Reduce The Randomness of shells in the Artillery Barrage Genpower

[MTKing4]

Shell lands are very random and creates an unpredictability in their shots as they sometimes fail to kill a building that they normally can kill (Oil Derrick, black Market)

Possible Solutions

1. Reduce the radius of which the shells stray off from the center of the attack circle
2. Keep the radius but always have a smaller difference of distance values between each shell
3. Keep The Radius but Have less Shells stray off to the edge of the Circle while and make most shells concentrate near the Center

[xezon]

Are we certain that there is randomness? The SCUD Storm certainly is not random.

[ImTimK]

I believe Commy said that the shells basically destroy each other when they impact at the same time? Thus reducing the damage?

Not sure if there's inconsistency in spacing, but one thing I know is that the timing of the shells is different on each map, which causes the effect described above?

[xezon]

Where did commy2 write that?

[MTKing4]

True i do remember commy2 saying that somewhere, regardless i have seen many instances myself where some of the shells come late or sperated, though that might not be related to the randomness per se it also causes building to get repaired enough to not die

As to randomness I don't know but it looks like they're random because of the number of shells that don't hit the mark sometimes, we could test

[xezon]

The shells definitely fall at random positions. WeaponErrorRadius is responsible for spreading them apart. If set 0, they fall in one clump at the center. It looks as if the randomness cannot be avoided in INI. FormationSpacing does not help either.

Setting WeaponErrorRadius to 0 and FormationSpacing to 5 produces this:

To change, we would need to be able to give a fixed random seed to begin the WeaponErrorRadius sequence with.

ObjectCreationList SUPERWEAPON_ArtilleryBarrage3

  DeliverPayload
    Transport                       = ChinaArtilleryCannon
    FormationSize                   = 36
    FormationSpacing                = 1.0
    StartAtPreferredHeight          = Yes
    StartAtMaxSpeed                 = Yes
    MaxAttempts                     = 1                   ;max attempts
    DeliveryDistance                = 250                 ;distance from target allowed to start/stop dropping.
    WeaponErrorRadius               = 100                 ; how bad the artillerist is
    DelayDeliveryMax                = 3000                ; his delayed reaction to "Fire!"
    VisibleItemsDroppedPerInterval  = 1                   ;Drops two bombs at a time
    VisibleDropBoneBaseName         = RootTransform       ;The bombs are created and dropped at this bone base
    VisibleSubObjectBaseName        = Bomb                ;The bombs are visible until dropped.
    VisibleNumBones                 = 1                   ;Number of bones.
    VisiblePayloadTemplateName      = ChinaArtilleryBarrageShell  ;Created when payload is dropped.
    VisiblePayloadWeaponTemplate    = ArtilleryBarrageDamageWeapon
    InheritTransportVelocity        = Yes                 ;The bombs will start at transport velocity.
    ExitPitchRate                   = 30                  ;The bomb will pitch down.
    SelfDestructObject              = Yes                 ; so the delivery vehicle goes away 'POP!'
    DeliveryDecalRadius = 125
    DeliveryDecal
      Texture           = SCCArtilleryBarrage_China
      Style             = SHADOW_ALPHA_DECAL
      OpacityMin        = 25%
      OpacityMax        = 50%
      OpacityThrobTime  = 500
      Color             = R:255 G:156 B:0 A:255
      OnlyVisibleToOwningPlayer = Yes
    End

  End

End

[kABUSE1]

Even with a fixed random seed players could only predict outcome when targeting fixed building positions (tech/civ objects vs. player objects). Ideally the artillery barrage targeting icon would show you impact-points of the shells. This way it could be perfectly aimed, but it would be frustrating if you can't "rotate" it and might make in unfair based on player spots / tech building positioning.

In my opinion, this is working as intended and doesn't need changing. Test and exclude that shells kill each other and be done with it.

[commy2]

Artillery Barrage projectiles definitely can die. They have 100 hp, ProjectileArmor and InstantDeathBehavior module. You can hear the whistle sound aborting in some cases where this happens. I think Goldfish101 has a video where a Nuclear Missile kills (almost?) all Artillery Barrage projectiles by good (bad?) timing.

[xezon]

Deterministic shell positions would be better, as it would mean that an identical placement of Artillery would produce the same predictable result. So for example targeting the same Oil Derricks on Defcon 6 would cause same damage always, and not leave one survive by pure chance. This is how the SCUD Storm fires and that is good.

There are other "random" weapon events, such as Weapon scatter.

[xezon]

Artillery Barrage projectiles definitely can die.

I tested this by bundling the shells on single position. The difference in damage reveals that this can be a practical issue depending on random position.

Test setup

WeaponErrorRadius = 0
FormationSpacing = 0

100 health shells damage

100000 health shells damage

[kABUSE1]

Deterministic shell positions would be better, as it would mean that an identical placement of Artillery would produce the same predictable result. So for example targeting the same Oil Derricks on Defcon 6 would cause same damage always, and not leave one survive by pure chance. This is how the SCUD Storm fires and that is good.

There are other "random" weapon events, such as Weapon scatter.

I think that's good as long as you can destroy an equal amount of oil derricks in all common maps and positions.
Fixed random seed should not render you unable to ever destroy both derricks in only spot X or enable you to destroy both derricks every time with level 2 barrage on only spot Y. It will be annoying to check for that on all common scenarios, that's why I still think it'd be best to keep it random. Maybe fixing the shells-killing-each-other-glitch is already good enough to reduce the "randomness" to neglectible levels.

If you are already determined to use a fixed random seed, we can discuss if it's worth to replace the barrage positioning icon with one that gives away the fixed shot pattern, so that this fix doesn't only help people who are willing to memorize the exact pattern for each upgrade level. This would require three different icons for the barrage upgrade levels tho...