DFD-R3: 237 vs. 925, 1003 vs. 378

[Blade]

The examples given for random damage are poor. A snipers shot for example would either be sufficient to take a unit out of the fight or would miss all together, not just soften them up a bit at random. Same with normal bullet fire in general, that is what the versus is taking account for. Random damage is a poor feature IMO that will do little to enhance the game, this isn't some table top RPG.

[mt.]

A snipers shot for example would either be sufficient to take a unit out of the fight or would miss all together

The bullet could hit an arm or a foot or something? Or in the case of minor damage, a grazing shot.

[Blade]

Yeah, and it would be a call for a medic and off to the infirmary (thus completely out of the fight akin to a unit being killed in RA2) or would be pretty much fighting fit and it would have little bearing on what the next shot did. What you are wanting is accuracy, not random damage.

[Darkstorm]

Well the conscript shoots like 15 shots at one target, who the hell cares if he got shot in the leg, he also got shot in the chest, torso, foot, arm, and face. Anyhow, last time I checked, everyone thinks of snipers the way they are now.

[reaperrr]

Yeah, and it would be a call for a medic and off to the infirmary (thus completely out of the fight akin to a unit being killed in RA2) or would be pretty much fighting fit and it would have little bearing on what the next shot did. What you are wanting is accuracy, not random damage.

I think you're right that mt's example is not the best, but as I wrote before, RD
- can be used to simulate slight inaccuracy for projectiles that can't be made inaccurate through existing methods, like tracking projectiles, lasers etc.

- RD wouldn't be affected by distance and height, unlike BallisticScatter.

- And the CriticalHit system could be used for something like "lucky hit to the cockpit".

[Blade]

I think you're right that mt's example is not the best, but as I wrote before, RD
- can be used to simulate slight inaccuracy for projectiles that can't be made inaccurate through existing methods, like tracking projectiles, lasers etc.

- RD wouldn't be affected by distance and height, unlike BallisticScatter.

- And the CriticalHit system could be used for something like "lucky hit to the cockpit".

Slight inaccuracy is irrelevant as the variation would need to simulate it would hardly be noticed in game making it pointless and the critical hit implementation is the suckiest possible use since suddenly it becomes possible for a single GI to somehow get lucky and destroy that tank that is about to crush him in one hit which is a case of do not want! This is a real time STRATEGY game, not roulette.

If you want a chance to hit system, go request one on the tracker, don't support random damage because you think you can use it to sort of hack together the feature you really want.

[reaperrr]

Slight inaccuracy is irrelevant as the variation would need to simulate it would hardly be noticed in game making it pointless

With 'slight' inaccuracy I meant more as in simulating hits to different body parts (not just infantry, also vehicles), of course 2-3% variance in damage would be pointless, but 15-20% would be a different story.
Also, this would be the perfect solution for simulating 'shotgun' type weapons where each bullet has a somewhat random course of flight.

and the critical hit implementation is the suckiest possible use since suddenly it becomes possible for a single GI to somehow get lucky and destroy that tank that is about to crush him in one hit which is a case of do not want! This is a real time STRATEGY game, not roulette.

Besides the fact that I would never use this for something like a GI, I already mentioned that it would allow for some more unique mods apart from the run-of-the-mill "YR+50 units" mods. You may not want this in a conventional mod (though that's a matter of taste), but for more unique total conversions, random damage and critical hit may both be worthwhile features.

If you want a chance to hit system, go request one on the tracker, don't support random damage because you think you can use it to sort of hack together the feature you really want.

I want both, and since CriticalHit is included in the request, I'll support it.

And in any case, I still think #1003 is too complicated and of too limited use to justify it's survival.

[~Guest~]

Support #925, kill #237.

There are public assets out there that feature remaps on walls, etc that do not work with the current lack of support for remap on overlay types.

This would also fix DESTRUCTION ANIMATIONS FOR BUILDINGS, allowing another level of visual eyecandy, as modmakers could have their buildings go out in a bang rather than just blow up into tiny little pieces, with the remap working.

Why are issues 925 and 237 even competing? 925 is a very simple fix, from what I can tell, whereas 237 is an additional (and pointless) feature, requiring much more code to execute, amiright?

[Blade]

@reaperrr I would suggest that damage falloff with distance to target would be a better simulation of a shot gun in an RTS with the unit being closer doing more damage as more of the pellets would likely hit, random damage would still allow full damage at the furthest range which would be impossible against smaller targets.

Unconventional mods that almost no one makes, the mission progression will be useable to conventional and unconventional mods alike. In a conventional mod, the only useful implementation of random damage I can really see is some kind of chaos tank that works by luck and does wildly varying damage per attack. I've yet to see a compelling argument for random damage in any other useage case that isn't either unnessesary or better implemented in some other way. As I said previously, a wound doesn't need to be mortal when considering if an attack effectively "destroyed" a unit in real life, so shots to the arms or legs (depending on a soldiers role) would be equivalent to destroyed in RA2, stop giving that as an example as to why damage should be randomly applied to a target.

@Guest did you even read the ares feature set or the discussion in the request for remap overlay?

[Nighthawk]

This would also fix DESTRUCTION ANIMATIONS FOR BUILDINGS,

Those aren't OverlayTypes.

[~Guest~]

Well regardless, it's the winner of Round 1, so it doesn't really matter haha.

---

Wait, nevermind, misread the tags. Need to register for an account here...

[reaperrr]

@reaperrr I would suggest that damage falloff with distance to target would be a better simulation of a shot gun in an RTS with the unit being closer doing more damage as more of the pellets would likely hit, random damage would still allow full damage at the furthest range which would be impossible against smaller targets.

That would be a slightly better approach for that one specific useage case, but it would mean another request on the tracker that may or may not be implemented. My point was that random damage can be useful for more than just some Final Fantasy mod.

Unconventional mods that almost no one makes

Maybe no one makes them because the YR engine doesn't (or didn't) offer enough features to do so? Besides, the number of SP campaigns (especially good ones) is not stellar either. And even then, #1003 isn't really needed for a good campaign/mod. The same may apply to random damage, but that only means both are equal in that respect.

I still think RD has more potential uses, at least seems to be easier to implement and it has more support in the community ranking.

Anyway, I think each of us has made his position clear and neither of us is willing to give in, so I'd say we should leave the rest to the programmers

[Blade]

Indeed

[Lt Albrecht]

Slight inaccuracy is irrelevant as the variation would need to simulate it would hardly be noticed in game making it pointless and the critical hit implementation is the suckiest possible use since suddenly it becomes possible for a single GI to somehow get lucky and destroy that tank that is about to crush him in one hit which is a case of do not want! This is a real time STRATEGY game, not roulette.

If you want a chance to hit system, go request one on the tracker, don't support random damage because you think you can use it to sort of hack together the feature you really want.

I had a post here countering this. But that argument is a strawman.

A single GI destroying a tank in one show ill only happen with a bad usage of the logic, and like any other badly used logic it has horrible effects. Pleease desist from repeatedly stating your one imagined bad usage case and listen to the 50 good ones that can be proposed.

Vehicles.

Here is an M4 Sherman. You will notice that it contains ammunition, fuel and empty space. IF somone fires a solid AP shot at it, and penetrates the hull, it is conceivable that it will pass through the empty space, damaging the armour but not destroying it, it is also possible it will pass through into the stopred ammunition or fuel, destroying it in one shot. It is also possible it will pass through one of the less vital but still important items such as the loader/co-driver, one of the suspension bogies or a hydraulic power line, more serverely damaging the vehile but not destroying it. Then we have the final possibility: that that shell will bounce off of the sloped hull front and acheive bugger all.

Infantry:
If you shoot at someone, there are four eventualities: #1 you miss. Your bullet fails to make contact and does 0 damage. #2 you kill them outright, your bullet gets them in the heart, or the brain or neck. Either they're dead or they will be within seconds and in the meantime they are useless. For all effective purposes that unit is 'killed'. #3 You do very little. THe bullet grazes them or causes a very shallow flesh wound. In theory if they took enough of them they'd bleed out. It won't kill them on its own because it's a little cut, but enough of them would eventually kill them. #4 You hit them somewhere not vital but not trifling. A hit to the thing needs a field dressing slapped on and held there, they ca still shoot at you but if they get another hit or two the combined injury/blood loss will render them dead and out of the fight.

Read up on the story of LZ X-Ray and subsequent battles if you really want too. There are a lot of examples of this.

Aircraft:
An A10 can fly with one working engine and a sizeable chunk of wing missing. However it cannot fly without a pilot or with two engines missing. You don't know where your Flak shell will hit when you fire it and the game doesn't (at the moment) care. But it matters. There's a big difference between scratching the paintwork, killing an engine or creaming the pilot all over the inside of the cockpit.

Even ships!
If you hole a ship's hull and rupture enough compartments it'll sink, if you just hole the hull you still did quite a bit of damage. Or maybe your torpedo fails to detonate...

I want the game's outcome to be dependant on my skill. But I don't want the course of the game to always play out by the book. If I was stuopid enough to only bring oe APC load of engineers and it gets brewed up killing them all then that's my fault for not planning for it and brining another or dividing them between 2 apcs. Putting all my engineering eggs in one armoured basket as it were. What feels silly though is I know my APC can always take 7 light tank shells before it dies so if a light tank gets near I have 7.5 seconds to destroy it or that a medium tank always kills a mammoth in 12 hits but a mammoth can kill a medium with 1.5 salvos and so the medium will ALWAYS lose and they will continue losing until 6 have been sacrificed 1 on 1 or I swarm it. I'd like it to be luck-based. A medium tank could kill a mammoth in 2 shells but it would be more likely to do it in 16 however a mammoth is almost guaranteed to kill a medium tank in 2 salvos but may get lucky and do it in one shot.

Better units are stll better, worse units are still worse and the player wirth a greater number of greater units will still win. But whilst we watch the carnage unfold it will not unfold at rate y where y is the relative ratios of firepower relative to the ratios of armour and health of the combatants. Also it'd be cool to have a side whose basic infantry either kills opposing basic infantry in one shot or does nothing.

[Blade]

Real life is full of complications and possibilities that you COULD try and code into the game, but it would be pointless and make the game unrecognisable from what it is today. Is there really much difference between always kills in x hits or on average kills on x hits? Not enough IMO except when you consider things like a single mammoth vs med in which case I would like to be confident the player who invested the most resources in their unit would prevail and not have luck screw them. On a mass battle, things would average out more or less so as to make it irrelevant that you had random damage. Where are the 50 good usage cases where this has a significant effect that doesn't result in confrontations being decided more on luck and less on skill?