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Author Topic:   Artillery damage serious bug?

VictorK posted 06-21-99 04:33 PM ET
Against units in bases and bunkers, artillery fire can never do more than 50% damage as expected. Against units in other squares, I've found that artillery can never do more than 1 point of damage (so a fission unit's hit point is never reduced to below 9, a fusion unit never to below 19, etc. by artillery fire). The manual only states that units can never be destroyed by artillery fire, but now units are almost immune to it (unless in a base or bunker).
Can anyone verify this bug?
Mongoose posted 06-21-99 05:11 PM ET
VictorK I don't know if it's a bug or was intended. With the exception of land based artillery vs. ships, I have noted a marked decline in the effectiveness of artillery since applying the 3.0 patch. In 2.0, a couple of Shard Artillery would really chew up a stack of mindworms, eliminating several.
Now, they are barely scratched. Go figure!
Jezibi posted 06-21-99 05:35 PM ET
I have seen the same pattern, but I thought it was built in to the game intentionally.
VictorK posted 06-21-99 06:41 PM ET
But then artillery shouldn't be more effective against units in bases or bunkers. I think it is a bug. There are bugs that are in v3 but weren't in v2. If you check the readme file, you'll see why this bug is possibly only introduced in v3: "Additions/enhancements - ALPHA.TXT controls for maximum damage inflicted by artillery". Whenever they add something, it is highly likely that the incompetent Firaxis programmers also add a bug with it.
MichaeltheGreat posted 06-21-99 10:47 PM ET
A lot of wargames use the idea of stack density to determine artillery damage - the issue may be a bug, but real life artillery is more effective against fixed targets. Bunkers and bases could be thought to to have precisely defined positions, whereas units in the open can be assumed to be spread out and moving.
Whether it's a design decision or a bug, who knows, but it makes a certain degree of sense. Most bunkers can't take many direct hits from pinpoint heavy artillery, and when the bunker is hit, the concrete and steel that goes flying adds to the damage.
I still find artillery effective to soften up enemy troops, but the early versions of the game gave it too much power.
VictorK posted 06-22-99 12:58 AM ET
If that's intentional, units in open ground should have been totally immune to artillery (now they're immune when they've taken 1 point of damage), and artillery fire against open ground should have targeted terrain enhancements instead. It makes no sense that a unit can protect terrain enhancements from artillery fire without taking any damage (unless it has full hit points, in which case it takes at most 1 point of damage and then becomes immune). There is also an inconsistency factor: for units in bases and bunkers, artillery can do a maximum of 50% damage regardless of the reactor type, but for units in open ground, it can do a maximum of 1 point of damage, which is 10% for fission reactors, 5% for fussion reactors, etc.
The argument that bases and bunkers could be thought to be "fixed targets" (and thus are more vulnerable to artillery fire) makes no sense. Units in open ground already receive a 50% defense bonus against artillery attacks. Moreover, since a base or bunker occupies a whole square, there is a lot of space for units to roam around just like in open ground, just that it may be a little bit more difficult to maneuver (already reflected by the 50% defense bonus). We are talking about large bases here (analogous to modern cities like New York), not specific locations within a base. Moreover, by design decision units in open ground can take collateral damage from normal attacks, while units in bases and bunkers can't. Is this contradictory to the "fixed target" theory above?
There isn't really an issue of realism here. In a game like this, everything is abstracted. It is clearly a bug.
MichaeltheGreat posted 06-22-99 09:27 PM ET
I was playing SMAC earlier today, and did some shore bombardment - unit damage was randomized as far as which units were hit, but I was able to inflict more than one point of damage total - still one point per barage, but I was able to add the total up. I didn't have enough artillery in range to see how high I could get the damage, since the units repaired ten percent per turn.
VictorK posted 06-22-99 11:48 PM ET
That's not what I found out (on my machine anyway). Using the cheat mode, I created 30+ artillery units (both ships and land artillery units) of various strengths firing at either a single unit or a stack of 5 units of various strengths in an open land square, and none of the units took more than 1 point of damage in total.
Of course, a bug could be machine dependent... Has anyone tried something similar on his/her machine?
BTW, when one suspects that a bug is encountered in the game, the best way to verify it is to use the cheat mode.
StarChaser Tyger posted 06-23-99 02:28 PM ET
I've had this same problem. Spent a frustrating hour yesterday bombarding a thin strip of land leading to a captured base, that was crawling with Hive units. The explosions would go on for 15-20 seconds sometimes, there were so many. With six impact foils bombarding a group of no- or first-level armor (I can't remember the name of it now, and the manual isn't handy.) consecutively and continually, not one single unit took even half damage. (They moved back and forth on the spit, so it was impossible to keep track of any one unit, but none of them ever showed more than a tiny bit of damage.)
The only thing that saved me was that they seemed to be afraid of the single Isle of the Deep guarding the city, as they'd move up to one space away from the city en masse, but only one unit would ever attack, and he'd be handily defeated. The rest would mill around, then send in one random mope to be eaten on the next turn...
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Author	Topic: Artillery damage serious bug?
VictorK	posted 06-21-99 04:33 PM ET Against units in bases and bunkers, artillery fire can never do more than 50% damage as expected. Against units in other squares, I've found that artillery can never do more than 1 point of damage (so a fission unit's hit point is never reduced to below 9, a fusion unit never to below 19, etc. by artillery fire). The manual only states that units can never be destroyed by artillery fire, but now units are almost immune to it (unless in a base or bunker). Can anyone verify this bug?
Mongoose	posted 06-21-99 05:11 PM ET VictorK I don't know if it's a bug or was intended. With the exception of land based artillery vs. ships, I have noted a marked decline in the effectiveness of artillery since applying the 3.0 patch. In 2.0, a couple of Shard Artillery would really chew up a stack of mindworms, eliminating several. Now, they are barely scratched. Go figure!
Jezibi	posted 06-21-99 05:35 PM ET I have seen the same pattern, but I thought it was built in to the game intentionally.
VictorK	posted 06-21-99 06:41 PM ET But then artillery shouldn't be more effective against units in bases or bunkers. I think it is a bug. There are bugs that are in v3 but weren't in v2. If you check the readme file, you'll see why this bug is possibly only introduced in v3: "Additions/enhancements - ALPHA.TXT controls for maximum damage inflicted by artillery". Whenever they add something, it is highly likely that the incompetent Firaxis programmers also add a bug with it.
MichaeltheGreat	posted 06-21-99 10:47 PM ET A lot of wargames use the idea of stack density to determine artillery damage - the issue may be a bug, but real life artillery is more effective against fixed targets. Bunkers and bases could be thought to to have precisely defined positions, whereas units in the open can be assumed to be spread out and moving. Whether it's a design decision or a bug, who knows, but it makes a certain degree of sense. Most bunkers can't take many direct hits from pinpoint heavy artillery, and when the bunker is hit, the concrete and steel that goes flying adds to the damage. I still find artillery effective to soften up enemy troops, but the early versions of the game gave it too much power.
VictorK	posted 06-22-99 12:58 AM ET If that's intentional, units in open ground should have been totally immune to artillery (now they're immune when they've taken 1 point of damage), and artillery fire against open ground should have targeted terrain enhancements instead. It makes no sense that a unit can protect terrain enhancements from artillery fire without taking any damage (unless it has full hit points, in which case it takes at most 1 point of damage and then becomes immune). There is also an inconsistency factor: for units in bases and bunkers, artillery can do a maximum of 50% damage regardless of the reactor type, but for units in open ground, it can do a maximum of 1 point of damage, which is 10% for fission reactors, 5% for fussion reactors, etc. The argument that bases and bunkers could be thought to be "fixed targets" (and thus are more vulnerable to artillery fire) makes no sense. Units in open ground already receive a 50% defense bonus against artillery attacks. Moreover, since a base or bunker occupies a whole square, there is a lot of space for units to roam around just like in open ground, just that it may be a little bit more difficult to maneuver (already reflected by the 50% defense bonus). We are talking about large bases here (analogous to modern cities like New York), not specific locations within a base. Moreover, by design decision units in open ground can take collateral damage from normal attacks, while units in bases and bunkers can't. Is this contradictory to the "fixed target" theory above? There isn't really an issue of realism here. In a game like this, everything is abstracted. It is clearly a bug.
MichaeltheGreat	posted 06-22-99 09:27 PM ET I was playing SMAC earlier today, and did some shore bombardment - unit damage was randomized as far as which units were hit, but I was able to inflict more than one point of damage total - still one point per barage, but I was able to add the total up. I didn't have enough artillery in range to see how high I could get the damage, since the units repaired ten percent per turn.
VictorK	posted 06-22-99 11:48 PM ET That's not what I found out (on my machine anyway). Using the cheat mode, I created 30+ artillery units (both ships and land artillery units) of various strengths firing at either a single unit or a stack of 5 units of various strengths in an open land square, and none of the units took more than 1 point of damage in total. Of course, a bug could be machine dependent... Has anyone tried something similar on his/her machine? BTW, when one suspects that a bug is encountered in the game, the best way to verify it is to use the cheat mode.
StarChaser Tyger	posted 06-23-99 02:28 PM ET I've had this same problem. Spent a frustrating hour yesterday bombarding a thin strip of land leading to a captured base, that was crawling with Hive units. The explosions would go on for 15-20 seconds sometimes, there were so many. With six impact foils bombarding a group of no- or first-level armor (I can't remember the name of it now, and the manual isn't handy.) consecutively and continually, not one single unit took even half damage. (They moved back and forth on the spit, so it was impossible to keep track of any one unit, but none of them ever showed more than a tiny bit of damage.) The only thing that saved me was that they seemed to be afraid of the single Isle of the Deep guarding the city, as they'd move up to one space away from the city en masse, but only one unit would ever attack, and he'd be handily defeated. The rest would mill around, then send in one random mope to be eaten on the next turn...