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

[Tynan]

Interesting data, thanks for this.

For something like the centipede it might be more meaningful to test 2 on 1 or 3 on 1. It's designed to be too powerful to beat 1 on 1.

[XeoNovaDan]

Good catch. Motivation has picked up somewhat, at least for now, so I'll probably test both! ^^

Edit: Also changing things up a bit and actually removed the ranged verbs from the centipede weapons, so they'll be 100% engaged in melee combat rather than often attempting to engage in ranged combat even though the setup never allows them to actually use their weapons at range. Results could be considered an absolute worst case scenario in that sense

[XeoNovaDan]

Alright, results with the 2v1s and 3v1s are in. Since I did normalise the quality this time around and also cut the ranged verbs for this testing, these results naturally won't be directly comparable to the 1v1 ones.

3v1 also had a smaller sample size of just 70 battles compared to the standard 100 for 2v1, since I only have 20 pawns in the setup and didn't feel like 'binning' too many new pawns, so I just spawned in a 21st who was trait-neutral, melee-capable and healthy.

2v1 Results:


3v1 Results:


Edit: I mistakenly put 6-1 for the final trial with the longsword in the 3v1; only just noticed this as I was going to get the link to link to this from OP. Final trial was actually 7-0

It's somewhat surprising that maces still output consistently worse results, but less so at the same time since mace tools have a lower selection weight due to the exponential commonality with damage.

[Boboid]

My first instinct was to assume that the stun nerf had a significant impact on maces vs centipedes. It was of course justified - Stunning humans was almost always a death sentence. But now that I think about it centipedes were already hard to stun. I assume it's down to their heads having ridiculously large amounts of health.
Adding additional internal hit locations might have reduced the chances of stunning a bit as well.

Uranium vs plasteel will hopefully even up the playing field considerably. At the point where maces are essentially totally ignoring armor they ought to pull ahead. I'm not totally confident though.

Although, to be perfectly frank from a practical gameplay perspective Uranium is a real pain in the ass to obtain until reasonably late game. You'll always have access to some plasteel from mechs and it's fairly common in exotic goods traders which you can request.. Uranium not so much. Fortunately demand for it is comparatively low since maces require less material to construct than spears or swords but.. still.
It's a weird game state to be in where only uranium maces were really worth making, and you can't make them until reasonably late most of the time.

[XeoNovaDan]

A uranium v. plasteel retest is certainly something to consider, indeed. Uranium maces will probably perform much better than their steel counterparts from the fact that their tools are more likely to be selected alone, and then the raw DPS bonus on top of that.

[zizard]

I think stun only has a minor effect. Probably plasteel sharp weapons have enough AP to reduce the effective sharps to small values where the superlinear scaling makes it insigificant, and outweighed by the higher overall DPS. Another possibility is that even with the extra organs, a significant fraction of deaths still comes from destruction of vital parts, which I think can now come from the reactor as well as the brain.

[Snafu_RW]

A uranium v. plasteel retest is certainly something to consider, indeed. Uranium maces will probably perform much better than their steel counterparts from the fact that their tools are more likely to be selected alone, and then the raw DPS bonus on top of that.

Hmm.. instinct makes me think that plasteel melee weps will be quicker to wield due to their light weight (& 'sharpness') while uranium will do more dmg per hit but be significantly slower.. does this make sense from a gameplay PoV & does it carry to 'real' GP combat?

How would the two wep mats compare vs (say) a centipede, with significant sharp but low blunt resistance, & vs a fully-armoured pawn (in assorted armours)?

Apologies if I've missed stats on previous combats where you've tested this; this cruddy laptop & net connection means I can't check tables/graphs as readily as I would normally