Unit Attributes: the File of Questions and Jewels

[Hancock the Superb]

I have oftentimes sat down at the computer and attempted to figure out this file. This time, I'm planning on following my leads to the finish.

So some questions (which probably have been answered at some point on this forum):

I understand that we cannot change many levels that are used by the game engine; especially those up to moral. However, do the commander abilities (ability, command, control, leadership, and style) fall into the category of levels that are hardcoded into the game?

Do the level points do anything? Obviously, for WEATHER, they specify the visibility; what about the others levels?

What does the SDK Manual mean when it says: "Please remember that moral is modified by leader attributes" (when talking about fallback and retreat chances)?

I assume the command radius is the radius that a general supports his troops. Why is a battalion and regiment hardcoded into the game engine (how would these be even used?) and if it is modified in percentages, how can the stock game modify something by -175% (weather level 9)? This system should be explained better, I hope.

What is the commander bonus? This makes no sense at all.

How does the wheeling lock distance work? Usually when a regiment gets low on moral, you can't wheel it, but that is not what this seems to do.

Does support distance just move the commander farther or closer to the front line or does it do something else?

What is the Unit Moral Radius?

What is Choose Objective Bonus, how does it work? Is there a reason why the SDK lists no 3 as a possible input?

Max Moral Modifier? Does this mean we could make it so units never reach High moral if necessary?

What is the difference between the Firing Time and Load Modifier?

What is the difference between the Melee Modifier and Melee Stab Time?

Could someone explain how the Moral Radius Modifier works?

The description for Fatigue Run makes little sense. Is this used to increase the penalty for running in certain situations.

Finally, I see that the stock levels have comments. Does ABILITY actually affect the speed of following out orders? The COMMAND level comment doesn't make a lot of sense. Does LEADERSHIP affect whether the commander completes his orders or not? How does Open Order affect the commander radius, and etc.

I know that this is asking a lot, but I think that it will benefit the community. If someone wants to work we me a bit on this, I could come up with a manual just for this file.

Thanks for your help!

[Jim]

Some of this is explained in the SDK document. See how much (if any) that helps. This is one of the more complicated files in the game. Even Norb has to go back and relearn the details when we adjust things.

-Jim

[Hancock the Superb]

I wrote my post with the SDK in front of me. But I hope that Norb will get here eventually! Thanks.

[Garnier]

Most of the GCM gameplay mod is in unitattributes, so I've thoroughly tested and figured out a few of the attributes. There are many things that I've never figured out, though.


Fire Modifier
The chance out of 1000 that a small arms shot will result in a kill. Doesn't affect artillery. The base value is 100, so if you set all modifiers to sum to -100, firing will result in zero kills. By default, statetables.csv has an elevation fire modifier up to 150. So without any unit modifiers, max fire modifier is 250. Vanilla unit attributes can up this by 45*3, resulting in a total max of 250 + 135 = 385

Firing Time
The sum of modifiers here is the minimum rate of fire in seconds per shot. The base value is 120, and anything in unitattributes is added on top of that. However, in the rifles.csv, the ROF and MROF values set limits to the min and max rate of fire. So if a rifle has ROF and MROF of 30, then Firing Time of a unit won't matter. In GCM, I set every level of "Close" to give -120 to firing time, and then set the Firearm attribute to give values from +40 to +16. So a 0 Firearm unit has a rate of fire of one 40 seconds per shot, and a 9 Firearm unit has 16 seconds per shot. (Other aspects also affect the total firepower so 16 seconds per shot shouldn't be looked at as a historical number in any way.)

Load Modifier
I think this is a chance out of 1000 that each reload will be successful. The base value is the unit's weapon's Reliability value * 10. So if the Reliability value is 19, then the base Load Modifier is 190, and unitattributes modifiers are added on to that. In GCM I set the base to be 250 and I use the Load Modifier for fatigue and morale. When a unit is exhausted I give a -200 Load Modifier, which cuts their rate of fire to 1/5 of the default.

Melee Modifier
The total here is the chance out of 1000 that a melee stab will be a kill. So if the sum of all the modifiers and the base value (from statetables.csv) are changed from 100 to 200, the unit will kill twice as fast in melee.

Melee Stab Time
The number of seconds between stabs in melee. So if the modifiers in unitattributes and the base value in statetables sum to 10, there will be 10 seconds between each casualty computation in melee. I changed this to always be 1 in GCM, so melees would compute casualties smoothly. Then I use the Melee Modifier to set the rate of casualties.

I see that the stock levels have comments. Does ABILITY actually affect the speed of following out orders?

I'm pretty sure these comments mean nothing.



Unit Morale Radius
If unit has 200 Unit Morale Radius, then any friendly unit within 200 yards of the first unit will show the "Support Bonus" icon and get +50 morale. This is cumulative. It applies to both artillery and infantry. So a regiment that is near a battery of 6 guns will get +300 morale. A regiment stacked with three batteries will get +900 morale, making it impossible to rout -- except for the auto-rout when it reaches around 2/3 casualties.

Morale Loss Modifier
This appears to be added to the CMBaseLoss value in battledef.ini when a unit loses morale. I think it only uses the modifier from the unit that took the casualty -- so this has no relation to the support bonus.


Max Morale Modifier
Repeatedly changing this and testing a saved game showed that it changes the amount of morale a unit can gain back by rallying. The numbers involved didn't make sense though -- like going from 0 to 100 made a difference, going from 100 to 200 did not. Maybe it's a percent -- I haven't thoroughly tested it.

Morale Radius Modifier
I had thought this was related to the support bonus, but I've been testing it and can't get my changes to do anything, so I have no idea.

I really want to know exactly how Max Morale Modifier and Morale Radius Modifier work if anyone has figured these out. The Morale Radius Modifier sounds like it might be related to the support bonus but I haven't figured out how it works. It appears to be used for both infantry and commander unit attributes, so does it behave differently for each? Or does it only work for commanders and not infantry?

[Garnier]

Commander Radius
I can't get my changes to this one to take effect at all. Has anyone else had any luck? For instance, my army commanders always seem to get 250 yd bonus radius, and brigade commanders get 50yd, regardless of my values here.

Commander Bonus
This is the morale that is added to all units within the Commander Radius of the commander. Since the morale bar is 0 to 1000, a 100 bonus is 10% of the bar so that will push morale up one tenth of the bar. This is a bonus that disappears when the commander moves away from the unit. When you see the yellow star on a unit showing "Commander Bonus", that means at least one commander is close enough. The bonuses are cumulative, so there might be five or ten commanders giving a bonus.

[Hancock the Superb]

Excellent Garnier! Thanks for the testing.

[Davinci]

Commander Radius
I can't get my changes to this one to take effect at all. Has anyone else had any luck? For instance, my army commanders always seem to get 250 yd bonus radius, and brigade commanders get 50yd, regardless of my values here.

Commander Bonus
This is the morale that is added to all units within the Commander Radius of the commander. Since the morale bar is 0 to 1000, a 100 bonus is 10% of the bar so that will push morale up one tenth of the bar. This is a bonus that disappears when the commander moves away from the unit. When you see the yellow star on a unit showing "Commander Bonus", that means at least one commander is close enough. The bonuses are cumulative, so there might be five or ten commanders giving a bonus.

I think that you have to start a new game before these changes take effect !

If you are changing them and testing a Saved game, it doesn't seem to work!

davinci