Since the community has recently been provided with an immensely useful tool to simulate tank vs tank combat by Hannibal, I've decided to follow his lead and proudly present you Scatter This! - an Excel-based calculator to analyze scatter and AoE-based anti-infantry performance of tanks and indirect fire units.
Now many of you will probably say "Wth is this and what would I ever need this for?", so let's start with a brief explanation what this spreadsheet does and why, before glancing over on how to use it and for what purpose:
1) What does Scatter This! do?
2) How to use Scatter This!?
3) Why would I want to use Scatter This!?
4) Where to get Scatter This!?
This project is kind of a work-in-progress, so please feel free to check back on possible updates every now and then. Also, any comments and suggestions are highly welcome, and if you find any errors (likely!) in the data sheet, let me know so I can fix them.
Last but not least, big shout out to Vipper and especially Hannibal for the fruitful discussion and suggestions regarding the scatter model used in the simulation over the last weeks.
Best
-MMX-
UPDATE 5/18/2020 New version of the Spreadsheet is
- Fixed non-functional OHK and natural hit counters in the main result table
- Added an info box displaying the chance and damage for a natural hit (accuracy roll), as well as the respective chances to deal highest possible and lowest possible amount of AoE damage vs a single target.
- Corrected some errors in the data sheet and added profiles for rocket artillery pieces
- Fixed the orientation of the in-game formation templates (preset 4-6) by rotating 90° clockwise. Thanks again to Hannibal for pointing out the error!
UPDATE 2/4/2021 It's been quite a while since I've last revisited the spreadsheet, but a revamped version with tons of new features is now
- Complete overhaul of the calculator that now not only simulates the damage of main gun projectiles, but also offers a crude approximation of MG damage output. Ever wondered if that pintle MG on top of the PzVI is even worth the munitions? Test out how much of a difference it actually makes with the simulator!
- Revamped Simulator tab that now calculates the average damage and kills dealt (total, by MG and by main gun) after each shot for each model in a squad over 100s or 1,000s of repetitions.
- Graphical interface that allows quick and easy visualization and comparison of results
- New templates for rocket artillery and various off-map arty strikes
- A number of bugfixes, especially for the unit stats in the Data tab
UPDATE 2/19/2021 A couple of bugfixes and a new interface with fancy graphs ready to
- Added a new graphical interface tab that allows comparison of up to 4 datasets and shows damage/kills over time, the contribution of MGs and the main gun to overall damage and model kills, as well as plots comparing the respective AoE and scatter area curves
- Included option to export/import datasets to/from .txt
- Fixed the damage reduction multiplier not correctly applying to machine gun damage
- Fixed an error in the TBS (time between shots) calculation affecting weapons with cooldown
UPDATE 1/12/2022 It's been a while since the last update to the spreadsheet, so I figured it's time to bring back ScatterThis! with updated unit stats reflecting the most-recent patches and a number of new features. Get the newest version here!
- Updated MG damage calculation model: While the previous solution allowed a crude approximation of the DPS/KPS the tank-mounted MGs add to the overall AI performance, it wasn't really suited to capture the variance, or "hit-and-miss" nature, usually observed in-game (who doesn't love chasing a retreating squad across the map while constantly missing the last, lethal hit?). The new randomized model does just that by taking the number of fired bullets, targeting delays and accuracy into account when randomizing the damage output in a more realistic fashion
- Improved simulation algorithm: A couple of tweaks to the VBA code tremendously increased the speed of the simulation, meaning that results are generated in about 1/10 of the time it took previously.
- Up-to-date unit stats (sort of): While some remaining errors are likely, most of the recent balance changes should have made it into the unit stats tab of the spreadsheet by now. Unfortunately, some new abilities (e.g. the 105mm Sherman's and leFH's new barrage abilities) are still missing as there's currently no way of extracting the stats from the game.
- New unit templates: A couple of light and ultra-light vehicles are now implemented (including the SdKfz 222 AC; thanks to Klement Pikhtura for the suggestion).
- Improved simulator tab: The simulator tab has received some additional functionality and most relevant options (e.g. FoW and moving penalties, % uptime of tank-mounted MGs, etc) can now be set directly in the simulator tab.
- Overhauled comparison tab: The graphical interface for plotting and comparison of the simulation results has been revamped to allow more data sets (6) to be displayed at a time. Other plotting options, such as switching between continuous or stepwise graphs and different color schemes have been added as well (again many thanks to Klement Pikhtura for the valuable feedback).
- Damage distribution plots: The new damage distribution tab offers a more in-depth way to analyze how much and how reliable a unit delivers its damage over time. The 3D datasets produced in this tab display the probability distribution of how much damage / how many model kills are scored with each successive shot. This can give a pretty good impression of the variance (or reliability) of the DPS/KPS output as well as the alpha-damage capabilities, both of which are otherwise hard to capture using 2D plots.