Firing Accuracy Testing
This page is a scratch page re: testing how Firing Accuracy works. Results will be summarized back to relevant pages when done. Page initiated by User:MikeTheRed, but anyone is welcome to jump in. This is an informal page.
Notes & Nomenclature:
- FFA is Final Firing Accuracy - the quoted percent seen when about to fire a weapon. Otherwise, there is soldier FA and weapon FA, plus other factors as seen in Accuracy formula and Firing Accuracy. For this work, only soldier and weapon accuracy have been hacked/tested, unless otherwise noted.
- All testing used Autofire, unless otherwise noted.
Background
There's been a lot of conjecture about Firing Accuracy on the wiki and in X-COM forums. I couldn't recall much actual testing, so here we go.
- Soldiers can have FA from 40 to 125.
- Common weapons have the following FA:
Weapon Auto Snap Aimed Heavy Plasma 50 75 110 Std. Rifle 35 60 110 Laser Rifle 46 65 100 Std. Pistol -- 60 78 Laser Pistol 28 40 68
Relevant bytes (also see BombBloke's Map Editor). "Max" means a large number; "z" (122) is the largest single-keystroke value:
UNITREF.DAT, record length 124: Offset Description 23 Firing Accuracy. Decreased by injury, so heal all your soldiers. 12 Current TUs - 250 for soldiers, 0 for aliens 25 Base TUs - 99 for soldiers, 0 for aliens 35 Energy Recharge - Max all 15 Current Energy - Max all 27 Base Energy - Max all 45 Energy Usage - Max all 18-22 Current Armour, F/L/R/B/U - Max all so nobody gets hurt. 29-33 Base Armor - Max for all 63-68 Fatal Wounds - Heal everybody 81 FA (hits) counter - Make sure it's zero 57 Psi strength - Aliens to 0, soldiers maxxed 37 Psi skill - Same thing 13 Current health - Set to Base Health. (You are injured if Current Health < Base Health.) 26 Base health 17 Strength - If you want to carry a lot, eat yer spinach. OBPOS.DAT, reclen 16: 0 Object type (ref. To OBDATA Row # id) - Edit ammo quantity for all weapons you're using. It's a lot easier to just e.g. set all Pistol clips (Object Type 1) to 250 than to try to figure out who's holding what. 8 Ammo quantity - Set to 250 \GEODATA\OBDATA.DAT, reclen 54: Row 0 Pistol Row 1 Pistol clip Row 34 Heavy Plasma Row 35 Heavy Plasma clip 22 Average weapon strength - Set to 1 (no damage since armor is so high) 31 Ammo damage type. 0=AP, 3=Laser, 4=Plasma. FYI (shouldn't matter) 32-34 FA, Auto/Snap/Aimed. Here's what counts 35-37 Percent TUs, for the same. Set to 1. This compares against soldiers' Base TUs and is rounded down. 1 Percent of 99 rounded down would happen to be 0 TUs :) 38 Clip size - Set to 250. Might be irrelevant after setting OBPOS, shrug. 49 Ammo boolean - Keep it set for clips
Note that because OBDATA is in \GEODATA, you have to seperately put it in any pkzip savegame backups you might be using. Also note that it's reloaded each time you start a combat for DOS X-COM, but it might not be for WinCE (GEOSCAPE and TACTICAL are one .EXE for WinCE). Be that as it may... if you e.g. set Weapon Accuracy to 100 and leave it there, then soldier FA decides your FFA.
For most testing (unless trying to watch each shot), set your Fire Speed to 6. And if you're using DosBox with DOS X-COM: Crank your CPU cycles way up, 30k or higher (Control-F12). Bullets hit practically instantaneously. (Does the WinCE version have a similar thing?)
A savegame that incorporates most everything above is Media:FAccTest1.zip. All desert dunes have been levelled so you've got clear shooting with the four soldiers in upper right.
Test 1: Benchmark
I chose a middling FFA:
Soldier Accuracy 90% Weapon Accuracy 50% Final FA 45%
Currently, new developments are showing up in BombBloke's StratCore thread on his great automation tools. For my results ATM, see post 11. - MikeTheRed 22:44, 16 November 2006 (PST)