Either that or my keyboard's stuffed. Remember, this will not mimic exactly how the game creates its explosions, but it might give you an idea on how the circle attempts to mimic a round shape in the available squares.

 

Hmm. I wonder if the range of damage for each tile in the blast is is done by simply overlaying contracting damage circles over larger circles until it reaches the center... Oh, don't mind my idle musing.

 

- NKF

[Hobbes]

Hobbes, we noticed from MapView that UFO outer walls have "consitution" (MapView calls it "armor" I think - same thing, would you know?) of 100 and HE Block of 100. It's takes a blaster bomb to make a hole in it - and it's exactly 1 tile wide. Blaster strength is 200, on average.

 

To make a long story short, do you know if HE Block is "instantaneous"? Already reducing the blaster to 100 as of the point it hits the wall, so that effectively it makes the wall "200 armor" (to kill it with a blaster)?

 

Another thing... if you can say any more words about tile damage reducing a blast, even on common tiles (without HE Block) that'd be great. Zombie has some interesting numbers showing blast diameters from different explosives vs. different types of terrain. Generally the diameter correlates with HE rating, but there are still some headscratchers. Sometimes stronger-rated weapons have a slightly smaller blast pattern than slightly weaker explosives. I am kicking around whether it might be due to, the stronger exposive having enough umph to take out both the "initial tile" and the "death tile", thereby sopping up some of the blast's energy, and thus giving the "stronger" explosive a slightly smaller blast size, sometimes. Zombie and I are going back and forth about explosions - he's doing some great work!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yup, armor and constitution are the same. I use Constitution because that's the term that Koralt's MCD Editor uses for that data field

I have no idea if the HE Block is instantaneous, but it might not be the case. If a BB released a strength of only 100 (the minimum possible, according to your table) and the HE Block of 100 was applied before the damage to the constitution, then it wouldn't make any hole.

 

 

This assumes that the weapon power is applied 100%, with no modifiers due to the terrain but I strongly suspect there is a terrain modifier applied after the weapon's power is calculated, especially on the case of non-explosive weapons. One thing I always found weird to explain is how a heavy plasma (with a power rating of 115) cannot blast through these 100 walls although theorically it would, if armor/constitution was the only factor that determined it. And, on the other hand the simple UFO inner walls that can be breached with heavy plasma (usually after a series of shots) have an armor setting of 80.

I've just ran a test to try to inquire about this probability. I've decreased the UFO outer walls armor value to 85 and 90 settings and kept shooting at them with Heavy Plasmas to see if they were breached. With an 85 value they can be breached but not with a 90 value.

 

Well, I don't know if this helps, but if you guys want a test terrain with different armor and HE block value for testing let me know. I would sure be interested on the results.

[MikeTheRed]

Hiya, Hobbes!

 

Right, weapons clearly follow a different model for tile damage compared to explosions.

 

It looks like explosion damage is fixed, and equal to half the explosive damage as of that tile. Example: Desert has 5 Initial consitution/armor, and 25 Death Tile armor. A grenade (HE=50) kills all the Initial armor in its radius. Then a second grenade kills exactly one tile in its center. The first blast has knocked its total armor from 30 to 25, then the second blast kills the one center tile. For more, see e.g. this. Consistent with this, notice how a blaster bomb is 200, but UFO outer walls have 100 tile armor. Half of explosive damage is what is applied/needed, we're thinking.

 

But obviously weapons do not do fixed damage, since sometimes you break through, sometimes you don't. Clearly UFO walls have a serious resistance to plasma. In MapView, I see that they have a special property called "Alien Plastics". Might be real interesting to try turning that off and see what happens. (Are there other potential modifiers? I can't recall any. Could HE Block be adding to tile armor?) I personally haven't tested shooting weapons (non-explosives) at tiles/objects much at all... yet.

 

I'd be interested in testing a number of tile armor values. However, I have no idea how hard it is for you to make the terrains and/or whether you can turn them into a loadable savegame, including soldiers, weapons, and one alien to keep it running. Here's a thought that comes to mind but I don't know if it's way to much to ask, or easy for you to make copies and variations:

 

1) 6 different tile sets with initial-then-death armor as follows: 50/50, 25/25, 20/20, 15/15, 10/10, 5/5. Make the whole map this, without any terrain objects or variation. Desert is a good choice for graphics since its pristine, injured, and dead tiles are clearly distinguishable.

 

2) Then you might make a copy of say the 10/10 map, and have a few stripes (single tile, from top of map to bottom or whatever) that's HE Block 100. Then another stripe parallel to it at least 12 tiles away (>blaster radius) that's 50 HEB. Another 12 away that's 25. You get the idea. If you can somehow color code them in a way that doesn't change any properties, they'll be a snap to see.

 

Include a bunch of soldiers (the more the merrier if Z wants to collect lots of data), and every type of weapon+ammo you can get in there, including at least several of every thrown explosive. And one alien in a corner with his Unitref[35]=0, so he'll stay still.

 

... I have no idea if this is asking way too much. If you can just make tileset variants we can swap into an existing game, that's 90% of it right there. But if you can hack all the rest of the goodies in there quickly, it saves us time. Note that we (or least I) will need instructions on how to swap the hacked terrain in and out.

 

The reason for the varying tile armor is that, if it is true that tiles are fixedly damaged by half the current tile's blast blowever, then blast patterns serve as fairly sensitive indicators of blast damage at each point. The thickest set (50/50) ought to have a blaster bomb blow through to death tile at one point in the center, and then the very last edge tile (radius 11 not including ground zero) will be uninjured. Lower values will let lower explosives speak their minds. Then the HEB strips will let us explode something a bit off to the side, and see what it looks like on the far side of the HEB strip.

 

The above particulars were chosen out of thin air. None of them have to be exactly the values shown. Nor does it have to be exactly 6 tile sets. I wonder what would happen if some tiles weren't at multiples of 5 or 10? And half the time, funky things you didn't think of are what make you say "I'll be damned". Anyway, you get the idea. At this point, most anything ought to tell us a lot.

 

Thanks again for replying!! And again, if I've asked for way too much, tell me what's doable and we can pick from that. If you don't already have a plan.

[Bomb Bloke]

Daishiva's map viewer notes each tiles special properties, but it talks in TFTD-speak. "Alien Plastics" translates to "Alien Alloys" in UFO-speak, and will go towards your stocks when the mission is completed.

 

Say a blaster bomb hits the an alloy floor, and the initial damage is rolled at 200. Each tile hit requires a mere 80 points of damage to destroy, so the first tile gets vaporised and replaced with a damaged alloy floor. But there are still 120 points of damage left, so the damaged floor (having an armor of just 50) also gets destroyed and converted to tile 0 (which is burnt out ground, and if you manage to destroy it, is replaced by itself).

 

Now say it's an alien alloy wall that is hit. This has an armor of 100, but also an HE block of 100 (the floors have no HE block). The HE block is negated from the damage, and the remaining points are then compared to the armor. Since the HE block is equal to the armor, it makes it look like you need double the armor to destroy the tile. That is to say -

 

HE block + tile armor = Damaged needed to destroy tile.

 

Damage to current tile - HE block - Distance from blast center effect = Damage passed on to next tile.

 

If the damage dealt is not enough to destroy a tile, then the tile is untouched. That is, if a first blast doesn't destroy a tile, a second blast won't be aided by the results of that first blast. That is to say, a tile doesn't change appearance to reflect the damage taken. It simply changes to another tile when destroyed, and that tile looks like a damaged version of the original. You don't 'reduce' the armor, you simply change the tile in that position.

 

Think of a floor and a damaged floor as two entirely different things and you've got it.

 

You can't create save games alone with custom tilesets. The tileset must be edited seperately. Luckily, the game doesn't take up much HDD space, so the easiest way to go about it is to make copies of the entire game folder and so keep the changes away from your original game.

[Hobbes]

I'd agree with Bomb Bloke in regard to the idea that the first blast softens the tile before the second destroys it. It that were to happen then the UFO walls could be destroyed by using several explosions during a number of turns.

 

It seems that you have a slight misunderstanding concerning the 'Death Tiles' (as Map View calls them). Those are not special tiles at all. What happens is when there's enough damage applied to the tile to overcome its armor/constitution and destroy it, then 3 things can happen:

1) If the tile has a 'Destroy Mapcode' (the 'Death Tile' on Map View) setting assigned then the tile is replaced with another one, which is usually a wrecked version of view but is considered a different tile. In some cases if the strength of the blast is great enough then the wrecked version will also be destroyed

2) On of Walls/Objects, if there's no 'Death Tile/Destroy Mapcode' specified then the tile is simply eliminated .

3) On Ground tiles, if there's no Destroy MapCode setting and the tile is placed on the first level then it is replaced with a ground tile from the Blanks terrain (the brown earth tile). This happens when: a) the force of the blast is enough to take out both the tile and its wrecked version. b) there's no 'wrecked version' assigned (Death tile) or the tile is already a 'wrecked version' generated by previous hits/blasts.

 

OK. I've changed the Desert terrain for you to do some testing concerning the HE Blockage setting. I don't know how to set it to only have 1 alien like you said but it is fairly easy to use it. Just place the .map files on the /MAPS folder of UFO and the desert.mcd file into the /TERRAIN FOLDER. Then you will be able to run it on UFO as many times as you like (remember to make a backup copy first!)

 

Those are the changes it contains:

- The 'Dead Tile' has been deactivated for all tiles. When a ground tile is destroyed it immediately switches to the brown earth destroyed setting (the game does it automatically)-

- There's only 11 tiles and their HE blockage values have been altered to values from 0 to 110. Each of the 10x10 maps is composed of a single tile. To know the value for each individual tile, simply use Map View and open a Desert map. On the TileView window choose the Ground tab. The value of the basic desert tile (i.e. without skulls/vegetation/etc.) is 0 and it increases 10 from the left to the right (the rightmost tile's HE Blockage value is 110).

- The constitution/armor for all tiles is 0. I set it this way to prevent this variable from interfering from the calculations. Later if you want I can change the armor/HE Blockage as you like.

 

You can download the file here

 

I hope this is useful and good luck with your testing

[MikeTheRed]

I thank both of you for the detailed explains on armor. They're definitely helping my slow brain.

 

One particular point was not addressed - or maybe WAS addressed by the fact you didn't even mention it ...

 

It seems (seemed? heh) very clear to me that floor tiles are only being hit by half the "rated" damage for that tile. See my previous discussion and link, or I can re-state it if you like.

 

If this is true, then something different must be going on for walls (and maybe objects?) as opposed to floor tiles. Because if not, the blaster explosive is actually only hitting a UFO with half its rated strength (100, as for floor tiles), and if the wall is doing 100 for armor/constitution PLUS 100 for HE Block, then the wall is handling explosions differently from floors - specifically, it is using the average (i.e., rated) HE strength, not half the rated blast strength for a given tile, as happens with floors.

 

I hope this is making sense. And please correct me if I am still missing something! Smile. But if you disagree that explosives only do half their rated damage to floor tiles, please see what I've posted previously and tell me what's wrong with what seems like very conclusive data. And/or just ask me to repeat it again for you.

 

Got your file, Hobbes, and will have fun soon... BTW can I ask you... a number of tiles have constitution of 255, such as all the Polar "Death Tiles". Is 255 truly the armor rating, or could it be a flag? I'm thinking it's simply armor, but am curious since FF is used elsewhere as a flag, such as for dead/unused soldier slots in SOLDIER.DAT.

[Hobbes]

I thank both of you for the detailed explains on armor. They're definitely helping my slow brain.

 

One particular point was not addressed - or maybe WAS addressed by the fact you didn't even mention it ...

 

It seems (seemed? heh) very clear to me that floor tiles are only being hit by half the "rated" damage for that tile.  See my previous discussion and link, or I can re-state it if you like.

 

If this is true, then something different must be going on for walls (and maybe objects?) as opposed to floor tiles. Because if not, the blaster explosive is actually only hitting a UFO with half its rated strength (100, as for floor tiles), and if the wall is doing 100 for armor/constitution PLUS 100 for HE Block, then the wall is handling explosions differently from floors - specifically, it is using the average (i.e., rated) HE strength, not half the rated blast strength for a given tile, as happens with floors.

 

I hope this is making sense. And please correct me if I am still missing something! Smile. But if you disagree that explosives only do half their rated damage to floor tiles, please see what I've posted previously and tell me what's wrong with what seems like very conclusive data. And/or just ask me to repeat it again for you.

 

Got your file, Hobbes, and will have fun soon... BTW can I ask you... a number of tiles have constitution of 255, such as all the Polar "Death Tiles". Is 255 truly the armor rating, or could it be a flag? I'm thinking it's simply armor, but am curious since FF is used elsewhere as a flag, such as for dead/unused soldier slots in SOLDIER.DAT.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The 255 is simply the armor rating and it is used to make tiles indestructible. I have no accurate idea of what happens with the explosions because by observations done while testing terrains are purely empirical, i.e., 'will this setting prevent alien grenades from destroying this tile'. I will leave those discussions to you and Bomb Bloke

 

I seriously hope that the modified Desert terrain helps you figure out how the explosions are dealt. I already tested it a couple of times and had some very interesting results but I haven't bothered to figure it out. Have fun testing

[Bomb Bloke]

Don't explosives deal variable amounts of damage, as do normal weapons? If not, then why do strong troopers sometimes survive direct blaster bomb hits?

 

I'd tend to think that tiles with an armor of 255 will be destroyed if you manage to hit them with that much power. This is the only explanation I can think of as to why parts of your craft can be destroyed in the mountain terrain - there must be some sort of 'explosive power boost' calculated, perhaps due to altitude or something. As a general rule, though, nothing deals 255 points of damage, so tiles with that amount of 'armor' won't be touched by non-hacked weapons.

 

On the other hand, I gather the Blaster Bomb may be able to deal up to 300 points of damage anyway, contradicting me... The only real way to test this all out is to hack a trooper so he has 255 HP, and 100 points of armor all round. The soldier should be able to survive any direct Blaster Bomb strike. If the maximum damage dealt is 300, then the least amount of health any given blast could leave him with is 55 HP.

 

But, if the damage really does cap out at around 255, then the minimum HP he should be left with would be closer to 100.

 

If a weapon CAN do more then 255 points of damage in non-mountain terrain, then I've got no idea as to why that terrain makes your craft destructible. The only way I could think of to find out is to examine the MCD is memory after the game loads it.

 

If a trooper stands on a tile and takes explosive damage, does the tile take the same amount of damage as the trooper?

[MikeTheRed]

Explosive damage to units is quite variable, true - but explosive damage to (floor?) tiles is a fixed function.

 

Otherwise you would've seen variable blast terrain effects aka mottling at the edges. But they always produce the exact same blast pattern in a given terrain. See this message, where I boil it down to a math equation. So it seems fixed for ground armor, unless someone can show me where I'm wrong. It's fixed at half the average blast damage (where average = HE rating at ground zero, and decreases by 10 outward... half of this, for tile damage, is decreasing by 5 per tile). Hmm... you still sure about the UFO outer wall being 100 armor plus 100 HE Block? I would think it should be testable...

 

But right now I'm working on other stuff, a.k.a. just getting to a point of working a mission to where I can test Hobbes' hacked tileset...

 

As for weirdness in the mountains, I conjecture it might be due to how most common mtn. ground tiles seem to be accidentally wired to turn into an object instead of a death tile, when they die. Looks like the programmers accidentally pointed to MCD id 76 instead of 77. What happens when you have an object but no ground tile? I figure this might somehow cause the problem. Have folks investigated this much? But I've never gotten a real clear explanation of what weirdness is seen. Is it only seen after damage is done to the ground tile? (Crashed UFOs may well be damaging the ground near where their power sources have blown up.)

[MikeTheRed]

Very strange, Hobbes. I am not seeing any blocking! at first glance

 

Here's a savegame ready for testing, if anyone wants to take a whack at it. The guys in upper left have lots of different explosives, and some other weapons are on the ground. There's one stripped alien lurking in the battleship elevator with energy=0.

 

With Hobbes' hack, all terrain is armor/constitution 0, and no death tiles. The brown sage just to the left of the soldiers is HE Block 80, and the "S" snakes to left of that is HE Block 90. Every single tile. That's about the highest HE Blocking terrain in Hobbes' hacked tileset.

 

You would think soldiers could stand 4 tiles away from ground zero (GZ) and have a blaster damped to 0 even going by max damage (300), if decreasing 80 per tile. But soldiers are still significantly harmed at the edge of the blaster blast (radius 11 not counting GZ). I haven't done any numerical testing a la Zombie's great work, but very clearly either ground tiles are different from walls/objects, or HE Block is not at all what I might've thought (damping blasts as they go). One other very remote possibility is that tile armor of 0 is somehow causing it to ignore those tiles.

 

Hobbes, is it possible to slide new terrain into an existing savegame? I tried simply loading an old desert savegame after installing your hacked tileset, but did not see the new tiles. I had to start a new combat to see them.

 

I'm not sure what to make of this... no apparent effect of HE Block!

 

Mike

 

Erk wait - how do I upload the file? We can't attach files to messages here like we can in XCOMUFO? (Or maybe I'm too much of a noob?)

 

[Edit, Zombie: here is the file for anyone interested]: Bs_HMT_MutBB_StartTesting1.zip

[Zombie]

On the other hand, I gather the Blaster Bomb may be able to deal up to 300 points of damage anyway, contradicting me... The only real way to test this all out is to hack a trooper so he has 255 HP, and 100 points of armor all round. The soldier should be able to survive any direct Blaster Bomb strike. If the maximum damage dealt is 300, then the least amount of health any given blast could leave him with is 55 HP.

Just to interject here for a minute, a while back I calculated that the Blaster Bomb should impart a damage range between 100 and 300 to a unit standing on Ground Zero (GZ). The average damage should therefore be 200. So I used your idea BB and edited a saved game with the conditions you mentioned: 255 Health and 100 Under armor (HE blasts only affect under armor at GZ or GZ+1). Now I ran 55 trials and took down the health left via your logger. After a minor calculation (255-Health left+100), I was left with damage dealt by the Blaster Bomb. Here are my results:

 

Minimum:       103
Maximum:       298
Range:         196
Median:        222
Mode:          267
Ant. Ave:      200
Act. Ave:     218.5

Well, as we can see, the Blaster Bomb can deal over 255 points of damage. The min and max are right on target, which would indicate that the theory holds. Sure, the Actual Average is a bit high but that is normal for only gathering 55 values.

 

I don't see why weapons would only be limited to their listed (average) values when used against objects in the battlescape. They should deal their full range up to Ave*2 for normal weapons or Ave*3/2 for explosives. For instance, the other day I was shooting a stone wall with a Heavy Plasma to remove it. Some shots would totally obliterate the wall segment completely, while other shots would leave a line of rubble. It's obvious to me that objects are affected in the same manner as units are (sans the damage modifiers), otherwise there would be little variation.

 

- Zombie

[Bomb Bloke]

If explosive damage varied to floor tiles, it would not produce a 'mottled' pattern. It should simply effect the radius of the blast effects. (That is to say, the damage calculated against each tile is based on the damage calculated against the last tile, and so is not random. It's the initial damage dealt to the tile at the center of the blast that I would expect to be random).

 

If an object is destroyed, it is simply removed. If a ground tile is destroyed (at ground level), then it is converted to the generic burnt out ground tile. The avenger tileset used in the mountain terrain set uses the same data files as any other terrain set, so I wouldn't expect the issue to be the way the MCD files are wired (or else all terrains would be broken).

 

Hmm, so a Blaster Bomb can really deal a full 300 points of damage? That means that an object with 255 points of armor must be flagged as 'indestructable', but that doesn't always hold true in the mountains. Hmm.

 

I know 'standard' weapons deal variable damage to terrain, but Mike's got me wondering about explosive damage to terrain.

 

When you throw a Blaster Bomb at a UFO, it tends to destroy a single wall. 200 points of damage are required to destroy each wall. Due to HE block, 100 points are deducted from the damage dealt to the surrounding walls. In order for these extra walls to be knocked down, 200 points of damage must be passed on (meaning that the original blast must deal the full, maximum 300 points of damage).

 

If that's true, then given that the range of damage the Blaster Bomb deals is 200, that means you've got a 0.5% (one out of two hundred) chance that a Blaster Bomb, when thrown at a UFO hull, will destroy more then a single tile.

 

On the other hand, you can see that there is about a 50% chance that the bomb won't destroy even one tile of the hull, as 50% of the possible damage range falls below the 200 points needed to destroy the wall. This would be the easiest way to see if explosive damage to walls/objects is variable.

 

As for testing to see if it is variable against ground tiles... Just keep dropping bombs in a corn field or something, and check to see if the results are constant.

 

I'm assuming that the radius of a blast is defined by the initial damage dealt at the center.

[Hobbes]

Very strange, Hobbes. I am not seeing any blocking! at first glance

You would think soldiers could stand 4 tiles away from ground zero (GZ) and have a blaster damped to 0 even going by max damage (300), if decreasing 80 per tile. But soldiers are still significantly harmed at the edge of the blaster blast (radius 11 not counting GZ). I haven't done any numerical testing a la Zombie's great work, but very clearly either ground tiles are different from walls/objects, or HE Block is not at all what I might've thought (damping blasts as they go). One other very remote possibility is that tile armor of 0 is somehow causing it to ignore those tiles.

 

MikeTheRed, I had the impression yesterday when I tried the terrain That's why I said I had some interesting results because what it looks to me is that armor and HE block are used together on the same equation to calculate how much the blast is softened by terrain. Since one of the variables is 0 then there's no blocking at all!

 

I am going to fix the terrain files now for all of the ground to have 10 armor and the different HE blockage settings. Let's see what happens

 

 

Hobbes, is it possible to slide new terrain into an existing savegame? I tried simply loading an old desert savegame after installing your hacked tileset, but did not see the new tiles. I had to start a new combat to see them.

 

It is not possible. You will have to create a new tactical game to use a hacked tileset.

[Hobbes]

Hehehehe, well even more interesting results.

 

First i hacked the files so all ground tiles would have 10 armor and the variable HE block values (from 0 to 120). The results were the same as if they had 0 armor: the pattern of the blasts wasn't affected at all.

 

So next I changed the values again for the ground tiles to have their armor values correspondent to their HE blockage values (10 armor, 10 HE blockage and so on). Now this made some very weird blast patterns.

It seems that the blast diameter is always set according to the power of the explosive and isn't influenced by the terrain values (i.e. a BB will always make damage to a radius of 11 squares). But the damage inflicted on the terrain depends on the values armor and/or HE block.

 

Here's the new modified file

[MikeTheRed]

Zombie, thanks for those tests. There's one question answered. Even though the farthest min and max were not seen, you wouldn't expect to with only 55 samples and 201 potential values... The results look entirely consistent, just like you say.

 

Please tell me you also had soldiers stationed elsewhere, and gathered their data I would love to see a contour map like you did for the grenade. It's not as daunting as it sounds... only one-eight of a pie slice really needs to be done, since it's expected to be symmetrical. That's about 50 tiles. And even that can be cut down to maybe 30 with judicious choosing of initial placements, if we assume there are some broad equal contours such as for the grenade (plus we don't need due lateral yet again). I don't see any reason to not assume it doesn't use the same simple "integer distances" as with grenade, which means less samples - if just one datapoint is over the max possible for radius X, it means it's got to be radius X-1 or less. Still, it'd be a lot of work. So... just a thought to put in your pipe. Everything you do is good regardless

 

Z, I know you're pressed for time - and thanks for all your testing! But if you get a chance, please crank up MapView and verify which particular tiles were used for your Blast Diameters. I wouldn't think it would take more than 10 minutes. I could extend a lot of observations for consistency across tiles, if I knew exactly which tiles were used. The tile identity for some of the columns is not clear, and what's the use of guessing. All I need is the MCDid from MapView for at least one tile in each column (just the initial tile; don't need death tile). Note: If the armor values are not going up as you go left to right, please doublecheck that you got the right tile

 

If explosive damage varied to floor tiles, it would not produce a 'mottled' pattern. It should simply effect the radius of the blast effects.

Sorry, poor choice of words on my part. If explosive tile damage was variable (I don't think it is, but just saying), sometimes it would kill all the way through both tiles (initial and death tile), sometimes it would only break through the initial tile, and sometimes it wouldn't damage anything at all (when it was at min damage, and that was less than initial tile armor). All depending on how close the progressing blast front is to an iso-HE "contour". But e.g. an alien grenade always kills both ini+death tiles to diameter 7 and only ini tiles the rest of the way, to diameter 13, in the desert (see Z's results here). There is no variation or what I was calling "mottling". Better words accepted

 

(That is to say, the damage calculated against each tile is based on the damage calculated against the last tile, and so is not random. It's the initial damage dealt to the tile at the center of the blast that I would expect to be random).

This is yet another way that variation might have occurred - variation at GZ, then a smooth flow from that. I didn't realize you meant this; after all, decreasing by 10 on average can be taken either way... variation at center only, or variation all over. As discussed, this second definition of variability doesn't happen either, since blast diameters are always the same for a given terrain. Anyway Multiple pairs of eyes are absolutely the best way to do this research... very often, insights occur to one person that don't to the other. Z and I have been going back and forth building on each other's ideas over at XCOMUFO. (But most of that is actually based mainly on his extensive testing!! lol)

 

When you throw a Blaster Bomb at a UFO, it tends to destroy a single wall. 200 points of damage are required to destroy each wall.

I personally still haven't seen anything that disproves that all tiles are only hit by the minimum of a blast at a given point (average at that point, divided by two). The outer UFO wall's armor is 100 - and so is half the blaster's average. Occam's razor says to choose the simplest consistent explanation, until there is evidence for something more complex.

 

But testing is in progress and new evidence could appear at any time!

 

One thing seems clear, yes? - explosive damage to all tiles (not units) is some sort of fixed function of distance from GZ. That's why there's never any variability in whether the blaster will do 1, 3, or 0 outer walls. It always does exactly one. (Correct me if wrong, anyone, please!!)

 

Of course, non-explosive weapon damage is variable. I am still mulling over Hobbes' finding when he hacked an inner wall. I don't see any particular relationship between Heavy Plasma strength and wall armor. I suspect those walls have a modifier applied fwiw, which could easily make it not be some nice round percent or whatever. Would love to see a range of wall armor, HE Block, and plasma strength values tested. (Can you bring the other Plasma weapons to that savegame of yours, Hobbes?... what does the wall need to be for a Plasma Rifle to take it out? What if HE Block is changed? Can you turn off Alien Alloy property, or are you sure it's entirely meaningless?) But my plate is full and I don't even know how to hack those things yet. And if every one of those tests means a whole new combat, it may well be too much work for most folks.

 

As for testing to see if it is variable against ground tiles... Just keep dropping bombs in a corn field or something, and check to see if the results are constant.

Yes, they are.

 

I'm assuming that the radius of a blast is defined by the initial damage dealt at the center.

Yes and no. If you look at the link directly above, you will see some odd discrepancies in HE strength vs. blast radius. Sometimes, a slightly stronger explosive will have a slightly smaller diameter, than a slightly weaker explosive. However, the radius is always the same for a given type of explosive in a given terrain. Z and I are working hard to try to figure this out, as well as a bunch of other things.

 

It seems that the blast diameter is always set according to the power of the explosive and isn't influenced by the terrain values (i.e. a BB will always make damage to a radius of 11 squares). But the damage inflicted on the terrain depends on the values armor and/or HE block.

Hobbes, can I make sure I've gotten your point - would you agree with the following?:

 

* Terrain effects appear to be a function of tile armor. That is to say, a given explosive type is always expected to make the same blast pattern for a given initial+death armor tileset. Only the armor values matter. (Just speaking about armor for now - the role of HE Block is still being worked out, and you're helping tons there!)

 

* But explosive blasts probably can extend beyond terrain effects, per se, to affect units. IOW, units probably can be damaged, outside the terrain's blast pattern, per se. (Of course, the tile armor would have to be pretty high to not be affected.) This is something that needs testing badly atm. (And again, this is not taking HE Block into account yet.) Sounds like the first results are in? Actually Z may have already said this before and I missed it...

 

This is the current theory (sans HE Block).

 

As for HE Block, it's a very interesting finding that armor must equal HE Block for it to "work". Is that your finding? Checking over MCD info, I see that quite a few tiles have armor set equal to HE Block... but there are also many that don't. Hmm. (And of course, there are many more with no HEB at all.) BTW if anyone wants MCD info in an Access dataset, just ask.

 

FWIW Hobbes, I personally am still trying to figure out just tile armor/constitution vs. explosions. I think Z and I are converging on knowing it inside and out (but we won't get there til we get there). I personally wanted to leave HE Block for later (and/or hoped it would've been real simple... alas, that does not yet seem to be the case). That's why I was very heavy on asking for different types of tile armor sets in my suggested specs for tilesets, and pretty light on asking for HE Block. Anyway... whatever works.

 

It's sad to hear that hacked tilesets can't be slid into an existing game. It really slows the rate of testing. It can take 30 to 90 minutes to get everything set up at a new battlescape, if you want to set it up for extended testing. Question: Does overall map size vary by UFO size? (I.e., is a battleship map bigger than a scout map overall, and would give me more of your tilesets?) I have been testing and just focussing on big ships and bases for so long, I can't even remember.

[Bomb Bloke]

A map containing a small scout will be much smaller then one containing a battleship. What the sizes are for each UFO, I don't know.

 

Haaaang on, now you're telling me that a BB will always deal the same points of damage to the same radius of tiles, regardless of what those tiles are? That can't be right for all explosives.

 

What if, for example, you drop a grenade in a small UFO? Surely the blast won't harm terrain outside the UFO, the walls would alter that radius, wouldn't they?

 

Perhaps the damage passed on to nearby tiles is dependant on whether the first tiles were destroyed or not?

[MikeTheRed]

Cool, thanks BombBloke. I thought I remembered that about maps, but it's been forever. And testing/wiki/etc. is too much fun to do a combat just for the heck of it nowadays.

 

Which reminds me. I hope somebody puts UFO size vs. map size, in the wiki.

 

Moving right along,

 

One has to read what is typed carefully, because there are several closely related thoughts going on. Also, it gets repetitious to keep saying "except in case x,y,z" each time.

 

AFAIK, a Blaster will always extend the same damage front - not counting HE Block. We want to work on the concept of HEB, but testing has only just begun. Inside a UFO, there is lots of HE Blocking. So my statements don't apply to places with HEB. See? Except for that one instance of, point of contact with outer hull. Which we're picking apart the possible interpretation of See what I mean now? I only know open ground fairly well

 

Until we get there, I am not touching HE Block in what I say, unless I specifically say I am addressing it. I have yet to see any good evidence on how it works, but testing is only just starting (thanks, Hobbes!).

 

Destroying ground tiles has no effect on damage to further ground tiles "down the line" . As usual, ground tiles are assumed to have no HE Block.

 

I'm sorry I'm not making myself clear BB. Am I too long winded?

[MikeTheRed]

BombBloke, a word about mountain terrain if I could -

 

I still haven't heard anyone tell me what happens when a ground tile accidentally gets turned into an object. What happens when there is no ground tile?

 

This has clearly happened in the XCOM MCD data AFAIK. As usual I use Occam's razor... until there's some other consistent more complex explanation I assume the simplest one consistent with the facts... they screwed up. Not a put down, of course, I love the game. And this is a very small thing - very few games are fought in mountain terrain.

 

What does the game do if a tile no longer has a ground tile but only an object?

[Bomb Bloke]

Wait, you mean a ground tile gets turned into an object in mountain terrain?

 

Ah, I think you've just explained how the avenger ramp gets destroyed! It get overwritten by the new object!

 

*quickly researches the MCD file*

 

Yeah, you're right! The ground tiles get turned into objects. This means that if you destroy the ground, whatever object is in the tile also gets destroyed! (Or, gets destroyed instead).

 

I guess the simple way to test is to load up a mountain map and drop a blaster bomb.

 

*does so*

 

Ok! Confirmed!

 

Now, to answer your question directly, if there is no ground tile, there is no ground tile.

 

If there is no ground tile and the location is at ground level, the game is bright enough to put burnt ground there. That is to say, ground tiles are enforced at ground level.

 

So, in the case of mountain terrain, if you destroy a tile at ground level, an object takes it's place (object 76. You can see they should have used 77. They must have added an object, and not adjusted the indexes). The ground tile is removed - or, if it's at ground level, turned into burnt ground. The object is effectively added, in this later instance.

 

If an object already occupied that location (say, for example, the landing gear of your craft), it gets replaced by the new object instead (a burnt stump, in this case).

 

This isn't immediatley obvious, because if you aim a non-explosive weapon at your landing gear, you are very unlikely to hit the ground. You hit the craft itself, so nothing happens. If you use an explosive, you're likely to not only destroy the ground, but the stump which replaces your landing gear: so all that is left is the burnt out ground underneath. Blaster bombs tend to have that effect.

[Hobbes]

* Terrain effects appear to be a function of tile armor. That is to say, a given explosive type is always expected to make the same blast pattern for a given initial+death armor tileset. Only the armor values matter. (Just speaking about armor for now - the role of HE Block is still being worked out, and you're helping tons there!)

 

MikeTheRed, your words are what i meant. To see an example of this throw an alien grenade or some other explosive with a radius >5 to the center of a 10x10 section whose armor is 40 or more (the ones with snakes, for instance) of my hacked terrain. What I saw is that the armor limits the damage on that 10x10 section (often reducing the blasted area to a radius), but the effects of the blast affect nearby 10x10 sections with a lower armor rating.

 

You are right when you said that first the blast effects must be calculated. Maybe it would be better if I hacked the file again to lower its HE blockage to 0 so that it is possible to compare the effects.

[MikeTheRed]

Cool, BB! Another question resolved! Now I understand what NKF meant by mountain terrain "weakening" stuff; it wasn't clear to me previously just what he meant by that.

 

I had never noticed the effect myself... I rarely use explosives.

 

Just to make sure I understand it 100%, you're saying that if you blaster bomb near a craft, at ground level, its ramp and landing gear simply disappear?

 

All the common mountain ground tiles are 40 armor/constitution... the errant object (MCD id 76) has armor of 20... total tile armor 60...

 

blasters do 200 average damage at ground zero, decreasing by 10 as you move outward; tile damage is half that or 100, which decreases by 5 moving outward... at its edge (diameter 23 in mountains, radius 11 not including GZ) damage to tiles is 50...

 

if I'm doing this right, it should mean that the outer two tiles of a blaster's explosion pattern should all have the erroneous object 76 (a stump), and it would also turn the craft's ramps and landing gear into stumps, if the blaster is exploded 10 to 11 tiles away...

 

did you see this, by chance? stumps around the edge of blast? do you still have that savegame... could you confirm that the ramps actually turn into stumps, if at the edge of the blast?

 

the inside of the blast (radius 9 and less) would be powerful enough to kill the stump too, so it should be clear of anything, like you said.

 

if you still have that game and could give it this last little review, that would be great. or maybe you already saw it already?