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Solarias Command - Fire on move Doctrine in numbers
ace4sure
I was wondering about this Doctrine, so I checked the numbers inside the Attrib.sga...
TL;DR:
Do NOT use it EVER! It gimps the already supbar Tacticals to Gretchin levels of bad.
The standard Tactical Marine Bolter looks like this:
Damage: 2.85
Windup: none
Winddown: 0.25 sec
Cooldown: none
Reload: none
can_fire_while_moving: false
When you use this doctrine the game seems to equip Tatical Marines with a new weapon which in numbers looks like this:
Damage: 2.3
Windup: none
Winddown: 0.25 sec
Cooldown: 0.001 sec
Reload: none
can_fire_while_moving: true
moving cooldown_multiplier: 500
As you see this doctrine comes with a flat 20% damage reduction. In turn it enables your Tacticals to fire on the move, which imo is hardly worth this damage reduction. But the when you want to use the "benefit" of fire on the move, Relic decided to include a cooldown which effectively triples(!) the time between shots (from 0.25 to 0.75), which calculates to a further 66.7% damage reduction.
What also bothers me, is the tooltip. It is not only misleading, it is simply wrong. There should be written "Your Tactical Marines can fire while moving with 73.6% reduced damage, and in turn also deal 20% less damage when not moving."
Relic, please change this, it's such a terrible doctrine right now and the tooltip is completely incorrect and misleading.
Regards
ace
Comments
Galahad2017
this allows you to avoid grenades and pursue units while streaming fire on the enemy squad.
Larkis
as i understand the "new" weapon would only applied when they move. so standing still they got the Standard bolter. when moving the got the movement bolter.
ace4sure
yeah, sure.... chasing with only 25% of already subpar damage. Do you even understand the numbers i provided?
The damage is so low, that you would still deal way more damage in total without that doctrine when dodging a grenade.
I don't think so. When you look up the entity blueprint of tacticals there 3 weapons listed in the first hardpoint: Standard Bolter, the moving Bolter and the Plasma Gun. I havn't seen any action that would trigger a constant switching for the weapon used in hardpoint 1. As I see it, it's a 1 time thing, like upgrading to a Plasma Gun.
Galahad2017
or chase with no damage at all in case of TSM since they can't fire on the move.
Do you really think that If you dodge a grenade with TSM, reposition and start firing again that is the same as keeping constant fire up?
We're all assuming this is vs eldar, but against a Boyz or scout unit for example that's a squad kill right there.
Do you understand that your analysis doesn't analyze how it could be useful in any way?
steinernein
If you lose that much damage for a doctrine you might as well stutter step as best as you can. There are better doctrines to take.
KotCR
Oh wow, if that's true that's really bad. Reric really had it in for Tactical Marines this time around, huh?
I sincerely hope it is a case that the weaker Bolter just gets used when the unit is on the move, rather than stationary (with the default Bolter being used when stationary still), but I wouldn't be surprised if it is a complete replacement. They've done things like this in the past; For the longest time in DoW1: WA, 'upgrading' from Power Swords to Power Fists would actually reduce the DPS of your Sergeants/Champions and Commanders in melee.
They seem to have a nasty habit of tuning certain things, but then forgetting to tune the extensions of that item down the line when they tune the original.
I wonder if this means, that at one point, Tactical Marines had even less DPS by default than they do now? Nuts.
Svanh
Really useful to know, thanks! If you don't mind me asking, how do you read the .sga file? I've relied on testing to work out stats so far and it would be really useful to know.
ace4sure
Be warned, it is not that comfortable and a little techy. Both available tools are Terminal applications so you need to know how to wok with Windows CMD.
First you need to extract the SGA file witch supports the current version 9 used in DoW3:
http://www.moddb.com/games/warhammer-40000-dawn-of-war-iii/downloads/dow3-sgaextractor
After you extracted the SGA data you need to convert the RGD output into a human readable format (XML/JSON):
http://www.moddb.com/games/warhammer-40000-dawn-of-war-iii/downloads/rgd-converter-v13
Though it is a human readable output by definition, if you are not used to structured data alla XML, you might think otherwise.
All credits for these tools go to the modder cope.
Regards
ace
Svanh
Thank you.
ace4sure
No problem.
I just recognized that one is not able to edit his/her posts in this forum. Do I miss something?
I did convert the RDG files again into JSON format to get rid of the huge overhead that XML comes along with. After that I recognized that the TSM Bolter has a ready_aim_time/fire_aim_time of 0.25 sec which is to be considerd when looking at the damage output of weapon.
The result is, that the moving bolter "only" doubles the time between shots instead of tripling when on the move (from 0.5 to 1.0 sec).
So in effect with this Doctrine your Tactical Marines to about 20% less damage when standing still and in turn deal 40% damage of the regular when on the move.
Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. The provided numbers show this pretty clearly (that's why I was wondering you might not understand them). What you probably don't see is that you are NOT dealing full damage when on the move. You only deal half of the already 20% reduced damage when on the move.
Lets try a calcualtion example. Let's think of a 10 sec engagement of a TSM squad holding 5 Bolters in which you need 2 sec to dodge a grenade.
With the standard bolter this results in 8 sec of firing and 2 sec of not firing.
With the moving Bolter this results in 8 sec of firing and 2 sec of firing on the move (optimal conditions = running towards your enemy).
Standard Bolter:
5 * 2.85 dmg / 0.5 sec * 8 sec = 228 dmg
Moving Bolter:
5 * ( 2.3 dmg / 0.5 sec * 8 + 2.3 dmg / 1.0 sec * 2 sec ) = 207 dmg
In this engagement the Standard Bolters did approx 10% more damage, even though they have not been fired 20% of the engagement time.
The point is, that the flat 20% damage reduction of this doctrine would be fine if the Bolters in turn would do full damage on the move. I would actually like this because it quite changes the gameplay around them (besides the fact the TSM right now are completly underperforming anyway).
Or it would be fine, when Bolters would do full damage while standing with this doctrine and only deal significantly reduced damage when on the move.
Right now it does both: flat damage reduction and significantly reduced damage on the move.
It's terribly bad.
Don't use it!
Regards
ace
ace4sure
Ah and btw...
Deathwatch Killteam is not effected by this. From what I read of their weapon stats they do full damage with their bolters on the move. Of course Flamethrower and Missle Launcher are only being fired when stationary.
ace4sure
Well, actually like in previous Relic RTS games there is accuracy.
But for every weapon I looked at so far it is set 100% on every range.
KotCR
eSports. I understand why it's gone.
Relic, while not owning up to eSports ambitions, did push they wanted reliable, consistent units, this time around.
Nothing more frustrating than having your long-reload Rocket miss a tank which needed one more hit to kill before it escaped in the previous DoW games.
Stoner
RNG is a plague for any game that would be played on any competitive level. I understand that it might be seen as immersive and stuff, but it has place ONLY in single player. You shouldn't be able to save/lose units out of luck or win/lose matches out of luck.
ace4sure
Just a little update on this matter, since today the update got relased and Tacs got finally buffed.
I extraced the attrib data of the new version and checked if Relic did touch the Moving_Bolter of Solaris Command in the name of buffing Tacs...
Sadly, they did not
Now this weapon is soo extremly bad compared to the regular Bolter of Tacs, this Docrine should not be in the game in its current condition.
Do NOT us it!
@Kat_RE
Was this just an oversight?
Regards
ace
TibblesEviLCat
I was wondering why tax were doing awful in my games, thanks
charlando
They said this is not intended and they plan on fixing it.
Not sure when.
ace4sure
Source?
charlando
Steam forum
ace4sure
Havn't seen any official posts from Relic on the steam forum myself so far... do you have a Link?
PaztheLobster
@ace4sure
http://steamcommunity.com/app/285190/discussions/0/1291817837617129159/
ace4sure
Thanks for the info.
Btw really "nice" to see a Relic official directly answering on a 2-liner in the steam forum, while no word on this matter in the official forum though a discussion with some data provided exists already .... since 3 weeks.
@Kat_RE Really wants me to stop using this forum.
Regards
ace
Gregoire
Fairly bad that this wasn't fixed in the last patch - given it was flagged up here.
charlando
Yeah I know, its not encouraging.
The one advantage my post had was that it had a concise description of the issue in the title.
I was shocked that this still wasn't fixed, and you could see it in the tool tip.
ace4sure
Yeah you right... the title is not sort of a clickbaiter or smothing....but this is one of the most read threads in the SM forum section.
Point is: I posted here for 2 reasons, 1) to inform other players and 2) more importantly to inform Relic so it gets fixed. So the main purpose of this was unsuccessful.
I will always dig in the game data, that's my developer obssession, but why should I spent my precious time again writing in this forum when the people I mainly intend to present this just ignore it?
iPhoneAppz
Thanks for the update! I thought that this was fixed in the patch. Was getting stomped with TMs last night. Guess I need to switch this doctrine out until it gets fixed.
ace4sure
Just to clearify because some people stated that the Moving Bolter is only active when the squad is moving and while standing still the regular bolter is active:
I identified the following data struct as the doctrine responsible for the Doctrine "Fire on move":
attrib/army_upgrade/space_marines/elite/imperial_knight_solaria_doctrine_globalInside
player_spawn_actionsare triggered which only contain achange_weapon actionforhardpoint: 1to saidspa_bolter_moving_fire_tactical_marinewith arequirements\\required_unit_typeto beunit_type: dow3_tactical_marineSo if this doctrine is active when a Tactical is spawned the weapon in hardpoint 1 (which is the Standard Bolter) is changed to the Moving Bolter.
That's it. No switching which some people stated,
And from what I recognized the damage of tacticals is extremly bad with this doctrine equipped. I am lacking players to efficiently test it. If you are interessted add me up on steam (ace4sure). Testing should be pretty easy: regular Tacticals should shred FOM Tacticals.
But the data alone is pretty solid imo.
Regards
ace