Do Veteran and Elite Abilities Stack?

[Vinifera7]

Enter: V7's Promotion Experiment!
I have conducted a test to determine if veteran and elite factors stack.

First I modified the Veteran Factors (in [General]) to make STRONGER and FIREPOWER give a 50% bonus.

Code:

VeteranCombat=1.5
VeteranArmor=1.5

I also changed VeteranRatio to 1 so that I would only have to destroy one thing for each promotion level.

Code:

VeteranRatio=1.0

I then made some changes to the Conscript's entry ([E2]). The Conscript will serve as the "Attacker" in my experiment. I made the Cost be 100 so that I have a nice even "level up" number. Veteran and Elite Abilities set for obvious reasons. Finally, ElitePrimary changed to the same weapon as primary for a fair experiment.

Code:

Cost=100
VeteranAbilities=FIREPOWER
EliteAbilities=FIREPOWER
ElitePrimary=M1Carbine

Moving along to the Rhino Tank ([HTNK]), which will serve as the "Defender" in my experiment. I modified the Strength so that it is a nice even number. I changed the Armor to none because the Conscript's weapon's warhead does 100% damage verses none armor. I changed the cost to 100 for the same reason as the Conscript. And I modified the veteran and elite abilities, which is self explanitory.

Code:

Strength=100
Armor=none
Cost=100
VeteranAbilities=STRONGER
EliteAbilities=STRONGER

I modified the conscript's weapon ([M1Carbine]). Changed damage to a nice even number and increased the rate of fire so that it's easier to count the number of shots fired.

Code:

Damage=10
ROF=50

I modified the Patriot Missile as well ([NASAM]). The Patriot Missile is what I used to level up my units. Strength decreased so that they die in one hit. Cost set to 100 so that they give enough points for one full level promotion by either the conscript or the rhino.

Code:

Strength=10
Cost=100

Finally, I created a test map with civilian Patriot Missiles on it that i can easily kill to promote my units for the test.


And here are the test results:

Green Conscript:
> Green Rhino: 10 shots to kill
> Veteran Rhino: 17 shots to kill
> Elite Rhino: 17 shots to kill

Veteran Conscript:
> Green Rhino: 7 shots to kill
> Veteran Rhino: 10 shots to kill
> Elite Rhino: 10 shots to kill

Elite Conscript:
> Green Rhino: 7 shots to kill
> Veteran Rhino: 10 shots to kill
> Elite Rhino: 10 shots to kill


This proves that the veteran and elite abilities do not stack. It also shows exactly how these veteran ratios work. VeteranCombat is a direct multiplier to damage. It took 7 hits on a green rhino by a veteran conscript because 10 * 1.5 = 15 * 7 = 105. VeteranArmor on the other hand, is not a multiplier to the Strength= of a unit, but actually a divisor to damage points taken, as the comments suggest. A green Conscript takes 17 shots to kill a veteran Rhino because 10 / 1.5 = 6.666666. The game rounds this down to an integer. 6 * 17 = 102.

[Renegade]

Nice, scientific work.

[VK]

Good Experiment!
However we need another experiments, for example:
Primary/Secondary choosing:
(Range, AA-AG, Damage, flags)

[Vinifera7]

Can you be more specific?

[VK]

I need (and Community need, too) more about Primary/Secondary selection

[Vinifera7]

Anything in particular? I can do testing, but I need to know what to test for.

[Bobingabout]

the basics that i know are:

there are the NavelTargeting and LandTargeting systems which decided what primary and secondary can fire are.

;NavalTargeting
; UNDERWATER_NEVER = 0, Can't shoot at all at underwater
; UNDERWATER_SECONDARY = 1, Use Second weapon against underwater
; UNDERWATER_ONLY = 2, Can only shoot underwater
; ORGANIC_SECONDARY = 3, Use second Weapon on organic
; SEAL_SPECIAL = 4, Primary on Amphibious and organic, Second on Naval and underwater-not-organic
; NAVAL_ALL = 5, Go ahead and shoot everything with Primary
; NAVAL_NONE = 6, Don't even shoot into the water
; NAVAL_PRIMARY = 7 Able to shoot ground target with secondary weapon, but Naval is the primary target

;LandTargeting
; LAND_OKAY = 0, Land is okay
; LAND_NOT_OKAY = 1, Land is OK
; LAND_SECONDARY = 2 Can shoot land, but only with secondary weapon

there is also the basic rule of "Versus". If you can't hit something with Primary because verses=0, then hit it with secondary.

and finally, there is the AA logic. tags AA=yes/no and AG=yes/no on weapon(i think the defaults are AG=yes and AA=no). AA means shoot in air, AG means shoot at ground.

there is also special case tags like C4=yes. if this is present, targetting a building will cause the unit to run upto it, and use special C4 logic, however it is possible that units including this C4 weapon can shoot normal weapons at buildings, if they auto target, such at retaliation against a pillbox.

i hope with 3rd and 4th weapons, more options will become available to Navel and Land Targetings so i can possibly create a 3 or 4 weaponed ship that has the following. AN(anti Naval) torpedos on primary, Anti land cannon as secondary, anti air missiles as 3rd, anti infantry gun as 4th, for shooting both land based infantry and navel organics.(this is purely an example, and the weapons do not have to be in that order, aslong as all posabilities are covered.)

[Vinifera7]

Ooo! This looks like a lot of work, but I'll see what I can do. Thanks Bobbing!

[DCoder]

Some people have claimed that the game actually tries to calculate damage that Pri/Sec would inflict and picks the one with larger calculated damage, would be nice to have concrete evidence for or against.

[Bobingabout]

Some people have claimed that the game actually tries to calculate damage that Pri/Sec would inflict and picks the one with larger calculated damage, would be nice to have concrete evidence for or against.

I've tried it before, it defintly does not do this, however it would be nice if it did.

[Vinifera7]

Well, it does, sort of.. but not really. It doesn't pick the one with the larger calculated damage, but it DOES pick the one with the higher Verses value against the armor type that it's shooting at. I know for a FACT that this works. This is also documented in The Guide.

My testing and stuff is continued in a new thread.

[Bobingabout]

thanks for pointing that out, I'll have to try it out.

[Vinifera7]

Err.. maybe I lied? I tested it and it doesn't work like that. The Primary weapon will ALWAYS have precedence against ground targets, and the only way to override it is to put 0% on various verses values to make the Primary NOT fire at certain armor types, in which case the Secondary would be used instead.

I could have sworn it used the weapon with the highest verses value against the armor that it was shooting though.. maybe it did in TS and WW took that out as well...

Edit: I did a quick test in TS to find out.. yup, I was right. Not sure why they did away with the old system in RA2, but whatever..

[Nighthawk]

The Primary weapon will ALWAYS have precedence against ground targets

Add LandTargeting=2 to the unit, that forces the unit to attack ground units with secondary weapon.

[Vinifera7]

Well duh.. I am talking about the normal state here. Obviously if you add something else it can change it.