A few question on siege weapons

[oyzar]

First these questions are ment for bts 3.17
I am familiar with how the combat system, however it seems that the way siege weapons(and other units dealing colleteral damage) is poorly documented in bts, as such i have a few questions.

1. When it says it deals max 75% hp does that mean the siege unit will retreat when it win the round that reduced the defender under 75% or it doesn't deal that damage(so still retreat at the same time just deal less damage, maybe capped at 25%) or that it retreat when the next combat round the cat would win would reduce the defender under 75%(meaning that the defender actually get more than 25% hp's remaining.

2. How exactly does colleteral damage work? And how does the barrage promotion work? What colleteral damage would cats give to a given unit? Does it depend on the defending unit or the unit that recives the colleteral? Does it depend on the amout of rounds the siege weapon survive?

As an example say you have one cat that you can potentially promote against something like 10 axemen all with combat promotions. What would barrage do and what would drill do? What if there were a few spears in the stack? Would the results of hp dealt be different?

[Celebithil]

1. 75% maximal damage means that the siege unit will retreat after the round it has brought the defending unit to 25 (of 100) hit points or less, and then the defending unit will have 25 hit points (so the last hit will of the siege unit will do less damage).

2. You should search for combat mechanics to get the complete answer, but roughly it is this (for BTS 3.17, before that it was quite different!): A number n is determined as the minimum of eligible units (good type, sufficient health (50hp?)) and a siege-unit dependent number. Then n times a round is played in which the siege gets a free shot (i.e. hits always) at a randomly determined eligible unit; the damage done is as determined by the base strengths (no promo's, except below) of the siege unit and the victim. Again units have a minimal amount of health (50hp?) they can not get below of by collateral damage, if a hit takes them below that level they get that level. Note that this can imply the same unit gets hits multiple times in an attack. I believe a unit can even get hit when, due to a previous hit, it has already has 50 hp left, and thus the hit does nothing. The barrage promotions multiply the damage done by the free shots by a certain percentage (20, 50 or 100) (and I believe, round down).

[oyzar]

So there is no set amount of colleteral hits a catapult can do during combat? Does first strike round have a chance to deal colleteral? Against those combat 1 axemen you would normaly deal 9 hps per hit, 10 with barrage one right? While against those spears it would deal 10 hps per hit, 12 with barrage right? It is completly random which unit get chosen?

If first strike rounds that is 50% chance of ~47.6% chance of dealing 19 damage + 9 colleteral(with an expected value of 0.5*(0.476*19+9)=~9 extra damage to top defender while barrage would give 1-2 extra damage to each defender for 5-10 rounds(expected value dependant on amount of spears compared to axes). Without colleteral from first strike the barrage is definatly going to give more damage... What happens if the units are damaged? Does the colleteral damage get calculated with their strength*hp or just base strength? If it is strength*hp's then barrage gets significantly better.

[VoiceOfUnreason]

OK, I'm just going to hit high points; more detailed answers by using the search function, although I will spot you the Oh My God are they still at it?, which covers most of the advanced questions, including a post 3.17 revision

1) All collateral damage is delivered before the mano y mano combat begins; Celebithil missed on this one. Survival is irrelevant. This is easily verified using the world builder. First strikes (which are part of the mano y mano) are also irrelevant.

2) Collateral damage calculations use the strength of both the attacking and defending units to determine damage. This calculation uses base strength, not current strength - wounded cats deliver as much collateral damage as healed cats.

3) There's a collateral combat calculator out there somewhere, some people have gotten accurate answers with it.

[oyzar]

That didn't actually answer anyone of my remaining questions

1) what the heck does mano y mano combat mean? Are you saying colleteral is dealt to a static X targets instead of depending how many rounds of combat there is? That wasn't my first question at all if so if the caste .

Thanks for clearing up the colleteral from wounded or healed cats, however what i was wondering was, does cats deal more damage to wounded units? I am guessing no?

Also i still didn't get the answer if you deal damage during first strike rounds but if you only get a set number of colleteral rounds anyways this point is moot.

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Originally Posted by oyzar

1) what the heck does mano y mano combat mean? Are you saying colleteral is dealt to a static X targets instead of depending how many rounds of combat there is? That wasn't my first question at all if so if the caste .

No, but it's the first high point that I addressed. Collateral damage is dealt before the resolution of the attacker/defender combat begins.

Originally Posted by oyzar

Thanks for clearing up the colleteral from wounded or healed cats, however what i was wondering was, does cats deal more damage to wounded units? I am guessing no?

See previous answer: collateral damage is calculated using base strength.

Originally Posted by oyzar

Also i still didn't get the answer if you deal damage during first strike rounds but if you only get a set number of colleteral rounds anyways this point is moot.

First strike rounds are part of the attacker/defender resolution - all of the collateral damage has already been done.

[DanF5771]

Collateral Damage = Oldie but Goldie!

There is only 1 round of collateral combat which happens before and is completely detached from the direct combat. The only promotions that play a role here are the barrage promotions for the attacker (siege and boats, tanks in 3.13) and the drill promotions for the stack defenders/bystanders. The hitpoints of the defenders only influence their likelihood of being picked as a possible target (units are ordered by RNG(1..10,000)*HitPoints, so wounded units are less likely to be picked). Units that cannot defend (Workers, Missionaries) are not eligible, but units immune to collateral damage are, thus they provide sort of a buffer.

A Cat (no promotion|Barrage1|Barrage2|Barrage3) will take 10|12|15|20 HPs away from an Axe and 11|13|16|22 HPs from a Spear no matter whether those are promoted to Combat1|2 or 6 or whether it is also promoted to Drill4 and engages direct combat with a full strength MechInf at 1% of its own health. The actual amount of collateral damage is capped at iMaxDamage which is a function of the attacker's collateral damage limit (50 for Cats, 60 for Cannons,...) and "native" collateral damage ability (100 for siege, 50 for Battleships) and the strength ratio of the attacker and the unit receiving the collateral damage (a Cannon can't bring an Infantry below 54 HPs, a Battleship can't bring another Battleship below 58 HPs ).

You can find an excel spreadsheet with a calculator attached to this post to try things out and compare results for 3.13 and 3.17.

[civvver]

Tanks can no longer cause collateral damage in bts, but this promotion is still available to me (though it seems to just not work). Is this some bug? I thought I was running the latest version...

[oyzar]

3.17 made barrage useless for tanks but better for all other units yes.

Last how many rounds of colleteral does a catapult deal? 5 or 6? meaning 50 or 60 damage to axes right?

[DanF5771]

No, a single Catapult engages just 1 round of collateral combat for a collateral damage of 10 hitpoints (unpromoted Cat). This will bring full strength Axes (5, 100 hp) down to 4.5, 90 hp. More Catapults will reduce their strength further 80 hp ... 50 hp, at that point additional splashing with Catapults will have no effect.

[oyzar]

Yes but how many units does it deal colleteral too? How is it distributed? 5 or 6? is it divided to X random units or can it hit the same unit twice?

[DanF5771]

iCollateralDamageMaxUnits for Cats is 6. There is no distribution of a "package" of collateral damage--the picked targets are engaged in 1 round of collateral combat individually. Picking the possible targets works as described above (wounded units are less likely to be picked, units must be able to defend). 1 target cannot be picked twice (3.17) maybe this was different in previous versions?

[DanF5771]

Here is an example:
You attack a city defended by 4 Longbows, 2 Axes, 2 Spears and 2 Cats with an unpromoted Catapult. The game picks one of the Longbows as the defending unit for the direct combat and assigns a random number between 1...10,000 to each of the remaining units which gets multiplied by their individual hitpoints. The units are then ordered by these numbers in descending order and the first 6 units are picked as the possible targets:

Rank	Unit		Hitpoints	RNG*Hitpoints
1.	Longbow		100		961900
2.	Catapult	100		884300
3.	Spear		90		821070
4.	Spear		100		519700
5.	Longbow		53		391193
6.	Axe		33		258819
7.	Longbow		100		76100
8.	Axe		44		61688
9.	Catapult	100		6100
.

The game loops through the possible targets which engage 1 round of individual collateral combat with your Catapult:

1. Longbow -> 100 - 9 HPs = 91 HPs
2. Catapult = immune to collateral damage from Catapults -> 100 - 0 HPs = 100 HPs
3. Spear -> 90 - 11 HPs = 79 HPs
4. Spear -> 100 - 11 HPs = 89 HPs
5. Longbow is already at 53 HPs - can't be brought below 55 (iMaxDamage = 45) -> 53 - 0 HPs = 53 HPs
6. Axe is already at 33 HPs - can't be brought below 50 (iMaxDamage = 50) -> 33 - 0 HPs = 33 HPs

-> "Your Catapult has damaged 3 enemy units ..."

After that your Catapult engages the direct combat with the fortified CG3 Longbow and loses without being able to scratch it...

[oyzar]

So it can target both units imune to colleteral damage and units below the damage treshold? That sounds weird. Didn't you just say it couldn't target unit below the hp treshold?

[DanF5771]

Yup it's a bit weird. The wounded units are less likely to be picked/targeted, but if they are picked and are also below the (100-iMaxDamage)-threshold, the splashing "will have no effect" = they work as a buffer.