Link Hi, friends. Now, while we continue to fix the bugs, to refine the metagame (and not to talk about it), its a good time to discuss some of the questions floating in the air. The damage model in Soldiers: Arena, for example. Fans of accurate settings, disputes about realism and sprawling comments - make yourself comfortable. Today we are talking about who is hurting whom and how much, and what affects the amount of hurt. Let's start with the Healthbar question. New people constantly come into the community, and when they learn about the existence of a life bar on vehicles, they become enraged. Being sure that the presence of healthbars is an indicator of the demise of the genre and the obligatory fall into arcade Gehenna, they lose all hope. So well have this diary for all the newcomers. There will also be a lot of interesting things for seasoned community members too. Dont really want to be a messenger that brings bad news, but Santa Claus does not read your letters, and healthbars have always been in MoW. Usually, shell removed the durability of the component or broke it after penetrating. When the hull was broken, the unit was considered destroyed (sad trombone).
Healthbars cannot be taken in isolation from other mechanics and further in the text, we will pour evidences that in Soldiers: Arena weve added even more realism. Visualization (which, by the way, can be turned off) and the improvements of healthbars is a necessity designed to reduce the value of the random stuff and make the gameplay more orderly and understandable. An additional quest is to force tankers to leave natural shyness, get out of the bushes, and at the same time become a powerful force in the offensive operations and a reliable support in defensive lines. With healthbars, you yourself are the master of your life, and you can safely erase from your emblem the old motto Hit hard, die young. HP is derived from the unit survivability characteristics and takes into account the armor, composition, type of vehicle, size and number of seats for the crew. So with a healthbar you easily understand the level of how durable your unit is, how close to its fate you are coming, and you can therefore control the process. There is no simplification or casualization. Just a standardization. Damage mechanics needed to be improved too, because permanent oneshots arent very healthy. And, by the way, not very realistic too. Does every penetration brake down the tank? Nope. And there are a lot of stories about the shells that have been melted into armor, or machines that have been pieced through a couple of times and still have continued to fight. Reducing everything to a random variable is also not the best option. The luck isnt the only thing that decides destiny in real life. And certainly not the only thing that should call the shots in a competitive multiplayer game. For example we have ZIS-2 and ZIS-3, shooting at some PZ III. Both guns can potentially destroy it. The ZIS-2 has a better penetration value, but the 76-mm ZIS-3 projectile has more explosive ingredient, which means more fragments affecting the vehicle and the crew inside. Which of them should oneshot the tank faster and with what chance? The conditional game situation, when ZIS-2 oneshot PZ III with a fifty percent chance, and ZIS-3 with a forty percent one doesnt seem very realistic. No more than double jump or ring with +5 to the critical hit chance. So, to reduce the influence of chance on victory is a noble cause.
Consider the types of damage and mechanics that affect its amount.

• The penetrating damage to manpower is inflicted on infantry when a bullet or projectile penetrates. In Soldiers: Arena, we increased the damage of small arms at close range, so on a range of grenade throw, soldiers die from a single bullet, regardless of their coolness. The amount of such damage essentially depends on the ballistics of small arms, the position of the fighter, being in a trench or cover. Additional protective equipment such as a helmet, body armor or a thick book in a breast pocket seriously increases the chances of survival.
• Melee combat damage. Only infantry gets it of course. Directly depends on the skills of the fighter and weapons in his hands. We had to refine the AI a lot, but it was worth it. In the trenches, you can now see the battle with the use of bayonets, shovels, knives and buttstocks. Strictly 16+.
• Fatal events damage. As Pratchett said, And that which does kill us leaves us dead! Throwing a throwing knife, being hit with vehicle, collapsed building or trench walls, killing by the worlds physical fragments.
• Armor-piercing damage. Applied as a result of penetration of armor by AP projectile. The characteristics of the projectile (including caliber) seriously affect the amount of such damage and the chance of killing with one penetration. The remoteness of the target is another important modifier, since the penetration and damage from the AP-shells fall with the distance. Such damage very often leads to crew death and disabling modules. Armor of the target isnt the last thing, because to inflict AP damage, you firstly need pierce the damn thing. Using tank angles correctly to increase your chances is still in fashion. High angles of the meeting with the shell can cause a ricochet.
• Cumulative damage comes with cumulative grenades and projectiles. It differs from the AP damage in that it does much less damage to the health-bar (general functionality) of the machine, but doesnt spare the crew and modules.
• High-explosive damage from explosives and HE shells. Destroys covers and is lethal to infantry, which is guaranteed to die in its area of effect. The principle of action on the armor is similar to a hammer - if it breaks through, it crumbles everything inside. The thinner the armor and the closer the epicenter of the explosion, the more damage the machine will take. Light armored vehicles can survive a direct hit only from some small shells. In the case of indirect hit, damage will be inflicted only if the high-explosive wave has enough energy, which rapidly dies out with distance, in order to break through or crush the armor. So indirect hit are almost not dangerous for heavy vehicles, but they are very easy to feel for light ones and fatal for unarmored ones. Artillery does not like high-explosive damage much because of the high chance of detonation of the ammunition.
• Fragmental damage from explosives and HE shells. As you can see in the Soldiers: Arena, high-explosive projectiles and explosives have both fragmentation and high explosive effects. Often in different proportions. For example, anti-personnel mines and grenades cause a lot of fragmentation damage, and minimally high-explosive ones. Fragments piercing rate isnt enough to cause damage even to an APS. Infantry from such damage is well protected by shelters, removal from the epicenter of the explosion and the recumbent posture.
• Seismic damage. Deals damage to trenches and buries them. Large-caliber HE shells have the greatest seismic damage, so that artillery preparation before the storming of the trenches is the right decision. A pleasant realistic bonus is that tanks also cause seismic damage with their tracks. You can bring down the walls of the trench just by riding over it.
• Fire damage. When in contact with a flame, there is a chance of triggering an ignition event. In the future, we also want to move this mechanics from scripted rails, reduce the influence of the random and add fire extinguishers to the armored vehicles.

We also want to brag some about the improvements of some of the mechanics and units mentioned and share our plans.

• The mortality of the crew has become more logical and realistic. You shoot where the driver is sitting - most likely he will die.
• There is no limit to the firing range anymore. We remind you. Wipe clean a checkmark in the Realism column or put a new one if this is news to you.
• Rewrote damage system of the components. As before, you can shoot down the tracks, damage the tower or gun of the tank, destroy or ignite the engine, knock down additional screens, etc. But now it all became more predictable and less dependent on the chance. Added the possibility of damaging to the component without breaking it. For example, the tower of a heavy tank may jam from frequent hits.
• Weve brought realism to the work of high-explosive and cumulative AT-grenades. Now they do not have infinite pierce power and are not the ultimate weapon in the fight against a tank threat. The RPG-43 could penetrate up to 75 mm of armor, and this is a bit like an ultimatum to the Royal Tiger ... rather, a polite warning. The RPG-40 generally has only 40 mm of penetration, but a lot more high-explosive damage. So, unlike RPG-43, it can be successfully used against fortifications and buildings.
• For each type of projectile we registered our own model of damage, trajectory, accuracy parameters and ballistics. Planning to add more types of shells. So the player will be able to even better configure the unit for the tasks that it intends to perform.
• Added visualization of calculations for penetration of present armor, taking into account the normalization of the projectile.

Lets consider the task to consolidate todays material. The enemy armored car is approaching your Pak 40. What type of projectile is better to use? Armor-piercing one first you think, because, you know, ARMORED car. But then you will understand that this is a tricky question, which happens to mean that the correct answer is a HE shell. And you will be right. As we know, high-explosive damage is deadly for lightly armored vehicles, while an armor-piercing projectile with excessive penetration can simply pierce through and not hurt the vital organs. We customized and tempered during tests the current damage model. It is a big step forward for the whole community. And it is bearing fruit. In previous games, tanks mostly fought with other tanks, which is not very realistic. In such conditions, when choosing between the T-34-57 and T-34-76, the first one was always the winner usually because of a greater piercing rate. The greater the piercing rate, the greater the chance of a oneshot. It is quite logical. In Soldiers: Arena, it makes sense to use these tanks against different targets. The T-34-76s projectile has a good high-explosive effect, which means it is suitable for fighting guns and infantry. The 57-mm projectile of T-34-57 for the same purposes is too weak, but its AP shell with excellent speed and penetration can rustle the jimmies of the heaviest heavy tanks. Damage wont be great anyway, so there is no point in speaking about oneshoting Tigers. But you definitely can bite it and have a great amusement. We cherish the hope that the number and depth of the settings (and examples) listed above will convince you that there is no question talking about casualization. The game only becomes more hardcore and more understandable at the same time. Soldiers: Arena can and will need to be studied for a long time in order to understand how everything works and to take your place in the top and in our hearts. We already wrote that we are going to rework the ammunition mechanics. Definitely, it can help with the balance of some units that can inflict a lot of damage. We are still discussing how to implement the ammunition replenishment without slipping down to shifting items from one inventory slot to another. Your ideas? Wish you all the best as usual.