Author Topic: How splash damage works  (Read 8876 times)

Offline Clownboss

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How splash damage works
« on: May 31, 2019, 09:26:45 AM »
I made this research for a Hive Workshop modder Lord Perenolde II( https://www.hiveworkshop.com/members/lordperenoldeii.123823/ ), who is making an ambitious bid to transpose the Warcraft II campaign to Warcraft III. Earlier he adapted Warcraft I for the same game, and the two of us worked together a lot in uncovering the game mechanics of Warcraft I, especially in regards to damage calculation. I was also asked to help around Warcraft II, in particular about how splash damage mechanics work(primarilly for catapults and ships), and since there's some interesting stuff in here, I thought I might share these here. I really recommend reading the comprehensive Battle.net strategy guide( http://classic.battle.net/war2/basic/combat.shtml ) for explaining how the basic combat mechanics work, although sadly that site did not provide any insight to the intricacies of splash damage.

Catapults/Ballistas: Catapults affect 9 squares every strike, where central square suffers full damage, while the surrounding 8 squares suffer damage reduced by 75%. Each of the 9 squares generates a random numeric value independent from one another, meaning that a strong full damage value does not necessarilly mean the surrounding squares will have proportionally strong values. I have made a chart with 5 strike samples which demonstrates how the splash damage values are all arbitrary, but consistently never break outside of the 12.5-25% damage potential:




Battleships/Juggernauts and Destroyers: When it comes to ships with cannons, their splash damage is more directed. When they shoot horizontally or vertically(or close to it), they deal a 6-square damage grid, and when they shoot diagonally, they deal a 4-square damage grid(and they all deal high damage!). However, for some reason which I can't figure out, ships do not consistently do these directed splash strikes. Sometimes they do the 9-square grid just like catapults, and I can't tell if there are any conditions that must be met, such ship trajectory, target distance, angle, position, sprite etc. I tried everything but just can't get consistent results. About half the time I get the 9-square grid, and other times I get the directed grid, and this might be either some sort of bug or a very obtuse condition within the game code, and I have no idea why anyone would put this intentionally.



Submarines/Turtles: They don't deal splash damage, but direct damage particular to a target unit.

Cannon towers: Cannon towers strike the same way ships do, which is 4-square AoE diagonally, 6-square horizontally/vertically. Unlike ships, however, they don't seem to suddenly deal the strange 9-square grid like it happens with ships, so they are thankfully consistent in that manner.

That's all I've uncovered, and I thought this information might be important enough to post it to the forums. If you've got any other interesting findings regarding splash damage and how it's calculated, feel free to respond!

Offline Tolean

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Re: How splash damage works
« Reply #1 on: May 31, 2019, 09:59:39 AM »
Thx, looks interesting

Offline Lambchops

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Re: How splash damage works
« Reply #2 on: May 31, 2019, 10:13:27 AM »
Nice research. There's also some info on splash damage take by peons repairing buildings that are being attacked in THIS thread.

IMO in practice this type of of splash damage plays a much larger role in the game than straight unit attacking splash damage.

its gooder to hax hard and NEVER get caught!

Offline Szwagier

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Re: How splash damage works
« Reply #3 on: May 31, 2019, 07:26:17 PM »
there is mistake in picture 2 battleship  i would say  mid 100% right mid 25% bot mid 25% bot right 50% put knight(not peon) and you wont kill him with splash


in first picture also  bot mid  50%
http://www.youtube.com/user/SzwagierR


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Offline Clownboss

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Re: How splash damage works
« Reply #4 on: May 31, 2019, 08:09:14 PM »
I sampled every single one of these strikes and wrote down every single damage result. My results are consistent.

Want me to prove it?

Offline Lambchops

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Re: How splash damage works
« Reply #5 on: June 01, 2019, 06:05:56 AM »
I sampled every single one of these strikes and wrote down every single damage result. My results are consistent.

Is this the same with ground attack?

Like could you attack ground with a battleship and still do 100% damage to a target that is technically out of range?


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Offline Szwagier

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Re: How splash damage works
« Reply #6 on: June 01, 2019, 06:06:22 AM »
do it, i made  two tries picture 2 jugg

1.mid 100% rest 25%
2. mid 100% right mid 25% right bot 25% bot mid 75%

make video to prove it
« Last Edit: June 01, 2019, 06:14:11 AM by Szwagier »
http://www.youtube.com/user/SzwagierR


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Offline Clownboss

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Re: How splash damage works
« Reply #7 on: June 02, 2019, 05:25:38 AM »
I sampled every single one of these strikes and wrote down every single damage result. My results are consistent.


Is this the same with ground attack?

Like could you attack ground with a battleship and still do 100% damage to a target that is technically out of range?





Yes! Understand that all the measurements I've done is for ground-attacks, and I measured the outputs using rows of peasant units. In this specific map I tested, I set it so that all the peasants had 100hp, 0 armor, and that all the splash damage units had 100 damage(I used 100 basic damage but it doesn't matter whether you use basic or piercing, if there is no armor involved). And yes, if you shoot at a point that's the farthest in the battleship's range, the splash damage can indeed effect units outside the normal range. Not so sure about attacking ships or buildings because I haven't tested them and they seem to operate on completely different mechanics.

do it, i made  two tries picture 2 jugg

1.mid 100% rest 25%
2. mid 100% right mid 25% right bot 25% bot mid 75%

make video to prove it



Here 'tis:

Warcraft II cannon test - YouTube

I took 15 different samples, 12 of which resulted in 4-square shots. I've written down the damage dealt in the bottom left corner of every single one of the shots, and frankly the numbers rolled just seem to indicate my findings. If we take the highest and lowest scores from these 12 samples, we get:

Mid: 56-96
Mid-right: 51-100
Bot-mid: 51-95
Bot-right: 55-97

Since all damage is randomly calculated to do between 51-100% of its full power, and since the damage output of my battleships is exactly 100, and since these extreme ends of results veer very closely to 51 and 100(indeed, mid-right had the luck to get both the minimum and maximum value in my samples), I think it's safe to say that 4-square diagonal strikes does not do any inhibited splash damage. If it were reduced to 75%, as you say, the damage would range 38-75, or if it were reduced to 50%, damage would be 26-50.

In the attachment I've placed the map which I used to test my firing methods on.

Offline Szwagier

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Re: How splash damage works
« Reply #8 on: June 02, 2019, 09:20:43 AM »
Why you edit dmg? 50-130 will work diffrent than 35-100
http://www.youtube.com/user/SzwagierR


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Offline Lambchops

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Re: How splash damage works
« Reply #9 on: June 02, 2019, 10:21:22 AM »
hmm

1926/2550 = 0.7553

Kind of looks like 25% to me

BTW ground attack splash damage to buildings = 0
its gooder to hax hard and NEVER get caught!

Offline Clownboss

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Re: How splash damage works
« Reply #10 on: June 02, 2019, 10:35:25 AM »
hmm

1926/2550 = 0.7553

Kind of looks like 25% to me

BTW ground attack splash damage to buildings = 0



In your video your second battleship is probably dealing the 9-grid damage, which does have reduction to 25%. Getting ships to do 4-grid or 6-grid damage is iffy, as I've said, and I don't know what conditions need to be met for that to happen. That's something I want to know myself. But it DOES happen, if you can get your ships right or just by a stroke of luck. That's why I like using grids of peasants as a more reliable method of appraising the radius of splash damage, and always reloading my games.


Why you edit dmg? 50-130 will work diffrent than 35-100


If you say so, but it doesn't change anything.

War 2 cannons part 2 - YouTube

The Battleships deal default 130 basic damage. If diagonal 4-grid damage were reduced, as you've said, then there would be NO CONCIEVABLE WAY that at 0:57 all four peasants would die at once. Even at reduction to 75%, the maximum potential damage dealt would be 98. Yet these 100hp peasants still died all at the same time.

Offline Szwagier

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Re: How splash damage works
« Reply #11 on: June 02, 2019, 01:36:13 PM »
and it looks diffrent,

there was  25% 25% 25%
                  25% 100% 25%
                  25% 25%  25%

                  0% 0% 0%
                 0% 100% 75%
                  0% 75% 100%
                 
                  0% 0% 0%
                  0% 100% 75%
                  0% 100% 100%

                  25% 25% 25%
                  25% 100% 25%
                  25% 25%  25%

                  0% 25% 25%
                  0% 100% 100%
                  0% 25%  25%

                  25% 25% 25%
                  25% 100% 25%
                  25% 25%  25%

                  25% 25% 25%
                  25% 100% 25%
                  25% 25%  25%

                  0% 0% 0%
                  0% 100% 100%
                  0% 100%  100%


1/8 it worked as your picture  4x 100%  12,5%
http://www.youtube.com/user/SzwagierR


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Offline Clownboss

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Re: How splash damage works
« Reply #12 on: June 03, 2019, 03:24:58 AM »
When I say 'a square suffers 100% damage', the damage mechanics in Warcraft II mean that a random number between 51% and 100% gets rolled to determine damage. If I had a Battleship that deals 130 damage, then that means in the 100% square, that it would deal anywhere between 67(integer rounding of 66.3) points of damage at the lowest, and 130 points at the maximum. So that means you could get numbers like 67, 68, 71, 84, 85, 100, 102, 111, 130, any number that's between 66-130.

Splash damage squares are all 25% and it means that every single number generated gets divided by 4. So if the computer generates a percentage between 51% and 100%, it will become 13%-25%(because 51/4=12.75 and 100/4=25), and the Battleship's 66-130 damage output becomes 17(rounded from 16.75) minimum, and 33(32.5 rounded) maximum, so 17-33 points of damage. These ranges all fit well to my damage model in the videos and frankly there was nothing to indicate that any of the squares were reduced to 75%(which would mean Battleship deals 50-98 damage).

If you don't understand this, I suggest reading from the opening post again, carefully, especially the part in the battle.net strategy guide about calculating damage: http://classic.battle.net/war2/basic/combat.shtml

"The attacker does a random amount of damage from 50%-100% of this total each attack. " (more accurately 51%-100% but yeah)
« Last Edit: June 03, 2019, 03:34:25 AM by Clownboss »