Difference between the many infantry units

[Novaliz]

Is there a way to get some informations about the different infantry units in the game e.g. sighting range, good in short, mid, long range, LOS, shooting range, etc...? For example what hat is the advantage of rifle units over engineer units except that the engineer have 3 AT Grenades?

[PirateJock_Wargamer]

Hi Novaliz

Currently the only way to find statistics for the various units is by looking in the Squads.csv or Squads.xls file in the ..\Data folder where you have installed the game. The xls contains the some values as the csv file; the csv file is used by the game. The files give you a lot more information than seen in-game, e.g. armour spread on the vehicle, likelihood to reactive fire etc.

Cheers

Edit: Link to a pdf listing the basic unit stats I've pulled from the squads.csv file ... disclaimer about 'as is' and accuracy of data relating to actual use in games etc

[junk2drive]

Another thing is the text file inside the Data\Text folder, text1.txt

Scroll down to the IDS_UNITINFO lines. These are the text that you see in the force selection screen. Reading through these you will see which units have submachine guns and other weapons. Not as detailed as the xls but it may be what you are looking for.

[PirateJock_Wargamer]

Scroll down to the IDS_UNITINFO lines. These are the text that you see in the force selection screen. Reading through these you will see which units have submachine guns and other weapons. Not as detailed as the xls but it may be what you are looking for.

Do you mean this

[junk2drive]

Thanks, that's much easier to read.

I hate Mediafire though. It took two tries to download and then avast went crazy and I still had a bunch of popups that caused me to open task manager and kill firefox.

Take a look at Dropbox. 2gb free storage. File syncing and sharing. Public folder allows you to copy public link and post for people to grab.

[PirateJock_Wargamer]

I hate Mediafire though

Oops! Sorry! Thanks for the info - will have a look at Dropbox ... only got into this uploading lark recently and don't know what's good and what's bad.

Cheers

Edit: Will have to wait till I'm home as need to install software and work computers don't like that ... as if anything bad could happen ...

[junk2drive]

Mediafire seems hit and miss. Sometimes I have no problem and sometimes it goes wacko.

Thanks for sharing however you do it.

If anyone plays games with PBEM by emailing files, Dropbox is a great way to do it. Share a folder with your opponent. Put the files in the folder. You get a popup notification when your opponent adds a file. You can play as fast as TCP/IP if you are both online and playing. No need for email or attachments.

[Novaliz]

Hi Novaliz

Currently the only way to find statistics for the various units is by looking in the Squads.csv or Squads.xls file in the ..\Data folder where you have installed the game. The xls contains the some values as the csv file; the csv file is used by the game. The files give you a lot more information than seen in-game, e.g. armour spread on the vehicle, likelihood to reactive fire etc.

Cheers

Edit: Link to a pdf listing the basic unit stats I've pulled from the squads.csv file ... disclaimer about 'as is' and accuracy of data relating to actual use in games etc

thank you, that was the information i was looking for
But now I have some questions.

(1) How does the damage system works? For example a Panzer IV G with AP 69 shoots a Sherman with armour 53. How does the game calculate the damage? Is there a dice roll or something like that? How are the rules?

(2) How does the range affects the damage done to the target?

(3) What does F, R, RS and FS mean in the Armor Spread Data List. I assume F is Front and R is Rear Armour. But FS and RS?

Normally I play Board-Wargames and I like it to know how the rules beheind a PC Game works.

[pipfromslitherine]

The combat model exists entirely in the scripts, so if you really want to get down to the nitty-gritty then they are there to be read! However, obviously this isn't entirely friendly .

The various armour values are (IIRC) front, rear, side, and top (top used for bombardments etc). Although not entirely certain about the order. With regard to the specific calculations, they are much more complex than you would usually find in a boardgame, as the computer does it all, rather than expecting the players to go through 10 or 20 calculations to do with the movement states of each unit in the turn, how many times the shot has been attempted (e.g. you get more accurate as you fire more than once at the same target), and so on.

Range affects both chance to hit and chance to penetrate when dealing with AP fire - we use range brackets. HE fire works differently, with damage being unaffected by range in general.

Our design is to attempt to model a lot of the nuances without forcing the player to worry about them.

Hope that at least begins to answer the questions

Cheers

Pip

[PirateJock_Wargamer]

(1) How does the damage system works? For example a Panzer IV G with AP 69 shoots a Sherman with armour 53. How does the game calculate the damage? Is there a dice roll or something like that? How are the rules?

There's a whole load of modifiers involved - this long thread may help to start explaining.

(2) How does the range affects the damage done to the target?

This is a bit more murky for me. There's some info in the csv/xls file - look at HE or AP (Armour Piercing) effectiveness values which I think correspond to modifiers over range (1, 2, 4, 6 & 7+ tiles??) but there's also AP Accuracy and I've not looked deep enough to decide exactly how it works ... Anybody else?

(3) What does F, R, RS and FS mean in the Armor Spread Data List. I assume F is Front and R is Rear Armour. But FS and RS?

This one I can answer - it's what I'm using as Front Side, i.e. > 45 to = 90 deg angle, and Rear Side, i.e. > 90 to = 135 deg. I think my interpretation is right ... well at least it makes sense to me. EDIT: No I can't

You'll find the game seems deceptively simple but look at the workings, e.g. the BSF script files, and there's an awful lot going on.

Cheers

[pipfromslitherine]

It's worth noting that as all the model basically derives from the scripts it is possible to create more or less complex versions of it. I know that there is a mod in progress which models things like track hits, etc much more deeply than the current scripts. To be honest a more 'groggy' tweaking of the model was something we were pretty much certain would happen.

Cheers

Pip

[PirateJock_Wargamer]

The various armour values are (IIRC) front, rear, side, and top (top used for bombardments etc).

Is that definitely correct? Could somebody confirm what Armour[0], Armour[1], Armour[2] & Armour[3] means so I can make changes ... good thing I put in the disclaimer

Looking at the values I hadn't included top. Is it [0] = front; [1] = side; [2] = top & [3] = rear? Actually that makes sense as the open topped units have [2] and [3] as low values, e.g Priest, while tanks have same [1] & [2] values.

Range affects both chance to hit and chance to penetrate when dealing with AP fire - we use range brackets. HE fire works differently, with damage being unaffected by range in general.

Must admit I'm confused. Is APAccuracy related to Chance to Hit and APEffectiveness related to Chance to Penetrate? With HEEffectiveness columns there is a cryptic header in the xls file ("HE accuracy is actually used as a multipler on damage now but it was easier not to change the name") which I've never understood as there's no HE Accuracy.

And, final question , for Effectiveness/Accuracy modifiers are the [0] ... [4] related to 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7+ tiles; can't remember where I got that from.

Cheers

[pipfromslitherine]

I'll have to let Iain give the detailed feedback on the model and attributes - as he's the one who built it .

Cheers

Pip

[leastonh1]

Wow, it's threads like this that make me realise just how much of a non-grog/amateur wargamer I really am Fascinating stuff, but equally baffling.

[PirateJock_Wargamer]

Not really a grog - I won't be arguing that the armour values are wrong by a couple of points ... or should I? It's just good to know how things work and BA is a beautifully, in the word so tarnished by politicians, transparent game to delve into. Besides, you never know the info might help win a few games ... maybe.

[IainMcNeil]

Armour 1-4 is front, side, rear, top.

Chance to hit is a combination of weapon type, range, movement, target size, target movement, terrain, morale etc.

Chance to penetrate is based on range, weapon penetration at that range & target armour.

The calculations are quite involved but that gives an overview!

[leastonh1]

Not really a grog - I won't be arguing that the armour values are wrong by a couple of points ... or should I? It's just good to know how things work and BA is a beautifully, in the word so tarnished by politicians, transparent game to delve into. Besides, you never know the info might help win a few games ... maybe.

It just goes to show how well designed and presented this game is. The player can simply think about which units should or shouldn't go up against others and how best to combine forces. From that perspective, it's intuitive enough if you have even a small amount of knowledge about WWII units and military doctrine. Yet, it amazes me how complex a game like this really is when you begin to look at the underlying code and calculations made.

Respect to the devs for making it so enjoyable and easy to play!