Space weapons mechanics

[Pomerancak]

Hi,

I was studying new manual and started thinking about tinkering a bit with some space hero characteristics. In order to do that I delved into space weapon mechanics chapter however I am not sure I understand your balance principle. The example with ISD states 60/6 Turbolasers means 6 hardpoint firing 10 pulses each round. Tables below state Turbolasers have rate of ire 0.2s and recharge tiume of 4s.

I got a little confused with all those time values... Is there a tell it to me like i'm a five year old way?

Also out of curiosity, Visvia station uses Tri-Maser Cannons, what type of weapon is that based on?

Thanks a lot in advnace.

[Slornie]

As the person who wrote the manual I may not be the best person to answer this, but I'll give it a try.


Our balance system basically works like this:

• For all space units (with the exception of starfighters, dedicated anti-fighter units and similar) we count each laser/ion bolt or missile/torpedo as a separate weapon.
• Hardpoints fire several lasers (or ions etc) each salvo to represent multiple weapons so that the ships aren't covered with hundreds of individual hardpoints. 
• The rate of fire and recharge times listed in the manual are the standard values we use across all ships and hardpoints (however there are certain units and hardpoints that differ for one reason or another e.g. slower recharges for the outdated Hapan turbolaser technology).

Now, the rate of fire (0.2 seconds for turbolasers) is the delay between lasers fired in the same salvo.  So that ISD turbolaser hardpoint with 10 pulses per salvo represents 10 turbolasers each firing one shot over a 1.8 second period.  After those 10 lasers are fired the turbolaser hardpoint recharges for 4 seconds (i.e. reloading the guns) before it can fire another salvo. 

Obviously there are some oddities and inconsistencies that come out of this system, but it was the best we could come up with at the time (when we did a comprehensive space rebalance between 1.3 and 2.0).

Hopefully that makes a bit more sense.  If not, maybe someone else will be able to explain it in another way.

[Pomerancak]

As the person who wrote the manual I may not be the best person to answer this, but I'll give it a try.

I think rather than you having poor explanation skills it's me lacking deeper background  knowledge

For me your post definitely cast quite a lot of light on the problematic. Previously I thought that you only define one type of hardpoint (i.e.: turbolaser, heavy turbolaser) and then reuse it again and again on various ship without altering it. Now I dug a a bit in the xml files and I see every single hadpoint has its own definition!

My steps were folloing:

• I located Star Destroyer segment named <SpaceUnit Name="Generic_Star_Destroyer"> in Remnant_Space_Units.xml file which among other contains list of all 20 hardpoints (16 weapon placements + engine, shield gen., hangar and tractor beam).
  
• Then I headed to HardPoints_IR.xml file and searched for individual hardpoint names. Their segments contains recharge times, pulse delays and pulse counts values. One more important tag was Projectile Type.
• Last but not the least I opened Turbolasers.xml file and located Projectile types refered in hardpoint file. Here I find damage values.

Anything I missed? 

One curious thing I found in SpaceUnit Name="Generic_Star_Destroyer" was <Armor_Type> Armor_Frigate </Armor_Type>. Is that corect? Isn't it supposed to be Capital? I alsonoticed every single ISD hardpoint has the same health (tag: <Health>250.0</Health>) is that intentional? Or is it required by engine for example? Which leads me to a question about general health of ship? Is it consisted of shield plus a sum of hardpoints health?

With that regard, any explanation of XML basics floating anywhere around EaW modding community? I run across lot of tag I can imagine what they mean but I am damn not sure

For example:
<Scale_Factor>
<Mass>
<Armor_Type>
<Shield_Armor_Type>
<Max_Speed>
<Max_Rate_Of_Turn>
<Max_Thrust>
<Hyperspace_Speed>
<Maintenance_Cost>
<Damage> (in Remnant_Space_Units.xml)
<Autoresolve_Health>
<Shield_Points>
<Tactical_Health>
<Shield_Refresh_Rate>
<Energy_Capacity>
<Energy_Refresh_Rate>
<Targeting_Max_Attack_Distance>
<Fire_Range_Distance>
<Fire_Inaccuracy_Distance>
<Projectile_Max_Flight_Distance>
<Projectile_Does_Energy_Damage>
<Projectile_Energy_Per_Shot>

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Slornie]

One curious thing I found in SpaceUnit Name="Generic_Star_Destroyer" was <Armor_Type> Armor_Frigate </Armor_Type>. Is that corect? Isn't it supposed to be Capital? I alsonoticed every single ISD hardpoint has the same health (tag: <Health>250.0</Health>) is that intentional? Or is it required by engine for example? Which leads me to a question about general health of ship? Is it consisted of shield plus a sum of hardpoints health?

• Almost all of the ships in Thrawn's Revenge use Armor_Frigate (fighters use Armor_Fighter and shipyards use Armor_Station).  This means a turbolaser hitting the hull of a Star Destroyer does the same damage as a turbolaser hitting a Nebulon-B Frigate.  The differences between individual ship classes are then handled in the raw stats for the unit (including specific characteristics e.g. Mon Calamari ships have better shields, Strike Cruiser is known to be particularly weak-hulled).
• Each hardpoint can have a different health, but in most cases it makes sense to distribute a ship's structural integrity evenly across its accessible hardpoints.  People would get confused/annoyed if a particular hardpoint was significantly easier to destroy than another, and it's not information we can easily get across to the player.
• If there are no targetable hardpoints ship health is the tactical health value in the main xml entry.  If there are targetable hardpoints it's the sum of hardpoint health, albeit with reference to the tactical health (if there's a mismatch the ship may linger after the hardpoints are destroyed while tactical health points remain).

With that regard, any explanation of XML basics floating anywhere around EaW modding community? I run across lot of tag I can imagine what they mean but I am damn not sure

I don't know of any comprehensive explanation of tags.  Like you said a lot of them are pretty straightforward.  You might have some luck searching through the various EAW community sites and tutorials - EEAW, Petrolution, etc.  The EAW section on LucasForums had a couple of useful replies from Petroglyph dev's back when the game was first released circa 2006.

[Pomerancak]

Thanks a lot for explanation, one point that makes me perplex.

• Almost all of the ships in Thrawn's Revenge use Armor_Frigate (fighters use Armor_Fighter and shipyards use Armor_Station).  This means a turbolaser hitting the hull of a Star Destroyer does the same damage as a turbolaser hitting a Nebulon-B Frigate.  The differences between individual ship classes are then handled in the raw stats for the unit (including specific characteristics e.g. Mon Calamari ships have better shields, Strike Cruiser is known to be particularly weak-hulled).

Hmm So how exactly is the damage modifier mechanism working if most of the units has the same armor type? Because - I was trying to understand page 11 in manual and I locate Damage vs Armor Matrix in GameConstatns.xml but that matrix is based on damage and armor types?

And one last question about rate of fire and recharge times - are there some limits for those values? Because I was thinking about weapon with very small damage but very high rate of fire with no recharching, basically the opposite of Hapan laser. Is it technically possible to minimize the recharge time value and maxime the amount of pulses?

Sorry for beeing so bothersome and thanks again for your help.

P.S.: As for the modding basic:
http://www.petroglyphgames.com/forums/index.php?/topic/13193-beginners-tutorial-for-foc-mod/
http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/925180-star-wars-empire-at-war/faqs/45886
http://eaw.heavengames.com/holocron/index.php?action=view&id=15