Can someone explain to me how damage is calculated against a target with less than 100% softness? I know the SA is multiplied by softness so if you have 70% softness the SA will be multiplied by .7, but I'm not sure how HA factors into this. Is HA multiplied by 30% and then added to the damage dealt by the SA or what? It would seem to me that if this were the case then HA would be pretty worthless unless you have almost equal HA and SA which is only true on unbrigaded tanks.
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Not quite true.
First, you have to distinguish between the "statistically expected result" and the actual result obtained in a specific case. For example, when flipping a coin ONCE, the "statistically expected result" is 50% for heads, 50% for tails; but the actual result will be either heads or tails, not some quantum superposition of the two states. When flipping a coin one hundred times, the "statistically expected result" would be 50 heads and 50 tails, but the actual result can be expected to vary randomly from that ratio.
HOI-2 combat proceeds in the following stages:
1) At the beginning of each hour of combat, all of the units involved (friendly and enemy) have their combat efficiencies recalculated, based on such factors as Leadership, Terrain, Minister bonus, Techs, Effective Supply Efficiency, current unit Strength, and so on. This efficiency bonus or penalty will directly increase or decrease the unit's stats such as Soft and Hard attack, Defensiveness, Toughness, etc.
2) Also at the start of the hour, each unit selects a target randomly, at which it will fire ALL of its shots during that hour of combat. Targeting is not necessarily reciprocal... if unit A attacks enemy unit Z, then unit Z is still free to choose its own enemy target, possibly unit A but perhaps a different one.
3) Next, all of the units involved in the combat (on both sides) are checked to see which one has the highest modified (Soft or Hard, not Soft plus Hard) attack strength... and the hour is divided into that number of rounds or impulses, with fractions dropped. For instance, if one of my units had a modified Soft attack of 24 (base 16 Soft Attack, skill 5 Leader, +10% Decryption bonus, 100% Infrastructure with Offensive Supply, no Terrain penalty = 24.75 rounded down to 24) then that hour would be divided into 24 impulses... assuming that my Hard Attack was also less than 25.
4) Now each impulse of the hour is fought, with each participating unit that still retains some firepower (ie: assuming that it has not yet exhausted all of its shots) firing ONE shot at its predetermined target (remember that it will fire ALL of its shots in any one hour at the SAME target). Before firing, the chosen target's Aspect is checked to see whether it presents a Hard or Soft target to its opponent on this particular impulse (not hour), and the firing unit only succeeds in getting off a shot on this impulse if it still has an uncommitted shot of the same type (Hard or Soft) as the target Aspect. Each impulse in the hour uses up one Soft and one Hard shot, regardless of which type of shot was actually used during that impulse.
5) If the firing unit succeeded in getting off a shot, the target unit can now attempt to avoid any damage from the shot. The chance of avoiding damage (for normal, full GDE land units) is 80% if the unit is defending and still has at least one point of Defensiveness left, 80% if the unit is attacking and still has at least one point of Toughness left... and 60% otherwise. Each incoming enemy shot uses up one point of Defensiveness (or Toughness, depending on Attacking/Defending stance), regardless of whether or not damage from the shot has been successfully avoided.
6) Shots that hit and are not avoided now apply STR/ORG damage to the targets, after which the next impulse is calculated. When all the impulses in the hour are finished, a check is made to see if any units withdraw from combat (ORG < 5), and the unit stats are recalculated for the next hour of combat... some factors will have changed (eg: Strength, Night modifiers, etc). Units select new targets (or possibly the same one) randomly, and the next hour is begun.
This rather complicated model can be reduced mathematically to a fairly simple calculation of "Expected Hits", which is:
EH = (SA x Softness) + (HA x Hardness)
... which can then be compared to the opponent's modified Defensiveness (or Toughness, depending on stance), and any expected hits less than DEF/TOU multiplied by 0.2 while any expected hits that exceed DEF/TOU are multiplied by 0.4 instead... this is the inverse of the 80%/60% parameters mentioned in (5) above.
Would you like me to walk you through an example combat (eg: three German Infantry fighting two Russian Infantry in the woods)?
Last edited:
No need, I understand it pretty well except for one thing. In step 4 what do you mean exactly when you say:
"Before firing, the chosen target's Aspect is checked to see whether it presents a Hard or Soft target to its opponent on this particular impulse (not hour), and the firing unit only succeeds in getting off a shot on this impulse if it still has an uncommitted shot of the same type (Hard or Soft) as the target Aspect."
I'm assuming a units softness determines this "aspect" but how exactly does it do this? And lets say that for that impulse it is counted as soft and then one hard and one soft shot are fired at it at the same time, what happens to the hard shot? Is it simply wasted?
"Before firing, the chosen target's Aspect is checked to see whether it presents a Hard or Soft target to its opponent on this particular impulse (not hour), and the firing unit only succeeds in getting off a shot on this impulse if it still has an uncommitted shot of the same type (Hard or Soft) as the target Aspect."
I'm assuming a units softness determines this "aspect" but how exactly does it do this? And lets say that for that impulse it is counted as soft and then one hard and one soft shot are fired at it at the same time, what happens to the hard shot? Is it simply wasted?
Correct. A 70% Hard unit (an unbrigaded Armored Division, for example) has a 70% chance each impulse of presenting a Hard aspect, and a 30% chance each impulse of presenting a Soft aspect.
The shot of the wrong type is simply wasted.
This means that (for example) an unmodified 1939 Infantry (SA 12, HA 2) can only attack Hard aspects during the first two impulses of each hour... any Hard aspects that come up during impulses 3 to 12 are treated as automatic misses (which still waste a Soft Attack shot, even though they are not resolved at all), since the firing unit lacks a remaining shot of the correct type.
So basically this makes HA completely worthless unless you have a lot of it correct? Like having 8 divisions with 1 soft attack each attacking 1 tank will do less damage through HA hits than 1 division with 8 HA?
Not sure why that would be so... either way, you are getting eight shots (multiplied by the target's hardness, typically 0.7 for unbrigaded Armor).
... but it is pretty obvious that SA is a more important stat than HA.
Look at it this way: for typical units such as Infantry, HA is always lower (and usually much lower) than SA. That means that your HA represents the number of shots per hour for which you can IGNORE the target's aspect... you will score a hit REGARDLESS of aspect for those early shots, and only need lucky aspect rolls for your remaining (SA) shots.
Example: a 1939 Infantry unit has SA 12, HA 2. That means that when firing at an enemy Armored Division (Softness 30%), on impulses 1 and 2 you will get a hit regardless of the target aspect... since you have at least two points of both SA and HA, so it doesn't matter at all which aspect (Hard or Soft) the target presents during those early impulses. On impulses 3 to 12, you will only get hits on those lucky impulses where the enemy's target aspect roll is 30% or less (ie: Soft).
Naturally, the target then gets a chance to avoid each hit... typically having an 80% chance to "duck" the damage, unless it's being simultaneously attacked by several enemies at once.
When you work out the numbers, it turns out that even against a 70% hard target, a 1939 Infantry will do most of its damage with its Soft attack:
EH (Soft) = 30% x 12 x 0.2 = 0.72 expected hits per hour
EH (Hard) = 70% x 2 x 0.2 = 0.28 expected hits per hour
... just over two-and-a-half times as much.
Actually nevermind I get it now. For some reason I thought that the 8 units with 1 HA would do less damage than 1 unit with 8 HA because there's less chances for them to use the HA but then I realized that when they hit the target all 8 will hit at once which makes it even with the 1 unit with 8 HA.
I've got another question about GDE modifiers though. Say you mod the global misc file so that GDE is 2x more effective. How does this influence the chance of a defense point dodging a shot? Would that make the 80% chance turn into 90%?
I've got another question about GDE modifiers though. Say you mod the global misc file so that GDE is 2x more effective. How does this influence the chance of a defense point dodging a shot? Would that make the 80% chance turn into 90%?
Yes, AFAIK... "twice as effective" would mean "half as much chance to take damage", which would mean 90% chance of escaping a hit instead of 80%.
Not as long as it originally took to figure out how the combat system actually works...
Many thanks for this excellent explanation. However, I'm a little confused about the calculation. Where does the 0.2 come in ? Is it derived from the 80% (1-0.8=0.2) cance for a defender to 'dodge' the attack ?
It's 80% chance to BLOCK the attack. Therefore there's a 20% chance for the attack to succeed.
Correct, although the words "block", "duck", "dodge", "evade", "avoid" or "negate" could all be used interchangeably.
If the target unit is badly outnumbered, the 80% chance to evade damage will at some point drop to 60% instead.
Consider a case where two German Infantry are attacking a single Polish Infantry... assume for simplicity that all units are 1939 model (Soft Attack 12, Defensiveness 18, Toughness 15), 100% Soft Targets, and no modifiers of any sort (very unlikely in any real combat, but simpler for purposes of illustration).
All units have 12 modified shots, so the first hour will be divided into 12 impulses. In the first hour of combat, the Polish defender will target one of the German Infantry with all 12 of his shots (you always fire all of your shots in any hour at the same target, remember), and both German Infantry will each fire their 12 shots at the same Polish Infantry (he's the only target that they've got).
The Polish Infantry has SA 12, so he cannot overload the Toughness of his target (TOU 15). All of the German GDE rolls will be at 80%, and the German Infantry that gets targetted can expect to take 2.4 hits per hour.
EH = 12 shots x 0.2 GDE = 2.4 expected hits
... with all of the damage being applied to ONE opponent.
However, that same Polish Infantry is being attacked by BOTH German Infantry... and by impulse 9 he has already been shot at 18 times, which exhausts his Defensiveness of 18. His GDE will then drop from 80% to 60% for the remaining three impulses, and he can expect to take damage at a faster rate for those last three impulses:
EH = (( 9 shots x 0.2 GDE ) + ( 3 shots x 0.4 GDE )) x 2 opponents = 6.0 expected hits
combat damage
Hi
How does Hoi2 caluclate the damage per shot that effectively hits the unit on ORG & STR? does each hit give 1 in penalty on both or is their any modifiers effecting this?
Hi
How does Hoi2 caluclate the damage per shot that effectively hits the unit on ORG & STR? does each hit give 1 in penalty on both or is their any modifiers effecting this?
It's certainly more than one point. I suspect that it's about 1-2 STR and/or 1-6 ORG... something in that range. ORG damage is certainly more common than STR damage, in my experience.
Unfortunately, Paradox has not released any specific info on this topic, except some small blurbs in the original printed manual (which are obviously incorrect).
OK, that explains why I cant any threads of this in the forum. thanks for clearing it for me. Back to the trenches.....
"This is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."
- Sir Winston Churchill
"This is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."
- Sir Winston Churchill
so...
With all this considered, wouldn't the AT INF always be inferior to a ART INF in all situations? It seems that I would want the SA be highest through the artillery, and simply just forget about increasing the HA.
If so, is there really a need to make AT INF?
Maybe I've misread something earlier....
With all this considered, wouldn't the AT INF always be inferior to a ART INF in all situations? It seems that I would want the SA be highest through the artillery, and simply just forget about increasing the HA.
If so, is there really a need to make AT INF?
Maybe I've misread something earlier....
With all this considered, wouldn't the AT INF always be inferior to a ART INF in all situations? It seems that I would want the SA be highest through the artillery, and simply just forget about increasing the HA.
If so, is there really a need to make AT INF?
Maybe I've misread something earlier....
There is a "magic number" where AT brigades are worthwhile. IIRC if the enemy is 70%+ hard they will help otherwise they aren't worth it; maybe 80%.
AT uses far less Supplies (and therefore TC-load) than Art. Other than that, Art is superior in every way unless the average Softness of your opponent's army is some ridiculous figure like 23% or less.
Hmm, perhaps since they consume less, they'll make good brigades for coastal defense. Hardly will move them, and an attack usually isn't likely. Blah blah blah, this game can be pretty fun with so much to mess with.