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jchastain -> RE: Late March 1862 (11/12/2006 8:50:51 AM)
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It is likely time to take a slight diversion and share why I've been waiting so eagerly for the new weapons. As happens so often, there is a little side note in the story that needs to be told, but I suppose I may as well share it all.
Most of the stats for weapons are used for Detailed Combat - what we often call Hex War or HW for short. When you are just using Quick Combat, thinks like firepower at a given range are meaningless. Therefore, each weapon has a Quick Combat value which more or less represents the high level value of a given weapon type overall. That QC value is the firepower that the weapon has in Quick Combat and determines how much damage a firing unit does.
Unfortunately, the graphics and final tool tips for the weapon selection/purchase screens were only recently completed as part of the graphics refresh and while they include the majority of the detailed combat information to allow players to evaluate options, they forgot to show the QC value. Oooops. In the playtesting, this has been reported and I suspect it will be addressed at some point, but it is really just a convenience thing so it almost surely won't be fixed prior to release. At this point, the most important thing is that the game be stable at launch - they don't want to accidentally break anything when trying to fix a non-critical issue because there might not be enough testing time left to find it.
Anyway, since the game is quite moddable, I just went in and added the QC values (as well as the siege values which are also not shown) to the name of the weapons in the data file on my machine. It is just a quick little fix that allows me to be lazy and see these values without having to print a reference page. I explain all of that only because I want everyone to know that the numbers we'll be discussing in the shot below are not part of the game right now. They are available in the manual. I'd happily share my little mod file. And they will likely be added in a patch at some point in the future if buyers agree with me that it would be nice to have them. But this is slightly different from what most purchasers will see at launch. OK?
I didn't think to grab this cap until after I had equipped the army, so most of the options are greyed out. But you can still see the numbers.
Improvised weapons (which you can't buy and are the default weapon if you have nothing else) have a QC value of 0. Shotguns do too. A musket has a 1, and a Minir Rifle and Springfield both have a 2. If anyone has been wondering why I have been buying minies instead of springfields up until now, it is because they both have a QC value of 2 yet the minie is cheaper - costing 20 guns instead of 30. Enfields have a QC value of 4 and the Improved Springfields have a value of 6. They have a firepower 3x as good as the minies that have been the mainstay of the army thus far. That is definitely worth buying for my highest quality troops!
The challenge with better weapons is that they tend to require more supply. Under upkeep, you'll see that they consume $0+2S each turn. So, it costs no more money but it uses 2 points of strategic supply. That means the army will require additional supply which eventually is translated back into more infantry support. Supply levels are averaged within a division, so if I sprinkle a few of these around then the impact should be lessened. But if anyone were to drop a lot of these into a single division, its supply status would drop like a rock.
Anyway, while we can it is time to buy.
[image]local://upfiles/9706/1CC6EF41FABD474C9186D8997BBAD1D3.jpg[/image]
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