[1.0] Controlled combat testing results - 15 tests done (updated 19th Jul 2018)

[XeoNovaDan]

Just done a new set of tests for the Charge Rifle vs. Machine Pistol, following some discussion on another thread that I made:



At 8 cells, the machine pistol generally has a slight advantage over the charge rifle owing to its superior touch accuracy, which soon fades as armour gets factored in - the tables even turn when power armour is involved, but I'm not sure how many people would use machine pistols with power armour anyway.

At 19 cells (machine pistol's max range), the charge rifle always has the lead, which extends as its AP advantage kicks in with higher armour ratings.

[Greep]

Hmm, if this is too hard to set up, no worries:

Joywire + excellent power armor/helmet + plasteel longsword vs 2 megaspiders
compared with
same but without joywire.

[XeoNovaDan]

Joywire + excellent power armor/helmet + plasteel longsword vs 2 megaspiders

All excellent, right?

[Razzoriel]

This might involve some microing, but the results could be interesting.

- 7 melee, no armor, normal steel knife vs melee bolt-action rifle, no armor
-14 melee, no armor, same as above.

-7 melee, full flak (normal), same as above (bolt-action using flak)
-14 melee, full flak (normal), same (bolt using flak)

-7 melee, power armor (normal), same as above (vs bolt-action with power armor).
-14 melee, same.

All tests involve the bolt-action wielder to shoot as the melee pawn charges in (another test with them not shooting could be interesting).



Objective: how effective are long-range firearms as melee alternatives given the melee combat changes, and how armor affects those changes.

[XeoNovaDan]

- 7 melee, no armor, normal steel knife vs melee bolt-action rifle, no armor
-14 melee, no armor, same as above.

-7 melee, full flak (normal), same as above (bolt-action using flak)
-14 melee, full flak (normal), same (bolt using flak)

-7 melee, power armor (normal), same as above (vs bolt-action with power armor).
-14 melee, same.

My setup should easily handle this type of testing! Do you also want the level 7 melee runs to also have level 7 shooters, and 14 for 14?

[Razzoriel]

- 7 melee, no armor, normal steel knife vs melee bolt-action rifle, no armor
-14 melee, no armor, same as above.

-7 melee, full flak (normal), same as above (bolt-action using flak)
-14 melee, full flak (normal), same (bolt using flak)

-7 melee, power armor (normal), same as above (vs bolt-action with power armor).
-14 melee, same.

My setup should easily handle this type of testing! Do you also want the level 7 melee runs to also have level 7 shooters, and 14 for 14?

Yes, please. Id also test with revolvers and finally a melee-heavy gun. Werent miniguns equipped with a 10-damage melee attack? These three tests could potentially say a lot about melee, the steel knife being the absolute basic melee weapon. Given how the new meta is shaping up to be the spear, would be quite interesting with that, too. Not sure how long this would take, so baby steps for now.

[XeoNovaDan]

TMK most, if not all ranged weapons have had their melee DPS normalised to ~4, which is inferior to fists. Revolver and bolt-action seem reasonable to test. 8 sets of trials in total, but most variation can be done through some very quick save editing which is easy enough. Probably gonna be my last one for the day since it's 10:55 PM here at the time of posting this!

Might also throw a non-staggering weapon in there (autopistol) too, to see ranged stagger's actual effect in results.

edit: sorry, 12 trials. Ah well, if I could do that with bearskin vs flak jacket, I'm sure I can do it again!

[Razzoriel]

New testing request: Nimble vs Brawler vs Tough for melee effectiveness.

- 7 vs 14 melee, both naked, both steel knife, normal.
- 7 vs 7 melee, nimble vs no traits, naked, normal steel knife
- 7 vs 14 melee, nimble vs no traits, naked, normal steel knife
- 7 vs 7 melee, nimble vs brawler, naked, normal steel knife
- 7 vs 14 melee, nimble vs brawler, naked, normal steel knife
- 14 vs 7 melee, nimble vs brawler, naked, normal steel knife

And another two sets of the above, one set with both using flak, other set using power armor. Will ask for interactions with Tough later.

[zizard]

I'm betting tough > nimble > brawler

Inb4 centipede guts next patch

[XeoNovaDan]

- 7 melee, no armor, normal steel knife vs melee bolt-action rifle, no armor
-14 melee, no armor, same as above.

-7 melee, full flak (normal), same as above (bolt-action using flak)
-14 melee, full flak (normal), same (bolt using flak)

-7 melee, power armor (normal), same as above (vs bolt-action with power armor).
-14 melee, same.

Done and dusted, with the autopistol thrown on top to see how the shooters fare without ranged stagger on their side. The biggest difficulty was probably how to actually automate this in the first place, and I came to the conclusion that forcing all melee pawns to go manhunter did the trick

Save editing with weapon and skill level changes also made this a much quicker process.

Knife vs. Bolt-Action Rifle:



It seems that this set of results is actually the set that least favours melee. I was honestly expecting the revolver's fire rate to have it pull ahead, but it seems that the bolt-action rifle's raw damage and range actually proved superior. They both have ranged stagger, but I guess a bolty shot to the leg is going to stand out that bit more.

Also, the fact that the gap is wider at higher skill levels, probably since the shooter will get more hits in, meaning that the brawler's going to be pretty weak, slow and inaccurate once they actually reach the shooter.

Knife vs. Revolver:



Similar results to the bolt-action, except with a narrower delta. The flak results are interesting though, with level 7 flak melee actually beating level 7 flak gunner. I did do some extra (admittedly unrecorded) testing to check that this wasn't a streak of luck, and this does indeed actually seem to be a legitimate set of results. Strange.

Knife vs. Autopistol:



Unsurprisingly, owing to the autopistol's lack of ability to cause ranged stagger, it's almost 50-50 as to which side wins, with the only exception being with power armour. Skill level has relatively little effect here, with the deltas between levels 7 and 14 basically being within margin of error.



I'm done for the day; it's 1:42 AM here in the UK and I'm tired. Will do more testing later on!

[Greep]

Joywire + excellent power armor/helmet + plasteel longsword vs 2 megaspiders

All excellent, right?

Yup, all excellent. I'm assuming most will survive two megaspiders that way, if not, you can tweak the melee skill/quality so it works out.

[Tynan]

Very cool info!

Eventually it might be worth making a mod that automates this kind of testing.

Also FYI, weapons are still being rebalanced.

[Ser Kitteh]

The spear debate might be improved if the higher your Melee the more likely you are to spear an organ.

Of course that's an issue if raiders had the same rule applied as well.

[Boboid]

Mace vs. spear against mechanoids done, and it looks like we've found the new meta, ladies and gents - for SirKitteh and Canute:



Although no sane person would dare 1v1 a centipede with a somewhat mediocre melee person in average armour, it actually seems to be viable due to how effective spears are. This is most likely because of the fact that centipedes have very few internal parts, and spears have a tendency to target internals. The most noteworthy internal part which seems to give spears such an edge against mechanoids is the artificial brain.

There was a slight setup change for centipede testing too: I had to force everybody into 2x1s with the centipedes so that the centipede actually stuck to melee rather than attempting to use their ranged weapons. All mechanoids had the 'berserk' mental state so that they were guaranteed to attack.

Also bear in mind that these are only normal quality steel spears too; a higher quality plasteel spear would be even more effective!

For brawlers, it'd basically just be these results but adjusted upwards slightly.

I'm not convinced frankly. Your conclusion is based on spears being more likely to target internals and.. I know of no mechanical reason for this to be the case.
The conclusion that spears are better on average than maces vs centipedes is literally based on unlikely hit locations. You can find these hit chances in game - The chance to hit the head is 15%, artificial brain 0.75%.
If the spears don't have this assumed trait then your conclusions could just be the result of ridiculously unlikely variance across a sample size.

If you do the math on maces vs spears it's very obvious that the difference in average dps of the mace is much higher owing primarily to the difference in relative armor penetration values.
As mechanoids cannot be incapacitated through pain, they must be incapacitated by reducing their Movement or Conciousness(data processing) to ~0%.
ALL centipedes are more likely to go down to unlikely head hits irrespective of the weapon used owing to the fact that damage to the body rings is so relatively small owing to their massive hitpoint pools, it's the nature of their effective-toughness. A hit to the brain is worth ~20x more than a hit to a body ring.

For your conclusion to be correct the spear has to be more likely to hit the artificial brain.
Can you actually support that with a piece of code that alters the likelihood of internals being damaged on a weapon by weapon basis? Or even a by-damage-type basis?

I'd be keen to find out - because frankly after playing with a melee colony for ~7 years I'm of the opinion that maces absolutely decimate spears even post attack frequency re-factor, especially vs centipedes.

[XeoNovaDan]

...Can you actually support that with a piece of code that alters the likelihood of internals being damaged on a weapon by weapon basis? Or even a by-damage-type basis...

Code Select Expand

  <DamageDef>
    <defName>Stab</defName>
    <label>stab</label>
    <workerClass>DamageWorker_Stab</workerClass>
    <externalViolence>true</externalViolence>
    <deathMessage>{0} has been stabbed to death.</deathMessage>
    <hediff>Stab</hediff>
    <hediffSolid>Crack</hediffSolid>
    <impactSoundType>Slice</impactSoundType>
    <armorCategory>Sharp</armorCategory>
    <stabChanceOfForcedInternal>0.6</stabChanceOfForcedInternal>
    <stabPierceBonus>2.5</stabPierceBonus>
  </DamageDef>

Done. This in Damages_MeleeWeapon.xml. See 'stabChanceOfForcedInternal' two lines up from the bottom. A spear mostly stabs, so it has a ~40-50% chance of hitting the artificial brain with each attack since that's the only 'internal' part mechanoids have.

And to back this XML up with some decompiled code (using dnSpy):

Code Select Expand

protected override BodyPartRecord ChooseHitPart(DamageInfo dinfo, Pawn pawn)
{
return pawn.health.hediffSet.GetRandomNotMissingPart(dinfo.Def, dinfo.Height, (Rand.Value >= this.def.stabChanceOfForcedInternal) ? dinfo.Depth : BodyPartDepth.Inside);
}

This is from Verse.DamageWorker_Stab.

If you're still skeptical, I can even do some recordings, as video evidence that this is real.

Very cool info!

Eventually it might be worth making a mod that automates this kind of testing.

Also FYI, weapons are still being rebalanced.

Yeah, automation would definitely be even easier. I don't think my C# skills are that point yet though.

For now, a harmony transpiler, a really basic thought workerClass that gives 1000 mood to everyone and some save editing's all that this is going off of!