Stug bugged?

So is the Stug bugged? It was supposed to receive an AoE buff in the last big vehicle patch at the end of the beta. However, its stats don't seem to reflect that. Did a dev confirm that? I slightly recall one stating that he'd look up if the Stug had actually received that patch but I might have mixed things up.

Stug:
- Price from 400mp/85 fuel to 280mp/95 fuel
- Scatter from 10m to 6.5m
- Health from 640 to 480
- Target Size from 20 to 14
- Increased rotation from 20 to 22
- Area of Effect from .5m to 1.5m
- Damage all in hold set to TRUE, similar to other AOE heavy weapons. This will allow the weapon’s Area of Effect damage to apply to targets inside a halftrack or scout car.
- Main gun range from 60m to 50m
- Reload time from 3s to 4s
- Main gun penetration from 110 to 140.

On the Stug gun's CoH2stats page however, the AoE stats are still at a much lower 0.75 m that doesn't seem to line up with either value in the patch notes.

I don't really want to talk balance but I think this would make the Stug a very viable weapon because it would make its infantry damage better than that of the Panzer 4 gun. It'd have a slightly bigger spread but also larger AoE plus it fires a lot faster.
I think this would make it possible for the Stug to be well placed as an early counter for T70s or to support infantry. It would still be a glass cannon and thus could be easily countered by a successful T34 or even T70 flank (flanking gameplay is great).

Isn't the 222 Scout Car (Autocannon upgrade?) in the same boat. It was meant to get a Area of Effect increase from 0.5 to 1.0, but iirc that never happend?

Pqumsieh said in his stream some days ago that he would double check if the Stug AoE ever got implemented. Havent heard anything on it since.

I also seem ro remember something about 222 AoE mentioned in earlier patches. But I also seem to remember 222 AI being implemented as the MG remaining active, but Inalsomseem to remember it just firing without doing any damage. So confuse!

Isn't the 222 Scout Car (Autocannon upgrade?) in the same boat. It was meant to get a Area of Effect increase from 0.5 to 1.0, but iirc that never happend?

I can't find the upgraded 20 mm gun on coh2stats... but I think this might be the case.
Here is the quote from the patch notes:

222 20mm Autocannon:
- Increased AOE from 0.5 to 1 making this weapon a bit more effective against infantry.

But if PQ is looking into it I'm sure they'll fix it.

Hey guys,
I just looked up the game files and here the actual numbers for area effects of the StuG 75mm gun and the SdKfz 222 20mm Autocannon.

StuG 75mm gun:

        "area_effect": {
            "accuracy": {
                "far": 0.6,
                "near": 5
            },
            "area_info": {
                "angle_left": 0,
                "angle_right": 0,
                "area_type": "circle",
                "radius": 1.5
            },
            "can_harm_shooter": false,
            "damage": {
                "far": 0.25,
                "near": 1
            },
            "damage_all_in_hold": true,
            "damage_friendly": {
                "far": 0.25,
                "near": 1
            },
            "distance": {
                "far": 0.75,
                "near": 0.375
            },
            "has_friendly_fire": true,
            "penetration": {
                "far": 1,
                "near": 1
            },
            "suppression": {
                "far": 0.1,
                "near": 0.2
            },
            "suppression_friendly": {
                "far": 0,
                "near": 0
            }
        },

SdKfz 222 20mm Aurocannon:

        "area_effect": {
            "accuracy": {
                "far": 0.5,
                "near": 5
            },
            "area_info": {
                "angle_left": 0,
                "angle_right": 0,
                "area_type": "circle",
                "radius": 1
            },
            "can_harm_shooter": false,
            "damage": {
                "far": 0.2,
                "near": 1
            },
            "damage_all_in_hold": true,
            "damage_friendly": {
                "far": 0.25,
                "near": 1
            },
            "distance": {
                "far": 0.5,
                "near": 0.25
            },
            "has_friendly_fire": true,
            "penetration": {
                "far": 1,
                "near": 1
            },
            "suppression": {
                "far": 0.1,
                "near": 0.2
            },
            "suppression_friendly": {
                "far": 0,
                "near": 0
            }
        },

So as you can see the values for "area_info->radius" seem to reflect the values of the patch notes. The problem is that afaik from CoH1 this value doesn't influence the damage at all, i just gives the information for the visual effects (e.g. area: circle, radius: 1.5). Important for the damage is the "distance" value which determines the "Near" and "Far" areas for all the modifiers (accuracy, damage, penetration, supression).

So my simple conclusion, Relic just changed the wrong values.

A good example is a grenade, let's take the important values of the Kar98 rifle grenade:
Area: circle
Radius: 4
Distance: Near 1, Far 2
Accuarcy: Near 5, Far 0.6
Damage: Near 1, Far 0.25
Penetration: Near 2, Far 1

So I guess you all already noticed the visual effect as well as the ability circle when aiming of that grenade does not really reflect is actual damage potential. For me it helps the know only half of the targeting circle's radius actually does damage to use it effectivly.

I say this just to underline that I think the "area_info->radius" value only effect visuals. And I noticed that after the said vehicle patch at the end of the beta, I noticed the visual splash effect of the 222 20mm did increase, it's AI damage didn't.

PQ, please fix (if I am right)

Ah almost forgot, here is an image to show you can still do some stuff with the 222 20mm until the splash damage gets increased for real.



Regards
ace

Wow, thanks! So I was right it seems =)

admittedly: i have no idea how the game actually calculates stuff, especially not AoE damage. that considered, here is my take on this:

the numbers should be correctly reflecting the patchnotes.
an aoe effect has to have a radius (not only for visuals, but also for damage calculations, if you take normal weapon damage calculations as a basis).

take this (awesomely drawn) pic as a reference:



red = near (inner circle, radius = near)
yellow = near-far (2nd circle, radius = far)
green = far (outer circle, radius = aoe_radius)

if you would only use the near/far numbers as a reference, calculating anything is this circle would be impossible, since you have no max_range indicator (which would be the radius of your AoE).

logic thusly dictates that, if the calculatins for AoE are similar to how normal weapon hits are calculated, the radius does affect those calculations too.
(if that wasn't the case, the outer circle would not exist in the game, except for "aesthetic" purposes. it would also mean that AoE calculation is significantly different from all other calculations, and that there are only 2 zones for AoE dmg/supp/acc/pen, which creates more questions regarding how that stuff is calculated)

Well, hopefully PQ can shed some light on how it works and on if those units are bugged

@cr4wler:
I had the same assumption at the first thought. But then there is missing a 3rd multiplier for all the effected values (accuarcy, damage, penetration, suppression).
There are only Near and Far multipliers. How would you think these are applied at 3 different sections?

Regards
ace

@cr4wler:
I had the same assumption at the first thought. But then there is missing a 3rd multiplier for all the effected values (accuarcy, damage, penetration, suppression).
There are only Near and Far multipliers. How would you think these are applied at 3 different sections?

Regards
ace

the same way normal calculations are done: min_range -> near = near;
near -> far = linear degression from near to far values; far -> max_range = far

I was always assuming that the far range is the maximum distance a unit might be affected. At that range accuracy seems to often be 0.6 or so and damage 0.25 or so.
The near range would be the core with full effect (often 1.0 dmg and 5.0 accuracy) and between that I'd expect it to either scale in a linear manner (like rifle accuracy) or to be constant for the zones but these really are just assumptions.

The CoH1stats weapon stats description isn't really helpful either.

However, I think that the perceived randomness of grenades results from a simple 0.6 accuracy roll being made vs. infantry in the zone between near and far ranges. If it scaled linearly, it'd scale from 5 to 0.6, often resulting in a value larger than 1 and thus it would feel much less random.
This indicates that the values might simply be constant for the ranges and not scale like rifle accuracy.

I'd also prefer it if grenades didn't ever go below 1 accuracy to prevent the randomness of sometimes killing 5 men and sometimes only killing 1 and not scratching any others...

Edit: And oh, not sure about the radius stat... I was just always using the Far and Near ranges because those were the ones available on coh2stats...

Ah OK, now i get your idea.
Well iIrc in CoH1 there was no degression, just plain sections with fixed modifiers. So that's why took that approach.

But even if your are right, just increasing the radius and NOT changing the the distance values accordingly, doesn't really improve the StuG's or 20mm's AI capabilitis at all, one way or another. Even with your approach to the calculation the damage increase would be so low, you wouldn't really notice it... just as we don't do right now.

Regards
ace

Edit: And oh, not sure about the radius stat... I was just always using the Far and Near ranges because those were the ones available on coh2stats...

just because coh2stats didn't grab certain stats doesn't mean they don't exist/aren't used in game.

Well iIrc in CoH1 there was no degression, just plain sections with fixed modifiers. So that's why took that approach.

But even if your are right, just increasing the radius and NOT changing the the distance values accordingly, doesn't really improve the StuG's or 20mm's AI capabilitis at all, one way or another. Even with your approach to the calculation the damage increase would be so low, you wouldn't really notice it... just as we don't do right now.

in coh1 we didn't have degression because we had 3 values. i can't find the thread anymore, but there is one on here where kolaris posted something about coh2 being dumbed down since it only has 2 values, to which a dev responded that the system actually works completely different than in coh1 (again, 3 zones, but the medium range zone being linearly scaled between the 2 values).

just changing the radius only means that the AoE dmg zone gets increased, but not the actual values. meaning that the area with the lowest amount of damage (outer circle in my awesome paintjob) gets increased, while the other areas remain untouched. while this shouldn't have a gigantic effect, it should increase damage vs. infantry significantly, since a) more of the calculated misses might do damage, depending on where the impact is b) more squadmembers might be affected, depending on where they stand in relation to the impact.

AoE accuracy being above 1 at all times (even after considering received accuracy modifiers like cover or veterancy or retreat modifiers etc.) just means that EVERYTHING in the AoE will take the damage, which maybe should be the case for something like flame damage, but not necessarily for something like grenades (at least from a realism standpoint). disregarding realism, 100% aoe accuracy would probably make every splash weapon (basically all indirect fire weapons and all vehicle weapons apart from MGs) a lot stronger and might make units that are already perceived as too strong even stronger (i.e. mortars, arty, tanks etc.).

AoE accuracy being above 1 at all times (even after considering received accuracy modifiers like cover or veterancy or retreat modifiers etc.) just means that EVERYTHING in the AoE will take the damage, which maybe should be the case for something like flame damage, but not necessarily for something like grenades (at least from a realism standpoint). disregarding realism, 100% aoe accuracy would probably make every splash weapon (basically all indirect fire weapons and all vehicle weapons apart from MGs) a lot stronger and might make units that are already perceived as too strong even stronger (i.e. mortars, arty, tanks etc.).

Well, at the far range most are just doing 0.25*dmg. If theyir accuracy were increased to >1, more infantry would be reliably hit. They could then decrease the 0.25 multiplier to something like 0.15 (pulled out of my hat, though 0.25/1.4 would be around 0.18 I think), which would mean that the overall average damage would be the same but those weapons would simply be less random, which in turn would be good for gameplay.
Since those values are weapon-specific they could also only change the values for grenades. After all those cost munitions (requ. resources) and have to be manually aimed (requ. skill) so making them as random as they seem to be isn't really a good thing.
Mortars and tanks could either stay the same or have their damage multiplier decreased as well.

However, I agree that some randomness probably portraits the fragmentation effect of anti-personnel weapons better than flat damage (would be for high explosives maybe). However, I've always prefered consistent gameplay over realism and so at least in the case of grenades I'd really prefer it.
But I guess now we're very far off topic. It'd still be great getting confirmation about how explosions work and if the stug/scoutcar/maybe other weapons are bugged.


Skipping through the vehicle patch and checking on CoH2stats shows that none of the vehicles seem to have had their AoE changed to the patch values (might have missed some, didn't check all). So I guess all of those changes listed were to the (not on CoH2stats displayed) radius.

Skipping through the vehicle patch and checking on CoH2stats shows that none of the vehicles seem to have had their AoE changed to the patch values (might have missed some, didn't check all). So I guess all of those changes listed were to the (not on CoH2stats displayed) radius.

remember that coh2stats doesn't grab all the values (especially for weapons), so there might be some missing figures there.

AoE isn't always over 100%. This only applies for the inner splash damage cause of the 5x modifier for the Near radius.

Let's take the 222 20mm as example at the far end of the spalsh radius:
25 damage * 0.25 damage = 6.25
Hit chance Far 50% -> 3.125 damage average

Same goes for every other area effect weapon. Only the near damage means a death zone.

So I stick with it, just increasing the radius a bit and not changing the other values doesn't really increase the AI capabilties of said weapons at all in a manner anyone would notice it.

Btw, can you look for the thread your were talking about. Certainly want to read, cause I am freak and I love that kind of stuff!

Regards
ace.

EDIT:

remember that coh2stats doesn't grab all the values (especially for weapons), so there might be some missing figures there.

The stuff I posted is from the acatual game files I just extracted earlier this day. There is all data, directly from the game. It should be as accuerate as it ever can be.
Just want to pronounce that, cause I have the feeling it isn't really recognized.

AoE isn't always over 100%. This only applies for the inner splash damage cause of the 5x modifier for the Near radius.

Let's take the 222 20mm as example at the far end of the spalsh radius:
25 damage * 0.25 damage = 6.25
Hit chance Far 50% -> 3.125 damage average

Same goes for every other area effect weapon. Only the near damage means a death zone.

So I stick with it, just increasing the radius a bit and not changing the other values doesn't really increase the AI capabilties of said weapons at all in a manner anyone would notice it.

Btw, can you look for the thread your were talking about. Certainly want to read, cause I am freak and I love that kind of stuff!

Regards
ace.

EDIT:

The stuff I posted is from the acatual game files I just extracted earlier this day. There is all data, directly from the game. It should be as accuerate as it ever can be.
Just want to pronounce that, cause I have the feeling it isn't really recognized.

as for the thread: i actually did dig through half of the forum like a week or two ago, couldn't find it :-(

as for aoe accuracy: i was speaking about the suggestion of increasing aoe acc for grenades and such.

as for game files: your information is accurate, while the stats on coh2stats are missing key values and somebody in another thread mentioned that some of the values are outright wrong (as in: grabbing values for a different property), which i haven't checked though.

as for calculating splash damage: remember that even if the average per hit splash damage might be very low, it is still splash damage and can effect multiple entities. so let's assume the AC is shooting at a maxim crew and doing an average 3 dmg per shot to each entity... thats a total of 18 dmg per shot. while it might take a while for the AC to actually kill squadmembers, it will do a good job of "softening them up" for other sources of damage, or getting them low enough to score critical hits. (disregarding cover, unit spacing, weapon burst, ....and basically everything what makes this game random)

Nothing you say is wrong, I just disagree with your conclusion of the impact these numbers have to the game.

Even if everything works as discussed above, I consider the slight radius increase as noticable near to zero. The fact the the StuG and the 222 20mm still perform pretty bad vs infantry and the fact we have this discussion where people asking if a "buff" really was applied, you got to admit, prove me somewhat right.

Regards
ace

all I know is the stug has very little role in the current balance situation. hopefully it is tweaked because the Panzer IV is simply the better option, all the time.

Bump for Dev attention to Ace and Crawlers observations.