Musclewizard said:

So while most of my data isn't necessarily invalidated, you've still made it completely obsolete and made me waste several days of my time.

Varn said:

I don't mean to bash on your good hard work, but you did approach it a little backwards. When random numbers come into play, you have to run like a bajillion tests to put your results in the vicinity of statistical probability. Especially since the d100 dice in a roll-under system creates a flat probability spread.

Varn said:

You're begrudging someone working on the same thing as you? So is no one else meant to work on it other than you, since anyone else working on the statistics makes you waste your time?

Sorry, but you're coming across as angry at someone else for also trying to make the game more balanced, which makes you sound a little childish. Why not send a PM to him and work together?

Plus, as Morangias said, when you want to use random rolls, rather than averages, you need to make hundreds/thousands of rolls to end up with a valid dataset, which is a lot easier when it's automated.

I think this might be a bit out of context for most of you then. I'm not so much angry as I am very annoyed and disappointed. Musclewizard and I had spoken briefly on another site about this subject, and at the time he had mentioned he might try to make a program, but it would probably be quite a while before he had anything workable, if he could manage it at all. When I told him what I was doing he made it seem like he was abandoning the project. Now several days later he not only has a working program, but it produces data many times better than what I did, and this is what I'm annoyed about.

Varn said:

I actually did abandon the project the way it was back then. I initially planed on making it in Java with various other features and I was already quite far in. I scrapped this thou since I realized that I had harly any experience making GUIs in Java and reading lines from the console is more trouble than it's worth if you can just use a textbox.

So I restarted the whole Project in Matlab (which offers tools I'm experienced with even thou they are for a different purpose) and made some fast progress. So instead of being done about 4 days ago I just finished yesterday about half an hour before I posted my results.

I'm sorry that it feels like I've invalidated your work. It more or less pure chance that we were working on the same problem.

It's fine, what really matters is that we now have an effective tool for testing things very quickly.

So here's the problem with my tool:
It's matlab code. That means you need the matlab runtime to start it. So if I were to share it you'd either need to have the matlba runtime installed or I'd need to provide the matlab runtime. The latter is no problem since the runtime is avaiable for free and you can even add it automatically to the package that I'm producing. Unfortunatrely this causes the thinng to be a wooping 180 MB (179 of which are the Matlab Runtime). It's also an .exe that needs to be installed (actually the runtime needs to be installed and not the program itself).

So if you're willing to download and install an 180 mb exe from a person you don't know, go ahead here's the link:

(I've disabled the detailed RF text since those are 1:1 from the book).

It's probably still unstable especially when it comes to File I O but you can do all the basic stuff with it.

With Matlab Runtime
Start the exe. This will install the Matlab Runtime and extract the program. Start the program with the Only_War_Weapon_Tester.exe

Without Matlab Runtime
Just unpack the archive and start the exe

Short How-To:

Enter a Weapon in the top left.
All Fields must be filled for a valid weapon.
The Name may be any string, it is irrelevant and only for decoration.
Enter the amount of damage dice into the first field in the "damage" line. Add the damage bonus (as a positive integer) in the second field.
Enter the Penetration of the Weapon in the Pen field.
You may save and load the weapon to / from file.

Enter a Target in the top right.
All fields must be filled for a valid weapn.
Enter the Structural Integrity in the SI field.
Enter the Armour Values into the corresponding fields.
You may save or load the target to file / from file.

Define the test in the bottom left.
The Test will always grab the data from the weapon and target boxes.
Define how many tests you want to do (as a positive integer).
Define the total To-Hit Chance.
Select a facing from the drop down box.
Press Start.

If you load a weapon using the load button in the target panel or load a target using the load button in the weapon pannel the program will crash. Not sure if it can continue working from there on by loading the proper type afterwards but if you encounter any errors after that just restart the tool.

The Average Hits to Kill, Rounds to Kill and RF per Kill will be displayed in the right Results Panel. A detailed combat log will be produced in the console that opens with the Program.

Something you might want to add is support for multiple weapons. Most vehicles have more than one weapon on them, and while in most cases the secondary is some sort of anti infantry weapon, for heavier things like tanks it'll probably be something like as Las Cannon. In a vehicle on vehicle fight, you arent just going to fire their main weapons at each other, and the secondary attacks will definitely effect how much damage is done per round and how long it takes to kill the target, not to mention RFs per round.

Varn said:

The system I've built is rather stiff so right now this would be rather hard to do. Good idea though so I might add it at a later point in time.

A few more facts about the tool:
It can not deal with degrees of success or properties such as proven, accurate, melta, razor sharp or similar. It also does not differentiate between normal damage dice and accurate damag dice so all d10s are equally capable of triggering RF and all values are static.

Looking at the way hit and damage numbers exist in the game I found it easier to separate the two. The following are the numbers I have come up with for the weapons without any rolling. While I started working on the heavier weapons I found it just as easy to include all the ranged weapons.

Weapon:
Damage: The Raw damage that is listed in the text for each weapon.
Pen: The Weapon’s listed penetration
Min: The minimum damage.
Max: The maximum damage.
Average: The average damage this weapon can do on a hit. The number here is based on the numerical average of the damage die multiplied by the number of dice rolled and rounded up for simplicity. (For a standard D10 this is 5.5. For Proven 2 it is 5.6. For Proven 3 it is 5.8.)
If there is any special quality that can change any of the stats it is listed on the following line.

Well here’s the beast:

Weapon                                 Damage  Pen Min Max Average
Laspistol                              1d10+2     0      3     12    8
Las Carbine                        1d10+3     0      4     13    9
M36 Lasgun                        1d10+3     0      4     13    9
Laslok                                   1d10+4    0      5     14    10
Long Las                              1d10+3    1      4     13    9
  Accurate 1die                     2d10+3    1      5     23   14
  Accurate 2die                     3d10+3    1      6     33   20
Triplex Pattern Lasgun      1d10+3     0      4     13  9
  Overcharge                        1d10+4     0      5     14  10
  Overload                             1d10+4     2      5     14  10
Bullpup Lasgun                  1d10+3     0      4     13   9
Hot-Shot Laspistol             1d10+4     7      5     14   10
Hotshot-Lasgun                 1d10+4     7      5     14   10
Man Portable Lascannon 5d10+10  10    25   60   39
M41 Multi-Laser                  2d10+10  2     12    30   21
 

Weapon                                 Damage    Pen Min Max Average
Autopistol                              1d10+2      0       3    12     8
Stub Automatic                     1d10+3      0      4     13     9
Stub Revolver                       1d10+3      0      4     13     9
Hand Cannon                      1d10+4       2      5     14    10
Sniper Rifle                           1d10+4      3      5     14    10
  Accurate 1die                      2d10+4      3      6     24   15
  Accurate 2die                      3d10+4      3      7     34   21
Autogun                                 1d10+3      0       4    13    9
Shotgun(Pump)                   1d10+4      0       5    14   10
Shotgun                                 1d10+4      0       5    14   10
Combat Shotgun                 1d10+4      0       5    14   10
Ripper Gun                           1d10+8      0       9    18   14
Heavy Stubber                      1d10+4      3       5    14   10
M34 Autocannon                  3d10+8      6      11   38   25
Battle Cannon                      3d10+10    8      13   40   26
Demolisher Cannon           4d10+20   10     24   60  42
Vanquisher Battle Cannon 3d10+10   16    13   40   27
  Accurate 1die                      4d10+10   16     14  50   32
  Accurate 2die                      5d10+10   16     15  60   38
Earthshaker Cannon           4d10+10   8       14  50   32

Weapon                 Damage Pen Min Max Average
Bolt Pistol             1d10+5    4      6     15    11
Boltgun                 1d10+5    4       6    15     11
Storm Bolter        1d10+5    4       6     15    11
Heavy Bolter        1d10+8    5       9     18    14

Weapon                Damage  Pen   Min  Max Average
Inferno Pistol       2d10+10  12     12    30    21
  Melta                   2d10+10   24    12    30    21
Meltagun              2d10+10   12    12    30    21
  Melta                   2d10+10   24    12    30    21
Multi-melta           2d10+16   12    18    36    27
  Melta                   2d10+16   24    18    36    27

Weapon               Damage   Pen Min Max Average
Plasma Pistol      1d10+6    6      7     16    12
  Maximal               2d10+6    8      8     26    17
Plasma Gun         1d10+7    6      8     17    13
  Maximal               2d10+7    8      9     27    18
Plasma Cannon  2d10+10  8     12   30     21
  Maximal               3d10+10  10   13   40     27

Weapon                                 Damage Pen  Min  Max  Average
Hand Flamer                        1d10+4     2      5     14     10
Flamer                                   1d10+4     2      5     14     10
Heavy Flamer                       1d10+5     4      6     15     11
Inferno Cannon                    2d10+15  8      17   35     26

Weapon                                     Damage   Pen Min  Max  Average
Hellstrike Missile                     3d10+7     7      10    37    24
Hunter Killer Missile                3d10+6     6      9      36    23
Blind Grenade                          2d10          0      2      20    11
Fire Bomb Grenade                1d10+3      0      4     13     9
Frag Grenade                           2d10          0      2      20    11
Krak Grenade                           2d10+4      6     6      24    15
Frag Missile                              2d10+2      2     2      22    13
Krak Missile                              3d10+8      8     14   38     25
Minefield Missile                      2d10          1      2     20     11
Scatter Missile                          2d10          0      2     20     11
Blind Round                              2d10          0      2     20     11
Frag Round                               2d10          3      2     20     11
Minefield Round                       2d10          1      2     20     11
Scatter Round                          1d10+3      0      4     13     9
 

g0arr, your number mean absolutely nothing. Average weapon damages can be figured out use some very basic math. The whole point of this thread is dealing with how hard vehicles are to kill becasue most anti-armor weapons don't do anything to them. My original intention was to show this using a large number of attacks against various vehicles/facings. MW has gone and made a utility to help simulate this on a large scale in order to better understnad what the effects of any changes to weapon damages might be.

The point behind the numbers is to show the average numbers and the min/max numbers that can be created with each weapon. This can then be used to see how many shots it should take to kill a tank, and the effeciency of them. That was the point behind the chart.

But averages mean nothing in this situation. Using only average numbers and raw math, you get results different from if you actually roll like you would in game. I know this because I tried it and got some very disturbing results. Using just averages means most weapons won't penetrate or do any significant damage most of the time, not to mention you can't factor in RFs. Also, your numbers are off, you're dealing with dice, not raw numbers, you can't just round everything up.

Actual rolls and averages are equally pointless, you need to apply statistics to determine what percentage of hits will do SI damage and to what degree. Then use those derived numbers to drive your design.

And the desireable 'hardness' of vehicles depends on what you're trying to do to them. If the goal is emulating the tabletop game then, how many hits does it normally take for a lascannon or vanquisher or krak missile to pop a Leman Russ in the TT game? Tune towards that number.

Under the current rules? 3 glancing hits or one spectacular penetrating hit. For a Krak missile on the front armour that would require a 6 on the armour penetration roll, so in bad maths that is 18 hits. Lascannon, that is a 5 or a 6 (for a penetration), meaning a bad maths 9 hits.